The Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies is proud to exhibit the work of the students in its courses, including the Advanced Seminar in Feminist Thought and Activism (WGST 4P90), taught in the fall term of 2024 by Dr. Kristin Patterson:

This course focuses on socially engaged and activist feminist practices. We will consider the strategies and uses of feminist actions taken up by individuals and collectives for the purpose of social interaction, intervention, and/or political change. We will explore the materials, methods, and theoretical approaches taken by activists through readings, case studies, and student projects. We will consider existing feminist scholarship on activist practices, as well as closely analyze specific case studies on a local, national, and global scale. Together we will investigate and assess the value of these practices as social and political activities. (WGST 4P90 syllabus, 2024)

Students this the course had the opportunity to create visual posters as one of the components of their final project. Below find posters submitted by some of these students and their artist’s statement.

Giana Jarry

I wanted to create a piece that could hopefully motivate those with presence and authority in educational spaces to no longer reinforce heteronormative ideologies that can be harmful to youth. The primary purpose of the posters is to encourage educators to challenge heteronormativity and help make students feel more seen and supported in these educational spaces. The project is inherently activist as it is attempting to disrupt a status quo, in this case, heteronormativity and gender binaries, and it is socially engaged because it relies on the initiative of educators to try and make these changes. My greatest wish is that by enacting some of the changes or suggestions demonstrated on the posters, educators can foster an environment where 2SLGBTQIA+ youth can grow, learn and feel comfortable with themselves.

Kristen Koroneos

I chose to create a comic named MediForce: Healing the Gender Divide, which encapsulates the medical injustices women in Canada currently face compared to their male counterparts. We have not been prioritized, and our many concerns have been dismissed. Our concerns have been labelled as irrelevant, and our symptoms – a condition of our “womanhood” and reproduction. My comic makes the statement that healthcare should not be gendered.

Because the storyline does not touch on the layers of gendered healthcare, I instead chose to present unequal healthcare for women as being more of a universal issue. Universal womanhood and shared experiences subscribe to the idea that being a woman is in itself an experience of its own, which inherently ties women around the world together. They can be interpreted as valid theories; however, they are extremely oversimplified and Eurocentric. Because of this, I understand that my comic may not be as impactful as it can be with the inclusion of intersectionality within the storyline, a crucial aspect of feminism, which celebrates and acknowledges women from all different walks of life and their individual experiences. In this sense, my comic, MediForce, really only acts as a gateway to acknowledge and tackle bigger societal issues regarding inequity and sexism, racism, homophobia and ablism, to name a few, all of which can be seen in vital institutions within society, such as education and healthcare. To counter the simple storyline I created, I included many ethnically diverse women, women of different ages, and one man. Though this is a comic about women and the inequity they face in healthcare, I decided to add a man to emphasize that allies are an integral part of instigating change.

The heroes in this story are Soshi; a gender-fluid Nigerian Canadian woman, Nikita; an Indonesian Canadian woman with vitiligo, Aiden; an Irish Canadian man, and Dee, an Inuit woman (she also has a chin tunniit, a traditional Inuit facial tattoo). It was extremely important to me to acknowledge different individuals to reflect the diverse groups of people that Canada is comprised of. Going forward, I would like to expand the secondary characters into members of MediForce, to deter the use of a victim-narrative and emphasize an empowering narrative; that any and everyone can create change.

When creating the heroes, I thought it would be interesting to have each character represent a faction, element, or individual in a society that plays an integral role in a potential solution to healthcare inequality and inequity. Soshi represents social media and the power of sharing information and speaking against institutions that potentially hurt individuals. Nikita represents the need to further research illnesses concerning how they affect different sexes, particularly in the case of women, as well as updated symptomology in medical schools to better prepare doctors on the prognosis of all different individuals. Aiden represents the importance of educating others and yourself through taking or conducting workshops or classes and actively learning or teaching. He also represents the importance of advocacy and all different forms of protest. Dee represents doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals and their role in changing, adapting to, and advocating for their patients. By doing their due diligence, they ensure that patients feel heard and listened to, leading to peace of mind and early diagnoses. Of course, these are only some possible solutions.

The hope is that my comic challenges the narrative of healthcare equality and equity in Canada as it calls for and proposes change. It also helps to highlight women’s inequity while still challenging the narrative that women have always been and will always be victims because not only are three-quarters of the heroes presented as women, feminine presenting, or gender-fluid but all heroes persuaded and empowered other women by emphasizing that it does not take superpowers to be able to change the world. This project is the basis of a future project in which I will embark on creating a full comic book that addresses the different levels of gendered healthcare, women’s experiences, as well as gender-affirming care in Canada.

With thanks to the students who have shared their work. Note that course syllabuses and projects are determined by the instructor for a particular course, and may change with each offering.

If you have completed a visual project in a Women’s and Gender Studies course and would like your work featured on the website, please contact [email protected] for more information.