Dolores Chew, one of the speaker of this conference, is a founding member of Montreal’s South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC). She is also a history and humanities instructor at Marianopolis College and Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Concordia University. She spoke about her life living in India as a mixed Christian middle-class woman. She developed on the fact that she has had to struggle with discrimination as well as intersectionality. She also touched on her participation in political activism events in Ottawa and Montreal.

May Chiu, the second speaker at the conference, is a racialized feminist activist who has been in the anti-racism struggle for decades and is currently engaged in the fight for climate justice with Extinction Rebellion. She spoke about racism, how women are racialized and the anti-apartheid movement. She also spoke about the inequality , intersectionality and women’s socioeconomic rights violation. It did related to the concepts of feminism inequality and intersectionality. Dolores Chew and May Chiu shared their knowledge on historical information and personal experiences on these concepts.

I really enjoyed that Mrs.Chew talked about her upbringing and linked it to her activism and accomplishments. It was very inspiring to learn about where she came from and how she believes that “staying silent is complicit“. This conference was relevant to our class because it addressed to social issues that women have to face on a daily basis. The conference sheds light on the struggles that women from racial minorities face everyday on a daily basis externally as much as internally. I went to the talk with a friend and, as we both come from ethnically diverse backgrounds, we could really relate on the same key aspects that both women talked about. I would recommend this event to all women who go to Vanier, and to also bring a friend, because there really is something for every women to relate to and find a piece of herself in. Every conference talks about a different subject and I really do feel like a lot of subjects are covered to keep all women informed and heard.

Yesterday’s conference really made me emotional. I am an arabic muslim woman, so I could really relate to everything Miss Naqvi said. Her message was about the law 21, and she explained how it affected her and why she is against it. Her speech affected me, but I didn’t learn anything new. The experience of her dad getting beaten up made me realise how people are ignorants.

I am born in Quebec too, and I find it really sad that the place that I’m born doesn’t even accept me. I am seen as a stranger everywhere I go, and it shouldn’t be like this. At the end of the day, we are all humans and we all deserve to do what we want in life. Muslim women are limited in their choice of carreer because of what they have on their heads, and it’s discrimination. I asked one of my friends who assisted to the conference and she has the same opinion as me and Miss Naqvi. We are supposed to evolve, and this bill makes us regress.

What touched me the most is when she said at the end that we should not let it go, and we must fight for our rights. I don’t understand why can’t we just live how we want to and respect the others among us. A veil on my head does not define who I am, because it is simply a piece of fabric and it is certainly not that which should prevent me from doing what I want in life. I would totally recommend this event to my friends because this law is something that affects us all. Mostly religious people obviously, but it creates hatred between us and it really should not be like this…

I decided to spend my Monday morning learning about two local mixed indigenous artists talking about decolonization among other topics such as gender identity, bodily recognition and sovereignty and also their art that they make in relation to these topics. The presentation started out with a queer, two spirited woman named Dayna Danger and later another two spirited individual named Faye Mullen. Though, I will be focusing on Dayna Dangers part of the presentation.

To begin, Dayna Danger is an artist from “so called” Manitoba and she creates arts using mediums such as sculpture, photography, performance and video. The key message of Dayna’s presentation is to show that she uses art and the use of different bodies, gender expression and identity in a safe space to represent the colonization and space (land) takes away from minority communities like hers and the need for decolonization and support for bodily sovereignty our society lacks. This presentation introduced me to a lot of new topics that I have never heard of before and it really interested me. I learned about what it is to be two spirited and also a bit of her Métis heritage including the murder of Louis Riel. She said many interesting things about land appartenance and how she always wants to know who’s land she’s standing on. Finally, she also touched upon some taboo topics such as pornography and BDSM and how it is is important to demystify it to end colonization.

I had interviewed my friend briefly after the presentation and I had asked her what she thought about the presentation. She said she liked the way that Dayna represented herself and brought up a lot of important topics that are underrepresented such as the meaning of being a true spirit individual and how it is like to be a part of the indigenous community. I interviewed someone else afterwards and they said they found Dayna’s art very unique and really brings up important topics not only for the LGBTQ+ but also the aboriginal minorities. This presentation is just a small slice of international women’s week at Vanier and I would recommend this event to others, especially the heartwarming part about the dangers that are posed on the indigenous communities.

For more information about Dayna Danger: http://www.daynadanger.com/about