" alt="" />'} Illustration Credit: Mallory CK Taylor Dear Shameless Readers, As you may know, at the beginning of this year, Shameless paused production of the magazine to consider how to run a sustainable feminist media organization. At the time, our all-volunteer staff felt they couldn’t sustainably and ethically produce the magazine while running youth programming, maintaining our blog, carrying the load of full-time work or school, fighting for the safety and dignity of our communities, and taking what we need for our own mental health. After much reflection and discussion, we have com ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration by Beena Mistry In Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 war film Full Metal Jacket, Papillon Soo-Soo plays a Vietnamese sex worker soliciting American GIs. Scantily clad in a leather slit skirt and teetering high heels, she takes a long, slow drag on her cigarette and recites the lines, “Me so horny. Me love you long time.” The term became sensationalized. You might have heard female vocals ooze the phrase in a 1989 2 Live Crew track. It was repeated ten years later in the film Payback by Lucy Liu’s Pearl, a sex worker characterized by her garish black leather lingerie and fish ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration: Beena Mistry Dear Shameless readers, You may not have received our latest publication or perhaps not read the letter from the Editor. We wanted to take a moment to share the letter from the editor on our website as Shameless is taking a moment to pause, to undertake rest, and to work through a chrysalis process so that we may emerge on the other side better equipped to do our work in the world. What does this mean for your subscription and the magazine? For the time being, the Shameless team is investigating and connecting with each other again, and we have pause ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration by Mallory CK I was catching up with a friend when she asked me, “have you been creating recently?” This is one of those friends with whom, despite not talking everyday, the conversation always feels natural. She always intuitively seems to understand what I’m feeling and thinking. Though innocuous, her question evoked a sense of guilt in me that I’d been harbouring for a few months. I looked away, toward something out of her view—an excuse to break eye contact—and responded simply, “no… I haven’t had time.” Since going away to college (or maybe even before) I’ve ..read more

" alt="" />'} As the Omicron surge took the world by storm last winter, the Red Cross declared a historic blood shortage in the U.S., and the internet was filled with pleas for donations. While donating blood is a great way communities can come together to save lives, the information available for people planning to donate is influenced by a culture that moralizes body size and food consumption. For example, blood donation campaigns encourage donors to eat cookies after donating because they’ve “earned it,” rather than because of the physiological importance of eating after losing blood. Ot ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration by Saul Freedman-Lawson Last summer, I remember sitting in my doctor’s waiting room and my leg suddenly starting to shake. By the time she called me in, I had this sudden urge to use the washroom. I excused myself. I ended up racing to the washroom three times during a 15-minute appointment, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was uncontrollably fiddling around in my chair sitting opposite her. By the end of the appointment, my doctor had noticed my uneasiness and, after a short examination, diagnosed me with severe anxiety. I couldn’t believe what I heard as I had a ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration: Beena Mistry In the early days of planning and brainstorming, our movement-building issue was themed on leadership. We wanted to use our pages to talk about leadership that isn’t always seen as leadership: leadership that is shared or flattened, leadership as allyship, leadership as love and compassion. Feminist, anti-racist, flexible, responsive, accountable leader- ship. At points, we referred to this issue as the “leaderless” issue, because the kinds of leadership we were interested in highlighting felt so different from the kinds of leadership that young peo ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration: Mallory CK Taylor Ask anybody who came of age in the 2010s and they can describe to you the experience of being in a Brandy Melville store. That distinct, musky-yet-clean linen smell, the hangers wrapped in clothing scraps, the muted florals and lace trims, the feeling of inferiority to the workers. This was a time when the dominant aesthetic was the effortlessly beautiful and skinny, cut-off shorts and ugg-boot wearing Tumblr Girl. I remember scrolling through Tumblr with my friends, giggling at quirky cartoon drawings of baked goods and admiring photos of girl ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration by Ki Chin Content warning: This article discusses and mentions transphobic harassment and violence. Using feminism to justify anti-trans sentiment is nothing new — it’s been a tactic since the origin of radical feminism in the 1960s and 70s. What is new is the rise in platforming transphobic rhetoric in Canadian mainstream media. Gender-critical feminism usually doesn’t have the same traction here in Canada as it does in the UK, but three published pieces from last year are proving otherwise. On Oct. 15, 2021 an op-ed was published in the Toronto Star by columni ..read more

" alt="" />'} Illustration by Mallory CK Taylor Sex education can be controversial. In many parts of the world, long battles have been fought over the who, what, when, where, why, and how of teaching young people about sexuality. In Ontario, the fight over sex education has been so long and complicated that it has its own Wikipedia page. So after a decade of ongoing controversy, what is the full story of sex education in Ontario? What kind of curriculum do we have now? And more importantly, how exactly have the affected students made their voices heard along the way? Keep reading for a ful ..read more