Whileaway North

Give me a break

2009-02-13T19:33:00.001-05:00

This article is a textbook case in completely missing the point.

Shorter Pinker: Gender discrimination? What gender discrimination? Women choose to marry high-achieving men and then choose to "opt out", so clearly there's no problem. It's all about love, right?

Yes, women and men of similar socio-economic backgrounds often end up together. Yes, the women then often end up staying home with the kids or taking less-demanding jobs. That's not the explanation for wage disparities -- that's the _problem_. Why is it always women who stay home? Having a high-earning spouse doesn't explain it -- if it did, surely we'd see lots of men opting out because of their high-earning spouses, and we don't. Why is a woman giving up her job as soon as she "can" seen as a given?

This is an issue that's been hashed out extensively by feminists in the past. Women stay home because of institutional sexism that means men continue to have a higher earning potential, and because of societal pressures that say women should be the ones caring for home and children.

You know, I think Michelle Obama is pretty awesome, too. I just don't see her decision to give up her career and become the poster girl of the "opt-out revolution" to be one of the more awesome things about her. It's great that the Obamas obviously love each other. But love isn't the same thing as subsuming yourself to your husband's career.

And I've really had enough of the "women just really want to stay home" meme. It's been old for a while now.

Basic Civility

2009-02-04T18:22:00.004-05:00

Ottawa's transit strike has finally ended.

Of course, it'll be two months before service returns to anything approaching normal.

And I fully expect to see a surge in bike commuting and walking to work as soon as the snow melts. Not to mention the huge number of people who are just going to stick to their cars, thereby setting back the cause of public transit in Ottawa by at least a decade.

This has been a frustrating couple of months for the residents of Ottawa. It's cost us thousands of dollars apiece and countless hours of our time (one of the reasons this blog pretty much went dark for the duration is that I was spending most of my blogging time sitting in traffic or running around the city to get friends and family where they needed to be). I know I'm one of the lucky ones -- I had the resources to get myself to work (however inconvenient and expensive it was), and an employer who was understanding when the traffic meant I arrived an hour later than usual. A lot of people were not so fortunate. The pain inflicted on the people of this city by the combined forces of the union and city council is real, and severe, and both sides should be ashamed.

But you know who else should be ashamed? The hostile, vindictive commentators who've been advocating nastiness directed at the returning bus drivers.

Here's a sample of the comments to this article about the end of the strike:

I encourage you all to give the bus drivers attitude when you hop on the bus! Give them a piece of your mind!!

The greedy fools will probably expect a basket of fresh baked cookies. They've got something else coming!!!!!!!

I was hoping this would go longer and the union would go bust.
Yeah i will make cookies for them, with ex lax in them.
And i hope some people cause them lts of grief and show no respect.
back to work you bums.

Remember your anger and your outrage, bus-riding citizens of Ottawa, when regular service resumes. Remember the lack of sympathy and the cocky smirks from this grotesque mockery of a union

Remember, this strike was supposedly about "respect". They have shown us NONE, and that is precisely what they should receive in return! Pay your fare in pennies if you have to!

They deserve everything that will inevitably come their way.

Classy, no?

And there are plenty more where that came from. People making veiled threats about how drivers will have their backs turned to angry commuters... or suggesting that commuters vent their feeling upon the first driver they encounter.

That's not even to mention the folks who, demonstraing a complete lack of understanding of labour laws, have been screaming "fire the bums" from day one of the strike, and are still screaming it to anyone who will listen.

I have to wonder if anyone ever taught these folks basic manners or how to control their anger. Acceptable outlets for transit-related frustration include writing letters to Larry O'Brien, city council, André Cormellier, and anyone else you can think of. You can even make a sign and picket whatever public location you like. But taking your frustration out on the drivers just isn't okay. They're just trying to do their job. They're going to get you to your destination safely. The least you owe them is some common courtesy.

Some Canadian political wishes for 2009

2009-01-02T10:13:00.002-05:00

So it's the New Year, time of fresh starts, soon-to-be-broken resolutions, and other symptoms of the rollover of the odometer.

In the New Year, I'd really like to see:

A parliament that works like a minority parliament is supposed to. That means compromise, Stevie, and not waving the "obey-me-or-we'll-have-an-election" club too often.
An opposition with a spine, to force the above-mentionned compromise.
Some evidence of Michael Ignatieff's supposed superior leadership.
If we do have an election, women running in winnable ridings. For all parties.
The absence of any bills conferring legal status on a fetus, directly or indirectly.

I'd also like peace in Gaza, but that's kind of like asking Santa for a pony, isn't it?

What are your wishes for 2009?

The Senate

2008-12-23T09:59:00.003-05:00

I'm not going to argue that Stephen Harper didn't have the legal right to appoint his eighteen senators. He pretty clearly does have that right.

But what he doesn't have is a moral right to make the appointments. He's still prime minister only because he suddenly prorogued parliament in order to avoid a no-confidence vote (only a few weeks after an election result that he claimed would bring about a kinder, gentler, more cooperative government -- we all saw how well that worked out, didn't we?). He doesn't have the confidence of the house, and, since he holds power only as long as he has the house's confidence, his continued use of that power is morally suspect at best (no, Canadian voters, you did not vote for Stephen Harper directly. You only get to vote for an MP. That's parliamentary democracy for you.).

This is also the guy who has long argued that senate positions should be elected and "accountable". It's nice to see that he stands by his principles when push comes to shove -- as soon as it starts to look like he might lose power, he packs the Senate.

Now, again, he's well within his legal rights to pack the Senate. And he's not the first prime minister to do so when anticipating a loss of power (though that would usually mean an electoral defeat). But it's just morally skeevy for him to do so. And you'll notice he's doing it a few days before Christmas, hoping no one will notice. Or at least that we'll forget in January, when we're too busy paying our credit card bills to remember what our Right Honourable Prime Minister was up to over the holidays.

And while I'm at it, can I just point out that out of eighteen people, he was only able to come up with five women? What percentage of the population are we again?

A moment of silence

2008-12-06T08:41:00.002-05:00

On December 6, 1989, 14 women were killed at the École Polytechnique in Montréal. They were killed for being women; the gunman singled out women, and claimed he "hated feminists".

It's been almost twenty years. Are women still being killed for being women?

Take a moment to remember these 14 women. Then take a moment to do something to stop this from happening again, to any woman.

Geneviè Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

Interesting Times

2008-11-30T10:50:00.002-05:00

When rumours of a possible coalition government started circulating, I didn't think it would ever actually happen. This is Canada, after all, and although we like to talk big, we don't generally take such dramatic steps.

But it's becoming increasingly clear to me that Harper has misread the whole situation, and has pushed the opposition into a corner so that they have no choice but to fight back.

As soon as the Conservatives decided to eliminate funding for politicial parties, the opposition was going to have to do something. The move would have completely crippled them, particularly as there was no corresponding move to increase the individual donation limit so that they could actually do some meaningful fundraising from their supporters. (Just in case anyone out there is worried about "subsidising" political parties, let me remind you that the $1.95 per vote was to make up for the fact that parties could no longer take more than $5000 from each supporter. Harper's already lowered that limit to $1000 from each supporter. I'm sure you can see how that makes it hard to fundraise.)

But the economic update contained a lot of other objectionable elements. No hint of any kind of stimulus package, for example, which is what the opposition parties have chosen to hang their hats on. Now, I'm no economist, but it seems to me that, in a financial crisis like this one, being seen to be doing something is pretty important. If the global markets see that Canada isn't responding (and doing nasty things to the public service* doesn't actually count as responding), they're hardly going to have increased confidence in Canada. A stimulus package works because it shows that we're doing something, so investors gain confidence simply because we're doing something.

Now Harper's withdrawn the whole issue of the funding to political parties. They're going to get to keep their $1.95 a vote. But even though he may have backed down on this one, the opposition can't very well say "oh, okay then. You can continue to govern."

And here's why: if they back down now, it becomes obvious that they were just doing it because of their own self-interest. They'll look selfish. So they can't back down, even if that is the straw that broke the camel's back and set them off in the first place.

If Harper really wants them to back down, he's going to have to come up with some kind of economic package. And if he does that, he's letting them dictate the agenda, and this minority parliament will be very different from the last one.

Harper's really created a situation where it's impossible for the opposition to back down.

It's going to be a very interesting week here in Ottawa.

It's worth remembering that "may you live in interesting times" is a curse, not a blessing.

* And I think I need to comment that taking away public servants' right to strike is pretty nasty. And mean-spirited. And unecessary.

Place your bets

2008-10-31T17:41:00.003-04:00

Since the candidates are starting to declare themselves, it's time to make some predictions about the Liberal leadership race.

The Liberals were very proud to have the largest percentage of women of any of the parties among their candidates in this last election.

How many women do you think will run for the leadership? How many will actually be on the ballot when the convention rolls around? How many will make it past the first ballot?

And, while we're at it, how many non-white people will run? How many will actually be on the ballot?

Any guesses?

Why I shouldn't read the National Post

2008-10-22T17:57:00.004-04:00

I'm trying to decide what's most wrong with this National Post column.

Is it the complete failure to understand the Canadian political system? The Tories may have "increased their majority" last week, but they did so with only 38% of the popular vote, which kind of undermines the argument here.

Or is it the utterly unexamined assumption that Canadian Conservatives, Nicholas Sarkozy, and the American Republicans all occupy a similar place on the political spectrum? (For the record, Canada's "right wing" is nowhere near as far right as the American Republican party, no matter how much we like to call Harper "Bush lite".)

Or might it be the rather peculiar claim that people (not pundits, mind you -- people asked in opinion polls) base their opinions on foreign politicians entirely on those politicians' foreign policy?

We snark; you decide.

On heroism and feminism

2008-10-21T18:25:00.003-04:00

I'm not completely sure what Dave Brown's point is in this recent column. I'm not sure he knows, either, except that the world's gone to hell in a handbasket and it's somehow all those awful feminists' fault. His profile proudly describes him as a 'contrarian,' which, at least in this case, can be defined as "curmudgeon who thinks the world really was exactly like Leave it to Beaver".

At the top of their list of things a man must do was the protection issue. It used to be an obligation of the strong to protect the weak.

This is the basic argument of the article. In "the good old days", men were strong and women were weak, and men were praised and rewarded and given "backpats" for protecting those weak and helpless women from other men.

Now, Mr. Brown is astonished to learn, the authorities encourage people to, er, call the authorities when they see something untoward happen. And to intervene only if they have the appropriate training to do so safely.

I'm having a hard time understanding why this is a bad idea. Does Mr. Brown really think that the world would be a better place if we all -- or rather, all men -- tried to be untrained vigilantes? How many more people would be hurt or killed than if we just let the experts handle the situation?

Now, what Israel Grant Carver did was a very courageous thing: he tried to help another person. I'm sure this is an entirely inadequate "backpat," but I wish more people -- both men and women -- had the courage to intervene when they see someone being attacked...even if their intervention is nothing more than a call to 911. I'd much rather see an assaulter put in prison or otherwise removed from his victim than beaten up -- so that he has one more reason to take out his anger on the victim.

In Mr. Brown's view, this attitude is just a pernicious outgrowth of feminism. "The fishes have come home to roost," he crows -- women, apparently, should just expect to be beaten up now that we're no longer encouraging white knights to rescue us. Or something. The women in the Carver case went on to marry her attacker, so clearly she didn't deserve to be the beneficiary of manly heroism.

And then it turns out that this isn't really about Israel Grant Carver and his lack of recognition at all:

Without fear of being branded cowards, they don't have to face bullies, hijackers or nutbars on buses.

That's what this was really all about. The Greyhound bus incident. Those wimpy, embarrassing men who kept the attacker inside the bus and prevented him from harming anyone else rather than launching heroic charges to try to save a man who was already dead.

Strategic voting, vote swapping, and who elected that guy anyway?

2008-10-09T18:29:00.002-04:00

Strategic voting is a factor in any election, and it's certainly been part of the Canadian election discourse for as long as I can remember. But it seems to much more front and centre this election than ever before. Partly, I suspect, that's due to our having had a couple of minority governments in a row -- with an election that feels perilously close, people are much more worried about ensuring the success of their preferred party or preventing a hated party from getting a majority than they are when the outcome seems inevitable. Partly, too, I suspect it's a spillover from the proportional representation debate. It's become clear that we're not getting prop rep anytime soon, so people are more concerned than ever about how to maximize their vote.

Is strategic voting a good idea? As with almost anything else electoral, the answer depends on a slew of factors: how strongly you feel about your preferred party, especially as compared with the party you'd vote strategically for; the race in your particular riding; how strongly you are opposed to another party; how you feel about the local candidates.

There are certainly arguments against voting strategically. Not least, there's the fact that each vote is worth a few dollars in funding for your electoral party of choice. So if you're a small-party supporter considering making a strategic vote, you might want to consider making a small donation to your preferred small party to try and offset the financial damage associated with losing your vote. But it's not just financial damage; small parties that don't get enough votes don't ever become big enough parties to have an influence on the country as a whole. And if you give your vote to a larger party that doesn't quite represent your views, then you're certainly not encouraging the large parties to change or to take into consideration the issues that matter to you.

But let's not forget that voting is not only about expressing your true essential beliefs -- it's also about choosing your representatives, the people who will govern the country. And you should be realistic about what effect your vote will actually have. Will it help elect a reasonably good MP belonging to a reasonably good party that isn't 100% in synch with you, or will it be just one more vote against the guy who gets in because no one opponent was able to muster enough votes? Unfortunately, there's no way to know the outcome before you go and vote, so we all have to make our decisions based on incomplete information.

What's clear to me, though, is that there's something not quite right about our electoral system that's prompting these ongoing discussions about how to best vote. I don't know if prop rep is _the_ solution, but it seems that some variation on that theme should be at least part of the solution. We shouldn't be stuck chosing between voting our conscience/throwing our vote away and holding our nose/voting for the least bad alternative.

A few scattered thoughts about last night's debate

2008-10-02T07:15:00.003-04:00

The format actually worked suprisingly well -- no one was allowed to dominate the conversation, but there was still the opportunity for a few back-and-forth moments between the leaders. About as much as you could expect with five of them sitting around the table. (The table itself gave the whole thing quite an informal feel, which is -- different.)
Anyone who says Stéphane Dion isn't charismatic or a good speaker has obviously never hear him in his native language. He's downright eloquent when he gets going
Stephen Harper's clearly been practicing that "softer tone" he was using. He sounded like he was trying to hypnotize all of us. Except when he sounded like he was falling asleep. I suppose it's meant to defuse his "scary, aggressive" image, but it didn't sound natural to me.
Elizabeth May did a surprisingly good job -- I know everyone's saying it, but it's true. Her French is actually quite good, although she has a strong accent and somewhat limited vocabulary. Not only was she keeping up in French, she was able to be wonderfully aggressive -- the only one who was really aggressive for most of the debate (the only one with nothing to lose, I suppose).
For sheer entertainment value, there's nothing like "turn to the person to your left, and say something nice about them, while looking in their eyes". It was fun to watch them all scramble to come up with something nice that wouldn't undermine their positions at all. Elizabeth May was, without a doubt, the meanest, telling Harper that, well, he's a good father. I did find it interesting how few of them actually managed to maintain eye contact for very long (they all kept going back to the cameras, I think).

Tonight's English debate should be interesting. It's a shame it got cross-programmed against the US V.P. debates -- but those will be on YouTube, especially if anything amusing happens or there's a proper knockout blow.

On sexism and Elizabeth May

2008-09-13T11:45:00.002-04:00

First, let me say that I'm glad Elizabeth May will be in the debates. Not because I'm a Green Party supporter (I actually wish people were less convinced that they're a left-leaning party), but because it's fair. There is a Green MP -- if that's not the threshold for debate participation, they're just bending the rules specifically to exclude May.

That said, I don't quite get why we're all saying it was sexist to exclude her in the first place, or that her inclusion is a victory over sexism.

Usually, I'm ready to see the sexist overtones of all kinds of things, but in this case... I just don't see it. Maybe I'm being naïve, but I don't think it was an "old boys club" trying to keep May out; I think it was crass political calculation (the same thing that got her in, in the end). I honestly think those calculations would have been the same if the Green Party's leader were a man.

Now, the fact the Elizabeth May is the only woman in the debates, that she's the only female party leader -- that's another story.

Why haven't we had more women in senior political positions, more women leaders of political parties, more women Premiers, Opposition Leaders, Prime Ministers? That's the result of systemic cultural sexism, and that's something we can and should decry and work against.

We need more women in politics. Not because they'd make politics less "macho" and more collaborative (I'm sure female politicians are just yearning to be political hall monitors)... but because women are 51% of the population, and ought to have somewhere around 51% of the representation.

But that's another rant.

2008-08-04T11:57:00.001-04:00

Rebecca Allen has an excellent post up about why pop culture matters, and why it's important to analyze it.

(and I've been surfing pretty indiscriminately this morning, so I don't remember where I grabbed the link from -- so no hat tip. Sorry.)

Comfort Foods

2008-08-03T09:10:00.002-04:00

Men lose weight more easily than women

Well, yes. We knew that, didn't we? We knew it anecdotally, at least. There can't be many women in North America who've watched their male friends decide to lose weight and suddenly drop impressive numbers of pounds. Whether that's even remotely healthy is a separate question, of course.

What I find interesting in this article, though, is the little paragraph about comfort foods:

Gender differences in preferred comfort foods may also play a role in weight loss success. Research shows that men find comfort in foods associated with meals prepared by their mothers such as meat and potatoes. Women, however, crave foods that don't involve preparation such as breads, prepackaged sweets and chocolate – foods that are quite accessible and easy to overeat.

I'd love to know more about the "research" they're referring to here (the whole article suffers from an appalling inability to cite sources, but that's another post). Intuitively, though, it makes sense: men tend to crave food that involves extensive preparation ("like Mom used to make"), and women crave food that... doesn't. Which makes sense, because who craves something when they're going to be the ones putting in all the effort to make it? I wonder if men who do all the cooking are as likely to crave meatloaf as those whose wives cook for them?

Consent

2008-06-13T19:24:00.002-04:00

Here's the supposed "nightmare scenario:" a woman suddenly "changes her mind" and all of a sudden the poor innocent man finds himself charged with rape.

And yet, we're told this is a classic "he said/she said," and far from having is life ruined, this man has been acquitted.

I don't want to get into the specifics of this case, but it does strike me as the perfect examplar of one of the fundamental arguments between feminists and society as a whole: if we say that sex with an intoxicated woman is rape, will men start getting criminal records left and right for picking up women in bars?

Please note, before I go on with my rambling, that I'm not saying this particular man is guilty or that the judge was mistaken -- all I know about the case comes from the news reports, and I didn't get to hear any of the testimony. I'm not qualified to offer an opinion, and I'm not a lawyer, either. I just want to talk a little about the situation as described.

The basic problem here is that it's still perceived as okay to have sex with someone who's intoxicated, and severely so. So intoxicated, apparently, that she had to go and lie down. This isn't a case where she'd had a drink or two but was still alert. He had to know that she was pretty drunk, whether she was talking to him or not. Whatever he understood to be happening, why would he think it was okay to make a move in the first place? Why would he even want to?

And I don't mean okay in a legal sense -- I mean why is it culturally okay? This is what needs to change. There's nothing inherently wrong with partying and getting shit-faced, and there's nothing inherently wrong with casual sex and hooking up -- but there has to be a line where too much of the former means the latter has to wait for another day. Who even wants to have sex with someone who was throwing up a few hours earlier? Is consciousness really too much to expect in a sexual partner?

I don't know if this is something that can be legislated -- I'm inclined to think not. Surely, though, we need to shift the cultural attitude. We need to teach our kids and each other that not only is drunk sex not okay, it's not as much fun as sex with a fully conscious, actively and enthusiastically participating partner. Who doesn't taste like vomit (ick).

What's "real", anyway?

2008-05-09T17:28:00.002-04:00

I'm somewhat amused at this little kerfluffle over photo retouching in Dove's famous "real beauty" campaign, which, after all, is used to sell smoothing lotions among other things.

Photo retouching is part of our everyday life in a way it hasn't been in years past. Yes, everything you see on a billboard or in a magazine has been heavily retouched -- but so have lots of family photos. Removing red-eye, fixing colour balance -- that kind of thing is easier than it's ever been, thanks to Photoshop and the like. We're getting to a point where there's no such thing as an un-retouched picture.

My outrage is probably lessened, too, because I never thought the Dove campaign was a messianic emanation come to save us from unrealistic body image issues. It is -- it has always been -- an ad campaign, first and foremost. It's a good one, because it gets people talking, and it's certainly nice to see a wider range of female bodies than we're used to -- but it's still just an ad campaign. I mean, for all the claims that it's expanding the definition of beauty, there have never been Dove models who weren't conventionally attractive (even if slightly larger, or older, or of different skin colours than we usually see).

And I think on some level, I always assumed that there was a little bit of retouching going on. It didn't change my feelings about the campaign (which were, and continue to be, mildly positive).

So, do I believe this denial that "oh no, actually, there was no retouching going on"? Not really. But I don't think it matters. We're still asked to judge the picture that's out there, and whether it succeeds or fails as a picture, as an ad. How it got there is a little beside the point.

Why thank you for liberating me from my repression

2008-04-24T21:19:00.005-04:00

I'm late to the party on this one, which has already exploded all over the fannish 'net, but I can't let it go by without adding my own (albeit fairly redundant) $0.02.

The Open Source Boob Project, they called it.

Ostensibly, it was an experiment in sexual liberation.

The problem with sexual liberation is that, oddly enough, it so often seems to become men's liberation to objectify women. Theoretically, we're all supposed to be free to express our sexual desires without shame, without feeling dirty. But all too often it starts to feel like an excuse for men to tell women who don't want to take off their shirts or have their breasts groped or have sex with person x y or z that they're "repressed" and that their inhibitions are unreasonable. Women are the objects for the sexually liberated subjects (men) to admire and to use. And that's just unacceptable.

Look, I'm just as much in favour of a utopian orgy world as the next person. But I happen to live in this world. And in this world, we're not all starting from the same place when it comes to control of our bodies. Women live in an entirely justifiable state of fear that they're going to be attacked simply because they have women's bodies. And when we're not worrying about rape, we're worrying about how to make our bodies fit the desireable ideal. We struggle to be attractive without "asking for it". Every decision we make about our appearance and our bodies is made in this context.

If this all sounds rather fraught, well, it is. So you can see why someone asking to grope a woman's breasts isn't just a harmless question. Whether it's respectfully asked or not, whether it's all in good clean fun or not, it's going to make some women uncomfortable. Because they live in the real world where questions about a woman's body's availability are not, by default, good clean fun.

If you're with a group of friends, and you all want to feel each other up, have at it. But for crying out loud, don't do it in public, don't involve strangers, and don't make it a "project" to be expanded to the world at large. Because the world at large already has plenty of unpleasant ideas about what to do with women's bodies and their breasts.

There's been a lot written about this, much of substantially more eloquent than my own semi-incoherent sputtering:

How to be a feminist boyfriend

2008-04-12T12:46:00.000-04:00

M. LeBlanc at Bitch, Ph.D. has some great advice.

Hostile Environment

2008-03-19T16:49:00.003-04:00

It's an ongoing struggle to get more young women to enter traditionally male fields. Engineering is certainly one of those fields that is heavily male-dominated. Sometimes people argue that it's just that women aren't as interested in these areas of study. But when stories like this hit the news, I find it more remarkable that any women are brave enough to puruse an engineering degree in the first place.

It's kind of a textbook example of a hostile environment. The engineering students' society's newspaper, the Oral Otis, published a mock sex-advice column* which included some pretty nasty language. (Full disclosure: I haven't actually read the column in question, and it seems to have been pulled from their web site.) People complain. The vice-president of social affairs for the Engineering Students Society, Rob Arntfield, admits that it's sexual harrassment, but says that's okay, because sometimes people say engineers can't get dates.

No, seriously. That's what he said. To the media:

"For myself, personally, I think some of the content in the paper is meant to be humorous," he said. He added that engineers "have taken a lot of flak for being engineers," and are often the subject of jokes about engineers rarely touching women or getting laid.
"I believe that when we take this sort of thing in stride and that sexual harassment, if we dish out a little bit of our own, who's to say who's more right?"

That little quote was on the news yesterday morning.

I have to give some (mild) props to the paper's editor, Zacharie Brunet, who did give a radio interview this morning accepting responsibility and acknowledging that the column was inappropriate. His excuse was that he was really busy so he only edited the article enough to take out the really bad bits (so what was left in was presumably only moderately bad). But at least he took some responsiblity. And indicated that steps were being taken to prevent it from happening again.

The VP-Social hasn't corrected himself, as far as I know. It would appear his position is still that sexual harrassment is okay, and that it's just like getting teased for datelesness.

When young men think sexual harrassment is perfectly okay as long as you claim you were trying to be funny, is it any wonder that women would rather study something else?

This is what we're up against.

It's also why we need to encourage women to get into these fields. Not just because women should be able to do whatever they want (although, obviously, they should), but because we need a critical mass of women to prevent the boys'-club mentality that allows this kind of behaviour to flourish.

* incidentally, why do student newspapers insist on publishing these? They're pretty much never funny or clever; and yet they're forever getting written and published.

International Women's Day

2008-03-08T10:37:00.002-05:00

Today is International Women's Day. Here are some suggestions for how to celebrate:

support a female politician. Equal Voice can help you find out who they are.
write a letter to support women around the world. Amnesty Canada has a list of current actions relating to human rights abuses against women.
support a local charity that helps women in need, whether by giving them money, or giving them your time.
write a letter to Stephen Harper and your MP, telling them exactly what you think of the Unborn Victims of Crime Act (aka the Sneak an Abortion Ban in Through the Back Door act, aka the Women's Deaths are Only Important if they're Breeding Act)

What else will you be doing for International Women's Day?

Election Speculation

2008-02-19T19:36:00.003-05:00

Okay, I know that as long as Stephen Harper seems to be saying "come on, bring us down, let's have an election now", Stéphane Dion is going to be reluctant to do anything to bring the government down.

Still.

It's making him look bad. They're both playing political games, trying to make the election happen when it will most benefit their party, but it's Dion who looks like he's basing everything on the polls. We all know that Harper's trying to force the Liberals to bring him down when he wants to be brought down, but he's also getting to implement his agenda, so he at least looks like he has principles. The Liberals, with their constant abstentions and Dion's weak explanation of what he would need to support the budget ("acceptable or at least not too harmful for the Canadian economy"), look like they're playing the worst kind of politics.

Maybe it's unrealistically idealist of me (probably), but I can't help but wish the Liberals (and, you know, everyone elected to public office) would just make a stand on the issues, and elections be damned.

Because I gotta say, the political games are not making anybody look like a future Prime Minister.

Some people deserve to die

2008-02-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

"And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

(Thanks, Prof. Tolkein)

I hardly know where to start in my response to Lynne Cohen's article in the Citizen today, aptly titled "Some people deserve to die". I have rarely read an article I disagree with so thoroughly. So let me work my way through some of the highlights (or lowlights, if you prefer)

For 13 years, I have been a true crime buff, reading some 35 books a year -- most of them American -- on a variety of terrifying factual situations, from serial murder and child rape to greedy black widow killers and gang slayings. As a lawyer and journalist, I am fascinated by detective work and how the culprits end up paying for their misdeeds. There is nothing more satisfying after a gruesome murder and fair trial than to see the killer get the death penalty.

Let's start with this. Ms. Cohen is basing her argument in no small part on her desire for narrative closure in her true-crime novels. I would submit that ending a real live human life requires a little more justification than that it's narratively "satisfying".

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has come out so strongly in support of clemency for Smith, you'd think he was the guy's wife.

That's a nice little jibe, isn't it? Dion (and, by extension, anyone who thinks we shouldn't be endorsing the killing of Canadian citizens) is effeminate; real manly men (thump chest here) are in favour of killing people at every opportunity.

The only worthwhile argument against capital punishment is that irreversible mistakes can happen. This only means we have to be ultra careful applying it.

Uh-huh. Because that worked really well in the case of, say, Stephen Truscott -- didn't it?

To date, and to my knowledge, there has never been a proven case of mistaken death by execution in the U.S.

Forgive me if I'm skeptical.

Remember Clifford Olson? Remember what he did to those 11 children? Why go into the details when the ending is soul destroying?

It's possible that Ms. Cohen's view is skewed because she spends too much time reading true-crime novels, but cases like Olson's are very much the exception, not the rule. Someone like Olson or Pickton gets lots of media attention simply because their crimes are so unusual. We can't make policy based on these very exceptional cases.

Do you appreciate that Willy Pickton is only going to get the harshest sentence available in Canada? That would be 25 years in prison before he has the chance for parole. OK, there is a good chance he will be found to be a "dangerous offender" and have to spend the rest of life in prison. Is that justice?

Um, yes. It is. He's never going to be free again. He's never going to have the opportunity to hurt anyone else. What more do you want? What does capital punishment accomplish that life in prison and a dangerous offender designation doesn't? Other than Ms. Cohen's satisfaction, of course.

it makes us weak, offering a safe haven to murderers.

I'm not sure what Ms. Cohen is implying here. That murderers move to Canada to commit their crimes because they think they'll get off easier? That more Canadians commit murders than Americans? That's patently untrue. The deterrent effect of the death penalty has been repeatedly debunked, and Canada is one of the safest countries in the world, with a murder rate considerably lower than the United States whose penalties Ms. Cohen so admires. It seems to me we ought to be more concerned with results than with a perception of "weakness" on the part of a rather bloodthirsty columnist.

I've no doubt that Ms. Cohen would dismiss everything I'm saying here as the ramblings of a soft-hearted opponent of capital punishment who just doesn't understand the real world. The words "hug-a-thug" would probably be worked in there somehow. And by her standards, I supposed I am all of those things. I don't think we should be killing people to demonstrate the sanctity of human life. I don't think revenge is the proper purpose of the justice system. I don't think it's effective, and I don't think it's justified. If that makes me a wimp, so be it.

I couldn't have done it without her

2008-02-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

In this article about the new movie Honeydipper, director John Sayles is quoted talking about one of the characters' motivations:

It's not the club Tyrone is afraid of losing, because his wife makes more money mopping floors. It's the fear of losing the idea that he's his own boss, he's not asking to shine your shoes and he's somebody in the community.

(Let me preface the following rant by saying that my problem here isn't really with Honeydipper or with Sayles -- I haven't seen the movie, or even heard all that much about it, and I don't have anything specific to hold against Sayles. But there's something in that quote that I see far too often in our culture, so it's set me off.)

Did you see what was completely skimmed over there?

his wife makes more money mopping floors

So here's the thing. This character can only be "somebody in the community," can only do something that makes him feel complete as a human being because his wife is doing menial labout to put food on the table. Tyrone, like so many men in culture both popular and highbrow, gets to go on a quest for self-actualization because there's a woman in the background worrying about base material reality.

What's really frustrating is that the work of the woman in question (whether wife, mother, or girlfriend-who-might-as-well-be-mother) is usually not appreciated. In fact, it's often used as an example of what a drag the woman is.

Think of High Fidelity, for example. The central conflict of the movie version is that our hero's lawyer girlfriend has become an adult, earning a living, making much more money that our record-store-owning hero. She's essentially accused of selling out. And even though the resolution is supposedly about our hero learning to grow up ... what does he do? He starts a creative endeavour and gets to DJ again. This is growing up? Is he going to be able to do that kind of thing for long if lawyer-girlfriend doesn't keep lending him money?

Practicality, concern for the future, realism -- these are all terrible things that cramp the style of men seeking their true, authentic selves. Just once, I'd like to see a man find his authentic self, and then turn around and say to the woman who's been keeping the bills paid, "okay, now I'm going to work at a soul-deadening job for a while so you can figure out who you really are".

Anyone know of any such examples?

Choice

2008-01-28T09:08:00.000-05:00

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Morgentaler decision -- the Supreme Court Case that legalized abortion across Canada.

We Canadian pro-choicers are proud that abortion is and continues to be legal in this country, and that there's no really credible political movement to ban it. But it isn't enough.

The availability of abortion continues to be a problem. If you're a woman living anywhere other than Canada's major cities, you're not going to be able to find someone in your hometown who will perform abortions. It doesn't matter if abortion is legal if you can't get one when you need one.

I don't think I need to review all the pro-choice arguments here. It's been done, better, by other bloggers. Let me just say that a woman's right to control her own body is fundamental. And that includes (or should include) women living further north than 150km from the U.S. border.

Canadians for Choice has lots of information about the real state of abortion services in this country. Check them out.

Hide your primary colours! The girls are coming!

2008-01-20T10:09:00.000-05:00

I'm sure I've ranted about this before, but you'll have to indulge me. There is nothing that sets me off quite so much as the proliferation of pinkification.

Pinkification is when toy companies take something that was perfectly good and gender-neutral, and create a pink version "just for girls".

We've seen it with Lego (you'll note this is the "girls" category. There is no "boys" category -- the other categories are things like "action figures" and "robotics"). We've seen it with games, like Monopoly and Jenga.

And now, Fisher-Price is making pink versions of... well, see for yourself.

What's most appalling is not that toy companies are making these pink atrocities. It's that parents must be buying them, enthusiastically. It's that a young girl's room can be (and probably is) entirely gender-specific and pink from the moment she's born. Which means these girls never get the chance to think of playing with or doing anything that's not specifically coded "girl". So rather than imagining themselves as real-estate moguls when they play Monopoly, they can only imagine themselves in a "boutique" "shopping" environment.

And now they can only imagine themselves stacking pink things. Before they're two.

What's next? A "lady professor"?

2008-01-10T22:46:00.000-05:00

CBC Ottawa's headline writer is apparently astonished by the idea that women can, you know, run things. Like universities.

Carleton U names woman as president

Because the story isn't that Carleton has a new president... it's that she's a girl!

New Year's Resolutions

2008-01-02T21:24:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year again. New Year's Resolution time. And what's the most common resolution in North America? I don't have any scientific evidence to back me up, but I'd lay money on "losing weight" being resolution #1.

You can't open a newspaper or magazine these days without coming across a story about how to lose weight "sustainably", or a profile of someone embarking on a resolution to lose a dramatic number of pounds in order to "feel better" about herself (it's usually a woman, of course), and "be healthier".

This isn't to say that the media isn't obsessed with weight loss the rest of the time -- they certainly are. But there's an intensification of the obsession at this time of the year, as well as (I'm guessing again, entirely non-scientifically) an increased likelihood on the part of "ordinary people" to act on the obsession. You can't step into a gym in the first few weeks of a new year without tripping over enthusiastic new resolutionists (much to the annoyance of the regulars, I'm sure).

What there isn't in the media is any follow-up coverage: we don't see stories about the people who, after losing huge amounts of weight, gain it all back (and more), damaging their health in a neverending yo-yo cycle. We don't hear about the people who suffer horrifying side effects as the result of weight-loss surgeries and diet pills. We don't hear about the people who live shorter, less happy lives than they would have if they'd just been satisfied with their natural weight.

Nor do we hear about the people who resolve NOT to lose weight. But that's my challenge for this year, both for myself and for you. Eat well, because it's better for you, and it's more enjoyable. Exercise, for the joy of moving your body and reach a goal (completing a race, hiking a trail, lifting a certain weight, whatever), but not to lose weight. Don't look at a scale. Don't obsess. Feel good about yourself and what you can do. Resolve not to feel guilty for eating a cookie. Celebrate being alive.

That's my resolution for '08.

Oh yeah -- and I resolve to blog more regularly. No, really. I mean it.

The Ballad of Larry O.

2007-12-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

In Ottawa, Ontario
A city justly famed,
A man called Larry came to try
And play polit'cal games.

Refrain:
Sing hey-down-derry for Larry O, Larry
Confident, certain, and true
"If I can run a business, I
Can run a city too!"

He said, "I think that I'll be mayor,"
And set about to win.
But did he say "Kilrea, retire,
And I'll get you somethin'"?

(Refrain)

He told the people all forlorn,
"No taxes will you pay!
"For I'm a businessman, you see,
"And I've a special way!"

(Refrain)

"I'll keep your services entire,
"Nor cut a single job,
"For business management will save
"You money by the gob!"

(Refrain)

His words were sweet upon their ears
For zero's zero yet.
The right-wing vote belonged to him
No Kilrea ran to split.

(Refrain)

So soon he had the jewels and robe
And rule (not absolute)
The wand of business management
He'd wield to bring us loot.

(Refrain)

He cancelled transit plans because
They weren't quite right, he said.
And then there was a lawsuit raised
Upon the city's head.

(Refrain)

For cities are not businesses
And Larry's magic failed
And soon police investigate
If they should have him jailed.

(Refrain)

For it turns out in politics
You're not supposed to say
To your opponent, "Please withdraw,
"And here's what I can pay."

(Refrain)

But Larry still is resolute,
The city's on his side!
At least his friends and family are,
And some in the wool dyed.

(Refrain)

While zero, it turns out, is not
Quite zero after all.
At least we didn't vote for one
Who'd tax us one and all!

(Refrain)

So what will be our Larry's fate?
It's too soon yet to tell.
But to the end he's resolute
That he has led us well.

(Refrain)

If others disagree, it's that
They're biased against him.
If they don't see our Larry's light,
They must be slightly dim!

(Refrain)

Violence against women isn't cultural

2007-12-12T20:56:00.001-05:00

One of the things that's so distressing about the death of Aqsa Parvez (and there's plenty to be distressed about) is the way it's being interpreted in the media. Reading the stories, listening to the radio, you'd think this was all about culture -- speficially, Muslim/immigrant/'other' culture.

It's not. This is about violence and control.

Muhammed Parvez didn't kill his daughter because she wouldn't wear a hijab; he killed her because, for whatever reason, he felt he could. That's not a characteristic of Muslim culture. That's a characteristic of all patriarchies. There are plenty of white, 'western' men who've killed or hurt women because they felt they could.

It would be nice to talk about the fact that Aqsa felt threatened by her family, that she said she was being beaten, that she had to flee her home more than once. It would be nice to talk about the background and how we can stop this from happening again.

Instead, all the stories lead with this idea of a cultural clash.

This isn't about a hijab. This is about patriarchy and violence.

It's also like banging your head against a brick wall, over and over again

2007-11-29T17:58:00.001-05:00

Watching Ottawa city council talk about transit planning is like watching an eternal game of ping-pong.

Expand the O-Train!
Cancel the contract!
Build a tunnel!
Don't build a tunnel!
Assess possibilities!
Reject the assessment!
Buses!
Trains!
Cars!

So I'm hard-pressed to put much faith in yet another proposal to improve the transit system in Ottawa.

There's no question the transit system needs improvement, especially in the downtown core. And I'm as big a supporter of transit as anybody. I ride the bus, even when OC Transpo's bizarre scheduling and inability to cope with inclement weather* makes it really annoying to do so. I love the O-Train, and wish it went somewhere useful so I could actually ride it.

But I'm getting awfully cynical about transit plans that seem to get scrapped almost as soon as they're proposed. And hearing Alex Cullen on the radio this morning saying Siemans should just hold off on their lawsuit, because hey, maybe there'll be a new contract soon... forgive me, but if Siemans buys that line, they're way more naive than your average moneymaking corporation.

* due, I understand, to the age of the buses and their state of repair

National Day of the Obesity Panic

2007-11-20T19:53:00.000-05:00

Today is National Child Day, and UNICEF Canada has released an appropriately-timed report.

And among the many ways we as a country are failing our children (the most vulnerable), they list obesity rates. Canada has too many fat kids, according to UNICEF.

And, you know, when the same report goes on to say that life expectancy is increasing and that infant mortality is decreasing (albeit not as quickly here as elsewhere), I have a hard time being overly concerned about fat kids. And it saddens me that UNICEF Canada felt they had to include obesity rates. Because it's far too easy for people to focus on the fat kid problem and ignore the real problems: the many kids who live in poverty, seven years after we were supposed to have eliminated child poverty (remember that?); the kids in isolated communities or on reserves who don't have access to the resources and the health care that they need; the kids who really need our help.

Childhood obesity -- hell, obesity in general -- is an aesthetic panic. It's not some dire end-of-the-world problem that we need to throw resources at. There are plenty of resources being directed towards making affluent people of all ages skinnier.

How's about we throw some resources at the child poverty thing instead? Or the issue of kids with untreated mental illnesses? How's that for an idea?

Children raping children

2007-11-20T19:46:00.000-05:00

I can imagine few things as horrifying and disturbing as this story, in which an 11-year-old girl accuses three boys, aged eight and nine, of rape.

It's disturbing on so many levels. They're so young, all of them. It's hard to conceive of children that age being the perpetrators of a rape. At that age, how can they even imagine it? Who's sexualized those boys to the extent that they would even think to link sex and violence like this? How can we possibly consider charging eight and nine-year-olds as adults for something like this? Why can't we find whoever hurt them or whoever taught them that this was a thing to do, and charge them instead?

But I think what disturbs me most is to read that the boys' defense -- at least as portrayed in this story -- is that the sexual activity was consensual. How is it possible that an 11-year-old girl could consent to sex? How have we gotten to this state, as a society, that we take a case like this, and think "well, she just didn't want to get in trouble with her parents, so she made up the part about the rock"?

Some days, I just want to give up on our society altogether.

Complicit in Evil

2007-11-03T09:38:00.000-04:00

I'm so angry that I can hardly write a coherent sentence. In the name of public safety, Canada will no longer seek clemency for its citizens who are sentenced to death.

This is appalling. Canada has outlawed the death penalty, and rightly so. Killing a human being is barbaric, no matter what they may have done. Ronald Smith is no threat to anyone's public safety when he's sitting in a jail cell -- hell, I'm not even saying we should be bringing him back to a Canadian jail cell. But taking steps to prevent his execution is something Canada must try to do if it is to maintain any moral high ground where capital punishment is concerned.

I hate that this is now my country's position. It makes me complicit in the deaths of Canadian citizens. I am so angry that political considerations have left this government in power long enough to make this policy change.

Yes, Tories in the House, Ronald Smith is a murderer. I'm not denying that. But if we allow him to die without trying to prevent it, we too are murderers.

This is not just a political decision to help us suck up to the Americans. This is a moral decision, and it is breaking my heart, and it is breaking the moral fibre of my country. How proud can I be to be a Canadian when we are willing to stand by and let our citizens die, contingent only on a politcal evaluation of a country's "rule of law"?

More blogging on this

From the "good grief" files

2007-11-02T19:29:00.000-04:00

Of all the stupid things to study. (scroll down to the last item)

I'm so glad that we now know that breastfeeding doesn't contribute to saggy breasts! Now we can berate women for not living up to the beauty ideal without worrying about whether or not they lived up to the breeding motherhood bit of patriarchal expectations.

I suppose it's important for plastic surgeons to know their target demographics.

Reasonable

2007-10-27T09:04:00.000-04:00

The debate on 'reasonable accomodation' in Quebec is breaking my heart. It seems to be bringing out all kinds of barely-suppressed racism and paranoia about Those Scary Muslims. It may perhaps be too easy to point the finger at Hérouxville and their "code of conduct" -- it's becoming increasingly clear that there are plenty of people (and not just in Quebec) who would rather newcomers just start speaking French/English, wearing jeans, and eating Mickey D's like the "rest of us".

I'm a child of the Trudeau era. I believe in multiculturalism, and that our country is strengthened, not weakened, by a variety of people with a variety of backgrounds. And if sometimes that means I have to see someone wearing an outfit that's aesthetically unpleasant to me, well, I deal with it. Whether it's a leather micro-mini or a hijab*. And if what someone chooses to eat doesn't appeal to me, well, I just eat my own dinner, and let them do their own thing. I mean, seriously:

Regardless of the shape of the animal or its hooves, regardless of the shape of the fish, be it covered by scales or a shell, we will enjoy eating its flesh if it is prepared properly and presented tastefully.

Is Hérouxville banning rebellious teenagers from taking up vegetarianism? (Probably)

And given that we have laws against killing and hurting people in general, it seems unnecessary to specifically ban stoning.

Every time I hear about this apparent problem with multiculturalism, I feel as though I'm mising something. What, exactly, is wrong with people speaking their own language, wearing their own clothes, eating their own food? I suppose the fear is that if people aren't assimiliated into the dominant culture, they'll suddenly turn into EVIL TERRORISTS or something. But it seems to me that the greater problem would be the people we're not accepting because they haven't assimilated "perfectly" (whatever that would mean).

When you tell someone they have to change, completely and utterly, in order to be accepted, they're just going to get stubborn and determined not to change AT ALL -- not even those things they were thinking of changing themselves. We'd get a lot further as a society if we just accepted people as they were and let exposure to the wider culture expose them to new ideas and ways of doing things. That way, each and every one of us could, with time, pick the things that work and discard the things that don't, without feeling like we're betraying our entire history and ancestry.

But I'm just a crazy idealist, right?

* not that a hijab is aesthetically unpleasant -- I've seen some truly beautiful ones. But you get the idea.

A mile in her shoes... or a month in her veil

2007-10-21T18:46:00.000-04:00

Sian Reid teaches sociology at Carleton University here in Ottawa. She started teaching this semester fully veiled, wearing a niqab, hijab, and abaya. After three weeks, she went back to the clothes she ordinarily wears.

It sounds to me like a fascinating experiment. It's easy to talk about women who choose to wear hijab, or to go fully veiled, but it must be a very different experience to actually be a veiled woman. I'm not surprised to hear that she had some unpleasant experiences interacting with the world at large, although I am disappointed in my fellow Ottawa residents.

What's perhaps most interesting is that this is an article about an issue intimately associated with immigrants, with Muslim women, with "foreigners". And yet it's an article that could only be written about a white woman whose "milky skin" and "long red hair" are repeatedly pointed out in the article. This is an experience countless women live every day -- I would have loved for the journalist to have interviewed a few of them.

The article mentions that some of her students were concerned that the experiment might be seen as disrespectful to Muslim women. It doesn't strike me as particularly disrespectful -- but I'd love to know what several Muslim women thought.

It's a shame that this kind of "immigrant experience" can seemingly only be communicated to the rest of us through someone taking on a temporary identity that isn't hers.

Pre-Throne Speech Ramblings

2007-10-16T18:50:00.000-04:00

So all of us here in government-town (aka Ottawa) are waiting with bated breath for the Speech from the Throne. The rest of the country is probably doing its collective best to ignore it entirely, "prime-time" or no. But for the political junkies of my acquaintance, this kind of thing is high-grade catnip. The predictions are flying fast and furious. What will Stephen Harper put in the speech to embarrass the Liberals? And will Stéphane Dion rise to the bait? Will there be an election?

Harper is probably the only person who really wants an election, and I'm not too sure about him. The opposition is in disarray, especially the Liberals (the only 'real' opposition in terms of parties with a chance to win the election). But what Harper really wants is a majority, and he hasn't got the poll numbers for that -- not yet. Of course, if he can force the opposition into letting him govern as if he had a majority, then he's got the best of both worlds.

And it's all up to Dion. I gotta say, I feel sorry for the guy. He's gotten nothing but criticism since he won the leadership, and he's being forced into an untenable position. Today's resignation of his Quebec lieutenant certainly doesn't help. If he brings the government down, he fears he'll end up losing seats. If he doesn't, he looks like he's licking Harper's boots, which can't be good for his long-term election prospects.

I confess, selfishly, that I want this government to fall. I want to see Harper's bluff called. But it probably wouldn't be a good strategic move on Dion's part, and I doubt an election would do progressive folks any good.

It's just that I don't think leaving Harper in power is going to be good for progressives, either. Or for the country. Certainly not in the short term and probably not in the long term.

For all the insistence that Canadians don't want an election,* they didn't want (or at least didn't elect) a Harper majority, either. And I can't shake the feeling that they would at least respect Dion and the Liberals for standing up for their principles instead of cringing and strategizing.

So come on, Stéphane! Courage! Once more unto the breach and all that.

* Probably true -- for a democratic country, we spend a lot of time hoping we won't have an election and then staying home when one happens. **
** Eligible voters of Ontario, I'm looking at you!

PSA for Ontario readers

2007-10-10T07:59:00.000-04:00

Today is election and referendum day!

Don't forget to get out and vote. If you don't know where to go and vote, contact Elections Ontario.

Murder is murder

2007-10-04T20:26:00.000-04:00

We tend, as a society (maybe as a species), to view crimes as particularly terrible when committed against certain kinds of people -- usually those we perceive as vulnerable* or (perhaps more to the point) 'innocent'.

For example, murder is pretty universally agreed to be a Bad Thing. Murdering a man is bad, but murdering a 'helpless' woman is worse. Murdering the elderly is worse yet, and murdering a child is beyond the pale.

These are emotional evaluations, of course. There's no cold, logical reason why some kinds of murder should seem worse than others** -- but then, the human species is not, typically, cold and logical.

So it's not really surprising that the murder of a pregnant woman should cause some strong emotional reactions. And one of the ways this emotion seems to express itself is through the call for charging the perpetrator with two murders -- the woman's and the "unborn baby's".

I understand the impulse, especially when it's late in the pregnancy, especially when it was a wanted pregnancy, especially on the part of the family (who are, after all, mourning not only the woman they love, but also the potential future family they'd been expecting and preparing to welcome). But this is an impulse that must absolutely not be codified into law.

The problem is, as soon as you create a crime called 'fetal murder', you open the door to all kinds of issues. As outlined in this National Post article:

"If we take the position that the fetus is a separate person at viability, then we open up all sorts of issues. All of a sudden, the woman is two separate persons," said Martha Shaffer, an associate law professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in family and criminal law. "Her liberty and autonomy can be greatly curtailed in the interests of the fetus within her.
"If she's doing something that somebody decides to be contrary to the fetus's interests -- which could be eating too much sugar, exercising too hard, smoking or drinking -- it's very dangerous to go down that route to say a woman is no longer a separate, independent person at a certain stage of pregnancy.

In other words, a woman who miscarries after doing something her in-laws don't approve of could find herself in serious trouble.

That's not even touching the abortion issue, which is, of course, very much a part of the debate. It may not be what Aysun Sesen's parents are thinking when they say they want double murder charges, but you can bet it's what the political activists who have picked up this cause are thinking about.

Ultimately, I don't think the problem is that we attach insufficient value to fetuses.

IMNSHO, I think the problem is that we attach insufficient value to living, breathing, human beings. We need to value women for themselves, and acknowledge that the murder of a woman is terrible because it ends a woman's life, not only because it happens to end a pregnancy as well.

On that note, it was nice to see the Globe and Mail taking a slightly different tack on the case and at least touching on the issue of violence against women instead of so-called fetal rights.

*Although certainly not always -- crimes against the socially marginalized being Counter-Example A.
** I suppose you could construct an argument about the loss of a child's potential, but it's hard to claim logically that murder is a crime against future potential weighted by life expentancy, rather than a crime against the actual person in question.

What does overweight look like?

2007-09-30T10:38:00.000-04:00

There are some truly fascinating things on the Internet. Kate Harding of Shapely Prose is putting together a photostream of people in various BMI categories -- "underweight", "normal", "overweight", "obese", etc. It's really quite incredible.

(I recommend watching it as a slideshow with the info turned on)

Warren Jeffs found guilty

2007-09-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

This verdict is good to see. This is what needs to be done about this kind of so-called fundamentalist Mormon sects. This is what we should be doing to Winston Blackmore in Bountiful. It's the sexual assault and coercion that's the problem, not the polygamy itself (note that the rape Jeffs was convicted of abetting was within a monogamous "marriage".

I have huge admiration for the courage of this young woman, who was willing to come forward and testify against the man who controlled so much of her life. We shouldn't expect this kind of extraordinary courage, but we should really give credit where it's due. Because there wouldn't have been either a charge or a conviction without this young woman's courage.

Interestingly enough, the husband is now being charged as well. It will be interesting to see how that shakes out. I wonder why he wasn't the focus of the case in the first place?

Denial

2007-09-21T21:34:00.000-04:00

What's depressing about this news story is not that the mother thinks her son is innocent of sexual assault. We all tend to assume that the people we know and love are innocent, unless we have irrefutable proof otherwise. It's a natural human instint to think the best of the people in our inner circle. So it doesn't bother me that the mother is coming up with reasons why her son must, surely, be innocent.

What's depressing is that this is an actual news story. We don't generally get news stories about all the relatives of the accused insisting that the accused is innocent. Oh sure, they'll often get a line or two in stories about particularly dramatic murders. But for what other crime can you imagine a news story about how the mother of the defendant is sure the crime never happened?

This kind of thing only happens in sexual assault cases. And that's depressing.

It's also pretty depressing that the victim's religion is considered an important fact. I suppose it's supposed to make the crime seem worse, somehow. Because sexually assaulting a "regular" girl... well, that's just normal behaviour. But when it's a girl who's been marked as unavailable... that's just heinous.

Religion, the HPV vaccine, and the squick factor

2007-09-19T21:00:00.000-04:00

The Catholic school boards' fretting about the HPV vaccine might seem to suggest some of the perils associated with publically-funded religious schools. The vaccine's a sensible public-health measure, right? Religion's interfering with the public good. That's a bad thing.

Except people see this vaccine as being about teenagers having sex.

It's not, of course. Or at least, not entirely. The whole point of the vaccine is that, for it to be effective, you have to be vaccinated before you're exposed to the virus -- ideally, before you're having sex. So a girl vaccinated at 13 or whatever will be protected when she's 18 or so and getting involved in her first sexual relationship. Or when she's married at 25. Or whenever she becomes sexually active. But people have an incredibly strong squick factor when it comes to my daughter having sex, and I think it kind of short-circuits the logic centers. I seriously doubt any girl who wasn't going to have sex is suddenly going to run out and become promiscuous just 'cause she's protected from cervical cancer. Let me assure you that cervical cancer is the last thing on the mind of any girl contemplating her first sexual relationship. It's not going to be a deciding factor. I'm not sure why that's so hard to get.

So I don't think anyone's associating the Catholic boards' jitters with John Tory opening the religious-schools can of worms. Which is a shame, because they should. If a religiously-run school can impede one public health measure, what about others? We're bound to have Jehovah's Witnesses schools receiving public funds while preventing kids from being vaccinated for all kinds of things. And that's just the first example that came to mind.

Full disclosure: I went to a catholic school. And as you can probably tell, the indoctrination didn't stick. Heck, it didn't stick at the time. We used to joke about being the school with the highest birth rate in the city.

But just because I don't think it's always effective doesn't mean I think publically-funded religious education should be accepted. School should be about school. Religion should be separate. And I know that it's not, now. Lots of schools, especially in smaller towns, are de facto protestant. That's not good either. Nor do we need to avoid mentioning religion -- we just need to avoid endorsing it.

Church and State, right? It shouldn't be so hard.

On byelections

2007-09-18T21:30:00.000-04:00

I'm taking bets as to whether the results of yesterday's byelections in Quebec make a fall/winter general election more or less likely.

My money's on more likely... the Liberals don't much want one, now, but the Tories can engineer their own defeat if they really want to. So I suppose it depends just how empowered they're feeling.

Thoughts?

Building a better bomb

2007-09-12T20:06:00.000-04:00

So it seems Russia's got "the dad of all bombs" ('cause it's way, way bigger and more impressive than the American "mother of all bombs", and let's not even go there, okay?).

Didn't we (you know, the human race) establish that arms races are a bad thing? And isn't the cold war over? Why are Russia and the 'States still in this endless competition about who can kill the other more?

Oh sure, there's that hilarious insistence that

the new bomb would allow the military to "protect the nation's security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region."

Whatever. Terrorism isn't a country. It isn't a big huge target that you can just blow up. Terrorism is not something that can be defeated by ever-bigger bombs or ever-fewer personal liberties. Or at least it wasn't until "terrorism" became a catchword for "something scary that we use to justify military and police spending".

My favourite bit in the article, though, is this:

Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment, he added.

There just aren't enough sarcastic comments in the world to respond to that one.

I am rendered speechless

2007-08-29T17:57:00.000-04:00

I really want to say something about this Star fluff piece on physical jobs, but I keep finding myself spluttering rather than saying anything coherent. So just imagine some brilliant feminist analysis about reducing everything to women's bodies.

Splutter splutter.

Promises & Politicians

2007-08-29T17:42:00.000-04:00

You know, when we were in the throes of the last municipal election, Larry just kept saying, over and over again, that "zero means zero". The zero, of course, was his promised tax increase -- that's right! he kept telling us, for a limited time only, you too can have no increased tax! Meanwhile, the other candidates for mayor kept pointing out that city services were crumbling, and that the city was pretty much tapped out... and that a small tax increase would likely be required.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Larry's promises won out.

And to the surprise of... well, probably the surprise of his supporters, but certainly not to my surprise, our taxes will be going up.

I must admit, I love how it's a "levy" rather than an "increase". Are we supposed to be fooled?

I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fiscal conservative. I don't think taxes are inherently evil. I'm willing to pay for the many fine services we enjoy in this city, province, and country. So I was never the audience for the "zero means zero" line. But I'm still surprised that people seemed to believe it. People are so convinced that the public service -- municipal, provincial, and federal -- is full of waste that they're willing to believe anyone who says the public sector just needs to be run "more like a business", and that "belt-tightening" will solve all our fiscal woes.

Do you suppose the people of Ottawa will extrapolate from this experience, and maybe be a little less credulous when the next tax-cuttin' politician comes around?

I think not, somehow.

It's all about the berries

2007-08-21T21:07:00.000-04:00

One more from the annals of "identifying possible biological gender differences and coming up with bullshit evo-psych explanations for them": women like pink... er, slightly redder blues.

Let me first express how impressed I am that someone (whether the reporter or the writer of the press release, I don't know) took the finding that women apparently prefer slightly redder blues than men, and declared that:

more women than men really do prefer pink — or at least a redder shade of blue

Because if you've done a study about colour preferences and gender, you've just gotta get pink in there somewhere, right?

But it's the explanation for this apparent difference in preference that just kills me -- women must prefer reddish blue because of all those bright red berries they had to gather 'way back in the mists of time.

Of course, if it turned out men's preferences were on the red end of the spectrum, we'd be talking about how men evolved to like the red blood of the animals they hunted or something. But since it's women, it must be all about the berries -- oh, and "healthy, reddish faces".

Why this preference (so far evident in only the one study, as far as I can tell) has to be explained through evo-psych, I don't know. Couldn't it just be a slight difference in visual processing? Or something culturally influenced (sure, they tested a "small group" of Chinese people, but that's hardly conclusive)?

ETA: And Bad Science reveals that the results for the Chinese population were... not similar at all. The absurdity! It grows!

What makes a mother

2007-08-20T20:51:00.000-04:00

I have to admit, I'm somewhat conflicted about the Patti Tomasson case.

Well, not about the case specifically. I believe adoptive parents should absolutely be entitled to parental leave and I think it's a shame the court decided otherwise.

What conflicts me is that the discourse around the case has been almost entirely about mothers. Tomasson herself has emphasized that "paternity benefits are a separate issue".

But I don't think they are. If this is all about bonding with a child, why should fathers be any less entitled to that time? The idea that bonding is a purely maternal activity just reinforces the kind of gender essentialism I wish we could get past. We need more fathers to spend time with their children, both when they're young and as they grow. Is it any wonder child-rearing is still an overwhelmingly female job, when men are actively excluded from the discourse?

By the same token, it is true that childbirth is physically exhausting, and carries with it all kinds of trauma -- there's no doubt that one would need time to recover from that. To that extent, I agree with the judge. Where I disagree is that parental/maternity leave is (or should be) about more than just the physical exigencies of childbirth.

I suppose in my ideal universe, there would be medical leave to allow for late prenatal care, childbirth and recovery, and there would be parental leave, for which all parents would be eligible, and which would take up the vast majority of the time period we now think of as maternity leave.

Thoughts?

Warm fuzzies

2007-08-19T10:29:00.000-04:00

There's nothing that warms the cockles of my cold, snarky heart quite like a wedding.

Especially one that demonstrates why Canada really is a pretty great place, and one that a big chunk of the Conservative party would have liked to prevent.

Congratulations to Mr. Brison and Mr. St Pierre.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

2007-08-14T21:21:00.000-04:00

So Stephen shuffled the cabinet. And the results were about as surprise-free as you could expect.

Every time there's a new cabinet, or a new parliament, I get depressed all over again looking at the sea of old white male faces. Not that there's anything wrong with being old, white, or male. But there are other kinds of people in the country, and it is sad to see them so perpetually under-represented when it comes to running the country.

Of course, if there's one thing you can say about this particular government, it's that it's really the Stephen Harper show -- we're not being run by a cabinet of old white guys, we're being run by a single middle-aged egotistical white guy. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse.

Three women. Plus Diane Ablonczy, who gets a secretary of state job so that people will stop asking "why is Diane Ablonczy a back-bencher".

I should be used to this by now, but it continues to depress me.

2007-08-10T10:18:00.000-04:00

Summer camps are a truly wonderful thing. Unfortunately, the Municipality of the District of West Hants, N.S. has a pretty skewed idea about what summer camp should be -- at least for girls.

It never fails to amaze me when I see something like this happen. Surely, by 2007, we've figured out that girls sometimes like the outdoors. Sure, an outdoorsy camp probably wouldn't appeal to everyone -- but to have it strictly gender-segregated like this feels like a massive throwback. Are we really still that stereotypical in our outlook? Apparently.

They say they surveyed the children to findout what they would like to do. What I'm wondering is, did they ask the girls what they would like to do, or did they ask "what would girls like to do". 'Cause the answers to those questions are often very, very different.

For anyone looking for outdoorsy activities for girls, I strongly recommend getting involved with the Girl Guides of Canada. They can be a little on the flaky side sometimes, and a lot is dependant on what unit you end up with. But they're a great organization, and they start with the fundamental belief that girls can do anything they set their minds to. I have many great memories of my years in guiding, and can't recommend them strongly enough.

Sheesh, you go on vacation for a couple of weeks...

2007-08-10T09:06:00.000-04:00

... and the world goes to hell in a handbasket.

Bridges collapse.

There are tornadoes in Brooklyn.

And apparently the Russians are claiming that they own the north pole. Which, while a boon to fans of spy thrillers everywhere (what with the whole "Russian bad guy" theme), is not particularly reassuring.

Regular posting will resume immediately. Because what else could go wrong?

Ghetto Dude

2007-07-23T19:55:00.000-04:00

Good lord.

Well, at least Mr. McGuinty apologized.

It's a horrifying thing to have happened. What's more horrifying, though, is the comments to the Globe article. There's something about Internet comment forums that sometimes seems to bring out the very worst in people. How do you go from a story like this to a rant about how affirmative action is a horrible thing? And the number of people excusing the staffer because 'she didn't mean for him to see it' or 'she was just trying to be humourous'...

Some days, my hope for the human race is rather strained.

The importance of the word 'dangerous'

2007-07-23T19:44:00.000-04:00

Peter Whitmore has been sentenced to life in prison. Whitmore is a pedophile, notorious for his recent kidnapping of two young boys in Saskatchewan. This isn't his first conviction, and part of his notoreity is that the authorities seem pretty sure he'll reoffend if he's ever given the chance. His history certainly seems to bear this out.

There was a fair bit of controversy last week because the prosecution in the case offerred Whitmore a plea bargain. They had been planning to seek dangerous offender status for Whitmore, which would make it more difficult for him to ever get out on parole. They dropped that plan in exchange for his guilty plea.

Victims' advocates and all kinds of people were outraged. Surely, the argument went, this guy's the perfect candidate for dangerous offender status. We don't want him back on our streets.

And they may well be right. But at least this way the victims won't have to testify -- and that seems huge to me. And he's gotten a life sentence. That's not something you often see in cases of child molestation.

In fact, it seems to me that the outrage shouldn't be about this latest case -- it should be about the first one. The one he was sentenced to eighteen months for.

Eighteen months. Doesn't seem like enough, does it?

Polygamy and Feminism

2007-07-13T17:32:00.000-04:00

This may be the very definition of "can of worms". Here I go anyway...

The question of polygamy is not an easy one to resolve, particularly, I think, for feminists. Or at least for people like me, who believe simultaneously that people should generally be free to make whatever romantic/sexual/matrimonial choices they want and that women should have just as much freedom, power, and agency as men.

In Canada at least, polygamy is largely discussed as a religious issue, almost always in relation to Bountiful, B.C. Bountiful is a "Mormon"* community in British Columbia headed by a couple of authoritarian patriarchs named Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler. Plural marriage is practiced extensively; the leading men of the community have multiple wives, many of whom are "married" when they are very young to much older men. Religiously-linked polygamy is also often discussed in relation to Islam. As this Vancouver Sun article makes clear, the two categories of religious polygamy are related, or at least are seen to be.

You'll notice that we're talking pretty much exclusively about poygyny (one man with multiple wives). Polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands) doesn't seem to come up much in the discourse. Maybe if it did, we'd be better able to separate the polygamy issue from the women's rights issue.

Because it seems to me that the problem with religiously-based polygamy is not the multiple marriages in and of themselves. If more than two people want to devote their lives to each other, how does that hurt anyone, after all? The issue is with the way polygamy is practices in sects like Bountiful, and is perceived to be practiced in Islam. The issue is with girls and women being raised in a tightly-controlled patriarchal environment, and offered no choice in the matter. The issue is with marrying girls off at such a young age that it's perilously close to child abuse. The issue is with the control, the power. It's not the marriages per se.

Similarly, I don't think there's anything inherently evil with multiple Muslim women marrying a single man, if that's what they want, and everyone's happy with the arrangement. The issue is with force, coercion, and disempowerment of the women. That's what we need to address -- not the marriages themselves.

Having said that, I don't know what the best way to deal with something like Bountiful is. I would like to believe that we could lay charges on the basis of child abuse and unlawful confinement, or something that addresses what strikes me as the real problem. I've no doubt, however, that Blackmore and Oler are clever, devious men, and that they're staying within the letter of the law to avoid providing any grounds for such charges, leaving only the polygamy charge. They're gambling -- and I'm sure they're right -- that the polygamy charge won't stand up to a Charter challenge. If all we can charge them with is polygamy, they're going to get away with it, and they're going to be free to continue their repressive, abusive little cult.

I don't believe polygamy should be illegal. I believe that, if people want to spend their lives together, they should be allowed to make vows to support that, no matter how many of them (or what combination of sexes) there are. I would love for multiple marriages that are loving, egalitarian, and functional to be out in the open. It's just the abuse that I want to see stop. And we're not going to stop the abuse by focusing on polygamy, which is ultimately a symptom, not a cause.

* very important to note: they're not part of the mainstream LDS Church; Mainstream Mormons disavowed polygamy quite some time ago. Bountiful's more of a breakaway cult using the Mormon name for legitimacy.

Hope for the human race yet

2007-07-11T18:14:00.000-04:00

An update to my previous post:

Discharge refused in soldier's sex-assault conviction

Judge Carol St.-Cyr of Quebec Court yesterday refused to grant Private Pier-Olivier Boulet an absolute discharge. The judge said the soldier may have had a promising career in uniform, but giving him a court discharge would have rendered his crime "banal."

Thank you, Judge St.-Cyr.

A Very Good Soldier

2007-07-04T18:13:00.000-04:00

From the annals of "news articles that really tick me off".

"Should convict serve time or country?"

That the Globe and Mail thinks this is even a question is repulsive. If someone's convicted of a crime, we generally assume they ought to go to jail (or whatever other legal remedies are deemed appropriate, of course).

Why is this case any different?

Because it's a rape case. And, apparently, rape is something we might consider excusing if the perpetrator is a 'nice boy'.

The whole article makes me really angry. It clearly works from the assumption that the victim is "crying rape" and that the perpetrator -- the convicted perpetrator, let me add -- has just been caught up in this case through no fault of his own.

She was so drunk she couldn't stand on her own.

She let him into her room because she thought of him as a friend.

They didn't "have sexual relations". He raped her. He raped a drunk 18-year-old who trusted him.

And yet the article pretends there's any question about whether he should serve time.

The whole thing makes me want to scream.

Can't live without me

2007-06-26T22:04:00.000-04:00

I was greeted this morning by the news of two murder-suicides: one involving a pro wrestler, and one in Toronto. Not really how I prefer to wake up in the morning.

In both cases, although all the facts are not in, it seems the men involved killed their female partners, and other members of the family (a child in one case; the woman's mother in the other). Steroids are being mentionned as a possible contributing factor in the wrestler's case; in the other, the only explanation so far proferred is that the man recently lost his job.

There's something particularly horrifying about this kind of murder-suicide. Of course every case is unique, and we really don't know what happened yet, but it reads to me like the logical outcome of a viewpoint that makes women appendages to the men in their lives. So depressed or crazy you want to kill yourself? Better kill her, too. After all, she's a part of you. She shouldn't be able to live without you. You'll be together forever...

A little bit of baby fat

2007-06-26T20:32:00.000-04:00

From the Globe and Mail:

Is your child too fat? Your doctor may be the only one brave enough to tell you.

Give me a break. If you or your child is "too fat" (by whatever arbitrary standard you choose), all of society will feel entirely free to tell you. And tell you. And tell you.

There's been a trend lately in "obesity epidemic" stories of claiming that people don't know when they (or their children) are overweight. It's insane. No one whose BMI is even the slightest bit outside that arbitrary "ideal" range is under any illusions. Some of us struggle to lose weight. Some of us struggle to be healthy (not necessarily the same thing!). But we're all aware that we're part of the "obesity epidemic" (yes, even those of us who are technically "overweight" rather than "obese"). And it's just as true of children. This idea that "tough love" is needed is just heartbreaking. As is this quote:

For the longest time, a little bit of baby fat was okay

Did you notice that? Not even "a little bit" of baby fat is acceptable anymore.

Junkfood Science is the go-to blog on the absurdities of scare stories like these, so go there and read through her archives. She does an excellent job of highlighting what's wrong with the BMI, the "obesity epidemic" and the trend of weighing and measuring school kids.

Anglicans will not bless same-sex unions

2007-06-25T11:25:00.000-04:00

This is disappointing.

It's particularly disappointing given that some Anglican churches have already been performing the blessings. If they're required to stop now, it would be a sad step backwards.

I think it's worth noting that it wasn't ordinary Anglicans, or even ordinary priests, who voted against the idea of blessing same-sex unions (not even marriages, mind you) -- it was the bishops, the folks at the top of the church power structure. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that, but it is suggestive. I suppose at the very least it suggests that if they have the vote again in a few years, the outcome might be a different one. (Never hurts to be optimistic, right?)

The summer barbeque season has begun

2007-06-23T10:28:00.001-04:00

So parliament's on vacation. Just as well, really, since parliament and any laws it passes are apparently irrelevant to the governance of this country.

You know, I was really hoping for a spring election. I'm fed up with the Conservatives governing as though they had a majority, and I'm fed up with the opposition parties for going along with it. Yes, I know, nobody thinks they could win an election right now. And yes, I know, Canadians might suffer a fit of collective insanity and re-elect the Cs. But this is ridiculous.

I confess, I complained as much as anyone about Paul Martin's inability to get anything done with his minority government. So I should be glad that Stephen Harper's getting stuff accomplished. Apart from disagreeing with everything he says and believes, of course. But it would be nice if there were some semblance of consultation and compromise. It would be nice if they just pretended to care what anyone else had to say.

It would be nice if they just acknowledged that parliament as a whole is supposed to be running the country, not just Stephen Harper.

But that may be too much to ask.

Housework and the Division of Labour

2007-06-19T17:44:00.000-04:00

After reading Jill's thoughtful post on the subject, there may, at some point be a post about marriage (it is wedding season, after all). This isn't it. This is a post about housework, prompted largely by Thomas' thoughtful comment (#32, if the link doesn't work properly).

The division of housework is one of those feminist person-is-political issues that it seems we should have resolved already. It seems so obvious: assuming both members of a heterosexual couple are working outside the home (and thus have similar out-of-house responsibilities), they should each do 50% of the housework. Easy, right? Especially if both partners have good intentions are are committed to an ideology of equality.

Not so much, as it turns out. Women still, consistently, end up doing more. It's been confirmed in poll after study after anecdote. Why?

For starters, there's the "she has a higher standard of cleanliness/she notices the dirt more" argument. I don't think I need to spend much time on this, since it strikes me as a pretty obvious cop-out. Bachelor pads to the contrary, most adult men don't want to live in pig-stys, and thus benefit from women's supposed "higher standard". Of course, culturally, women know they're the ones who are going to be criticized if the in-laws come by and see a less than pristine environment. And as long as men "don't notice" the dirt, they can get away without cleaning it -- it's all very passive-aggressive, although I'll grant that for many men it's probably at least partially uncounscious.

But the big thing, for me, is what Thomas mentions: the keeping track. It doesn't "count" as a chore if you're the one who constantly "notices" that cleaning needs doing -- it only counts when he responds to your request/nagging.

This turns the woman into the primary cleanliness monitor, and the man into the "helper". It becomes her responsibility to stay on top of the housework, and if she's not paying attention, asking him to "pitch in", it doesn't get done. And that's exhausting. It's a constant monitor-layer, over and above a woman's "fair share". And, of course, the woman's the one who has to ensure "fairness" is maintained in the "equitable" division of the "actual work" (odanu has a great comment at pandagon to this effect).

My, that's a lot of scare quotes in that paragraph. I fear my sarcasm is showing.

The other effect of the monitor-role is to turn the woman into Mom -- after all, it's Mom who assigns chores and asks for help around the house. And you can't be an equal partner when you're being Mommy.

Bitch PhD's suggestion for dealing with the housework issue is to "be a bitch about it" (and that's reductive, so go read her entire post -- it's a good one) -- effectively, to draw attention to the amount of work being done so that the male partner can't pretend not to notice. It forces the man to untimately internalize the workload in the way women are socialized to from childhood. It's good advice for a certain kind of person, but I have a hard time separating "being a bitch" in this way from "nagging", and, for me, it's psychologically and emotionally exhausting, even if it pays off in the long run. Nagging also puts the woman in a kind of Mommy role that I'd prefer to stay well out of. But I don't have a better suggestion.

Is true domestic equality impossible, even with an egalitarian-minded partner? Surely not. But it does take a lot of work, and a lot of goodwill, especially on the part of the man (who, after all, is being asked to give a privilege that's pretty deeply ingrained).

So -- ideas, comments, suggestions? How do you get a male partner to really truly pull his weight? Without mind games? Assume good intent and a desire for equality on his part, because we've got to get this kind of thing straight with our allies before we can hope to do any good to the more traditionally-minded folks.

Raising kids is a no-win proposition

2007-06-12T19:01:00.000-04:00

Kids should get more cuts and scrapes.
Kids need to play outside; otherwise they'll become obese couch potatoes.
Kids need to be supervised, and driven to and from school every day; otherwise they'll be kidnapped and raped and murdered.
Kids need to be exposed to Baby Einstein videos; otherwise they'll never be geniuses.
Kids shouldn't play sports; they'll become too competitive and lack empathy.
Kids need to play sports; otherwise they'll be fat and nobody will like them.
Kids shouldn't play sports; they'll get hurt.

Add yours in comments.

The Wage Gap

2007-06-12T18:51:00.001-04:00

It comes as no surprise to me that, according to Statistics Canada, the wage gap between men and women has not substantially narrowed.

The wage gap is one of those hydra-headed gender issues that never seems to go away. We don't hear as often these days about women being paid less than men for doing the same jobs, but it's still generally legal and acceptable to pay substantially less for jobs that women tend to do (secretarial work, nursing, teaching) than for jobs men tend to do (janitorial work, construction). And why are these jobs so gender-specific, anyway? And would they still be as undervalued if men tended to do them?

So what's the solution? Do we need to work harder on encouraging girls to pursue traditionally lucrative fields? Yes, absolutely. But we also need to work on accurately valuing the work that women are doing now. 'Course, if we paid teachers what they were worth, I bet we'd see an increase in the number of male teachers...

Partys & Politics

2007-06-06T18:32:00.002-04:00

In the Canadian system of government, we don't vote for a Prime Minister directly, or for a party, or for an ideology. We vote for a person -- a Member of Parliament. One of the side effects of voting for a person is that sometimes that person's views are not identical with his or her party's.

Case in point: Bill Casey, who yesterday voted against his party's budget and was promptly booted from the Conservative caucus (I am amused to read today that McKay had said they wouldn't be punishing any dissenters, in part because I can't see any party not punishing someone who voted against something as major as a budget).

I'm not going to get into whether Casey's right or wrong in his contention that this budget will cost Atlantic Canada money. But the relationship between a person and his or her party interests me. I don't think it's stretching to say that, for the majority of Canadians, a vote is at least as much for a political party, a platform, and/or a leader as it is for the individual running in that riding. And yet the individual has the power to act completely contrary to the party, the platform, the leader. David Emerson's the most blatant example yet, treating political parties as competing job offers, but he's far from the only MP to leave a party or change parties while in office.

The ability of an MP to make a principled stand is an important one, I think. If MPs weren't expected to ultimately make up their own minds on every vote, there would be no point in voting. And, really, no point in electing anyone besides the Prime Minister. Then Harper could just appoint whoever he wanted to be Ministers, without even having to put them in the Senate.

And yet. Are MPs still representing their constituents' wishes when they leave the party those constituents voted for?

Floor-crossing is a funny thing. It's hard to justify, and so often it looks opportunistic. MPs who sit as independants seem more honourable, but if they're voting with a party other than the one they used to belong to, is the effect any different?

I suppose the message, if I have one, is this: the Canadian electorate is too focussed on national politics, on the leaders and on perceptions of the parties (thanks, consolidated national media!), and not focussed enough on the individuals they're actually electing. You might not always be able to predict your future MP's actions, but maybe you can get a sense of whether their sticking points line up with yours or not.

In the movies, when they drop the charges, it means you're free

2007-06-04T18:37:00.000-04:00

The charges have been dropped against Omar Khadr.

This doesn't mean he gets to go home.

You know, every time I think about Omar Khadr I just get really, really sad. He was a kid -- 15 years old -- when he was imprisoned in Guantanamo. Whatever he may have done -- and as far as I can tell, it seems to consist of throwing a grenade in a battle -- he was a kid. He's not a kid anymore.

Five years ago, he may have been indoctrinated with some fairly repugnant beliefs. He may have participated in attacks against Americans. He may have done, thought, intended some pretty terrible things. But he was still a kid, and kids are malleable, they're easily influenced, and we don't hold them responsible for their actions in the way we do adults.

Whether Khadr was radicalized then or not, he certainly is now. He's been imprisoned for five years, his only contact with other detainees and the American military. What do you think he thinks of the West now?

I don't know if he was salvageable. But I know he was a kid. He deserved better than this.

He still does.

Friday Random Ten

2007-06-01T17:55:00.000-04:00

Bright Eyes, At the Bottom of Everything
British Sea Power, It Ended on an Oily Stage
Paper Moon, Remember Me
Portishead, Wandering Star
Death Cab for Cutie, Some Day You Will Be Loved
Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Sleep: Murray Ostril (They Don't Sleep Anymore on the Beach; Monheim (aka the first half of the second disc of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven -- GYBE! doesn't work so well for random 10s, do they?)
Sarah Slean, Mary
Weeping Tile, Don't Let it Bring You Down
Delerium, Incantation
Stars, This Charming Man

Happy weekend, y'all.

The inevitable Big White Wedding Post

2007-06-01T17:25:00.000-04:00

Maybe I am, as Judy Gerstel would have you believe, an "old-fashioned proto-feminist". Or maybe I'm just a grinch. But you're not going to convince me that huge white consumerist merengue weddings are somehow worthy of my support just by waving the word "choice"* around. As Twisty would say, not all choices are feminist choices, and being a feminist doesn't require me to endorse every choice a woman makes.

Gerstel, along with the wedding industry as a whole, would have you believe that a wedding is an idealized expression of the bride's identity, a realization of the princess dreams she's had since childhood (courtesy of Disney and Barbie et al, of course). But there's nothing original about the Big White Wedding -- it's a highly codified ritual, with very strict requirements. The social and familial pressure to meet expectations is enormous. When was the last wedding you went to where the bride wore a colour other than white?** And no, ivory doesn't count.

I'm not calling for us to harangue brides who choose to follow the script. I have family weddings this summer, too, and I'll show up ready to celebrate the happy occasion. I don't blame any of those brides for going along with what society expects of them. But let's not pretend that there's anything empowering or feminist or individual about BWWs, or that it's something women naturally want that we should just accept. Because come on.

*and incidentally, what is up with using the word "choice" against feminists as if it were some kind of trump card?
** the white-dress thing is a particular irritant to me. It's become this huge symbol of "virginity" and "purity" (snort) and tradition, but its popularity dates only to Queen Victoria wearing a white dress to her wedding. Before that, wedding dresses were just one of your best dresses, not a one-time-only white confection.

Multiculturalism and women's rights

2007-05-28T20:30:00.001-04:00

So the Star wants to have "a conversation about multiculturalism" and whether or not it's working. They're starting with women's rights.

The lead-in story is about a man who killed his wife, and then claimed he'd done so for his "honour" and his religion. So the entire discussion is framed by the idea that multiculturalism is a shelter for those who want to abuse or oppress women. In other words, "ethnic" women are oppressed by their culture and society in comparison to the women of white, western, mainstream Canadian society.

The problem with this contruction is that it leads directly to the idea of the ignorant, backwards savages, just waiting for Western society to ride in on a white horse and civilize them. It's the same narrative that claims we invaded Afghanistan in order to "free" Afghan women.

The thing of it is, white Western "civilization" is not really all that kind to women. Oh sure, we have technical equality. But how many women are Members of Parliament? Heads of major corporations? In decision-making positions generally? We don't stone women for adultery, but how many women are beaten, abused, or murdered by the men in their lives? We don't legislate burkas, but are we really free to wear clothes that make us comfortable and to look the way we want? What's more oppressive, a hijab or breast implants? How are our cultural imperatives really superior to those of other cultures?

We want to immigrants to assimilate into Canadian society, we say. But when we prevent girls from playing sports because we don't like their headwear, or give a woman a hard time for wanting to swim in something insufficiently sexy, are we really liberating anyone?

No woman should have to suffer for being a women. And religion or culture is no defense. But that's just as true of "Canadian" culture as it is of any other.

Perhaps, instead of judging newcomers to Canada for not being "Canadian" enough as regards women's rights, we should examine the beam in our own eye. We are not such paragons, we white westerners, that we can tell anyone that our way of living is the only appropriate one.

Friday Random Ten

2007-05-25T16:16:00.000-04:00

My brain's too hot for substantive posting today, I'm afraid. I haven't acclimated to summer just yet. So in the meantime, ten random songs from the iPod.

Counting Crows, Round Here
Tori Amos, Famous Blue Raincoat
PJ Harvey, No Girl So Sweet
Metric, Wet Blanket
Moby, Lift Me Up
Stereolab, Diagonals
Department of Foreign Affairs, The Small Print
The Frames, In The Deep Shade
Loreena McKennitt, Courtyard Lullaby
Cat Power, I Don't Blame You

Disclaimer: I do think breastfeeding is a good thing

2007-05-22T18:36:00.001-04:00

I must admit, when I first saw this story about adoptive moms breastfeeding, my immediate reaction was a gee-whiz "isn't that neat" reaction. I also, of course, immediately wondered if they'd be able to extend this induced lactation to men, à la Woman at the Edge of Time.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is really just one more addition to the cult of Perfect Parenting. Or rather -- let's be honest here -- Perfect Mothering. It's not enough, any more, to adopt a child, bring hir home, and love hir. Now you have to take all kinds of hormones and pump your breasts for weeks, in the hopes of producing enough breastmilk to "give your child the best start in life".

Listen to what's involved:

The 32-year-old municipal engineer started a rigorous pumping routine - every three hours, around the clock - even darting home from work on a sewage project to keep up the routine.

After four weeks, with the help of a drug to promote lactation and some supplemental formula bottles, Ms. Baird was able to breastfeed her newly adopted daughter.

This is not a minor effort. This is something that takes serious commitment, a willingess to take lactation-promoting drugs (with side effects? most drugs do have 'em), and a co-operative employer (who won't mind you 'darting home from work'). And I hear pumping isn't exactly pleasant for a lot of women.

I mean really, isn't it just one more thing for mothers to feel guilty about? If you can't breastfeed for whatever reason -- medical, work-related, whatever -- now there's another counterexample of women going to extreme lengths to do what you can't. And if you're an adoptive mom, and you're not willing/able to put in the kind of effort induced lactation calls for -- and it does sound like a pretty serious effort to me -- are you now an inferior candidate? Will people who'd make great parents start getting rejected because they can't or won't put their bodies through this?

6 Billion Others

2007-05-21T10:13:00.000-04:00

6 Billion Others is, essentially, a series of interviews with people from all over the planet, answering questions such as "what is love?" and "what did your parents teach you?". It's a wonderful glimpse into the lives of people you'd never ordinarily meet.

(via redjenny)

So punching boys is acceptable, then?

2007-05-20T10:49:00.000-04:00

This past week, a visiting hockey fan was punched by one or more Senators fans for making a joking comment about the game.

This is, of course, an appalling display of violence and sports-related stupidity. Taunting the opposing team is a time-honoured part of competitive sports, and taking sports overly seriously is a time-honoured display of lack of perspective. I should think it goes without saying that punching people is not okay. And that if our devotion to our team is such that we'll punch people for saying bad things about them, perhaps we should lay off the beer and take some deep breaths.

But hockey fans do stupid things and get into stupid fights all the time. Do you know why this story really made the news?

Because the victim was a woman. And, as everyone knows, you don't punch girls.

I agree: punching girls is a bad thing. I would go so far as to say punching anyone is a bad thing. So why does this kind of display of poor sportsmanship have to be tied up with archaic notions of chivalry and protection of the "weaker" sex?

Reviewing a film I haven't seen

2007-05-17T18:03:00.000-04:00

I was at the movies the other day (watching something fluffy and absurd, no doubt), and got to see a preview of the forthcoming Knocked Up.

The premise, if you haven't heard of it, is that a pretty, succesful young woman, upon getting a big promotion, goes drinking to celebrate and has a one-night stand with "some guy" who is neither conventionally attractive nor rich and succesful. She ends up pregnant. She then calls up the guy, and lightweight romantic-comedy hilarity ensues.

There is something profoundly unsettling to me about this premise.

Let's set aside the abortion issue entirely -- in the popular media these days, no one ever seems to consider terminating an unplanned pregnancy, but let's give the benefit of the doubt here: the character may legitimately want to be a mother, or she may decide that it's the best choice for her. Nothing wrong with that, although I doubt any alternative will even be raised.

What bothers me is that she decides to seek out the guy, and that she (apparently) starts a relationship with him. Come on. I'm willing to suspend disbelief only so far. Yeah, sure, rom-com premise. But how much do you want to bet it'll get couched as 'a child needs his father' or some such?

This is not just a silly idea for a romantic comedy (although it's definitely silly). This is a statement of cultural belief. That a woman who gets pregnant after casual sex* would rather try to be a co-parent with someone she doesn't even know** than be a single mother says a lot about what this culture thinks of single mothers. And do I even need to say how appalling the idea is that a baby will bring two people together into a context appropriate for a romantic comedy?

What it comes down to, for me, is that this is a profoundly reactionary premise. And even if the film ultimately subverts it (which I cynically doubt), the very existence of the premise, the fact that the studio expects it to sell movie tickets, promotes this kind of reactionary thought.

Also, it's probably gonna suck.

* it would be unsporting of me to ask if any birth control was involved, wouldn't it?
** not to be alarmist, but seriously. She knows nothing about this guy. And she's going to let him help raise her baby? I don't think so.

Life is unfair

2007-05-16T18:11:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to come up with something intelligent to say about this article from Monday's Globe and Mail, but I just keep coming back to the same thought: how incredibly unfair. This poor woman would have been, it seems to me, an excellent candidate for permanent residency and citizenship (I haven't, of course, seen her file, but no one seems to be saying otherwise). And now she may have to leave, because of something that happened to her here.

If she'd been assaulted in a more conventional way -- mugged and beaten up, say -- and left with a permanent medical condition (not being a doctor, I'm having a hard time thinking of an equivalent, but let's say permanent damage to a major organ, requiring ongoing care), would she still be expected to leave? I honestly don't know the answer.

I do hope the article draws enough attention to the case that Citizenship & Immigration will reconsider. Not that the immigration system can ever be truly fair, any more than life in general can be; but this looks like a special case if ever I saw one.

2007-05-14T19:21:00.000-04:00

The story's been all over the Canadian lefty blogosphere, and even Garth Turner's in on the act -- a pro-life rally on the Hill used the Canada workmark (that's the word "Canada" with a little flag over the last "a") on one of their banners.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know if the Conservatives sponsored the march, or if the logo was used without permission?

(to be honest, much as I'd like to accuse the Harperites of re-opening the issue, my money's on the latter. It wouldn't be the first time the wordmark's been used without permission)

And, surprisingly enough, I haven't heard a peep from the media on the subject... have you?

Duceppe's mistake

2007-05-14T18:52:00.000-04:00

Gilles Duceppe says he "made a mistake" when he decided to run for the leadership of the Parti Québecois ... and then quickly changed his mind.

There's been a lot of speculation about what on earth Mr. Duceppe was thinking when he first announced that he wanted to lead the PQ, and then why on earth he would flip-flop so quickly. The Globe says he was counting on the support of another potential candidate, and when Curzi said he wasn't running Duceppe's chances immediately looked much poorer.

My personal theory? I think Duceppe figured he could bully Mme. Marois into sitting this one out. He figured that if he announced quickly and loudly enough, she'd just roll over and let him win, rather than risk dividing the party. And then, when she did not just give in, he was left in an awkward position.