Shave the Date! Free from Bush!

We're pleased here in Canada that Bush is making his exit in January. Join our American sisters in this celebration! Mominatrix has initiated "Shave the Date: No Bush Left Behind".

Calgary Assault

Michelle Butterfield reports a tragic and bizarre story in the Calgary Herald this morning (see also the government press release). Shortly before midnight last Friday, a woman was attacked by Daryl Pichler and beaten unconscious. This is a sad and bizarre story. Two men took the woman and Pichler to their home and it wasn't until two hours later that EMS was called. This woman is in critical condition. From the police report it is foggy what happened on Friday night but why would a woman woman suffering life-threatening injuries be talken to her home with the man that inflicted them? It seems they share a home together but if home is where the heart is this woman's is broken and Pichler should find prison comfortable.

Update: Looking back into prior press releases, it is claimed that the men who drove the couple to their resience were "unaware of the incident"; but that just doesn't make sense:

The woman suffered extensive head injuries during the altercation, which rendered her unconscious; unable to speak or walk away from the area. At least two vehicles pulled over to assist the woman following the assault. Unaware of the incident, the two men inside one of the vehicles, possibly a beige-coloured Toyota Corolla or NissanAltima, drove the couple to their nearby home in Deer Run.

If she was unconscious, unable to speak or walk, how were these good samitans, then, unaware of the incident? I don't get it.

Diatribe

Brilliant diatribe from Photoshop Disasters via Feminist Philosophers this morning:

In a breathless deconstruction of the trite family self-portrait, USA PhotoHouse deftly excises the phallocentric father figure, leaving a single hand to signify - with profound semiotic irony - the hidden hand of capitalism. The camera is bereft of any screen or viewfinder in a de facto refutation of the omnipresent panopticon of male gaze, while the child points aimlessly out of the savaged image in a cathartic denunciation of the testosterone-poisoned concept of understanding directions. Marvellous.

A fine wordsmith.

ZP3 Jubilee

New Scientist reports that a new form of contraceptive (see also this story from 2007) for women may someday be available which does not interfere with hormones. For young women in their teens who chose to take a hormonal form of contraceptive, this is extremely exciting news in that menstrual cycles could maintain their natural way and females reproductive health could develop uninhibited by synthetic estrogen and progestin interfering with ovulation and the endocrine system, not to mention cases of decreased libido.

ZP3, the receptor in the zona pellucida and a protein in the coating of eggs which facilitates sperms' ability to bind and burrow, might be disrupted by a hormone-free drug which would bind to ZP3 and prevent conception.

This is HUGE so long as an abundance of research is done to confirm any and all negative side effects or issues with this that may be harmul to women's immediate and long term reproductive health.

Honk to End Violence

This morning approximately 120 Calgary Girl Guides lined Memorial Drive to mark Canada's National Day of Action and Remembrance on Violence Against Women. It was wonderfully inspiring to see children holding a "Honk to End Vioence" banner and whooping with excitement when vehicles responded with their horns. It is so important to have young girls learn about protesting and experience the power of raising our voices against somethig we feel strongly about. It is necessary to build confidence in our thoughts and convictions through dialogue and positive reaction. Kudos to the organizers of this event and to the little sparks, brownies and guides who gave a positive message to the community this morning.

Fit Throwing

Steven Harper wanted to shut down Parliament just because he does not agree with it. Some say this is unprecedented.

In fact, Harper is following parliamentary tradition.

Click here to visit Rabble and find out who else has been hissy...

Silence is Violence

Graceful, candid, intelligent and insightful, Sarah Ghabrial reflects on the death of Aqsa Parvez on the eve of the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Some excerpts:

Genuine compassion or inquisitiveness regarding Aqsa's story dissipated all too quickly in the ensuing frenzy over the Canadian 'minority question.' The day after Aqsa's story broke, CityNews brandished a headline describing the "tradition and terror" behind the tragedy. A National Post columnist seeking to explain "the meaning of Aqsa Parvez" was quick to describe her death as an "honour killing" and elaborated on the "loathsome and barbaric" nature of the culture from which, according to this versions of the narrative, she was desperate to escape.

There is no doubt that Aqsa was desperate to escape - from her abusive home and tyrannical father. But as a young woman of colour, living at dangerous intersections of race and gender, belonging and exclusion, her options for escape were sadly limited. Women like Aqsa matter little in the grand scheme of things - until their deaths provide convenient grounds on which to mount xenophobic vitriol against Canada's dark Others.

...

In Canada, there exists a strange paradox: a tendency to view women of colour and 'immigrant' women - especially Muslim women - as particularly weak and vulnerable, due to the supposedly more intrinsic patriarchy of 'their' cultures; and a concurrent, stubborn unwillingness in our legal, emergency response and, most importantly, education systems to put forward solutions that reach out to women in these positions, rather than further marginalize them.

...

When certain persons must be imprisoned without trial, when certain countries must be invaded, when certain communities must be ostracized, even the vilest patriarchs are all too happy to invoke 'feminism' - or their weak understanding of it. Conservative leaders seem to have few qualms about vilifying feminism as the source of all things anti-family and awful, and then raising a feminist flag to front an amorphous 'war on terror.' It would be almost funny if not for the perplexing ways in which so many feminists - inevitably white feminists - willingly participate in such posturing. The sound heard from mainstream feminist camps in the wake of Aqsa's murder was a combination of racist muttering and bewildering silence.

Link Against Violence - Event Notice!

Saturday, December 6 marks Canada's National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Girl Guide groups across Canada are forming a link to show strength and solidarity. In Calgary, come out and join the human link of Girl Guides on Memorial Drive.
See Press Release

When:
Saturday, December 6
Time: 9:00 AM
Where:
2188 Brownsea Drive NW (Girl Guide Club House; the link will be over the Pedestrian Bridge!)

You Know You are A Dreamer

Dreaming of a white Christmas? Dreaming of world peace? Dreaming of finding that perfect gift? Dreaming of peace in women's lives? There's still time to order your 2008 "Dreams for Women" calendar from British Columbia's Antigone Magazine before Christmas.

Visit Antigone Magazine today to order your beautiful calendars for your special someones!

Oh.

Via Boing Boing. Boob Job piggy bank for little girls' (?) rooms. Or why not just lay back on some greasy lipstick and think about how to get a better body. yeah, this looks really comfortable:

Slap the GAP

The University of Calgary earned some social justice points yesterday after the anti-choice pro-life campus group set up its hideous posters [LINK and LINK]. I don't understand the University's change of heart, though, because the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) has set up its booth in the past with the U of C's permission, citing free speech (the same group which drove a foetus van around Calgary). It makes me wonder why an internal group is threatened with legal action but an external organization is given the green light. I dug back into the Calgary Feminist Meetup Group's message board from 2006 when the GAP set up at the U of C and one user wrote the University requesting an explanation for why such a hateful message would be supported by student council and I will reiterate her reported response from External Relations:

Every year pro-life approaches us on their project and every year we have to struggle with a determined group of students firmly wishing to see it happen and an equally determined group who want to keep it away. It should be noted that the “GAP” agenda is to cause controversy and confrontation in order to generate the widest possible dispersal of their message. We at the Students' Union haves struggled with this group not over their message but rather in the sensational, aggressive, and ultimately hurtful way they choose to propagate it. Understanding this we have to try and balance the needs of the student body to conduct their daily business in a safe and comfortable environment with the obligation to honor the principle (and law) of the freedom of _expression. This year our compromise with the pro-life club was that they would be able to display their material on the South Lawn if they agreed to a) have the display encircled by a snow fence, b) place warning signs in front of their display warning students of the offending images ahead, and c) have the billboards facing inwards so that students would have to walk into the display willingly rather then be passively exposed to it. We thought this was a reasonable compromise the pro-life club however refused our terms over condition c) and threatened a legal challenge. We discontinued communication and redirected them to the university.

I think the universities position on this issue can best be summed up in this excerpt from Vice-President Roman Cooney's message to another concerned and angered student on this issue:

"...I, too, find this exhibit extremely offensive and let me assure you that the University does not, in any way, sanction this event. Our dilemma is that the law is quite clear. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms we could not compel the group to reorient their signs so that people on campus would have a choice as to whether or not to participate. We made numerous requests to have the signs face inward, or be located in another spot, and these were rejected by the group and its legal counsel.
For the same reasons we are not in a position to tell the group what it can, and cannot, display. The alterative was a lengthy and costly court fight that has already been lost on other campuses. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in particular those sections regarding freedom of _expression, Campus Pro-Life has the legal right to display these images, regardless of their impact on the community. In law, error falls on the side of the greatest latitude for freedom of _expression. Therefore, the choice for the University was not whether to endorse or reject this display, but whether to reject or uphold the principle of freedom of _expression. If you believe in the Charter, you must believe in the principles it upholds, even when those principles are being abused, as I believe they are in this case.

In fact, I agree with many of your points. But the University cannot ignore the law and more importantly the principles behind it.

I would urge you to contact the organizers through Drew Brown at enable_consulting@hotmail.com and share your views. I think it is important that others on campus express their concerns about the confrontational manner in which this group makes its argument.

Your points are well taken, but they need to be raised with the organizers, who are ultimately responsible for this display.

Sincerely,

Roman Cooney
Vice-President, External Relations"

I hope this helps in your understanding of the issue and some of the work and thought that has gone into this before allowing pro-life display on campus.

Sincerely,

Bryan west
President of the 63rd Student Legislative Council

I dot support the GOP's booth set up nor the campus pro-life's sick signs. But why the double standard? Upon further investigating, it seems that American-based GAP has a powerful legal team that sues any organization standing in its way and the University of BC's relationship with them goes way back... U of C just doesn't seem to want to dig its heals in against the powerful GAP and risk a lawsuit. Perhaps the U of C could use UBC-Okanagan as a shiny example of bravery in this campus pro-life organization's behaviour:

VICTORIA (CUP) — A ruling out of the B.C. Supreme Court has supported one student union’s decision to revoke a campus pro-life group’s club status.

Legal cases instigated by a pro-life student group is expected to have cost the student union at UBC–Okanagan about $45,000 as they successfully defended their right to not support the club.

Though the student union does not have a pro-choice mandate, they have not supported Students For Life since 2006, after the group refused to grant the student union’s request that they not poster campaign material from the Genocide Awareness Project, which included graphic images of aborted foetuses.

All in all, I'm pleased the University took a stand against the pro-lifers' violent "comparable" abortion posters (a Rwandan child killed by a machete, to name one) and support the committed pro-choice students and staff's actions against the foetus fetishists' desperate attempts at argumentum ad populum that really just piss people off.

Daft Taft

This morning CBC radio confirmed the passed motion in the Edmonton legislature that Rodeo is well on its way to being Alberta's official sport. My animal complaints aside, it irritates me that white male-dominated rodeo is officially the sport of this fine and balanced province. Women's participation is limited to barrel racing, flag bearing and, oh yeah, being pretty. Miss rodeo, anyone? Ah, rodeo beauty pageants. Cowboy inspiration.

Sexist Stereotype Saturation

I was just browsing through a real estate magazine and noticed that every article in the 47 pages features a male real estate professional's opinion/commentary and his face-profile "business" photograph. Reading through each article, I came to the article, "Calgarians shop 'till they drop - $22.8 billion into cash registers".
I couldn't even the article because I was so distracted and insulted by the banner design inserted (certainly not a profile photo of a female business woman quoted in the article):

Of ten images of full-bodied skinny white women, three are wearing mini skirts, all but two are wearing stilettos, most are in skin-tight tops or pants, and one is even wearing a school girl skirt complete with bikini top and thigh-high visible stockings. And they all just look so HAPPY! Because that's what women love to do best is shop! Neat!

What's all the Feminist Fuss?

"I'm not a feminist, but..."
"I wouldn't say I'm a feminist, but..."
"...but I'm not a feminist."
"I'm a humanist, not a feminist. Feminism is dead."

Really. I've heard these disclaimers over and over again. The look of discomfort and defence in friends' eyes when I respond, "I am, absolutely I call myself a feminist and proud of it." This week the 2008 Global Gender Gap Report was released by the World Economic Forum. Reuters reports that:

Averaging 130 national scores, the report found that girls and women have reached near-parity with their male peers in educational attainment, health and survival, in both rich and poor countries.

Indeed, the most common argument against the necessity of feminism. To the contrary, though, Laura MacInnis continues:

But economically, in terms of workforce participation and earning opportunities, and politically, in terms of empowerment, the gap between the sexes remains large.

In 2007's report, Canada was ranked at #18, ahead of the United States by 13 points. In 2008 the United States was ahead of Canada by 4 points and Canada fell to #31. Canada scored #30 in estimated earned income. Average for female was (USD) $25,448.00; male $40,000.00. The most inequality for Canada was Political Empowerment. The female to male ratio of women in partliament as 21:79; Women in ministerial positions was 16:84 and Years with female head of state was 0:50 (0.1 - Kim Campbell for all of five months). To view the complete report for Canada, click here.

Women and men are NOT equal in Canada. Political empowerment has a long way to go towards equality and that seeps into the women's psychologies. It seeps into mine. Wage inequality affects my well-being and sense of respect every day I sit down in my office. Sure, Canadian women have equal educational attainment, health, and survival but there is much work to be done. I embrace feminism for this reason. There's enough voices claiming it's over. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "be the change you want to see."

Bush Concern

While all eyes are on the American election tomorrow, and news will cover the results, don't forget to keep an eye on what Mr. W. Bush is up to. He's still in power and with his loss of it there's some scary stuff he's going to try. Here's some of it:
Bush Rushes Harmful Environmental Laws