Ça suffit!!! -- ENOUGH!

For over a decade, DJ! has published blogposts that expose the malevolent weapons deployed by patriarchy to enforce its gynophobic ideologies.

Fern writes and tweets mainly about choice with respect to women's reproductive rights, and its sociopolitical significance. I focus on individual and systemic manifestations of a system that upholds men's privilege and impunity in matters of physical and sexual violence against women and girls.

Around 2016 I lost patience with the drawn-out process of writing blogposts about these issues. So much unrelenting VaW everywhere across the planet, that tweeting / retweeting was expedient. 

Every act of violence against women and girls boils down to the same element: men are "allowed" to do what they do and the challenge is to not get *caught* and if that happens, count on the old white boys to affirm the male imperative to hunt down their prey and have fun, doing harm.

This. 

“I think this Tuesday, Dec. 15, will be a dark one for all victims of sexual assault, because I am an example of the limits of the justice system when it comes to sexual violence. I profoundly deplore that the myths and the stereotypes of another era, that were often brought up by the defence, could be echoed in that courtroom. It is a negative message sent by the justice system to victims,” Charette said.

“Finally, to all the victims, I would like to say this: Don’t be ashamed. Despite the disappointment of today, I invite you to denounce (sexual assaults). Things are starting to change.”

Change..? Seems so, so slow. Peter Nygård was arrested in Winnipeg for extradiction to the US to stand trial.

His arrest on sex trafficking charges came after U.S. federal authorities raided Nygard’s Manhattan offices earlier this year [...] after 10 women sued Nygard, saying he enticed young and impoverished women to his Bahamas estate with cash and promises of modeling and fashion opportunities. Several plaintiffs in the suit, filed in New York City, said they were 14 or 15 years old when Nygard gave them alcohol or drugs and then raped them. 

 

Last, and certainly not least. 

In a series of sexual-assault rulings this fall, the Supreme Court has sent a message to appellate courts that they should listen to lower-court judges who believe the complainant.

The court has ruled in seven sexual-assault cases this fall, and in all seven, it has taken the side of the complainant and prosecution. In five of those cases, appeal courts had thrown out convictions registered by trial judges, saying their decisions had been unfair to the male defendants. In the other two, trial judges convicted the men and appeal-court majorities upheld the convictions. [...]

Women’s advocates say the Supreme Court is maintaining its fairness.

“I really don’t see this in any way being about a loss of objectivity and fairness or jumping on the MeToo bandwagon,” Megan Stephens, the executive director and general counsel for the Women’s Legal Education & Action Fund, said in an interview.

The court, she said, is sending a message to appeal courts not to second guess trial judges on credibility and reliability assessments. “The primary message coming out of the Supreme Court is ‘don’t forget, you owe deference to those trial judges’. ”

Assessments of credibility (honesty) and reliability (accuracy) are central to the trial judge’s job. Appeal courts generally defer to these assessments because it is the trial judge who sits in court and hears directly from the witnesses. Witnesses do not testify at appeal courts. But if an appeal court believes the trial judge made a legal error in their approach to assessing credibility, it can throw out a conviction and order a new trial.

There were no legal errors. The criminal defence lawyers who appealed their clients' guilty verdicts would not accept the judges' judicial decision based on the testimony of witnesses / complainants whose credibility they attempted to destroy for their clients to *win* and to affirm their right to rape.

As these two squalid predators did, and were acquitted of their crimes, free to sexually assault again with impunity.

Legal errors. Did Judge Beaudoin commit any of those? Or was he merely conned by the prolific liar and accused serial sex predator Paul Batchelor?

Change. Whatever. Du n'importe quoi.

Deux poids, deux mesures

Some who followed my Twitter _deBeauxOs1_ account may have noticed my prolonged, unsolicited absence from that social media platform.

Yes, kittens. My account was suspended and Twitter has provided no answers to my questions, no grounds for justification to my appeals. It may be restored. But no worry, if you miss my daily injection of bons mots, droll thoughts and vivid excoriation of venal CONjob politicians — do check in here, at DJ!

Sanitary Panels is a political cartoonist who neatly captures the double standard that Facebook and Twitter apply to complaints with regard to content providers who allegedly flout their sacrosanct _Terms of Service_.

Or, as ASaintL and others put it:

Indeed. Why is that?

Infuriating, but I'm not the only person punished according to Zuckerberg's and Jack's pro-Toxic Masculinity and gynophobic, double standards.

Any Fix for Sex-Selective Abortion Would Be Discriminatory, Unethical, and Futile

Well, now at least we seem to have some decent research on sex selective abortion in Canada.

Previous studies indicated that it might be happening in "some communities," but there were quibbles about methodology.

This seems solid.

It’s the clearest evidence yet that abortion is being used to help parents have a son. A study has found that some Indian-born immigrants to Canada are selectively aborting female fetuses if they have already had two daughters. The researchers say, however, that action may not be necessary as the incidence is low, and the practice is likely to go away on its own as immigrants become settled.

Link to full study.

Yes, it's happening in Canada, but as we've said many times before: So what?

There is still zero evidence that the practice is skewing the sex ratio in general.

And if it is skewing the ratio in "some communities," we say again: So what? Parents who prefer boys may get a comeuppance when their precious sons bring home girlfriends (or boyfriends [!]) from other ethnic backgrounds.

But look at the hand-wringing going on. The normally sane Toronto Star has an unusually sensational piece about it.

Even my fave Matt Galloway of CBC's MetroMorning got into the "abortion is terrible" meme, trying really hard to get one of the study's authors to call the results "troubling."

@metromorning Well, that was disappointing. Matt tried twice to get author of #SexSelection study to say he was "troubled" by findings.

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 12, 2016

@metromorning Why "troubled"? Why not "what are implications?" Guy is a researcher. You want community reaction, ask them.

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 12, 2016

@metromorning Good. It's a complicated issue and I find it "troubling" you fall so easily into stereotypical tropes.

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 12, 2016

And while We Need a Law Like a Hole in the Head was ready with his SHRIEK!!!! (Title: Government needs to end pre-natal discrimination against women) and because somebody had to do it, Amateur Statistician asks WHERE ARE THE FEMINISTS????, it is very disappointing that mainstream media would prefer to point fingers and tsk-tsk.

(Other fetus freak sites are no doubt still working up their dudgeon.)

Also, this issue conjures up a disgusting stew of misogyny and racism. DO NOT read comments.

As an antidote, read this piece from the eminently sensible André Picard (from 2012) about the complexities of the issue.

Here's the thing: any attempted "fix" will be discriminatory, unethical, and futile.

Refuse to reveal sex of fetus until it's too late to abort? How exactly? Refuse to disclose all pregnant patients' own information? Or just "some" patients?

What about sex-related genetic disorders? Will we force people to carry blighted pregnancies to term because we're up in arms over possible sex-selection?

And it will all be futile because there are home sex-test kits, highways and airplanes, and unethical ultrasound technicians.

The only way to "fix" this is to value girls and women as we do boys and men.

That's a helluva long-term project, but it's the only way.

From New Scientist again:

In India, male preference has led to a shortfall of millions of female children, so strict legislation was necessary. But in North America, the problem is small and likely to resolve itself as immigrant communities become more integrated. “My suspicion is that in the second generation you would not notice this phenomenon at all,” [Anil Deolalikar, economist at the University of California] says.

Past DJ! posts on sex selection.


ADDED: Dr Brian Goldman weighs in and comes to the attention of Dr Jen Gunter, newly dubbed "Twitter's OB/GYN."

Get ready for a response big time https://t.co/ts1TyM6qie

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) April 12, 2016

This won't be pretty. :)


UPDATE April 13/16: Here is Dr Jen Gunter's response to Dr Goldman. Ouch!

Something Dr Gunter mentions that I -- and most other commenters on this subject -- have not is: multiple pregnancies in the quest for a male child. Since we know that pregnancy is 14 times more dangerous than abortion, why does no one consider the risk of multiple pregnancies for the "good" women who do not seek abortion?


UPDATE April 14/16: Yesterday, CBC's The Current ran an informative and hopeful segment on this issue, demonstrating how complex it is.

Not all harassment victims are viewed or treated as equal.

The journalist Ashley Csanady currently has a PostMedia piece that addresses Twitter harassment in general and in particular what happened when Michelle Rempel filed a complaint with the police.

Her excellent article provides a short account of the Rempel case as well as an overview of recent events, viz. the GAE trial.

It is factual and clear.

It doesn't editorialize or misrepresent as Blatchford is wont to do, when the demands of click-bait reporting or sob-sister sensationalizing gives her the cover she needs to champion the MRA cause.

Further to what Csanady wrote, there are points that bloggers and op-eds can raise.  This is where DJ! weighs in.

Last week I posted this about the sleazy grease of GAE's triumphant sneer.

The main difference between GAE and Damany Skeene is that the former oozes the slimy CONjob smarm that allow him and Ezra Levant to enjoy notoriety.  Their venal vituperation is widely disseminated and cheered by right wingers, racists, homophobe and misogynists.  In addition, GAE walks and talks the MRA/PUA philosophy. His entourage enables his narcissism and promotes him within the audiences of gynophobic orcs that slither at the edge of the world wide web.  He scored a point for Rape Culture!  His victims were not really victims because they had the NERVE to fight back against his vile invective!

Skeene, it would appear, is not supported or validated by any group.  In fact most people recoil from him.  One assumes the only compassionate attention he's likely to receive is administered by healthcare professionals.  He had used Twitter promiscuously to vent fury and hatred against a variety of targets.

The difference between Rempel and the women that GAE harassed, threatened, stalked and abused — online and "in real life" — is obvious. She was a Minister in the Con government when Skeene directed vile threats and verbal sexual abuse at her Twitter account.  Her complaint was legitimate and important because she was an elected official.  Police allocated the required resources to investigate, document, and prepare a case for the Crown to prosecute.  Her squadron of RCMP body guards was likely doubled.

But as Csanady points out, the trial unfolded under the media radar.

This gave me pause. Why did the PMO not seize this opportunity to demonstrate how their government was *tough on crime* and violence against women?

I suspect that if Skeene had been an individual who clearly associated with any left wing or progressive group such as anti-pipeline activism, or had expressed agreement with LPC or NDP policies, the PMO would have gleefully exploited the opportunity to smear the Harper regime's opponents.

But the truth is: deep down, Harper Reformist Cons never really gave a damn about Canadian women or even those prominent in their party. PMSHithead was a spiteful opportunist who attacked women who challenged him, and ditched or undermined those who became politically inconvenient: Deborah Gray, Belinda Stronach, Bev Oda, Helena Guergis, Beverley McLachlin, Cindy Blackstock ... a never-ending list, really.

Which is why Rempel was circumspect, and kept a low profile. There was no advantage then in using the criminal harassment trial to score political points for herself.  The PMO, or CPC HQ would have ground her into the dust.  She noted how the party destroyed Eve Adams because she wouldn't stick to the PMO script.

Nothing about Rempel's circumstances could be framed as a narrative that might enhance public sympathy in Harper's favour.  In fact, it was probably flagged as a potential nuisance and diversion from the grand election campaign plan.

But now.. Rempel is jockeying to gain an advance on other putative candidates for the CPC leadership.  I predict she will judiciously exploit the Twitter harassment trial, to establish credibility and to leverage whatever is beneficial to the image she is carefully crafting.

Update: As the tweet below points out, online campaigns that embolden threats of physical violence against Premier Rachel Notley in Albert keep escalating. The Wildrose Party leader has mildly spoken out against his supporters using these tactics that replicate the worst of US right-wing political dumpster fire rhetoric.

Alheli Picazo rigorously screen caps and archives evidence of online political incivility of all stripe. She documents what she has observed and caught before the thuggish authors delete them.  She regularly posts them in her Twitter line to remind partisans of that "people in glass houses.." thing.

Kathleen Smith has also noted and confronted those who instigate explosions of aggressive attacks against Alberta political figures.

Some journalists have reported on the scurrilous and terrifying threats expressed on Facebook, Twitter and in the comment threads at Levant's monetizing project, Rebel TV.  It is claimed the RCMP is investigating.

Yet NO charges of criminal harassment against the alleged RWNJ *rebels* have been filed yet, even though campaigns of online hatred against Notley have been encouraged and fed by Levant and his goons for over a year, now.

Enough is enough

This happened, certainly not for the first time on Porter Airlines:

Christine Flynn, 31, said she was buckled in and waiting for Porter Airlines Flight 121 from Newark, N.J. to Toronto to take off early on Monday morning when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man approached.

"He came down the aisle, he didn't actually look at me … or make eye contact. He turned to the gentleman across the aisle and said, 'Change.'"

Flynn said she was confused at first, wondering why the man was speaking to the other passenger and gesturing toward her. The man didn't speak to her directly, but Flynn said it's clear to her that he didn't want to sit next to her because she's a woman.

Flynn said she might have been willing to accommodate the man had he spoken to her directly and politely asked her to switch seats. She admits language may have been a factor — saying his English "wasn't terrific" — but said his refusal to even make eye contact was offensive.

"He could have made a plan, he could have put in a request," Flynn said in an interview Wednesday on CBC Radio's Metro Morning. "When someone doesn't look at you, and when someone doesn't acknowledge you as person because of your gender, you're a lot less willing to be accommodating.

"Leaving it to the last minute and expecting me to move is appalling. He's expecting me to fall in to that archetypical feminine role and acquiesce."

Other airlines, too.

My response would have been:

Oh yeah.  We see you Patriarchy.  The voluntary members of your ideological clan - the arrogant, the hateful, the entitled, the gynophobic - assume their beliefs are universal and immutable.

My solution:

Another solution: Make the dudes wear blindfolds.  If their eyes offend them by allowing them to *see* women, they can pluck them out.

Patriarchy is not limited to religious institutions; the crusty members of the *New Atheist™old boys club* easily roll within the ruts of obsolescent yet familiar dogma.

I would support a movement to dump ALL THESE DUDES on the next available uninhabited planet, with their toys, their issues, their fetishes, their infuriation, their toxic narcissism.

It's a phenomenon. Wherever male (or one man's) privilege or opinion is challenged, it produces a torrent of consummate women-haters cranking up the volume, using extreme sexualized and/or murderous terms, engaging in habitual 'masculine' trolling tactics directed at the target of their _rage du jour_.

It all eventually degrades into an orgy of vile verbal violence, with these jerks behaving exactly like chimps competing to establish who's the most alpha of them all, who is the most MASSIVELY endowed.

They just form a panel with Barbara Kay and Christie Blatchford judging who has the biggest metaphorical dick.  Or who is the best at compensating mightily

for a lack thereof.

Police charge alleged cupcake enforcer with assault.

Ottawa police have laid additional charges against a 75-year-old woman who is accused of approaching men and forcing them to eat cupcakes.

Gwen Landbrauchen was initially charged after police investigated several complaints about a woman approaching men during daytime hours in Orleans.

Police said that on July 8 and 9, a woman had approached three different men in incidents around the transit station at Place d'Orleans.

Police said that the woman would offer a cupcake from a Rubbermaid™ container she carried. If the victim refused, she would put the tasty treat against the man's face and threaten to make him eat it for his own good. 

Sometimes she would shout "Lebensmittel!" at them.  If the woman was confronted about her actions by the men she was attempting to feed, she would speak in a foreign language.

According to police, new victims have come forward, prompting additional charges.

Landbrauchen is facing four counts of assault. She appeared briefly in court by video Monday to face new charges.

One of the victims interviewed on condition of anonymity said that, had the cupcake enforcer been a MILF like Catherine Deneuve in a black leather jumpsuit yelling at him in French, he thinks he might have enjoyed the experience.

Since the alleged assailant is a wizened, cranky old lady muttering in German, he didn't like it so much. He added: "I think that it was a just a crummy Loblaws bran muffin with stale icing from a can."

Another victim, also requesting anonymity, said that his colleagues at work taunted him about filing a complaint.

"They kept mocking me, asking why I didn't punch her in the face or shove the cupcake down her throat. I don't engage in violence unless my life is threatened.  But I had to report her to the police. Even if she's someone's granny who's suffering from dementia.  She can't be allowed to force people to eat cupcakes. What if somebody choked on it and died?"


- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *

This is the news item that inspired the above spoof.  Think about the misogynist messages that media reinforce when they trivialize unwanted physical or sexual actions directed at women. 

Update: "Kissing bandit" was originally used by The Citizen, that acknowledged it was an inappropriate choice of terms, and changed it online.

If you think that media narratives using half-truths and prejudices don't create and cement false perceptions, read this powerful deconstruction of the NYT coverage of the infamous Kitty Genovese femicide.

About that journalist Bro' thing...

The vile hypocrisy on Parliament Hill with regard to explicitly shielding some politicians from public opprobrium, is nauseating.

This happened:

Except for Frank Magazine, there was a reverent hush from all journalists assigned to the House of Commons and Canadian politics beat, though some bienséants guys muttered about Matt Millar's flouting the rules of an implicit gentlemen's agreement around protecting politicians' *personal* lives.

You may recall the histrionic, outraged shriEEEking tirades expressed by Moore when the Museum of Science and Technology hosted a sex-positive and informative exhibit?

PatRiotChick aka @PatOndabak created and promoted the #RideMeWilfred hashtag on Twitter. The cone of silence around James Moore's sexting, from established PPG reporters, just solidified.

The PPG Bros won't address the CPC unofficial "Do as we preach not as we do" modus operandi when Harper Cons' purported christian family values are transgressed by the ongoing sex libertarianism of Vic Toews, Peter MacKay, Bruce Carson, Patrick Brazeau, Pierre-Hughes Boisvenu, Don Meredith (and likely many others) until, in the latter's case, there's a witness/complainant courageous enough to denounce the predatory aspects of power.

Someone whined about violating the *privacy* of the government employee's BlackBerry that contained the self-incriminating sexting between VanGirl & Moore. 

My co-blogger asked:

My response:

Juxtapose how Harper Con MPs reacted when they learned Vikileaks tweets had been posted from a government IPS provider.

Yet not one peep from the CPC benches on this very *personal* exploitation of a taxpayer-funded BlackBerry for non-governmental use.

A journalist that I greatly admire for his rigorous writing disappointingly displayed his complicity with the Brotherhood, exhibiting deference for Moore's recent resignation to spend more time with his family.

Fortunately, Frank Magazine did not obey the Bro's code, and wrapped-up the whole typically disingenuous CPC act, thus.

Seems to me, in light of the commitment that's required to care for a child with special needs, Mrs Moore is the one who could have benefitted from an adventure on the side, to restore and sustain her energies.  But I suspect the Brotherhood would NOT have expressed the same depth of compassion for an outside-the-conjugal-bed idyll she might have pursued, as they overtly did for Mr Moore.

Fuck PETA: why feminists are critical.

Another day, another *protest*, another dollar for PETA.

When mercenary mansplainers and faux-progressives grouse about being deprived of their eye candy entitlements - it's the 1970s all over again! Shulamith Firestone nailed it when she said: "Radical men may advocate certain freedoms for women when they overlap their own interest..."  When Firestone 'went too far' in denouncing the specific forms of sexual oppression that her male comrades enjoyed as privileges for their own benefit, she was maligned for her scathing honesty.

There is much valid criticism of PETA's spurious monopoly and its claim that it is an *ethical* champion for animal rights.

Here's why many feminist thinkers - vegetarians and vegans, rescuers of abused and abandoned animals, supporters and donors to genuine animal wellbeing organizations, do NOT endorse PETA's tactical shenanigans. 

[...]PETA has more or less dropped their initial pretense that they're simply cashing in on the sex appeal of attractive spokesmodels to draw attention to the cause of animal rights. The old "I'd rather be naked than wear fur" campaigns that I remember from my childhood were cute and harmless.

PETA has since graduated to ads and PR stunts depicting women as corpses, or animal carcasses with the names of cuts of meat written on their bodies as if they're waiting to be butchered. In one charming and frequently recycled campaign, PETA recruited naked pregnant women to pose as pigs in cages.

Using sex appeal to sell social justice is as old as social justice movements, and not something to get upset about, per se. PETA has gotten into the business of selling degradation.

From here.

I’m a supporter of animal rights who eats a mostly vegetarian diet (I occasionally eat fish). I support organizations like the Humane Society and the SPCA, and I would support PETA if they didn’t make a habit of lying, misrepresenting scientific data, and using images of dehumanized scantily clad and nude women to get money and attention[...]

The same was true for objectification. Both sexual ads and non-sexual ads objectified the women in them, but the sexual ads dehumanized the women in a way that resulted in decreased support. Objectified women were also judged as lacking credibility, but that alone didn’t account for a drop in support – only dehumanization did that.

The other interesting characteristic of this paper is that it is the first to show a link between the dehumanization of women and unethical behavior unrelated to gender and sex. Many feminists have made this point in the past, so it’s interesting to see a study that supports the assertion. I hope we see more research in the area, despite the fact that it will probably do little to convince the people at PETA or the men who constantly argue that the continued objectification of women is no cause for concern.

From here. 

The purpose of PETA's odious misogynist publicity tactics is to provide a steady influx of funds for the organization.  

Consider this.  What if the bodies thus exposed and marked up with butcher's markings were those of men resembling Mike Duffy and Rob Ford - in all their gluttonous, bloated, boozy, purple-veined raddled girth? 

Now that would surely repel the RibFest customers and put them off eating meat, at least in proximity to such protest.

Disgusting?  Yes. 

Degrading?  Yes.  

De-humanizing?  Yes.

But unlike the ongoing use of comely, attractive female interns and volunteers as tasty tidbits, exploiting such men would not be conducive to raising more millions$$$ for PETA's well-larded coffers.

One last word: 

C36 = CONtempt for women and CONtempt for the law.

Last week Justice Minister Peter MacKay, channeling all the prurient lunacy of General Jack D. Ripper and the worst pearl-clutching clichés of a Victorian schoolmarm, presented Bill C36 in the House of Commons.

The language Petey used and repeated for emphasis was quite revealing.

Harper and MacKay's new bill - C36 The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, the latest CPC government crap legislation and named the opposite of what it actually does - offers in one venal and meretricious piece of legal flimflam the worst of Con bias, prejudice and hatred.

It is a loathsome pottage of spitefulness (directed at the Supreme Court of Canada), class prejudice, racism, misogyny and fundamentalist religiosity.

The reaction on Twitter ranged from pithy excoriations by sex workers, lawyers, non-abolitionist feminists, charter experts and human rights advocates, to PMO-issued speaking points barked by CPC trained seals and fatuous accolades by anti-prostitution organizations.

This perspective was odd and interesting, with a focus on the utilitarian and economic aspects of sex work which allows a detached evaluation of the Nordic and New Zealand models. However its breezy conclusion: 
«..because the government regulates the activities of industries in which workers are put at risk, but also because machines have replaced much of the dangerous work that was previously done by workers the current state of technology is such that machines will soon be capable of providing the same services currently provided by sex workers. You don’t have to be an economist to predict that while governments have failed to reduce participation in the sex trades, technology is very likely to succeed» 
doesn't address the very basic human needs this service industry meets - and that machinery would likely not.

The last decades have seen an expanded commercial development of dolls that replicate some aspect of human bodies; though some are crafted to resemble in minute details all physical details of known porn actors, they are essentially very expensive, static silicone sex toys.  There's a niche market for (mostly) men whose sexual proclivities are geared towards the forcible penetration of beautifully crafted, inert objets d'art with compliant orifices.  It's worth glancing at the NSFW websites of Real Doll, Doll Story and Fantasy Sex Dolls to get a sense of which traits are valued and deemed desirable.

This segues aptly into the most lucid, trenchant and fierce deconstruction of sex work that I have read.

«What is prostitution? Are women selling a service, or are they selling themselves, as a commodity?

Many supporters of the Nordic model, both in feminist and family-values circles, say it’s the latter. Prostitution, they say, is a commodity sale. It is inherently objectifying and exploitative, they argue. It is itself a harm, even if all the associated harms can be eliminated. A woman who believes she is freely choosing her job has to be wrong about that, they argue. She is a victim whether she knows it or not.

Conservative MP Joy Smith is one of the strongest voices on this side of the debate, who says she recognizes “prostitution as an industry that is inherently harmful to women and girls and therefore must be eliminated.” She favours the Nordic model.

If you believe that selling sex means selling women, you believe that a woman’s value equals her capacity to have sex.

Framing this as a gender-equality argument is ironic, because that same notion underpins many of the world’s most sexist ideas — including the idea, still in place in some parts of the world, that rape is a property crime.

We in Canada don’t generally talk about rape that way any more, but we still use that language when we talk about prostitution. We use phrases like “selling her body” or even “selling herself” — rather than “selling sex.”

To assume that prostitution commodifies women, we have to also think a certain way about heterosexual sex. We have to think of it as male access to a woman’s body — not as something a woman does with her body. This is the "why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free" way of seeing women’s sexuality. Again, not exactly a gender-equality argument.»

(I interrupt Kate Heartfield's thoughtful prose with a crude example that illustrates how a married woman, in this case a politician's wife, is subjected to that very degradation that so incensed MacKay. Juxtapose this with the passage here in which Rob Ford attempts to traffick Renata. Also, if sex-workers were to publish clients' names, all would see that putative "family-values" rightwing Con men make up the majority of their lists.) 

«There is another way of looking at sex: that a woman’s value as a human being has nothing to do with whom she chooses to have sex with or how often or what conditions she imposes on that choice. If this is our assumption, then a woman who sells sex is not selling herself. She isn’t turning herself into a commodity, and neither is anyone else. Sex is merely the service she sells.»

Registered and practical nurses, athletes, child care workers, lawyers, therapists, morticians: all provide professional services that sometimes require that they engage in a particular activity that some people might find repellant and disgusting. The specific *ickiness* of a task does not detract from the knowledge, respect and dignity they bring to their jobs

What is most disappointing to me in this whole debate is the participation of abolitionist feminists who give credence to Andrea Dworkin's pragmatic and ideological analysis of women's bodies as pornographed and fetishized commodities.  Believing this construct to be so deeply embedded in all institutions that it cannot be uprooted, they think that in order to limit the horrific harm that's done to women who are trafficked or trapped by poverty and many vulnerabilities in the "sex trade", they are obliged to align themselves with punitive and sex-phobic Reformatory Evangelical conservative legislation.

Whatever their expertise, critics of C36 agree that it will NOT keep women safe; it will probably endanger them MORE than the old law did.

And, just in case you know people who still don't get why C36 is so MASSIVELY WRONG, direct them to Tabatha Southey's splendid slam dunk.

ADDED: Money for sex, sex for money is a personal reflection on sex work that I posted in March this year.

MORE: Joyce Arthur deconstructs the toxic misogynist religious ideology at the core of C36.

Doll Face (and Body)

Twitter is often a very strange place.

One of the people I follow, @SarahSecord, posted this earlier today.

I had to ask: Where does it come from? She didn't know, said the person who posted it "did not a) post it respectfully or b) provide the name of the artist."

So I used the fabulous feature of Google Images and dragged the image into the search box and found the artist, Freya Jobbins. Have a look at her other work. For me, it's about equal parts playful and seriously creepy.

Here's an Artist Statement from her.

Toys, especially dolls can represent so much to us all. Memories of surreal companionship, co-dependancy, learned nurturing, innocent love to sexual and morbid curiosity. Represented flesh, like the plastic flesh used to manufacture these dolls to recreate 'the real thing, has beauty in its divine detail. To the superficial perfection of Barbie, Ken and the Bratz dolls to the plump baby dolls, the plastic is a very non-traditional sculpting material. But the act of cutting, dismembering and reconstructing the damaged, discarded, and worthless dolls, into humanoid faces and busts is a metaphor I use either consciously or subconsciously.

This particular piece, though, has some complex resonance for me, and I imagine, other feminists.

Might this be the ideal vision of women by misogynist anti-choicers?

Me, I'm going to keep it handy to post whenever I get lectured about the proper role of women.

Should Doug Ford be told by an adult to shut up?

Last week we wrote this, about Doug Ford and his histrionics.

The more bullies like him and Rob bellow their loathsome discourse, the quicker it become evident how mendacious they truly are.

Today Doug Ford described Karen Stintz in disparaging terms, at a Toronto council meeting about how the city might handle future natural disasters like the ice storm. The Fordzilla brothers reacted to her criticism about Rob Ford's activities with their well-honed two-fer tactics: temper tantrums and name-calling.

From here: “You saw for the first time Karen Stintz going unglued. I’ve seen it numerous times,..." Doug Ford said.

Norm Wilner is a seasoned observer of the Toronto political and cultural environment.  He also tweeted this:

Before the council meeting, Mayor Ford was asked by reporters about his campaigning activities on the weekend.  A female journalist had the temerity to ask him if he had been drinking. His response was to suggest she was jealous - yes jealous - of the prurient attention that he draws when he appears in public.

Wilmer's observation about Rob Ford's attitudes towards women was not pulled out of thin air.  

In December, Ford said: "Women love money," [...] Ford added that while he planned to get his wife "some treats on the side," his big gift to her would be "a nice cheque." "I get a basket and flowers and a little bit of this and that, but at the end of the day, she wants her cash," he said. "So I give her a nice cheque and we're all happy." 

From here.  

The Sun reported recently that Ford bragged about what he did give his spouse Renata at Christmas. 

Since Ford doesn't let his wife talk to reporters, we'll have to take his word that "she's really really happy".

At this point, Diane, the Ford matriarch, may be the only one who might be able to get Doug and Rob to shut up.  Though it's unlikely she would do so; she gets gratification from her boys attacking women who are councillors and journalists and professionals; they are paid to speak their mind.  That's not why women get "a nice cheque" in the Ford family.  

My co-blogger fernhill has written quite a bit about the dysfunctional Fords. 

CONtempt™: it's the Harper CONservative party brand.

Another day, another cpc Senator in the news.

This particularly repulsive Con — Jean-Guy Dagenais — has also been a useful idiot for the Harper regime. As a former cop and past president of the police officers' association of Québec, Dagenais was a keen supporter of the federal long-gun registry.  Once tactically appointed to the Senate by PMSHithead, he CONveniently started spewing the anti-registry propaganda and speaking points supplied by the PMO.

Il a changé son fusil d'épaule.  And now, this:

In a letter sent to all parliamentarians, Dagenais referred to Charmaine Borg’s flyer as “a rag” and suggested she’s a whiny, ignorant, powerless Quebec MP who was elected by fluke and stands little chance of being re-elected.

NDP House leader Nathan Cullen said sending such a “offensive” missive to a 23-year-old female rookie MP is “paternalistic, childish, condescending and frankly misogynistic.” He served notice that he will ask the Speaker of the House of Commons next week to condemn Dagenais.

“The letter in question attacks the very legitimacy of a sitting member of Parliament,” Cullen told the Commons.

Stephen Taylor, the weathervane director of some astroturf Reformatory organization, and a self-selected arbiter on misogyny, equivocated and perorated about Cullen's observations.

What's Dagenais' next volley against the NDP elected member of Parliament?  To demand that Borg's home address and phone number be publicized, the better to incite his fellow bullies who share his views to hunt her down and sexually assault her, and finish the job that his impotent, CONvoluted p0rn-infused fantasies would want to see executed?

The collective recoil expressed by the female MPs in the NDP caucus should be noted, and respected.  Each of them knows how violence against women manifests itself in numerous and insidious ways; it is present in the truculent bellowing and lip-smacking self-indulgence of reactionary old white men who suffer from delusional entitlement syndrome.

Jean-Guy Dagenais is a prime specimen of the Reformatory plutocrats who are degrading Parliament.

Afterword: A point I raised, with regard to Dagenais' accusation that riding residents allegedly complained to him that Borg could do nothing for them: how can an individual MP redress or fix all the services and programs destroyed by the Harper governement: Employment Insurance, Veterans Affairs, Health, Environment, etc. etc.?

Update: More media pundits, all male so far, pooh-pooh the characterization of Dagenais' attack upon Borg as misogynistic.  It means women-hating, not the same as sexist.  I wonder who will be the first to label the reaction of female MPs as "hysterical".  Might be one of the anti-feminists: Wente, Lakritz or Kay-mère, perhaps Blatchford?

More update: I went looking for a useful and helpful perspective on systemic misogyny that included the vile tactics that the Harper dirty tricks handbook promote, when directed at women and launched by an Attack Parrot™ like Dagenais.

Misogyny is also – because of the very nature of its deep-seated, psychological hatred – a linking factor among the various [...] hate groups and militias. That means that people who hate women may also exhibit authoritarian, violent and bigoted behavior towards minorities.

From here.

Misogynist Rites Activists Alberta Style Part the Second

Well, we knew it was coming after the show earlier in the year.

When Canadian "GirlWritesWhat", Edmonton member of American misogyny group/aggregate blog and fun group "A Voice for Men" (google it, I'm not linking), fronted to the media for the group after a slut-shaming poster campaign that went up around the Uof Alberta, American Paul Elam, head of AVfM, crowed about how much mileage they were going to get out of people being outraged by their speaking truthiness to Power in a country where they could be bold Spartacus in lumberjack shirts, throwing off the shackles of  feminarchy. (Don't judge, the style and content makes as much sense as what the MRAgers print all the time)

The buzz hit of publicity must be dying down because our mighty heroes upon the barricades repelling feminazis and manginas hauled the gambit out again to beat the drums back up.  Or beat something back up.

Just to be sure media pays attention again, they've upped the ante by identifying individuals who opposed them in their first poster campaign; including mayoralty candidate Don Iveson.

For special fudge and nut sprinkles they're claiming to be opening a Calgary 'chapter' to house the many seeking their brave leadership.  Oh heart of the New West, they shall rescue you from your feminenshiazation where men are roped and rode and women put the spurs in day and night and all other genders and sexes are just an eeeeeevil womanly conspiracy involving line dancing vagina dentata sharks with lasers on their...but I digress.

The latest brave and bold poster campaign in Edmonton tried to attach itself  limpet-like to already established aims of progressive-friendly causes....soooorta....

"A caption below the image reads: “Theft isn’t black. Bank fraud isn’t Jewish. And rape isn’t male. Just because you’re paid to demonize men doesn’t mean rape is gendered. Don’t be that bigot!”

They helpfully attach this stirring declaration to an image of UofA women's studies professor, Lise Gotell.  I really appreciate how the message of not making stereotypes resonates with the second sentence.  Brings tears to my eyes.

But the comment section below the article is the real tell of their usual litany of being entitled to their own facts and appropriation of authentic men's awareness groups.  First comment is from Paul Elam, followed by pretty much the subscription list for AVfM, including editor Karen Straughan aka "GirlWritesWhat", all looking to bemoan and rail against their straw version of feminism and how it's kept men down.

Yeehaw!

Le théâtre politique, Québec-style.

What is currently unfolding in La belle province is a spectacle.  It's not Grand Guignol yet, but given the inflammatory issues involved, it may yet descend to that.

The knives are certainly being sharpened, and they will be used judiciously to silence critics and opponents.

MP Maria Mourani was expelled from the Bloc Québécois caucus following comments she made about the proposed Quebec charter of values: la charte des valeurs québécoises.

In an interview with Radio-Canada on Wednesday, Mourani said Quebec's charter of values was a political miscalculation on the part of Premier Pauline Marois.

Mourani was making the comments as a spokesperson of a pro-sovereignist group in favour of secularism which calls itself "les indépendantistes pour une laïcité inclusive."

Bloc Québécois Leader Daniel Paillé said Mourani's comments are "irreconcilable" with the party's position.

The Parti Québécois claims that this Charter will unify all Quebecers within a secular state, one that is devoid of all image and symbols of adherence to religious beliefs.

Crucifixes prominently displayed on provincially funded public institutions are to be exempt from the Charter.  Its continued presence is defended as a valid historical and cultural artifact for the majority of Quebecers, in patronizing rhetoric uttered by Bernard Drainville.

Last year, PQ candidate Djamila Benhabib had the temerity to suggest, as a follow-up to the recommendations of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, that the MASSIVE crucifix hanging in the National Assembly be taken down.  She was attacked and

... forced by members of her own party to recant, she was castigated as a foreigner with alien values and an unpronounceable name by Saguenay mayor Jean Tremblay. Her crime? Not having enough cultural Catholicism to know that the principle of secularism only applies to other religions.

The crucifix is a reminder of the oppressive, authoritarian and violent power that the Catholic church wielded.  Many First Nations people and descendants of the survivors of La grande noirceur do not wax nostalgic about the crucifix.

...Charles Taylor, the well-known academic who co-chaired a provincial commission into reasonable accommodation in 2007, describes the proposal as an “absolutely terrible act of exclusion.” So the debate is on.

Former Quebec Premier Bernard Landry has lashed out at English Canadian media for “Quebec bashing” while covering the matter. Landry told CBC Radio’s As It Happens that Quebec welcomes immigrants but wants them to join society. “When you change country, you change country,” he said. “And you have to get first the language, then the culture and integrate.”

In the same interview, Landry even goes on to ridicule the idea of police wearing turbans, which harks back to the Reform Party’s 1989 convention resolution stating that Sikhs should be barred from wearing turbans in the RCMP.

Landry’s comments on religious accommodation obviously shift quickly to immigration policy although individuals barred from wearing religious symbols would likely include native-born Quebecers.

From here. 

I have been reading La Presse, Le Devoir, Le Droit and listening to Radio-Canada with regard to la Charte des valeurs québecoises almost non-stop since last Tuesday.  My head hurts from the intellectual dishonesty and contradictions advanced by those who support and vigorously defend la raison d'être of this project.

Yesterday I had a long chat with a neighbour who wears le hijab about faith, spiritual devotion and cultural adaptation, while we were waiting on OC Transpo.  On the bus, I noticed a young man of African ancestry who may have been an immigrant — or born in Canada as my neighbour was.  He wore un chapelet around his neck. This rosary was made of fluorescent green plastic.  It was quite ostentatious.

It reminded me of cab-drivers who prominently display cross or large medallions that feature Catholic saints.  These objects are usually dangling from rear-view mirrors.  I have asked a few of them:  Do you put these in your taxi so that customers will know that you are not a muslim?  The answer is always an embarrassed yes.

And why is there a photo of Tonto, as embodied by Johnny Depp at the beginning of this blog?

Publicity, even negative, is considered by public relations flaks to be a *good thing*.  Which is why the PQ leaked information about la Charte to engineer a "crisis" ahead of its release, and to provoke a negative reaction from the Rest of Canada.  A win/win situation for the PQ.

Like Depp's costume, la Charte is a shallow, histrionic contrivance designed to create a furor, and to disguise the inherent racism and white privilege oozing from this political tactic.

So. Islamophobia exists. Christian and white privilege exists in Canada.  Religious fundamentalists are using the same tactics as the PQ, framing the *problem* to suit their ideology as well as exploiting people's fear and anger.

Violence against women occurs all too frequently; it seems it's only when a crime is motivated by fundamentalist muslim patriarchal ideology that femicide is rigorously investigated and prosecuted according to existing laws.  When the killing of women is fuelled by christian fundamentalism, only feminists feel that the media should equally denounce it.

Fortunately Tabatha Southey rescued me from feeling as gloomy and grumpy as Depp seems — and I don't even have to choose to wear (or not) head-gear for business, cultural, religious or political reasons. 

“The state has no place interfering in the moral and religious beliefs of Quebecers,” Bernard Drainville, the minister responsible for the charter, said in a bid to explain its stated rationale.[...]

Mr. Drainville’s voice remained remarkably steady for a man who, we’re asked to believe, understood himself to be addressing the confused population of a province whose citizens have been soldiering on through what he called “a crisis.”

The crisis, he clarified in a follow-up interview, stems from the “tensions” and “much frustration” caused by the “clearly unreasonable religious accommodations” that minorities in the province have been granted on occasion.

By “tensions,” was he referring, for example, to a case this summer when a newspaper reported that Muslim and Jewish groups were allowed to bring their own food into the La Ronde amusement park – which offers no kosher or halal dining option? The outrage caused the park to forbid the practice.[...]

Last year, my mum lost her hair to chemotherapy. She found wearing a wig too uncomfortable to bear and so played around with a scarf for a while but was unhappy with the results.

“I was trying to achieve the graceful look I’d seen on Muslim women,” she told me, “but instead I looked like Princess Anne at the races.”

Eventually, she called the Islamic Society of Guelph and asked if someone could help her. “I’ll give you my wife’s cell number,” the man she spoke to said. “She’s awesome.” The two women met at the rec centre it turned out that they both frequent and my mother was scarf-schooled.

 

Just a reminder: the head covering worn by La Piéta is a *traditional* garment. 

It seems quaint now, just as the babushka certainly was when hundreds of Ukrainian Catholic women immigrated to Canada, their scarves firmly knotted under their chins.

A much earlier DJ! post about women being solidaires with women who choose to wear the hijab, here.