the yak occidental

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from My Ántonia by Willa Cather. Painting above: 'Two Women Dancing' c. 1892 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec  I was entirely happy.  Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entirely,  whether it is sun or air, or goodness and knowledge.  At any rate, that is happiness;  to be dissolved into something complete and great.  When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. p.20 “Well, it’s mainly because I don’t want a husband.  Men are all right for friends,  but as soon as you marry them they turn into cranky old fathers,  even the wild ones.  They begin to tell you what’s sensible and what’s foolish,  and want you to stick at home all the time.  I prefer to be foolish when I feel like it,  and be accountable to nobody.” p.216

I'm mixed race and I still experience a great deal of white privilege. Here's just 50 ways in which white privilege exists*. Image credit: Salon When I first learned about white privilege, I was a student at a university. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to learn about white privilege not through a classroom setting, but through hands-on experience as a volunteer at an on-campus support centre. The brilliant women who were in charge of my training as a volunteer at the time (thank you, GE and NB!) taught us about white privilege (as well as all the other privileges) through an exercise based on *Peggy McIntosh's pivotal paper, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack , which was published in 1989. I have re-posted McIntosh's fifty daily effects in which she experiences white privilege here without permission, so please ensure you read her work in full here . 50 Daily Effects of White Privilege by Peggy McIntosh from White Privilege: Unpacking th...

Here are a few things that caught my eye in May 2020. Though my own work is in Vancouver's animation industry, I'm broadly interested in all things feminist related to entertainment, art, literature, and STEM (you know, women's work ). Here's just a few stories that I pondered last month. Beaumaris Seascape c. 1925 by Clarice Beckett Visible: Out on Television Delivers a Comprehensive Queer History Lesson: The Apple TV+ docuseries is a powerful look at the importance of representation by Chelsea Steiner Dinner Party for One:  Cooking for Yourself in the Age of Social Distancing by Cynthia Greenlee Blind Job Applications Might Reduce Gender Bias and Discrimination, Research Finds by Fiona Pestana The Ms. Q&A: Susan Loewenberg on Feminism in the Theater by Fiona Pestana and Roxy Szal Where Are All the Women on the Autism Spectrum in Cinema? by Douglas Laman Did You Know That Dolly Parton Produced Buffy the Vampire Slayer ? by Chelsea Steiner Am...

Let's just appreciate art by Gwendolyn Knight (1914-2005). Girl by Gwendolyn Knight c. 2004 Untitled (Barbados) by Gwendolyn Knight c.1945 Read The New York Times' obituary for Knight here . Cat by Gwendolyn Knight c. 1994 Pasture by Gwendolyn Knight c. unknown   You can read a quick bio of Knight on the Bowdown Instagram here. Girl in an armchair by Gwendolyn Knight c. unkown New Orleans by Gwendolyn Knight c. 2001 The White Dress by Gwendolyn Knight c. 1999  In 1993, Knight won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art. Want to learn more about Women x Art? I took exactly one art history course in university and loved it. I hope to study art history more later down the line in life. In the meantime here are the resources I follow to learn about women in art. Jennifer Higgie Host of Bow Down: Women in Art History Women, Art and Society by Whitney Chadwick (more books about art herstory her...

At the beginning of this year, even before COVD-19 threw everything into chaos, I sensed myself getting a bit, well, lazy with regards to my management approach at work. My team was doing great and had really come into their own. I had received no feedback that my performance was lacking in any way, but still, I could feel that I was a little off.  I decided to take some time to read a selection of career and self-improvement/self-help books. I did some research, and came up with a list of books to read. I hope to chronicle my thoughts on all the career books on the blog eventually; first up for review here is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey, first published in 1989. Interestingly, I had read the teen version of this book when I was in elementary school. It was required reading, my teachers had us read it all together, taking turns reading paragraphs aloud. Honestly, it changed my life—this book came to me...

Here are some memorable quotes from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey Painting above: Vanitas Still Life c. 1662 by Edwart Collier Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. You can quickly grasp the important difference between the two if you envision a group of producers cutting their way through the jungle with machetes. They're the producers, the problem solvers. They're cutting through the undergrowth, clearing it out. The managers are behind them, sharpening their machetes, writing policy and procedure manuals, holding muscle development programs, bringing improved technologies and setting up working schedules and compensation programs for the machete wielders.  The leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation and yells, "Wrong jungle!" p.108 Integrity includes but g...

I recently posted about how you can commit to a zero-waste lunch , here's a few suggestions for extending zero-waste practices to your household! During the COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year we saw a sudden shortage of household paper products like toilet paper, paper towel, facial tissue, etc as people were panic buying. Unfortunately for my household, right as people were starting to panic buy we were very low across the board for household paper products. This got me to thinking - what can we do around the house to reduce usage of such products, thus stretching our thin supply of these items? It's not that big of a stretch really - we already use cloth napkins, cloth shopping bags, etc. Fortunately, I was spending a lot of time poking around Etsy Canada. I wanted to support small businesses and also, a lot of the spring craft fairs I usually attend were cancelled.  Event managers were recommending that ticket holders do what they could by supporting the cr...

Want to get into some new music but don’t know where to start? Here is a cheat sheet of my favourite places to find new music. Audiofemme ( http://www.audiofemme.com ) Audiofemme is a site that features music writing and criticism exclusively by women, though they feature music by people of all genders. The site does a track of the week, show reviews, Band of the Month, and artist profiles. They focus pretty much exclusively on American bands. I have found a bunch of my favourites there, including Now, Now, Daddy Issues, and Foxing (which was all from one excellent post !)  Bitch Media Blog ( https://bitchmedia.org/music ) The Bitch media blog (accompanying the eponymous magazine) promises to feature music made exclusively by pretty much anyone who doesn’t identify as a cisgendered man. They don’t do reviews as much anymore, but there is a lot of thoughtful, feminist music journalism. Also, they have lots of great mixtapes made by guest curators on Spotify, with str...