Tag: feminism

Living Your Best Aquafit Life
fitness

Living Your Best Aquafit Life

Diane Harper2 Comments

A few weeks ago, one of the young lifeguards I work with commented about the older ladies living their best aquafit life, and I found myself feeling very defensive on behalf of these women.

They are generally older, having lived through a time when they had no access to credit or even credit records in their own names, and few job opportunities. Many are widows. Some have health conditions that limit their ability to do certain sports. They have a community that meets regularly to exercise while listening to fun music. They really are living their best aquafit life.

Aquafit is coming back into my life almost 40 years after I first tried it in university. It was fun at a time when Jane Fonda and dancercise were all the rage, but fell off my radar as it evolved a low-impact activity that appealed to women my mother’s age.

At our last in-service training, we had to do a mini aquafit class, which I am sure was an attempt to convince some of us to get our instructor qualifications. I surprised myself by realizing

  • it’s actually fun; and
  • it can be hard work.

Today I joined 349 others plus at least 5 instructors and Santa at the Nepean Sportsplex for Jingle Bell Splash, in an attempt to set a world record for the largest aquafit class, and raise funds for the Ottawa Food Bank. We succeeded!

My certificate from the Jingle Bell Splash

As we were leaving, my colleague Carine, who is an aquafit instructor, encouraged me to do the training the next time an opportunity arises. Even if I don’t want to teach regularly, there are occasional opportunities to step in when someone needs a replacement.

One of the prerequisites for the instructor course is to have completed at least two aquafit classes. I think I will enjoy that. Maybe I’m finally ready to start living my own best aquafit life.

Aquafit class at Nepean Sportsplex. Photo by Anchal Sharma, CBC.
feminism · fitness

I’m a Militant Crone

Diane Harper

One of the best conversations of the summer came about with a group of women I met for a quick coffee, that stretched into a four hour intensive collective rant about the state of the world.

They aren’t activists or philosophers, just women working in the arts or running their own small businesses. But they have “views”. Oh my goodness they have views! Body autonomy, discrimination, the environment, workplace health and safety…. It was so refreshing to have one of those wild discussions about everything and anything, as everyone contributed more ideas.

At some point one of them joked about our “crone rage”, the fury we have at the state of the world and our determination to do something about it. The phrase “militant crone” popped out and it has stuck.

I have been using it ever since to channel my energy into making change.

Militant Crone: it would make a great tattoo. Or a band name.

Image of an older woman with a gentle smiled taken from https://boundariesarebeautiful.com/welo/
femalestrength · fitness

The Power of Connection

Diane Harper1 Comment

I went out for dinner recently with two women who are dear to my heart but who didn’t know each other except as very casual acquaintances. I was privileged to watch it become a joyful celebration of girl power as the two spent a couple of hours talking about the martial art one loved and the other had loved but where she now was struggling to decide whether she ever wanted to take it up again.

I don’t do this sport. I have never even really wanted to do this sport. But I know just enough about it to follow along as they talked about all the issues that make the sport challenging for women:

Equipment that is hard to fit because of breasts and the difficulties of getting it adjusted because the people who make it are mostly men who don’t design for women’s bodies (though that is changing).

Equipment requirements put in place by men that make no sense for women (men absolutely need a cup for this sport, but a Jill is a hindrance and unnecessary).

The need many women have to be much more technical because they are fighting taller men with longer reach.

The different way many women process learning; they want more drills rather than just rushing in to bash their opponents and hope to learn something on the fly.

Representation matters! There were anecdotes about fan-girling over other women who do this sport, and the impact their presence on the field has made to women interested in giving it a try.

The feelings of inadequacy and discomfort with asking for help because you fear you are being a burden to others at practice.

The struggles to find time to practice because family responsibilities.

All the body issues: larger; shape has changed; returning after childbirth and years of raising that child; aging; injury.

It was joyful to listen to them talking through possible solutions. It was even more joyful to see them connect as they shared what aspects/positions/weapons forms they loved and why.

What was really striking was the universality of the issues. As these two near-strangers geeked out for hours, I could still join in with observations from the sports I do and the gender-based analysis work I used to do.

Diane, Mel and Bess, top. Below: Bess on the left and Mel on the right, doing the thing they both love.
cycling · feminism · fitness

The gender gap in everyday cycling

Diane Harper

I went out for a ride with my big kid bike gang last night and once again was struck by the gender gap in our cycling group. Out of 24 people, only 7 were women. Sometimes, the disparities are even greater.

Part of our cycling group relaxing at the end of a ride.

It’s a pretty casual bunch of people mostly between the ages of about 30 and 60, and most of them are strong advocates for everyday cycling (a demographic that includes a lot of people who identify as women). So why aren’t the women out for a ride?

Among my friends, some of it boils down to child care. Even with a supportive partner, getting an evening away from the kids to go ride a bike can be difficult. If your kids are big enough to ride on their own, they may not be up to riding to a distant start point and home again after the ride. If they are younger, they might be easy to carry on a cargo bike, but their bedtime falls in the middle of the ride.

There may be other reasons keeping women away, or they don’t even know about our rides. Or they know and just aren’t comfortable joining us. I admit that I was intimidated about showing up for a ride around town with a bunch of strangers the first time I went.

If this happens to women who love riding bikes and use them for transportation every day, imagine what it’s like for women who are more fearful about their safety, more intimidated by harassment and close passes, or who simply don’t have the same opportunities as boys and men to ride bikes at all.

This Shifter YouTube video is an excellent summary of the issues, with their sources in the description.

Have you noticed similar disparities where you live? What has worked to help change that? I would love to hear your ideas.

cycling · feminism · fitness

The End of the Fancy Women’s Bike Ride

Diane Harper

I was late to the concept of the Fancy Women’s Bike Ride, which I joined for the first time last year. And now it’s ending, and I have very mixed feelings.

As Momentummag notes, “more than just a cycling event, FWBR symbolizes a celebration of women’s strength, unity, and resilience. It serves as a platform for reclaiming public spaces, promoting sustainable transportation, and challenging societal norms.” The ride has gone from a single event in Izmir Turkey to 200 cities in 30 countries.

That leaves out a lot of countries. The ability of women and girls to cycle varies widely around the world. I empathize with the desire of the founders to step away, but I would have loved to see their work continue. After all, “one of its most profound impacts, perhaps its most important, lies in its contribution to empowering women through cycling. By offering free cycling courses and promoting the simple act of riding a bike, FWBR has enabled countless women to challenge stereotypes, embrace their strength, and assert their independence. The movement’s slogan, “Be Women Be Visible,” encapsulates its mission to elevate the visibility of women in public spaces and advocate for inclusive urban planning and traffic management.” (Momentummag)

I am reading several books about city planning from a feminist perspective, and I help out with various women-led rides that focus on making streets safe for all ages. Those efforts to include and center women in alternative transportation and public spaces won’t end, but maybe they won’t continue to spread as quickly or as widely to places where they are desperately needed, without the joyful push of the Fancy Women Bike Ride.

Three women defying the patriarchy through cycling near Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2020. Photo: Zabihulla Habibi in Bicycling.com
accessibility · cycling · feminism · fitness · inclusiveness · kids and exercise

Safe Streets are a Feminist Issue

Diane Harper

Last weekend, I participated in the first Kidical Mass Ride of the season in Ottawa. What is Kidical Mass? From their website, it’s an alliance of hundreds of organizations from Canada to Australia united by the vision that children and young people should be able to move around safely and independently on foot and by bike. Children who are active by bike and on foot from an early age remain so as adults.

So where does the feminism come it? @envirojen.bluesky.social, a safe cycling advocate in Halifax says: “If you’ve attended one of our (Kidical Mass) rides, then you’ll know that many of us were radicalized by pushing a stroller, or cycling with kids. Motherhood has certainly helped me flex my movement building muscles.”

This photo is actually from an anti-pipeline protest in 2016, but I have seen the same sign at many protests around women’s rights, and this one has a bicycle. The older woman in the picture has a sign attached to her mobility device that says “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit”.

Change requires a mass movement. ‘Stop De Kindermoord’ in the Netherlands (1970s) and the ‘Baby Carriage Blockades’ in the USA (1950 & 60s) are historical examples of safe streets movements organized by parents, and in particular, mothers.

Historian Peter Norton, a professor at the University of Virginia, has been documenting how the movement for safe streets has largely been the work of mothers. He recently wrote about a protest in Montreal in April 1974, when about 70 parents, wearing black arm bands, marched to the office of Montreal’s traffic director, bearing funeral wreaths to present to him. They were calling attention to the deadly peril children faced on their walks to school.   On paper, speed limits in school zones were 20 mph. In the absence of any signs near most school zones, however, motorists drove much faster. The parents demanded signs.   The marchers were led by three mothers whose children had been injured by drivers. When the three arrived at the traffic director’s office he refused to see them, and had police escort them out. Before leaving, the women left their funeral wreaths for him at his office door.

Black and white image from the Montreal Star newspaper showing women carrying funeral wreaths, protest signs, and their children as they march in pairs.

Fifty years later the fight continues. As Cassie Smith, one of the Kidical Mass organizers in Ottawa says: Even now women have less access to cars and more caregiving responsibility giving us particular insight into the injustice of space.

This week, an eleven year-old child died while riding his bike in a supposedly safe area near his school. He was the friend of the son of one of my colleagues.

I got into cycling advocacy because of climate change and to have more safe access to the public space, especially for people on bikes, and because cycling is fun and practical. I was aware of some of the equity issues around cycling and active transit more generally, but I have learned a lot since, and now I’m angry. I hope I won’t still have to be protesting this shit for years to come, but I’m fully prepared to do so if necessary.

fitness

Representation and the PWHL

Diane Harper1 Comment

Last week, I made it to my first Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) game. I have seen previous women’s games, but this game was important to me for many reasons.

1) The fellow fans: when season tickets went on sale, a whole gang of my friends signed on. Some are women friends who play or just love hockey, some are women friends who are learning about the game and want to support women doing sports, some are feminist men friends who want to support the league. Plus more than 8,000 other people who fill the arena to capacity every single game.

2) The excited girls and women watching their idols play: a huge proportion of the fans is female-presenting. Entire girls’ hockey teams are getting on buses and coming to watch. Those big screen shots almost always show young girls dancing in their team jerseys, or showing off signs cheering for favourite players or the entire Ottawa team. I’m not a huge fan of the city’s plans to tear down and rebuild the arena, but I seriously reconsidered it after standing in the very long line for the women’s washroom. The place was not designed for so many female fans!

3) More specific representation on the ice: Akane Shiga, a member of the Japanese national team and the only visible minority player I spotted, had her own fans with signs in Japanese. Sadly, I won’t be able to see Sarah Nurse play when Toronto comes to town in March. Will there be crowds of young black girls cheering their role model on? I’m sure Nurse and Saroya Tinker, the league’s director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hope so. You can read more about their work to get more black girls playing hockey here.

4) Women keeping the game running: three of the four referees were women, which made me smile about there being more than one path when you love a sport (I have been reading recently about Bouchra Karboubi, the Moroccan women who was denied the opportunity to play soccer as a girls but refereed at the Africa Cup of Nations that just ended. She is also the first Arab woman to referee a senior men’s match).

4.1) And don’t forget the coaching staff. Every official behind the Ottawa bench was a woman.

5) The hockey is really good and the model looks like it will be sustainable: PWHL games are broadcast of several TV channels and YouTube, and the league has attracted some solid sponsorships. The players all earn a living wage (a far cry from what the men earn, but it’s a start).

6) Sadly, the game ended in an overtime loss but that was almost incidental. I was this close to my own personal legend: three time Olympian and world champion and captain of the Ottawa team Brianne Jenner, the gay married mom of three. People with kids also need to see that there is a place for them as athletes.

Brianne Jenner from behind as she stands at the Ottawa team bench, wearing a red jersey with her number 19. To her left is Kristen Della Rovere holding her hockey stick.

This post seems appropriate for Valentine’s Day because I just love this league and these women. I can’t wait to go again on Saturday.

fitness

Does a Fancy Women Bike Ride Make Sense?

Diane Harper

September 17 was the day of the Fancy Women Bike Ride around the world. This year, there were rides in over 200 cities.

Riding with a group of women can be a joyous occasion, as you can see from the video of this year’s ride in Izmir, Turkey, where it all began in 2013.

After the ride though, our local organizer commented that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the name. Did it exclude people who didn’t want to dress up, or didn’t feel they had anything fancy enough to wear?

That led to a lively discussion among participants about the merits of dressing in different ways as a safety measure. Many of us had found that being super femme was protective. Drivers tended to give us more space. One woman noted that going from a gender-neutral coat to something more fitted and colourful had a noticeable impact on drivers around her.

However, this doesn’t always work. Female cyclists face harassment and bad driving at twice the rate of male cyclists, according to one study. They are particularly vulnerable to close passes and dooring because they tend to keep to the side of the road. But if they take the lane, they are sometimes threatened by aggressive drivers. Anecdotally, this was the experience in our group too.

Even within our group, some felt more vulnerable than others. The local organizer of Black Girls Do Bike rides said there just aren’t many women like her on the road so it always feels a bit uncomfortable. The woman who organizes rides focused on safety for kids (and brought her two along). The trans women who arrived at the last possible moment, hung back on the ride, and didn’t join the discussion until they heard us talking about “female presenting” cyclists.

My very unscientific answer to whether we need a Fancy Women Bike Ride is yes. It’s not just for women in places where riding is relatively safe for them. It’s for women who are marginalized in our community, and for women in communities where women are marginalized. It’s for women who don’t want to be fancy but want to be safe moving around on a bicycle. And it’s for women like me who see being fancy as part of their subversive feminism and celebrate the pink.

A group of women on the Ottawa ride stopped for a picture with their bikes in an urban area. They are wearing regular clothes and shoes instead of riding gear and sneakers.

Bicycles lined up beside an ice cream truck where we ended our ride. feminism, fitness and ice cream – it doesn’t get any better than this.

Dian Harper lives and swims (and cycles) in Ottawa.

Let’s Hear it for the Women Who Didn’t Make it to the FIFA Quarterfinals
fitness

Let’s Hear it for the Women Who Didn’t Make it to the FIFA Quarterfinals

Diane Harper

I thought about celebrating all the teams who made it out of the opening round, but what I really want to celebrate is the surprising women who showed the world that women’s soccer is becoming increasingly diverse and interesting.

Here’s to 2019. Here’s to Haiti, Morocco, Panama, the Philippines, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, Vietnam and Zambia, who made their World Cup debuts. Only Morocco made it to the round of 16, where they were defeated by France.

Not just teams were new. There were also a couple of individual firsts. Nouhaila Benzina of Morocco is the first woman to play in a hijab at this level. She is being hailed as a role model for Muslim women everywhere, and especially those in France, where wearing a hijab is forbidden while playing sports.

Nouhaila Benzina is wearing the red, black and green jersey of the Atlas Lionesses soccer team, as well as a black hijab.
Nouhaila Benzina in her Atlas Lionesses uniform.

She’s not the only hijabi though – keep an eye out for Heba Saadieh, the first ever Palestinian referee (male or female) who also wears a hijab.

Referee Heba Saadieh, in a black jersey and hijab, holds her arm up while making a call. She is wearing a microphone and looks very serious.
Heba Saadieh making a call.

With powerhouses including the USA, Canada, Brazil and Germany out, the rest of the tournament looks rather Eurocentric. I’m not sure who I’ll cheer for now – maybe Japan because they have a very Barbie-coloured away jersey, and I love a subversive feminist icon reference, even if it was not the Japanese intention.

Five or six women jump and hug. They are all smiling. They are wearing pink and lavender uniforms.
Japanese team celebrates after a goal. Photo by Marty MELVILLE / AFP)

Diane Harper is a public servant in Ottawa.

fitness

Women Cycling

Diane Harper1 Comment

My Twitter friend Patty (@pattyboge), who is very active in the Winnipeg bike community, shared a couple of thoughts about biking and feminism this week.

First was an excellent commencement speech at Smith College given by Reshma Saujani on imposter syndrome. “Imposter syndrome is modern day Bike Face, just another attempt to hold women back. Just ride your bicycle, pursue what you want to pursue.

“Imposter syndrome is just two made up words on the page. Start pedalling, feel the sun in your face, feel the wind in your hair, feel the joy, feel the freedom, feel the love.”

Sam wrote about Bicycle Face way back in 2013. She also interviewed lawyer David Isaac in 2020 about how safe infrastructure and women on bikes. His key point was that safe infrastructure that connects to places where women want to go is key to getting women riding bikes. And it is a feminist issue because it can make cities more equitable.

That brings me to Patty’s second thought: « Women’s Rights activist Susan B. Anthony says it best ‘Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel, the picture of free, untrammelled womanhood.”

Patty’s response to all the people who pass two close and try to intimidate women to try to get us “off the road, B!&%!” is to say “we can’t and we won’t stop. Our bikes are our freedom”.

One of my favourite pictures of Patty, swiped from her Twitter feed. She is wearing a hot pink mini dress, sunglasses and a pink helmet with a tiara. She is riding a white e-bike with a front basket decorated with flowers. And of course, she has a huge smile.