Toronto Women's Bookstore
http://www.womensbookstore.com
416-922-8744

1. Ranjana Khanna Lecture Fri Feb 25
2. 10% Venture Friday Feb 25
3. Report Back from Canadian Committee for Relief to Eastern Province, Sri Lanka Sun Feb 27
4. A recent sexist and offensive internet provider ad: what you can do about it

1. Ranjana Khanna will be giving a lecture “Asylum and Disposability”
Friday February 25 6pm
University College, U of T 1 King’s College Circle, Room 179
Free. All are welcome.

2. Come to TWB on Friday, February 25 and 10% of the day's sales will go to The Elizabeth Fry Society.
The Elizabeth Fry Society of Toronto, established in 1952, serves women in the criminal justice system. They are the only social service agency in Toronto with a specific mandate to provide programs and services for and about women in conflict with the law. They offer individual and group counselling, crisis intervention, release planning, referrals, transitional housing, and community education.

3. Canadian Committee For Relief to Eastern Province Report Back from committee members who visited Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, from January 30-February 12, 2005.
Sunday, February 27th, 4pm
Toronto Women’s Bookstore, 73 Harbord Street (at Spadina), 2 blocks south of the Spadina subway station
Free, wheelchair accessible, all are welcome to attend.

This will be an informal report back meeting in which we will share stories and images from the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka gathered on the recent medical mission. This will be an opportunity for you to see footage and discuss the realities in many of the more isolated areas of the conflict zone affected by the Tsunami. We will also share details of the funds raised, and share details of medical supplies purchased and distributed. We will also discuss the role of NGOs in the area (problems and progress), the public health situation, psycho-social dimensions of the problem and some grassroots initiatives that we would like to support directly in the second phase of our work. For more information please contact Anjula Gogia at anjula@womensbookstore.com For more information about the committee www.canrelief.org

4. We have learned recently about an offensive ad for a well-known internet provider, Bell Sympatico.
We have received a number of phone calls and emails from concerned feminists in the community. We would like to let everyone know about the ad, what it depicts, and provide everyone with some contact info for where to make complaints. We will also post a letter that we have written to Bell Sympatico on behalf of the store.

The ad presents an image of an anatomy textbook opened to a page titled "The Female Body". On the image of the woman's body, the breasts have been covered with random text (that seems to be lifted from a Bell Sympatico ad), and the pelvic/groin/reproductive area has also been covered with text. On the sides of the image of the woman are various organs (heart, brain, liver, etc) and "Ovary" is listed, but the image of the ovary is covered, again with random text. Finally, what appears to be the colon is also covered, including the name of the organ.

To the side of the image is the text: "You'll do anything to protect your kids from inappropriate content. So will we. Bell. Making it simple."

As feminists, we find it sexist, offensive and problematic that particular parts of a woman's body are being portrayed as inappropriate content.

To let Bell know how offensive this ad is, call the Bell Canada's Executive Office of Customer Relations at 1-800-267-7734.

Bell Canada Enterprises Communications
1000, de La Gauchetière Ouest, Bureau 3700
Montréal (Québec)
H3B 4Y7 Tel.: 1 888 932-6666
Email: bcecomms@bce.ca

If you want to file a complaint online, visit Mediawatch at www.mediawatch.ca/makeacomplaint.html

Call or write to
Advertising Standards Canada
175 Bloor Street East, South Tower, Suite 1801
Toronto, ON M4W 3R8
Tel: (416) 961-6311 Fax: (416) 961-7904
Email: complaints@adstandards.com

……………
To Bell Sympatico,

Regarding the recent ad campaign featuring a woman's body with various parts covered up and the tag line "You'll do anything to protect your kids from inappropriate content. So will we." The portrayal of a woman's body as "inappropriate content" is offensive and sexist. This ad needs to be pulled from use immediately, and a public apology needs to be issued for using such an offensive image to promote your company.

On behalf of the staff team of the Toronto Women's Bookstore,

Anjula Gogia, Store Manager
May Lui, Staff Manager