Why is getting married essentially a societal requirement? Fourteen-year-old Charvi and her mom Manisha, who live in southern Ontario, discuss marriage expectations in India and beyond.

This is the third instalment of Rhubarb’s video series, which focuses on the differences (or similarities) in the lives of women from the same family—but different generations.

Irene Tyhurst and her 18-year-old daughter Emily may have grown up in Ontario cities not too far from each other. But things have obviously changed for women over the past few decades, and as Emily learns, there were some differences in the way girls and boys were educated when 49-year-old Irene was in school.

This is the second video in Rhubarb’s new series, which focuses on the differences (or similarities) in the lives of women from the same family—but different generations. Thank you to Colleen Hale-Hodgson, who edited the sound; and David St. Bernard, who composed the music.

The first video features Aashi and Madhulika Saraf. Aashi, 14, grew up in southern Ontario. Her mom Madhulika grew up in Bhopal, India. Here, they share their thoughts on hospitality and entertaining guests in India versus Canada.

For Toronto-born standup comedian Sabrina Jalees, there’s no such thing as too much information. The 27-year-old, who has appeared on MuchMusic’s Video on Trial and was a columnist for the Toronto Star, says her routines benefit from her willingness to share. Jalees talks to Rhubarb about why she’s so open, life in the U.S., and gay marriage.

How did you parents react when you said you wanted to be a comedian?

I just did it before telling them. I always knew I wanted attention from people, but I didn’t really know specifically I wanted to be a standup comic until I tried it and got addicted. Doing standup comedy is kind of like doing heroin. No one does it for the first time thinking they’ll get hooked—but the next thing you know, you’re up at all hours of the night trying to get your fix. What I’m trying to say is, I’d sell my TV to buy a mic and a crowd any day.

Once my parents realized I was doing comedy, their rule was as long as you get your school work done, we’re cool with you going downtown and being crazy.

You’re a Canadian living in Brooklyn. What do you like most (and least) about living in the U.S.?

I like most how amazingly driven everyone is. The U.S. and Canada are quite comparable. Politically they’re very different, but coming from Toronto and moving to New York is an awesome experience. It’s a city like Toronto but it’s completely new to me and giant and I’m constantly discovering new people and new places and new things. Coming here was really intimidating but it had a huge payoff. The comedy scene here is really inspiring. I guess the difference between Toronto and New York is the amount of people and the amount of competition. You’ve gotta work hard (in New York) or you’ll just fall behind.

What do you miss about Toronto?

I miss my friends and my family. I miss getting recognized every now and then. It’s really awesome when I go back home and someone comes up to me and says, “I saw you on that thing, you’re really funny,” and I’m like “oh, awesome!” They say “so sorry to interrupt you,” and I’m like, “um, can I have your phone number? Let’s hang out.”

I also love the idea of being Canadian and being in Canada. I obviously agree with Canadian politics more and the attitudes of Canadians versus Americans. Then again, what I’ve learned, in living here, is that it’s completely subjective to the person. When people say Americans are so arrogant or Americans are so rude, which Americans (are they referring to)? People who aren’t used to being in foreign countries, whether they’re Canadian or American, can be assholes in those countries.

Whether you’re from Idaho or Barrie, Ontario, you can be a great person or you can be ignorant. There are just more Americans, so numbers-wise there are going to be more ignorant Americans.

But I’m really proud to be Canadian. Especially with the whole gay marriage thing happening here, it’s great to feel I come from a country that’s already gone through that and already moved forward.

It’s happening more slowly in the U.S…

It’s disappointing and strange and weird, but this is the time in which we live. We could be living in worse times and it’s kind of exciting to watch it happen. With what the President said (in support of same-sex marriage), it’s happening, the wheels are turning—but there are just people who always want to resist positive change.

And that’s why when I run for president, I’m going to say put those people in a giant pot and set it to boil.  So vote for me.

You’re getting married soon, aren’t you?

Yeah, I’m getting married in September. I’m getting married in Vermont. People from Toronto are going to have to drive, (my fiancée’s*) got friends on the West Coast that are going to have to fly. People from New York will also have to drive. Basically we’re weeding out anyone who’ll just show up if  we had the wedding in the city. You gotta really wanna come to our wedding to make it there.

Do you ever feel like you’ve shared too much of yourself in your standup/online? How do you set boundaries?

There’s no such thing as TMI for me. When I enter a conversation with someone, what I really want to know is, what are your secrets? It’s great that you had eggs for breakfast, it’s great that you love your boyfriend—but what are your secrets? Isn’t that the most exciting part? Isn’t that the reason you have a sleepover? Like, what are you about, what scares you, what are you ashamed of, what are you insecure about? To me, those are the interesting parts of us. And because of the way society works, you don’t want to sit beside someone on the subway and have them divulge their soul to you, but at the same time, we could all afford to be a little more honest about our flaws or honest about what we think—even if it’s not something positive. I think that makes other people feel like, oh, I’m not the only one going through this. The stronger parts of my act, I feel, are things I was insecure or embarrassed about and now they’re things I feel empowered about because I’m talking about them and laughing about them.

*Jalees actually refers to her fiancée as her Beyoncé.

Check out Rhubarb’s very first video roundtable! Women in Toronto Politics  is a two-part panel series where female politicians, journalists and citizens examine why there’s such a dearth of prominent women in the discussion around local politics — and how to fix the problem. Here, some of the panel’s organizers share their thoughts on women’s experiences in politics in general.

The second panel will take place Wednesday, May 30th at the CSI Annex.

By Shetu Modi

The gaming industry might be dominated by male designers, but Cecily Carver hopes to change that through Dames Making Games, a community for women interested in developing video games. The 29-year-old, who is also a social and interactive media co-ordinator at the Canadian Opera Company, co-founded the Toronto-based group in 2011. It offers skills training, online support and networking opportunities.

Cecily herself is a designer committed to creating games that look outside the game world for their inspiration. (One game she created involves a Victorian girl trying to elope with someone her family disapproves of. She must navigate through her maze of a house without being seen.) She tells us about Dames Making Games and shares her thoughts on the gaming industry in general.

 What is the purpose of Dames Making Games? Is one of your goals getting more women interested in video games?

Women are interested in video games, but there’s sort of a split in gaming culture where there’s casual games and hardcore games. A lot of women play games that a lot of people would say don’t count as games. But of course they’re games. The proportion of women playing games has actually increased and in some genres women make up the majority of players.

 What genres?

Games like Bejeweled or Farmville. A lot of women play those. They don’t call themselves gamers and they don’t necessarily get interested in the whole idea of video games, but the idea that games are mostly a male pursuit is wrong.

Why did you decide to start a group specifically for women?

When you have a culture that’s male dominated, or when you have any culture that’s dominated by any mostly homogenous group, the message to outsiders is that it’s okay if you come join us, but you have to try to fit in, and you have to play by our rules. That can feel really isolating. It can feel intimidating and it discourages a lot of people from getting involved. Not only do they have to learn a new skill, but they have to put a ton of work into fitting in. Women are obviously an extremely diverse group. There are groups of women where other women wouldn’t fit in. But (Dames Making Games) does remove that one really obvious difference and help women feel more comfortable talking to each other and not be as worried about saying the wrong thing.

How did you become interested in video games?

I’ve always been interested in games. I’ve been playing them since I was a small child. My parents had a Commodore 64 and they got us a Nintendo at some point so I grew up playing Mario and all the usual games people play. The Sierra Quest games, Monkey Island. I graduated into different games as I got older. But I identified myself a lot less with being a gamer, because it didn’t jive with a lot of the other things I was doing, like the arts and opera.

It’s sort of hard to identify with the label of a gamer when it seems to come with so much extra baggage. Women are playing games everywhere, but they’re just not part of a community of game players.

What kind of baggage?

There’s sort of an idea of the kind of person someone interested in video games is. There are a lot of stereotypes associated with this. They stay in their basement all the time, glued to their console. They have poor social skills. A lot of the stereotypes aren’t true. But a lot of people wind up thinking, well, I’m not really this kind of person, games are just something I do when I’m bored.

How do you think the industry would change if more women were involved?

A much greater variety of games would be made. I don’t want to be essentialist about it and say men are interested in this and women are interested in that. But when you have an industry that’s very homogenous in terms of who gets into it, if they all grew up playing the same games and being in the same environment and being friends with each other, they wind up making games that reflect their own interests and those are the same people who play the games and the cycle continues. When you have a greater variety of people in the design and creation process, you have a greater variety of products coming out the other side. That’s a change to look forward to.

 What’s the industry like now? What are the games like?

There are a bunch of really large studios that make games intended to make lots of money. There’s an independent development scene as well, and there’s a very large one in Toronto. And generally what you see, just like with Hollywood and the indie movie scene, is a certain kind of game coming from the large studios. And they tend to be focused on war or sci-fi and fantasy. They tend to follow templates that games before them have set.

When you get into independent development, you see a lot of things that are more experimental. And many of those games attract a more diverse audience.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

By Shetu Modi

You might know Jennifer Hollett from her days as a MuchMusic VJ. Since then, Hollett has worked as a national digital media columnist for CBC News, moderated the Girls 20 summit in Paris and Toronto, and championed numerous social causes. The 36-year-old is an avid supporter and user of digital and social media, and is currently doing her master’s degree in public administration at Harvard. Here, she weighs in on Internet activism and tells us what she’d ask Lady Gaga if she had the chance.

You often use sites like Tumblr and Twitter to raise awareness of social issues (for example, your Tumblr on Apple’s labour practices in China.) When did you start seeing social media/the Internet as a tool for social change? What are the pros and cons of using it in this way?

As soon as I sent my first email and realized how quick and easy it made things, I knew the Internet would change everything.

The Internet and social media allows us to reach new people, in new ways, which makes communication and organizing much easier, but it has to be approached like anything else, with skill and strategy. Digital journalism still requires the same basic storytelling skills as print or broadcast journalism. Organizing on social media still requires the same skills as organizing a rally. It’s not as simple as creating a blog or a Facebook page.

With curiosity. I find people are really interested in figuring out what is going on with Twitter or Tumblr or now Pinterest, and how to connect these tools to social change, but they’re a bit too overwhelmed to initially experiment on their own.

Yeah, there are some boundaries. In the late ’90s, before I worked in TV, I had what was called a webzine/weblog at the time. Sometimes I would write about friendships, which is tricky, since not everyone is comfortable with their personal life being documented online. I remember having to take down a post at the request of a good friend.

In my first TV job, I was asked by the executive producer not to blog about the show. So I didn’t. Funny how things have changed. Now networks are begging TV hosts and reporters to blog for them.

Working on TV, especially at MuchMusic, I felt I was sharing so much of myself on-air, I naturally started scaling back online.

These days, I just ask myself, do I want the world to know this? Or, do I care if the world knows this? That’s my filtering process.

This summit is helping train young women for future leadership positions like the G20. If we want to see more women in politics and in the boardroom, we need to facilitate that growth.

The girls have reminded me how smart, confident and creative young women are around the world, and what a shame it is we’re not listening to them more.

This is a fun question. I miss coming up with juicy relevant questions for celebs.

Lady Gaga
You are one of the most creative and unconventional mainstream artists out there, yet at the same time, you’re also seen as another beautiful skinny blonde pop star. How do you balance that identity for yourself, and for your fans?

Barack Obama
What is the biggest mistake you’ve made as President?

Malia Obama
Not as the president’s daughter, but as a regular young teenage girl, what pressure do you feel the most?

Taylor Swift
Billboard named you the top money maker for 2012, with net earnings of more than $35 million. How do you manage your money and the Taylor Swift business?

Rhea Yee (left) and Gemma Foley

At Girls Rock Camp Toronto, girls aged 8-16 learn to play instruments, take workshops in media literacy and form bands with other campers. Founders Magali Meagher and Alysha Haugen are musicians themselves—they both play in the Weezer cover band Sheezer. Rhea Yee, 12, and Gemma Foley, 13, attended the inaugural session of the week-long camp last year, where they were members of a band called the Jets. Rhea and Gemma both play guitar, and Rhea has also dabbled in keyboard. They explain the importance of an all-girls music camp.

Why did you decide to start Girls Rock Camp Toronto, Magali and Alysha?

Magali: The idea was floating around for a bit. We’re both involved in making music in the city, either by playing music or booking shows. We’re also interested in making community happen. It just seemed like
a natural combination.

Alysha: As female musicians, we both know how hard it can be to be a young girl starting out, trying to get her footing in the music world, where there’s a lot of negative energy. It was really exciting for us to create a space where girls can totally bypass that energy and meet other cool girls who want to do the same thing.

What kind of negative energy? 

Alysha: I guess the best example I can give is going into a guitar shop as a teenage girl. You can feel the stares.

Gemma: It’s really, really intimidating going in. It’s really uncomfortable. Everyone’s sort of staring at you and thinking, “Why is she here? She’s a girl. She doesn’t really want to play guitar.”

Do people make comments or is it just a vibe?

Rhea: It’s a vibe.

Gemma: Everyone sort of looks at you. Everyone, in turn, takes a glance. You can sort of tell they don’t think you’re here to play guitar. They sort of stare at you like you’re taking up space.

Alysha Haugen (left) and Magali Meagher

How do you deal with that?

Rhea: You just try to be confident and show them that you can play like them or better than them.

How would the camp be different if boys attended?

Rhea: Maybe the girls would feel more intimidated. They’d get the same feeling (we get) in the guitar shop. It would be harder for the girls to open up to each other and to play how they’d like.

What do you like about the camp?

Rhea: I like the energy of everything—coming together, making songs and becoming a band.

Gemma: I liked that we were all girls. We were all really encouraging. If the eight-year-olds didn’t want to be called “cute,” we would call them rockers. It was always acknowledged that if someone didn’t want to be something they didn’t have to be that.

Rhea: You could be yourself.

How is playing music at school, with boys around, different?

Gemma: Sometimes they really take control.

Rhea: They can be really obnoxious and try to show off to everyone.

Alysha: I had a band with my best friend in high school. One of the guy bands called us “power chords”* and made fun of us all year. And then we had a school talent show and we played ripping guitar solos into their faces. They still called us power chords, but for those five minutes we were in charge.

What sort of songs are you interested in writing, Rhea and Gemma?

Rhea: Maybe not stereotypical girls’ love songs.

Gemma: Where the girl is so dependent on the guy.

Are there examples of those songs you can think of?

Rhea: I automatically think of Taylor Swift. All of her songs are love songs and that’s kind of annoying. She’s dependent on the guy, and then she gets her heart broken and it’s just the same thing over and over again.

Anything else you want to add?

Magali: What’s great about camp is that we’re creating a space where campers can feel and be themselves. There are a lot of skills everyone is learning—beyond music skills. You’re in a band; you learn how to share, be organized and be patient with each other. Things that carry on (beyond Girls Rock Camp).

*A power chord is a basic chord formation, and Alysha is not sure why the term was used as an insult.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Girls Rock Camp Toronto will take place this year at Tranzac July 2-8 and August 20-26. www.girlsrocktoronto.org