Author on the "sheer freedom of sports"

By Kelly McLendon

Author Mina Samuels sounds like that friend who’s always on the go.

“I do road running and a lot of trail running, whenever I can,” she says, adding that she also cycles, swims and enjoys cross-country skiing.

Her book “Run Like a Girl” looks at how women’s participation in sports has changed over the years. Samuels says their involvement is still evolving and isn’t always entirely accepted.

“To a certain extent, it’s still evolving where parents don’t think of putting their girls in sports, or girls don’t want to be in sports. That’s just crazy stuff.”

Wanting to explore “how sports help women discover their greater capacity” drove Samuels to uncover facts about sports history and also about herself. She writes about the impact sports and breaking a sweat have had on her own life.

When working out and committing to fitness, Samuels says there is a certain freedom that may come to women, as they’re prioritizing and putting themselves at the top of their list.
“We spend a lot of time prioritizing other people. I don’t know if it’s in our nature, or how we’ve been socialized. We are deferring to other people’s needs and schedules. When we make that time to get out there, it shows us that it’s possible.”

Fitness, Bollywood-style

By Arti Patel

Six dancers are told to suck in their abs as the popular Bollywood hit “Sheila Ki Jawani” plays in the background. Tucked away in a dance studio in Toronto’s west end, these women are taking part in a fitness program a little different than most.

BollyCORE is allowing people to learn South Asian-inspired dance routines in their everyday workouts.

Current artistic director Puja Amin says Bollywood music and the opportunity to mimic moves done by famous actors has been a selling point.

Sometimes I’m just not in the mood

By Elyssa Goodman

You can dangle it in front of me all you want. You can prod and poke and instigate, but my reaction will simply be a half-hearted, “Eh.” Because sometimes I’m just not in the mood for feminism.

Don’t get me wrong—I am as much a warrior as the rest of us, doing my best to reduce stereotypes and promote equality to the nth degree, but sometimes I am interested in being a person first and a woman second.

I want to go into a restaurant, order food, eat it, pay, then leave.

I want to do gather up my clothes, put them in the wash, then put them in the dryer.

I want to go to a movie theatre, buy my ticket and some popcorn, sit down and watch the movie.

My gender doesn’t have to be a factor in any of those things. As far as I know, we look at a single man eating dinner by himself the same way we look at a single woman. Everybody has dirty clothes. Nobody wants to stand and see a movie for two hours.

Barbados: The Play by Play

By Anandi Carroll-Woolery

Date: December 22, 2010
Location: Grantley Adams International, Barbados

1:30 P.M. – After an emotional four days in Trinidad for a funeral, I am on the return journey to Canada.  But I must stop over in Barbados. Decision time: Should I sneak off to Bridgetown and/or try to find a beach? Consulted with a tourist board representative who strongly discouraged me, not because it was too far, but because there was too much traffic.

I try to relax in the terminal, which is difficult given the constant roar of jets, a live band playing Christmas carols and Santa Claus handing out presents. Eating seems to be a sensible activity to fill the time, however I observe that everyone who emerges from the one restaurant in the airport is clutching a paper bag made semi-transparent with grease. A fellow traveller recommends Flyover—a two-minute walk from the airport. Checked my bags and suitcase with a West Jet rep (a polite, charming specimen of a Bajan man), who instructed me to go through security at 4:00 p.m. Navigated the “traffic” (three cars, tops) to my destination.

2:00 P.M. – Good decision. Utopia. Clean, spicy smells and lots of ceiling fans blowing cool air.  I review the menu. OMG, macaroni pie and ribs sound very tempting but dairy and I are not always the best of friends, especially in a foreign country. I order lentil pea and rice (as stated on menu), grilled swordfish and coleslaw. I feel pangs of guilt for two seconds (isn’t swordfish endangered?), which are quickly overruled by pangs of hunger.

Slow down and eat the gelato

By Kelly McLendon

Three weeks ago, I traveled to Florence, Italy, for a delicious and relaxing week. I figured that seven days of good food, afternoon naps with no chance of phone calls waking me up and strolling with no rush would rejuvenate my spirits.

And it did, to be fairly honest. I wined and dined and found myself sleeping in past the 9 a.m. church bells outside of my hotel room window. (That would have never happened at home).

In Florence, there were no alarm clocks. There were no ringing cell phones or an urgency to get into the office. I didn’t feel stressed and I didn’t feel like I needed to go for a rigorous run after my twice-daily gelato breaks.

On my first day in the city, jet-lagged and in an Oscar-the-Grouch mood, I set out with the intention of finding food. I wanted to go from point A to point B, meaning I wanted to get a bowl of pasta, or a plate of risotto, scarf it down and head back to my hotel to sleep the night away. Mind you, it was only 7 p.m. Italian time. Locals don’t even eat dinner there that early. And there I was, ready to go to sleep.

Royal wedding fever

By Angelica Rodriguez

The royal wedding was definitely a guilty pleasure for people all over—especially women—and it’s no secret that all eyes were on Kate. Perhaps a small part of us, against our better judgment, daydreamed it was us becoming a princess that day . . .

Does any girl NEED a prince nowadays? Of course not. We’re pursuing higher education, kicking ass in our careers and creating homes, whether it’s with a partner and a child or a home made for one.

So why is it that the romance and fantasy of being a princess is so alluring? Well, it just is. Many of us are saying to Kate, “You go girl!” Sure, we pride ourselves on being independent and working hard but it doesn’t make us bad feminists to dream of escaping it all every now and then or wishing a real princess all the best, albeit a little enviously.’

Dear single women over 40

By Raymi Topaz

On an uncharacteristically chilly spring day in New York, I sit with X in a diner near Times Square. She speedily cuts into her purple and green bed of leaves. Soft lines crease her forehead and the sides of her eyes. She has straightened brown hair and brown eyes that sparkle with each phrase that quickly tumbles out of her mouth. She is on her lunch hour and she still has a lot of errands to run.

X is a successful lady, having worked at high-profile companies her entire career. She has managed multi-million dollar accounts across the entire United States, trained groups of people at each company to be better at their jobs and grown programs at said companies from scratch. People call on her to do a good job. In short, she’s awesome, and I hope to have a career like hers one day.

But to her, this is second nature already. She has probably worked tirelessly to get good job after good job and do well at each of them. For the past however many years this has been her focus; it’s what she knows. So it is jarring to me when she jokes, “See? This is what you have to look forward to when you’re 44 and not married.”