2×4:
A Size-ism Workshop Series for Every Body!

YES! Every BODY is invited! The 2110 Concordia Centre for Gender
Advocacy is proud to present “2×4: A Size-ism Workshop Series for Every Body!” Together we’ll pound out fat phobia and put the squeeze on size-ism in this workshop series where every BODY is invited and celebrated!

“2×4″ workshops will explore, challenge and remix size-ism to create a world that embraces everybodies’ body and everybodies’ size! Each themed evening will include a collaborative art project to arouse action and a facilitated discussion to challenge, imagine and create a community where every body fits. Join us!

2×4 workshops will be held every six Mondays, on these dates Monday,
December 1, 2008, and in 2009: January 12, February 23, April 20th, May 18 and June 29. 7:00 – 9:30 PM

Facilitated by Aaron Miechkota, emailaaronm@msn.com.
Programming info available at www.centre2110.org or email
“emailaaronm@msn.com”

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2×4 Workshops in 2009:

* Health Care Advocacy for Every Size *
S.O.S.! Where in the world can you find a size-friendly doctor?
Tonight we’ll sit with size-sensitive health care professionals to
learn useful insight into managing within the health care system.
We’ll fork up on nutrition and food politics, with a critical discussion of the so-called “Obesity Epidemic” and the treatment of largeness as disability by society. Guest speakers.

* Collaging Identities: Moving from fat to “FAT!” *
How does sizeism relate to other movements of social and economic
justice? How can we build community and define roles for our allies as
we create a world that embraces all? Using the technique of collage, we, along with our allies, will create a large-scale collaborative artwork that represents the merging of our identies of gender, colour, economics, ability, and more; and explore initiations for those journeying from “fat” to “FAT!” identities. Guest speakers.

* Fat-shionistas: Remix Your Clothes to Fit Your Style and Your Size! *
Dress me up, dress me down! You are invited to an all-sizes (and
fattie-focused) clothing swap, followed by a workshop on remixing your clothes to fit your body and your style! To follow: let’s discuss, imagine and challenging current fat aesthetics, sizeism in fashion and the media, differing perspectives on size around the world, and what it means to be “fat beautiful”. Read the rest of this entry »

March 16th, 7PM at McCord Museum (690 Sherbrooke West)

A lecture by: Beverley Jacobs, President of the Native Women’s
Association of Canada (NWAC)

March 17th, 6PM at Atwater Library (1200 Atwater Ave.)

A panel discussion featuring:

Beverley Jacobs, President of NWAC
Ellen Gabriel, President of Quebec Native Women (QNW)
Laurie Odjick, mother
Bridget Tolley, daughter
Sue Martin, mother

On March 16th Beverley Jacobs, President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, will give a talk on the violence inflicted upon Aboriginal women and girls in Canada from the past to the present and explain the effects of colonization on Indigenous women particularly.
A panel discussion on March 17th will feature Beverley Jacobs, Ellen Gabriel of Quebec Native Women, Laurie Odjick, Bridget Tolley, and Sue Martin, from families directly affected by the disappearance or murder of a mother, sister or daughter.

The aim of these events is to stimulate a broader understanding of and discussion about the reasons behind racialized violence that continues to occur both locally here in Montreal and in the rest of Canada. The general lack of information or proper coverage, as well as an absence of police investigations of missing and murdered First Nations women over the last three decades alone will also be explored as a brutal form of violence in itself, and raised as a cause for concern. The more long-term aim of the initiative will be to pressure the government to stop ignoring recommendations by the UN and Amnesty International, including a request by the UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women to “urgently carry out thorough investigations” to trace how and why the justice system has failed, and why hundred’s of women’s cases remain unsolved.

Beverley Jacobs, of the Mohawk Nation Bear Clan in Six Nations Grand River is an Aboriginal rights lawyer and president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). She has worked with Amnesty International Canada as a lead researcher and consultant on their report “Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada,” as has done work on NWAC’s “Sisters in Spirit” campaign. Jacobs was one of many attendees at the Walk4Justice rally on Parliament Hill in September 2008. The rally was the end of a 90-day walk by First Nations women and men aimed at pressuring the government and sharing personal experiences as a way of raising awareness. Read the rest of this entry »