Between all the conferences held during the week, I decided to go to the Sex, Lies, and Evolution: Debunking the “Human Nature” Backlash to Feminism. Between all other conferences, this one caught my eye mostly due to the common misconception which I had no idea existed. The speaker Jacky Vallée, made a great powerpoint presentation showcasing a few misconceptions which some took me by surprise.

In this event, the presenter talked in detail about the current backlash the feminist movement is receiving for wanting to challenge the status quo when it comes to gender roles and the claims for human nature. During the presentation, the speaker debunked most of the previously thought ideologies about gender roles. During the conference, the most common misconception showcased was that men lead all the major cultural advances, hunting, toolmaking, and fire. There was also a lack of women being represented, one example that was given was how most images about evolution showcase male evolution and there was a lack of images of women and other gender roles. Contrary to former believe early humans were scavengers making the idea of men doing all the hunting and women staying back a misconception. Another misconception was how technological innovation were created by men which displayed them as being smarter than women, there was also the thought of women weren’t able to make tools due to them being a child-bearer but the truth is mostly the opposite. Most of the conference displayed how ill-informed most of us are about our past.

Out of this conference, this thing that took me most by surprise is how little representation there is about women in things like painting and drawing. Most of them were full of male portrait and male activities. The consequence of not representing women in drawing made is so that they are not able to have a place in history. Making them seem as if they didn’t contribute to human evolution which is completely false.

Between all the great events during the women’s international week, I decided to go to “sex, lies and evolution”. It was a spectacular experience, I learnt about a lot of new things that I didn’t know or thought about before. It opened my eyes to all of those stories that we have heard ever since childhood but never actually thought about deeply enough to know that maybe they are incorrect. Jacky Vallée, the speaker, mentioned a few of the general misconceptions that exist. He also said that what people have been claiming for too many years as “it is normal” or “it is human nature”, anthropology (a scientific field that studies humans) explains the opposite. I could tell that I was not the only one who was surprised by those facts and who left the auditorium and started questioning everything again.

We all know the answer to those questions; who first made fire, who hunted animals, who first created tools, it is “men”. What Jacky tried to debunk is that behind those stories, there are other answers. With the help of anthropology, there is proof that the answer might differ and it is not always men. Everyone knows men as the dominant gender and that is the “human nature”, but it isn’t. Tools, fire, etc, all these are just objects, how can anyone know who first made them. There is no evidence of such a thing than all those pictures in the internet about men creating them. Our mind is just set to think that it would be done by a man rather than hearing that it may have been a woman, because it is less exciting, which is sad.

Another bitter truth, the human evolution picture, the most known one is the ape that transforms to a man. It also shows how when we think about humans we directly think about men. And that is how from a random picture we get stories and call them “human nature”.

I now think differently about so many things, this event helped me realize that just because the majority believes in an ideology, that it is the truth. Anything can differ from someone’s point of view to another. And before following the bunch, we have to stop for a second and try to look at it from a different angle, so we can actually see the full story, the full truth about it.

   Last week at Vanier a variety of different activities were held for International Women’s Week. For this assignment, I decided to attend the Collective Care workshop. The workshop itself was held not only for women, trans, and nonbinary people, but also students, staff, etc. This workshop was one that was more interactive as you were to share your thoughts and ideas on different subjects which were centered around gender, how it influences our daily lives and how we can make not only our school but our community a more accepting place for everyone. The event was held by one of our own English teachers, Sarah Yiu who has aided in Politics and Care Collective for Cegep teachers and has been co-sponsored Vanier’s RespectWorks office.

     The event itself was held in one of the classrooms where we then proceeded to sit in a circle all together. Before any discussions took place, it was important for all of us (a small group of 10 people) to establish what would make it a safe space for us and the others in the room. Due to confidentiality reasons, I can’t say anything in regards to the other people in the room involved within the workshop besides myself and my own experience. The workshop itself was calming and liberating as everyone was free to say what they felt in a safe environment without having to worry about being judged or mocked. Another aspect I enjoyed about this experience is the fact that I got to meet different people in the school who I would not necessarily encounter on different terms. This includes both faculty and students. It was nice to see that in this setting both teachers and students were equals, not one superior to the other whilst still voicing out their opinions and respecting one another.

     One of the reason why I decided to choose this event instead of all the others was because it was not like any other on the list. Unlike those that were held in the auditorium with a bigger crowd, this one was one with a more intimate and close setting. As previously mentioned, there were only 10 people, including myself. For someone like myself, I enjoyed the fact that it was a smaller group of people I could share my thoughts with rather than in a big crowd. In addition, it was also nice to hear from different people and of their experiences. In regards to what they experience personally in their daily lives and as well as their points of view on different subjects.     I believe that anyone would enjoy this workshop as it gives you the chance to speak up on your own behalf. Sometimes, its easy to question whether or not we could make any sort of impact or difference in our lives or even others. The workshop allows you to express yourself freely with others who not only go to the same school as you but are apart of the same community as well. Furthermore, this event has something appealing to anyone. If you’re someone who likes to take charge of the conversation then you can do so through the different discussions and it you’re someone who likes to be within a smaller crowd, then this is also goof for you. In the end, I truly enjoyed the experience and was glad I had the opportunity to be apart of it.

  I chose to go see the Slav and Kanata presentation. The presentation exposed a major issue in the modern artistic world. This issue is the fact that cultural minorities are not present enough on the scene and their culture is being exploited in an unfair way. The two women talking about this issue accuse Robert Lepage of being insensitive to the first nations, in particular by not leaving room for the members of these communities whom he had to represent on stage. The same criticisms of cultural appropriation for Slav, a show which denounced slavery in good faith, but which presented very few black actresses on stage and expressed black culture in a false way. These pieces are very controversial because of cultural appropriation and for their predominantly white distribution. Also, much of the information on which these plays were written is completely false and does not represent the reality of the cultures and of the stories represented.

  Most people in the public agreed with the views of the two women who presented this critique. It makes sense because they explained to us that some facts in these two controversial shows are simply false and completely irrelevant to the real cultures that the stories were supposed to represent. But, the main argument of the writer of these shows was that these shows were artistical presentations and he can present whatever he wants, because it’s his imagination and his artistical ideas. Some people may agree with this statement even if most of the people in the public didn’t, including me.

  One thing that I found very interesting, is how much coverage this scandal got. After doing some research, I found out that a lot of people and even entire communities criticized this “piece of art”. Mostly black and western Canadian first nations communities. These communities expressed their frustration and didn’t support these shows at all. It is very understandable.

  To conclude, I would highly recommend this presentation to everybody, because it shows how art can make people believe things that are false and take possession and modify different cultures. This presentation really shows how unfair these shows are to the black and Aboriginal cultures.

The presentation that I attended was called, “Art in Response to Backlash”: a presentation by Sonya Stefan. Sonya Stefan is a media artist that aims to create work using real-time electronic glitchery and she is very interested in the deterioration of objects. She uses damaged materials and transforms them into contemporary new media works. Sonya Stefan is the curator at Lux Magna, Pop Montreal and Suoni Per II Popolo. She is the cofounder of La Lumiere Collective and Ibrida Pluri. She is full of adventures and is a very hard worker. Apart from collaborating with many artists, Stefan is a professional dancer and she performs with Animals of Distinction, Estelle Clareton, The Toronto Dance Theatre, etc. She also enjoys filmmaking and has proven to be a very successful filmmaker. While filming, she focuses on single framed works, insolation, music and DIY (Do it yourself) films.

The key message that Sonya Stefan conveyed during her presentation is to have courage to not be afraid to push the boundaries and to think outside the box. She taught us that weird is cool and that normal is boring. She also spoke to us about collaboration and how important it is to work with people that can teach you new things and help you explore new concepts. She enjoys collaborating with musicians because she knows little about music and they teach her how to mix music with filmmaking. She also loves including children in her events and festivals because she loves when families are brought together. She has children of her own and realized that they were not able to attend art events, therefore she began creating events that would allow parents to bring their kids along with them.

During the presentation many students asked her questions about her determination and courage. We were all very inspired by her hard work and dedication. I would recommend this presentation to others because of the will power that was shown through the eyes of Sonya Stefan. She has proven that anything is possible and that if you set the right goals, you will be able to achieve them and leave a print on the world. She has participated in so many events and has changed the lives of many people including filmmakers, musicians and families. Before this event, I did not know much about filmmaking or any of the events that Sonya Stefan spoke about during her presentation. She opened my eyes to many things that are happening here in my own city that I did not even know about. She made me think about the different activities that are currently going on that can help others find their right path. Sonya Stefan is a very powerful woman that has paved the way for many artists and it is thanks to people like her that the art industry continues to grow and leave a mark on our society.

Jacky Vallée gave an amazing presentation about some misconceptions on evolution. There was debunking of certain arguments that we use to justify some power roles enforced with gender. These claims are sometimes used to justify a certain “human nature” such as men being the dominant ones in a couple or women are just here to procreate. These claims are usually enforced by a cultural narrative, one we twist to our liking. 

The first argument people pitch into arguments about human nature is that “all societies have been dominated by men since the beginning of time”. So men would just be more competent at leadership. There’s this ideology behind that its adaptive for men to be more aggressive and dominant while women should be passive and dependent. Why do we need to question this kind of thinking? Because we don’t feel the need to question whether it’s true or not; we seem to just accept it since it’s usually at the back of our heads.  Truthfully, these misconceptions about these prehistoric people might have stemmed from the images we portray of human evolution. It’s always the man growing into a human. In a way, these images then reflect common social attitudes like men are stronger or innovators and women are supposed to be sexy and for the male gaze. I found this especially important to mention because it’s a metanarrative we just naturally and widely accept about why things are the way they are. 

Another misconception is that the man is the mighty hunter, and the female just gatherers the smaller game and plants. The problem with this thinking is that it doesn’t take in consideration the much more complex issue there was back in those prehistoric days. This glorification of the man for facing the bigger danger of getting meat has false origins. Meanwhile, the women did the “safe” work near the homes and just waited for the meat to come back. These ideas are based on 20th century middle class standards; the anthropological data shows much more complex scavenging. Humans rarely hunted and rather obtained their meat through shaving. Although men did contribute with some meat, we can’t just undermine the women contributing with a higher %of caloric intake from plant foods, small animals and fish. 

On another note, the idea that man is the innovator and the smart ones, and the women are just left waiting for them is not based on anything either. Through anthropological data, it was found that the first tools we made of perishable materials like wood or bones. The first containers were most likely containers as well. And if you think about it, there’s no way of knowing who made those tools in the first place. Interestingly enough, one of our closest relatives, chimps, mostly have the females teach. The mothers would use rocks to open nuts and then teach it to the younglings. So really, there is no proof that men were the first tool makers. 

So why is all of this important? To demonstrate that cooperation has always been the key element to the survival of offsprings and it’s not about who is the strongest or most dominant. Everyone played a role. Western societies just portray women as sexually and socially passive and men as aggressive leaders who are smarter and better. So maybe we should recheck what we value in our society and what images we have of the genders. 

The event I chose to go to is the Slav & Kanata Debacle. It was presented by two women who fought against Robert Lepage when he tried to put on two different plays, Slav & Kanata, about cultures he is no part of – and clearly know nothing about. Those two women were Nakuset, a Cree woman who participated in a meeting with Lepage to criticize his attempt at the representation of Aboriginal communities in his play, and Elena Stoodley, a woman working in the theatre industry who helped revise Lepage’s show on black slavery. The key message of their discussion was that white men hold most of the power in society and that it requires a lot of talking, convincing and arguing to change their minds and to pass on to important messages. They both, in the name of their people, took a stand against the propagation of false information and for their right to be able to tell their own story the way it should be told.

           Most students in the audience seemed to enjoy the talk and to relate to it in some way. Some of them asked questions about the speakers’ feelings relating to their specific fight against Lepage, and I remember one of them asking what they thought the limits of artistic freedom should be since that’s the main argument Robert Lepage used against their criticism. What struck me the most, however, was that barely anyone had heard about both those stories before. Even if Nakuset and Elena mutually concluded that mostly the francophone indigenous and black communities responded to Lepage’s work, I was still surprised since these stories attracted a lot of media attention over time. Both this element and the presentation itself made me realize that with all our different backgrounds, sometimes, it is hard to learn about everything that links us and everything that makes us different as humans. The only thing that matters, however, is to own up to the fact that we are not all-knowing creatures and that it is fine not to know a lot about some subjects. The first step towards that acceptance, in the case of Quebec, should be for the province to let go of their embarrassment about colonialism and to own up to what they did.

Indeed, other situations as such could happen, and men’s envy to show off their knowledge – and ‘’artistic freedom’’ – could eventually change the narrative about what is to be known about cultural matters that are not theirs to talk about. If we stop teaching kids that black culture started existing with slavery and that our relationships with Indigenous communities were always perfect, maybe fewer individuals would be biased and more would develop more meaningful respect and an interest in those cultures. To do so, we have to put them and their stories at a more critical level because, just like Elena Stoodley said: ‘’there is never appreciation when there is no equality’’ and their cultures deserve the same respect as the Western one.

This week I attended a presentation called “(Re)imagining Gender and Sexuality in the healthcare Field through Ancestral Inquiry. The presenters name is Emil Briones is a successful person who teaches at McGill University. He talks about the course he teaches to dentistry students, which includes gender identity, gender expression, biological sex and sexual orientation. He mentions that his students sometimes find it difficult to understand these topics as they are usually concerned with the scientific fact of people. What he answers to that, which is important, is how sometimes even if you can’t see it with science it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Another important point made is that one must look into his own roots of where one came from. He meant that you must look back at your own culture to have a better understanding of one’s self. He then continued in talking about two spirited people, which is someone who has both the male and female identities in one body. As he mentions that they are healthcare healers and spiritual healers, showing that there are many other ways to help people. He ends by explaining that anyone who’s profession involves helping people must understand that in order to understand a patient’s needs, one must understand their culture.

After talking to other students, they agreed that it is important to consider other ways of explaining thing in only the scientific way. Along with it is important to know your own culture along with others so you can better understand people.

From what he said, I do agree that somethings can’t only be explained by science and one must have an opened mind to things. With that said I do find it important to look at one’s culture to get to know more about yourself. For example, in my personal life, to have a better understanding of my own culture I travel to the country that my mother came from and learnt a lot from my grandmother, which I found very useful to know.  With that being said I strongly believe that in order to actually understand someone even as a friend you must have a sense of what their culture is about. This can help you understand why and how they think or even do certain things.

After researching Emil Briones, I found out that he is also very talented. As he is a researcher, writer, musician and he is also an educator in Tiohtià:ke. He is vey talented in many aspects in life along with being an educator at McGill University as mentioned.

After listening to this presentation, I would recommend it to my friends because it talks mainly about having an opened mind to things. Which is something that is important to have along with the fact that one must research about their own culture while getting to know other cultures as well, so one can have a better understanding of our multicultural society.

Briana Panaccione

On February 6^th 2020, I attended an assembly called “Appropriate This!: The Slav & Kanata Debacles.” It spoke about a man named Robert Lepage who was making documentaries based on false historical background. Robert Lepage is a “Canadian writer, director, designer, and actor known for his highly original stage and film productions.” The Panel discussions spoke of two of his cultural plays; one called Slav that was about African American history and the other called Kanata about First Nation history.

The two speakers shared their unappreciated experience with Robert Lepage. For both of his plays, he demonstrated both cultures stories falsely and each of his plays didn’t even include African American or Indiginous actors. When he was confronted about his cultural appropriations, he reasoned by saying that his films are “artistical” and he can portray them as he wants. The issue here is that indigenous and African American people have been mainly excluded from society and they have a lot of background and sentimental information about their story. If their story is to be told, it should be told in the most honest and truthful way and it should be demonstrated by people of that culture. It is their experience, their history and their story to tell.

When I spoke to other students, they expressed the same feelings of injustice as everyone else. It isn’t fair or right that this man could portray a play with such false background and even after being approached about the situation, still neglect their opinions.

There have been many articles written about these plays; it stirred up a lot of tension from people defending the representation of their culture.

Here a article speak about both the Kanata play and Slav play, it quotes: “Another one of Quebec director Robert Lepage’s productions is mired in controversy, following an uproar over SLĀV, his show about black spiritual slave songs sung by a mostly white cast and headlining Betty Bonifassi, a white singer, that was cancelled by the Montreal International Jazz Festival after a few performances.

Lepage’s upcoming show Kanata, about Indigenous people, once again without any real representation or artistic input from the very communities it is about, prompted 20 Indigenous artists and activists to write a letter that was published in Le Devoir.”

I enjoyed listening to this speech because I wasn’t aware of this issue and I hope Robert Lepage becomes wiser regarding the issue and doesn’t happen again.

This week I went to two presentations for Women’s week. The first one that I attended was on “The Importance of Collective Care in the Helping Profession,” presented by Anuska Martins. She discussed the serious topic of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and what she does in order to help women that are victim to this type of abuse. There are so many types of IPV and it can sometimes be hard for you to realize you are being victimized or you also might be in denial.Situations like these usually start of like normal relationships but then slowly tension starts to build and then one day your partner just snaps. Sometimes the love is so strong between the two people that the abusee often goes back to their abuser. When the women realize that things are wrong there are places that they can go to for help.  

The woman that was speaking works at a shelter that looks like a big house so that it blends in with the other homes and not get any extra attention drawn to it. Nine women can stay at a time for up to three months and are allowed to bring their children. They get support and advice from the professional helpers. The location is confidential so the women don’t have to fear that anyone will find them. 

It was interesting to hear that even though the professional helper’s job is to help the women in need, it sometimes gets too much for them too. They can be so focused on wanting to help the others out that they forget about their own feelings and may start to get burnout. They can start feeling resentful that they help people out with their problems but no one’s there to help them out with their own. 

I always knew domestic abuse was a thing but this event really opened my eyes on what happens behind the scenes. It’s scary to think that someone you love can turn into someone so violent and take over your life and wellbeing. Myself and other people in the crowd definitely enjoyed the presentation but were also shocked on how often and how scary IPV actually happens. It was definitely a learning experience and something I would like to know more about.

The second presentation I went to was the Art in Response to Backlash presented by Sonya Stefan. She showed the crowd many images and videos of the things that she found interesting throughout the duration of her life. She has created clubs like La Lumiere Colllective in which people share films they’ve made to others for a low price, Telepresence is another club where she uses and collects old camera equipment to make mini films, Kids Pop is a service for young kids and Lux Magna where they celebrate culture and art. 

This woman was a dancer and was insecure about her body, she knows that that is a struggle for a lot of women too. Growing up, it was hard for her to like her body and appreciate it but once she turned 35, the expression of art helped her love herself. Dance is an industry where the women had to “shut up and obey” and once she learned that it was actually an artform she began to be the best version of herself as she could. 

Sonya defines feminism as someone who is honest, open and willing to learn, she was born a feminsit and believes she will die as one too.

I enjoyed listening to her speak and I hope to see her again next year.