According to the latest Statistics Canada report on household demographics, the nuclear family is no longer the norm. But are Italians, one of the country's largest ethnic groups, rethinking family composition in step with other Canadians? If so, how do these changes interplay with cultural identity?

In order to achieve real change, women-focused policies and issues can't be segregated or lumped together where they so often end up marginalized on the sidelines of mainstream policy agendas. It's time we start taking a different approach from the traditional way of looking at issues affecting women.

The earth is shifting. A new age is dawning. From Kabul and Cairo to Cape Town and New York, women are claiming their space at home, at work and in the public square. They are propelling changes so immense they're likely to affect intractable issues such as poverty, interstate conflict, culture and religion, and the power brokers are finally listening.

Today, some people act as though sexism has disappeared. In fact, some seem to think women have advanced so far that feminism can be chucked into the dustbin of history.But if that were the case, why is my young niece bombarded with media images that make those beer babes look as innocent as Minnie Mouse? While artists like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé seem to present empowering messages about how "girls rule the world," in their videos they deliver that message half-naked, through pouting lips while humping the ground or spreading their legs.

As I attempted to retrieve my phone from my dashing toddler the other day, a rather disturbing self-portrait was captured. I looked hot. Like whoa-hawt! This does not represent the typical daily picture of me. Trust. When I showed my husband, he asked "who's that?" Thanks dear. The result of this accidental capture was some deep pondering about "real beauty."

October is breast cancer awareness month. Yesterday, my 10-year-old son came up to me and asked: "Mommy, do you remember that commercial we saw about those pink things?" He made his hands in a cup formation and covered his chest like a bra. Is there anyone else out there that has some feminism kicking around to feel objectified by overly sexualization of breast cancer? Are breasts selling cancer awareness just like they sell cars, beer, music, cigarette, shoes, and pretty much everything else. Just in case you think I am a prude, I ask you this: Are men asked to wear speedos to raise awareness for prostate cancer?

The feminists have discovered The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After. Or, at the very least, decided that they can't go on ignoring it -- and they're definitely not sold. But does taking a modern approach on Austen's classic work ruin it? Which approach really reduces Austen's work? Taking her principles seriously, and asking how her insights might apply today? Or dismissing her ideas about love and sex -- wherever they don't overlap with modern enlightened opinion -- as blind prejudices that she would surely grow out of if only we could whisk her to the 21st century?

This year, when I was invited to join World Neighbors on a physically challenging trip to visit the forgotten people in the poorest regions of Peru, I admit, I was very hesitant. Then I realized I was being offered an opportunity to test my physical resilience after literally being unable to even walk up a short flight of stairs. The only answer was "Yes." Always my philosophy.

So have you seen that statistic about what fashion magazines do to the female brain? Apparently it takes just three minutes of looking at the sculpted bodies of the models to make 70 per cent of women "depressed, guilty, and ashamed." But the new Verily magazine offers something a little more realistic to today's woman.

It's no surprise a woman's quality of life varies greatly around the world -- but what many of us don't realize is just how dire circumstances continu...

March 8, 2012 marks the 101st anniversary of International Women's Day -- the first step into more than a century spent honouring the various contribu...