I am going to start off by saying that Thunder Bay's Lakehead University has an amazing campus diversity and there are many genders, lifestyles, cultures, classes, sizes, and shapes.  But, for one day a year, the women of the school come together for one solid purpose - to honour women.  Women need to be honoured for their wisdom, knowledge, artistic expression, creativity, style, and personality.  This conference was a chance to indulge in womanhood and become a part of the academic community, but for me, it was a day camp for my holiday break.

The first workshop was depicting Ophelia, the Shakespearian character, in pictures as expressed by Bellocq in "Ophelia."  Through art, a women, a prostitute, was depicted in her natural beauty, where she transformed into physical form.  This, the presenters said, gave her agency over her identity which was originally made my men, thus subject to oppression.  This is the power of ARTIST AGENCY.

The second workshop was a panel of local leaders in women's community engagement.  There were mixed reviews about whether women's work has been well received, but there was an agreement that women's roles are changing.  There is a need to create safe spaces for women of any sexuality.  A sign of the times is feminist scholarship and the feminization of poverty.

There was a speaker named Jessica Polzer, PHD, from the Department of Women's Studies and Feminist Research and School of Health Studies and the Western.  She discussed "The Political Anatomy of Women's Health: Risk, Technology, and Biological Citizenship in a Neo-Liberal Era."  She made reference to genetic testing for heredity in breast cancer.  This further embeds the risk in body, she says.  The second reference she made was HPV vaccination as represented through popular media.  She noted that parents were encouraged to vaccinate their daughters and the cost is $400.  Girls need to make this decision when they are very young.  Pap screening is thus discredited and this presents the challenge of whether governmentality makes it important for self-regulation.  She showed an image used to promote the vaccination, with a women from her underwear down with a disinterested man in the background, with the caption, "GET VACCINATED."  This encourages young women to take the responsibility to know and manage risk.  This pronounces the idea that female bodies are carriers for risk and disease while clearly exemplifying the duty for parents to protect their daughters.  Healthy sex becomes getting vaccinated and young women who are not vaccinated are further oppressed by their peers.  Women become "medicalized objects and subjects."  She ended with a Saturday Night Live video of "Pound Cake Doll" who injects little girls as a humourous representation of the extent of advertising.

The last workshop I went to was called "The Old Woman and the Barefoot Maiden."  Katja Maki and Taina Maki Chahal represented Finnish Folk Characters through art, song, and story.  The song they played was in Finnish, but they handed out the lyrics below:

I want to tell thee my worries now.

O mother, my breast is troubled

As the storms of life stole my peace

And that which was dearest to me

In the morning of my life I fell in love

And watched the golden clouds.

O mother if only I had known to look

In the black earth of death

Perhaps I would have kept

My childhood faith in my breast

And perhaps the glow of my hope

Would still be light in the sky

O mother comfort me

Thy child's cheek is burning

As the struggle and disappointment of life

Have hurt me sorely