Girl Crush!

I have such a huge crush on Jill Filipovic. I can't even deal.

Here she is, taking on a right-wing blogger about the building of a "mosque" at "Ground Zero".

*swoon*

Too Many Amazing People for One Day

Usually when I make a blogroll of articles, it contains a long list of shitty news items that are incredibly depressing. Today, I'm happy to report that I'm compiling a list of must-read blog posts and articles. They're all so good that I couldn't possibly do the subject matters any justice on my own, so I'll leave it to them.

"No, I don't hate men. I distrust them". A classic blogpost from the blog "Shakesville" about this very statement. A must-read.

The epic (and let's face it, totally foxy) Jackston Katz discusses Mel Gibson's tirade against womyn, people of colour, queers, etc and how it speaks volumes about rape culture.

Salon takes on the new Rihanna and Eminem video for the song that I really, really want to hate.

Félicitations!

As a franco-ontarian and a proud Canadian, I can't love the Bloc Québécois. I just can't.

But I can love Gilles Duceppe and individual MPs from their party. And I do love Duceppe. I really do.

I met him in the context of abortion rights and dude knew his stuff. He admitted to being the first Bloc representative for Status of Women because, by his own admission, the Bloc started off with a crappy record on female representation in the party. He also called on his party to refer to the 'pro-life' movement as 'anti-choicers'. Dude was for real.

He is an also an impeccable dresser. FYI.

So I want to join in on those who are wishing Mr. Duceppe congratulations on 20 years as an MP. As one Globe and Mail comment states, love him or hate him, the other parties would do much better if they had a leader like Duceppe running the show.

Félicitations M. Duceppe!

Fact Over Fiction

As you know, I'm one of the people who has been going on and on about how killing the mandatory long-form census is a bad, bad idea.

To recap, killing it is so, very, bad because we need quality, tried and true, statistics in order to make good public policy. You can't make sound policy based on wonky facts or worse yet, no statistics at all.

But I knew that the reasoning for smashing the mandatory form had nothing to do with the so-called desire to protect 'civilian privacy'. I knew they had something up their sleeve.

The conspiracy theorist in me thought it was that they could shoot down demands for social justice issues under the guise of "You need research/data to back up that so-called claim of yours, Missy". And since they're hacking away at the census and de-funding social justice research groups, a claim of injustice would be harder to 'prove'.

Now the truth has come out: The Conservatives just don't like facts. Nope, they don't like 'em one bit.

Proof: Treasury Board President Stockwell Day has said that despite crime statistics going down, they are going to increase spending on prisons. His reasoning? "crime statistics are not accurate".

Now, if this was coming out of the mouth of anyone else, I just might believe it. Anyone who works as a front-line worker will tell you that rates of sexual assault, criminal harassment (stalking) and domestic violence are way, way higher than any statistic out there. Crimes such as these are highly under reported.

But a group as misogynist and anti-womyn as the Conservatives saying this? Sounds to me like more hogwash in an attempt to push a 'law and order' agenda. Let's not for one second fool ourselves into thinking they care about putting rapists, wife beaters and stalkers in jail. Do yourself a favour on that one.

Yet again, I don't know why I'm surprised by any of this. Of course Stockwell Day doesn't believe in facts - he's a fucking creationist!

Why the Mandatory Long Form Census Matters

Reasons why cutting it is really, really stupid:

1- The "Leave-People's-Bedrooms-Out-Of-This" is less Trudeau-Chic as it is just plain bad policy making.

2- The "We Need to Trim The Bureaucratic Fat" argument is just... silly.

3- It screws over First Nations.

4- And well, the decision to cut it clearly didn't involve consulting with those who actually know what they're talking about.

This might seem like a ridiculously petty 'scandal' but it's very telling of the political climate that Canadians are living in.

If we keep cutting funding to organizations that the government doesn't agree with, and cutting important research and cutting important statistical information, then people won't know what they don't know.

And that's a serious problem.

Vatican FAIL... again.

The Vatican has come out and said that child abuse in the Church is a major no-no. That is awesome.

Not so awesome? Equating the abuse of children in the church with ordaining womyn.

Yeah, apparently it's equally as sinful to ordain a womyn as it is to molest a child.

Oh, Church Logic. Isn't it grand?

No Honour in Misogyny

Rona Ambrose, the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, spoke on Monday about wanting to include 'honour killings' in the Criminal Code.

Me, and lots of other peeps, are opposed to this.

First and foremost, it's not necessary, from a logistical point of view.

"Three law professors said the first-degree murder provisions of the Criminal Code already contain all the tools needed to prosecute and punish those who commit "honour killings" and they knew of no Canadian judge or jury who treated cultural family "honour" as a mitigating factor in sentencing." (National Post)

So it's clear from the outset that this is ideological and in no way a real "Crime and Punishment" agenda. It wouldn't be necessary to get a conviction and it wouldn't change sentencing.

Before I move on though, none of this should matter. When discussing issues around a specific group (and let's be honest, this is targeting a specific group of people), how about discussing that issue with them?

In this case, it would be the Canadian Council on Muslim Women. And they don't agree with adding it to the Criminal Code for reasons that I 100% support.

"We as an organization don't want the term honour killing used in Canada because it's making it exotic, something alien, and foreign, and people are using that as a rationale to understand the murders. Let's not go that route. A murder is a murder. Let's not separate us as new immigrants or ethnic groups from the rest of Canadian women. It doesn't matter which culture, which religion or which ethnic origin we come from, the same laws should apply to us." (National Post)

The Conservative Government wants to appear as though they are tough on crime (which they are) but also that they do care about the lady folk. Everyone (except the Cons) knows that the party has been horrid to womyn in Canada and so they've turned the gaze 'elsewhere' and made it about 'saving the womyn of the world'. And in this case, womyn of the world who come to Canada.

It's total bullshit.

As a Canadian-born feminist, I must also say that it offends me to no end that people are up in arms about 'honour killings' but sensationalize or worse yet, barely discuss the murders of womyn as a whole.

In Canada, we have over 520 missing and murdered aboriginal womyn. Just today we heard about a 61 year old womyn who was sexually assaulted and almost died while visiting a friend's grave. (I would link to the story but it's really awful, so feel free to Google it yourself if you're wanting some salacious details). Eight womyn are sexually assaulted a day in Canada's capital city.

Womyn across the country are assaulted, kidnapped and murdered on a daily basis often because they have 'wronged' a partner, taken children away from abusers, or done something in some way that resists (or attempts to resist) someone's power. More often than not, womyn are murdered because they are womyn. And quite frankly, just existing for many womyn is an assault on some people's honour. But we don't call those honour killings. Hell, we don't even call them hate crimes. It's just - one more murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, battery, etc.

The root of 'honour killings' and the vast majority of violence against womyn is misogyny. Unless they're going to include that in the Criminal Code and start targeting the real roots of misogyny, which include an emphasis on 'crime and punishment' rather than social services, then the label of 'honour killings' does nothing but perpetuate racism and isolation of immigrant communities.

Rona and her pack of Conservative thugs should focus instead of attacking all roots of violence and using existing mechanisms rather than making stuff up that may sound fancy but doesn't mean shit.