I’m not really a fan of winter. I don’t like the cold. But I do like to play in the snow. It’s the day to day getting around I don’t like.

That was one of the things I loved about New Zealand winter. Skiing, yes, but snow you had to drive to. Even the weather forecasting around snow mentioned altitude. Snow to 400 metres and so on.

So each winter I promise to get outside more and spend time moving in the white, fluffy stuff.

Last winter I got out and tried fat biking. More fat biking is on my winter wish list.

But I also plan to try downhill skiing. Maybe lessons are in my future. I’m going to channel Stephanie Pearl McPhee and re-read her learning to ski post often.

Skiiing got me thinking about other sports I’d like to try. What’s on my wish list? 

I’d love to try some of the feats of strength stuff, you know like Highland Games sports like caber tossing!

If I were younger: rugby and roller derby!

And rowing, I love you. I want to get back out on the water once my life’s more settled. I’d like to do some hiking and camping. And some longer, more challenging canoe trips. Maybe more axe throwing. Definitely more boxing.

You might think I like everything. Play all the sports! Do all the things! But you’d be wrong.

A woman at the new fitness club I’m trying out invited me to join her dodge ball team. I love team sports but no, no, no. No dodge ball in my future, I’m afraid. 

How about you? What’s on your wish list? 
 

​ Last week the student newspaper called me looking for a quote from an outraged feminist. The problem is, they didn’t want me. I wasn’t feeling particularly outraged about the issue in question which concerned the dress code of our student gym.

I posted the following to Facebook, “The student gym is apparently asking women to leave and change if they’re wearing crop tops. They have a no bare mid riffs policy. Men have to wear shirts. Student newspaper wants to know what I think. Can’t say I see a problem with this if it’s enforced for everyone. Am I missing something? They’re allowed to have a dress code. What’s wrong with this one?”

I guess I was missing something. Fifty comments later I realized the issue wss pretty controversial. After talking lots with friends, I changed my mind.

Luckily the student reporter called me back. You read the story here.

Here’s an excerpt:

The dress policy has sparked conversation amongst both students and professors on campus. Samantha Brennan, professor of women’s studies and feminist research and philosophy shared her thoughts on the dress policy.

“My original thought was [that] as long as it’s gender neutral and gender neutrally applied there isn’t a particularly feminist objection to having a dress code. Twenty-four hours later, after hearing all of my friends’ outrage at the idea of a dress code, I did begin to wonder what the point of a dress code is,” Brennan said.

“If it’s simply to make other people feel comfortable, I’m not sure we should have a dress code. I think probably people should just decide for themselves what they want to wear to the gym and if you don’t want to look you shouldn’t look.”

The one argument in favour of the dress code that I thought had some merit came from my daughter, Mallory. She worried that university gym isn’t like a commercial gym. All students are members and can’t choose to take their money and membership elsewhere. So she thinks a dress code might be okay at the university fitness centre as a compromise that makes the most number of people feel welcome.

What are your thoughts on gym dress codes? What does your ideal dress code forbid, allow? What principles guide your choices? 

Take Back the Night is the most long-standing feminist event that I’m aware of. It energizes the feminist activist in me to walk in solidarity with other women through the streets, chanting things like “Women unite! Take back the night!” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho / patriarchy has got to go” while men show their support by standing at the side.

So it disturbed me on Tuesday to learn that the London Abused Women’s Centre (LAWC), long supporters of our local event (to be held tonight at 5:30 in Victoria Park), had withdrawn because event organizers were considering inviting a pole fitness studio to do a demo. See news coverage here.

The Centre’s view is that pole fitness, with its roots in pole dancing in strip clubs and its promotion of sexy moves around a metal pole, ignores violence against women. Take Back the Night is an event intended to change the climate and culture of violence–especially sexual violence–against women. The Abused Women’s Centre considers the main purpose of TBTN to be incompatible with the pole dancing demo.

Advocates of pole fitness argue that some women find it empowering and that it’s a form of reclamation — an idea familiar to most feminists.

In the end, the pole fitness studio and event organizers decided not to have the demo in order to keep the focus on taking back the night, not introducing the more controversial dimension that the pole dancing demo introduces. See updated story here.

But it’s left a division in the London feminist community. The LAWC is still declining to participate as a group. Those who thought the demo was a good idea think that women’s choices need to be respected, and if women choose to pursue pole fitness they shouldn’t be judged for it. It’s a demanding fitness activity in its own right and lots of women find the addition of the sexy moves an empowering way to feel good about their bodies.

I’ve blogged about pole fitness in the past. In my post about “Strippercize,” I said:

Developing our bodies’ strength, grace, power, and endurance contributes greatly to our sense of confidence and well-being.  Tying that development so closely to sex appeal strikes me as promoting the idea that our sexuality is our greatest asset.

I still believe that. And I believe further that as feminists we would do well not to ignore the history of some of the practices we want to reclaim and promote. I’m totally on board with sex positivity and choice. Nevertheless, sexuality is neither our greatest nor our only asset.

More than that,  it’s just ill-conceived to pair sexy pole dancing with Take Back the Night. And as one discussion that passed through my Facebook newsfeed pointed out, why are we considering pairing this event with businesses at all? Do we really want to commodify our activism like this and use it as a vehicle for promoting local businesses that might appeal to women? Why not set up tables for beauty salons, make-up demos, boudoir photography, “girls'” retreats, and so forth while we’re at it?

One of the points LAWC wanted to make, and of course they’re getting flack for it, is that the sex trade involves a lot of violence against women. This is sometimes thought to be an old fashioned view that denies women the right to choose to pursue sex work as their work.

It’s not clear to me that it’s an “either/or” scenario. The fact is, the sex industry does involve lots of abuse and violence against women. It does involve the sexual objectification of women. Maybe not all of the women in it, but a good many. It’s very difficult to separate pole dancing from its strip club history, and even more difficult to separate strip clubs from male desire. Again, perhaps not impossible, but certainly the normative lens through which adult entertainment is viewed does not counter the dominant messaging about the heterosexual objectification of women’s bodies for men’s consumption.

And that does seem to run rather counter to the aims of Take Back the Night even if a more nuanced narrative of choice, sex positivity, and women’s empowerment is available.

I’m relieved that the pole demo isn’t going to happen and saddened that it was ever considered. More than that, I am alarmed that in at least some of the coverage I’ve read, it’s the LAWC that’s being blamed for causing the division in the community. As if taking a stand against the appropriateness of pole dancing demo at Take Back the Night instead of remaining silent about something they see as continuous with practices that support a culture of sexual violence against women is being unduly contrary, preventing women from standing in solidarity.

I’m heading off to the Society for Analytical Feminism this weekend in Lowell, Massachusetts to be on a book panel about Shay Welch’s book, Existential Eroticism: A Feminsit Approach to Understanding Women’s Oppression-Perpetuating Choices. I reviewed the book here. These events surrounding London’s Take Back the Night will be great topics of discussion for that session.

If you plan to attend TBTN this year in London, the gathering starts in Victoria Park at 5:30 p.m., the rally at 6:45 p.m., and the walk at 7:30 p.m. I have a late class so won’t be able to make it, but it’s a great event and worth attending.

What’s your view of the pole controversy in relation to TBTN in particular and the pole fitness idea in general?

There’s this thing cyclists say. “On your left.” Except in Australia, New Zealand, etc where it’s “On your right.”

Some people love it and others hate it.

Runner friends the other day were posting about it on Facebook. They found it scary and harsh and off-putting. “Why do cyclists yell this at me? It’s not like I’m going to move.” Also, this: “Why don’t they just ring their bells?”

We replied: “But some of you do move into our way.” “We say this so that you know we’re there.” “It just means ‘hold your line’ really,” “And so many runners wear ear buds so we have to yell.” “Bells are just confusing.”

Cyclists reported ringing their bells and then having runners hop in front of them.

The stakes are really high.

I try to say “On your left” cheerfully. If people aren’t wearing earbuds, I say “Hey, I’m coming by on your left.” It’s not perfect, but it’s what I do.

The version of “on your left” that cyclists sometimes hate to hear is from other cyclists, when you’re being passed. One of the women I love to ride with on the bike rally used to be passed a lot (not any more, she’s getting speedy) and sometimes to offset the demoralizing cry of “on your left” she’d go first yelling “on your right” to the riders passing her. On big charity rides with large groups and lots of passing at the start I sometimes wish I had a recording so I could just hit a button rather than saying “on your left” over and over again.

What do you think? Do you love or hate “on your left”?

 

 

 

Sam and I often have little projects on the go and because of the glacial pace of publishing, there’s a huge lag between the frenzied flurry of activity and the appearance of a thing.

But a thing has appeared!

We guest-edited the October 2016 issue of the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics. Our issue is called See How She Runs: Feminists Re-Think Fitness. We had an open call for papers way, way back.

Then, more recently, we published the table of contents.

Well, today we can do one better than that. Here is a link to the issue’s introduction (you can click on different tabs to move from the first page to full text to the pdf to references), which Sam and I co-wrote. Like most academic publishing, the majority of the papers are behind a paywall that you can only get past if you have access to a university library. Most academics do have such access, and many of our friends and most of our colleagues are academics.

But we are keenly aware that a lot of our blog readers do not have access to scholarly journals. (Aside: That’s why Sam, Alice, Kate, and Carla started the open access journal, Feminist Philosophical Quarterly.)

IJFAB is not open access and we are not sure what the long run plans are for the rest of the content beyond the intro. But since we heard of the issue’s release a few days ago, people have been very busy on our behalf doing what they could to make some of the content available. So we thank them for their efforts (Thank you: Kate C, Robyn, and University of Toronto Press).

We are very excited to be able to share the intro and extremely happy about the special issue. What’s so very cool about it is that it’s got a nice mix of scholarly articles and narratives, as well as book reviews.

As content from the issue becomes available in forms that we are permitted to share, we’ll let you know. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the intro.

I just got back from a quick trip to Manchester (UK) for MANCEPT, where I co-convened an amazing workshop on new approaches and questions in collective action theory (maybe you had to be there!). It was a fantastic experience because I got to spend two and a half days with thirteen other people discussing one another’s work at a level possible only when everyone has expertise in exactly the same area. It’s a rare and wonderful thing.

But leaving for the UK from Toronto at 11 p.m. on Tuesday night and arriving near noon on Wednesday morning with about four hours of terrible sleep and perhaps the worst airplane meal I’ve ever had behind me, with many hours of reading, socializing, and eating ahead of me meant that I just never quite hit my stride.

Almost the whole time I was in Manchester I felt sleep-deprived (because I was) and bloated (because I was). Though I felt intellectually stimulated and socially engaged the entire time, I also felt inactive and sluggish. Our days were packed, with sessions all morning and all afternoon, scheduled breaks, snacks and lunch provided.

I like my own routines and I have a fairly consistent range of foods I eat at home that make me feel good (in that I digest them easily, they energize me, and I find eating them enjoyable). Of course one of the joys of traveling is trying new things, but the conference catering at MANCEPT, though there was plenty of vegan food on hand, was still conference catering. And all four dinners I had while I was there — one banquet dinner, one Indian restaurant, one African restaurant, and one Italian restaurant — disagreed with me.

According to this Washington Post article, jet-lag is worse when you travel west to east:

Studies suggest that you can push your body clock back about two hours per day, meaning that you can adjust from Washington time to Colorado time in a single day, but you can move your body clock forward (as when you travel from California to Washington) only by about an hour to an hour and a half per day, Jain says.

So for Washingtonians flying to see friends or family in California, where it’s three hours earlier, your body clock should be able to adjust in less than two days. But if you’ve got a vacation planned in Paris, where it’s six hours later than here, you’ll likely need three to five days to get in sync.

I was only in Manchester for four nights before it was time to turn around and come home. At no point during my time there did I feel like my normal self, well-rested and energetic.

The article goes on to say that night flights, especially red-eyes, are the worst because they “compound jet lag by heaping sleep deprivation on top of your body clock problems. If you absolutely must take a late-night flight, do what you can to sleep.” I did what I could, but it didn’t help. I was already exhausted by the time I got on the plane. And it was the most uncomfortable seat ever, on the wrong side of the bulkhead so unable to recline much at all, as well as thin on the padding. The thin little airplane blanket did little to protect me from the cold.

We did do a lot of walking while we were there. The sessions were at the University of Manchester, about a 15-20 minute walk from our hotel. I was sharing a room with my friend Violetta, who is training for a half marathon. So on our one free day, we did quite a bit of walking and went for a 14K run along the canal. That left us way too hungry so when we went out for a late dinner at an Italian restaurant near the hotel, we made fast work of the bread and olives. And then we ate some of our mains not because we were still hungry but because we’d ordered them. None of that night’s dinner sat right in my stomach.

I attribute it all to a thrown off routine and horrible jet lag. Now I’m home again, after literally taking a train, a plane, and an automobile on Sunday (travel time: 14 hours including airport lounges), just five days after I left. I don’t remember ever feeling this rough during and after a trip. But unless there are ways of minimizing the impact of crossing time zones, I think my days of the five-day jaunt across the Atlantic are over.

Do you have any strategies or tips for successfully adjusting to a new time zone (when it’s more than a couple of hours of difference)?

I hate those end-of-season emails from Strava. You know when you’ve held on to a QOM all summer but then bang! Someone steals it away.

You know because they email you.  Not the thief, Strava emails you. The message says “Uh oh, you lost your QOM on Boultbee Hill to some Toronto cyclist.”

You look at the person’s profile and see she’s riding a lot. But still, I could do it faster, I think. I look at the men’s times on that stretch to get an idea of what’s possible. Lots of room to do better, I think.

When I share the news on Facebook–because I do that sort of thing–I share it with this image.

 

 

Friends notice immediately that we need a women’s version of that meme. A QOM version.

I’ve thought that too. See some past posts:

Why do all the bike jokes feature male cyclists?  

Bike jokes with swapped gender

Yet another gendered bike joke

Within minutes friends get to work. Here are my favourites. Thanks Cathy!