Tag Archives: women

I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death

2 Apr

TW for talk of police brutality

I just finished reading Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park and dang. It gave me a lot of feelings.

I read it for Young Adultery, which is a) a book club where a bunch of fabulous grownups sit around and talk about YA literature and b) the coolest book club around. Like, what up, I spent last night sitting in a gorgeously hip Queen West book store talking about a super great book with some of my favourite people in the world. It was so great (and the perfect diversion from all the mental health stuff that I’ve been dealing with).

What was interesting for me was that for a lot of people in the group, this book brought them back to their first romance, their high school crush, their awkward first kiss. And, I mean, Eleanor & Park is primarily a love story, so that makes perfect sense. For me, though, the book stirred up a lot of memories about what it was like to be the poor kid in high school with a group of nice middle class friends.

I was always embarrassed when people came over to my place. We lived in this ugly brown townhouse, which was part of a low-income housing complex owned by the city. The places had probably been nice back when they were built, which is to say back when they were all privately owned. But the lot was right next to a former landfill site that everyone called Mount Trashmore, and sometime in the 70s there had been a health scare about it. It turned out that the giant mound of decomposing trash (covered by some very attractive sod) leaking methane into the air, so they evacuated everyone and for a while the houses were abandoned. And then the city bought them and moved the poor people in. We all had to have methane detectors in our basements and here was this giant industrial flame that burned day and night. It was supposed to burn off the methane. 

None of my friends had to worry about dying of methane poisoning in their sleep.

It wasn’t unusual to see the cops in our complex. Like the night we heard gun shots and my mother tried to laugh it off and pretend for our sake that she wasn’t scared. Or the time the police came to our door and said that a neighbour had accused me of stealing their car. I didn’t even know how to drive a car, but they wanted to question me because, they said, I matched the description of the thief exactly. Or when another neighbour’s brother showed up high as fuck and stark naked. Someone called the cops and when they came they immediately started beating him. Like, they didn’t even give him the chance to come quietly. And he was rolling around on the ground screaming, “Oh god, oh god, oh please no,” but they just kept going. I was on my way to school when it happened, and I stopped and watched because I felt like I should do something. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t call the police, because the police were already there. They were there and they were hitting a man senseless with their batons.

And the next time I saw the cops in our neighbourhood, I made a point of smiling at them. I wanted them to think that I was harmless. I was afraid of what would happen if they didn’t think that I was harmless.

All of my friends lived in nice houses on tree-lined streets where no one was ever high or naked or puking on their front lawn because it’s Christmas and the whole family, even the five year old, is drunk. My neighbours thought it was funny to get their five year old drunk. But only on special occasions.

I always had the wrong clothes. Always. I was so embarrassed by my clothes. And when they ripped, which they often did because I wore them to shreds, I didn’t know how to fix them. I would put safety pins through all the tears, and I was always so worried that someone would see the flash of silver in my armpit or my crotch and realize that my clothes were pinned together and, like, not in a cool way. Not in an on-purpose way.

Speaking of clothes, this one tine time in English class my jeans were sagging low enough to show my underpants. I figured this out too late, after a kid called out, “Hey, nice panties.” I was mortified. My body was the biggest it had ever been and I didn’t want them to see the rolls of fat above the waistband of my pants. I didn’t want them to know that I was wearing stretched-out baggy underwear full of holes. But they saw everything and they all laughed. Even the teacher laughed. Having a grown man laugh at my torn up worn out purple grandma panties felt unbearable, but it must have been bearable because I still came back to school the next day.

I could never afford anything. I had to beg and beg my mom for money just to go see a movie with my friends. Sometimes after the movie my friends would want to go out to a restaurant because hey, we were young and fancy-free and why not stay out late on a Saturday night? I would tag along because I always wanted so badly to be included in everything, but I would always just order water because I couldn’t even afford a Coke. Watching my friends eat would always make me so hungry, so I would ask if I could have one of their fries and then they would get mad and say that if I’d wanted fries I should have ordered some. They weren’t being mean they just didn’t know why I never ordered food, and I didn’t want to tell them.

Speaking of food, it was all canned soup and grilled cheese and frozen dinners at my house, because my mom got home from work late and then often went out as soon as she got home, because she was finishing her bachelor’s degree in night school. This meant that a lot of the time, I would end up making dinner, but I didn’t know how to cook. I mean, I knew how to make pancakes and fried hotdogs and stuff, but nothing with actual nutritional value.

Sometimes my friends would invite me over for dinner, and their parents would prepare this amazing meal made up of food that I’d never even seen before, like eggplant and zucchini. They would make stuff like macaroni and cheese from scratch and, like, that wasn’t even a thing that I knew you could make from scratch; I just thought it only ever came in a box. And I didn’t want to have my friends over for dinner because I didn’t want them to know that we had Chef Boyardee not as a once-in-a-while treat, but all the time because it was fast and easy.

One time my friend’s mom gave us a giant box of food for Christmas and she started crying and I was so mad at her for crying. No one else got boxes of food for Christmas.

I remember telling my friends that I was going to my dad’s on the weekend and he wanted me to go a rave with him. His friend was going to bring some speed for us. I’d thought that my friends would think that my dad was such a cool, bad-ass parent, but instead they just looked uneasy. Having a forty-something dad who went to raves and did hard drugs was apparently not the same as having laid-back middle class hippie parents who were hiding but not quite hiding their pot habits. They didn’t think my dad was cool – they thought he was scary and weird.

I had this boyfriend who lived in a beautiful house in the next town over, and I was excruciatingly embarrassed whenever his parents dropped me off at home. I didn’t want them to see where I lived. I didn’t want them to think that I wasn’t good enough for their kid. I could tell that they didn’t like me. It was like my poverty had a smell, somehow, coming off me in waves. They wrinkled their noses when they saw me, even though I could tell they were trying to be nice.

Being poor meant that I couldn’t afford the twenty dollar student card fee in grade twelve, which mean that I couldn’t collect the extracurricular participation points that year. This meant that I wasn’t eligible for the giant silver participation plaque that they gave out at graduation and you know what? I am still fucking sore about that. When I am super-famous my high school will call and BEG me to take that stupid plaque and I’ll be like HEY, FUCK YOU, WHERE WERE YOU FIFTEEN YEARS AGO but also I will be like, yeah, give me the damn plaque because I am still not too cool for this. But the point is the office would happily have waived the fee for another kid, a cleaner, nicer kid, but they did not give a shit about me.

Being poor meant constant vigilance over how I acted, dressed, even smelled. It especially involved hypervigilance when talking about my family because there was just so much to edit out, or else to purposely misconstrue so as not to make our family life sound so bad. And I should clarify that it wasn’t bad – my mother did the best that she could for us, and she did a fantastic job. Our life wasn’t bad, but it was so different, and I knew that I was being judged and found wanting on a daily basis. Appearing to be middle class was especially critical when meeting my friends’ parents, who all seemed to size me up as soon as I went in. I was irrationally terrified that they would tell my friends not to bring me around again.

Being a teenager was just so much trying to hide our economic status. It was avoiding awkward questions from the school counsellor, because what was she going to do about it? It was using money that my grandmother had given me for Christmas or my birthday to buy the disgusting nachos at the school cafeteria, because for once in my life I wanted to be someone who was rich enough to buy nachos in the cafeteria. It was telling teachers that I couldn’t go on field trips, because I couldn’t afford them. It was scouring the Value Village down the street and learning to develop this cheap funky style that no one could make fun of because it was obviously intentionally tacky. It was borrowing a prom dress from the mother of the kid I babysat for, because I couldn’t afford anything new. It was a million stupid little humiliations, and a few big ones.

And everything, all of this, had to be kept hidden at all costs. Because I was already being made fun of, and I didn’t need to add fuel to the fire. And I didn’t want me friends to think of me as so different from them just because they had more money. And I sure as hell didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.

Eleanor & Park fan art by Simini Blocker Illustration http://siminiblocker.tumblr.com

Eleanor & Park fan art by Simini Blocker Illustration http://siminiblocker.tumblr.com

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Why The Men’s Rights Movement Is Garbage

28 Mar

I need to take a moment here to talk about the Men’s Rights Movement, because there seems to be some confusion. Actually, there seems to be a whole lot of confusion.

Over the past little while, I’ve had a number of people challenge me on calling out men’s rights activists (hereafter referred to as MRAs). “But men are oppressed too,” people say. “Feminism is sexist, and it teaches men that masculinity is wrong.” “Straight, white men aren’t allowed to be proud of themselves anymore.” “If you believe in equality, then you should want men to have the same type of activism as women.” “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”

First of all, yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But let’s not pretend that all opinions are created equal – some are based on fact, and some are total bullshit. Like, I could tell you that I believe that vaccines cause autism, and that would be my opinion, but it would also be demonstrably untrue. So let’s not pretend that all opinions should be given the same consideration, because we both know better than that.

Second of all, let’s get one thing straight: men, as a group, do not face systematic oppression because of their gender. Am I saying that literally no men out there are oppressed? No, I am for sure not saying that. Men can and do face oppression and marginalization for many reasons – because of race, class, sexuality, poverty, to name a few. Am I saying that every white cishet dude out there has an amazing life because of all his amassed privilege? Nope, I’m not saying that either. There are many circumstances that might lead to someone living a difficult life. But men do not face oppression because they are men. Misandry is not actually a thing, and pretending that it’s an oppressive force on par with or worse than misogyny is offensive, gross, and intellectually dishonest.

MRAs believe that feminists are to blame for basically everything that’s wrong with their lives. The Men’s Rights Movement is a reactionary movement created specifically to counter feminism, and most (if not all) of their time and resources go towards silencing and marginalizing women. They do things like starting the Don’t Be That Girl campaign, a campaign that accuses women of making false rape reports. They attend feminist events in order to bully and intimidate women, they flood online feminist spaces with threatening messages, and they regularly use smear campaigns and scare tactics to make the women who don’t back down afraid for their physical safety. They do literally nothing to actually resolve the problems that they claim to care about, and instead do everything they can to discredit the feminist movement.

There are certainly issues that disproportionately affect men – the suicide rate among men is higher, as is the rate of homelessness. Men are more likely to be injured or killed on the job or because of violence. Men who are the victims of domestic abuse or sexual assault are less likely to report these things. These are the issues that MRAs are purportedly working on, and by “working on” I mean “blaming feminism for.” The problem is that none of these things are caused by feminism, or equal rights for women, or anything like that. You know what’s actually to blame for a lot of these issues? Marginalizing forces like class and race, for one thing – I mean, it’s not rich white men who are grappling with homelessness or dangerous workplaces or gun violence. You know what else is to blame? Our patriarchal culture and its strictly enforced gender roles which, hey, happens to be exactly the same power structure that feminism is trying to take down. The patriarchy has some fucked up ideas about masculinity, ideas that make men less likely to seek help for issues that they perceive to be too feminine – such as being hurt or raped by a female partner, not being able to provide for themselves, or not seeking help for health issues like depression and anxiety. On a societal level, it means that resources are not as readily available for men who face these challenges, because patriarchal ideas tell our courts, our governments and our charitable organizations that men don’t ever need that kind of help. Yes, the patriarchy overwhelmingly privileges the interests of men, but it also hurts men. It hurts men in all the ways that MRAs are apparently so concerned about, which means that you would think that MRAs would be totally on board with dismantling the patriarchy, but they’re not. Instead, they would rather blame women for their problems.

See, the problem with the Men’s Rights Movement is that they are not doing anything concrete to resolve any of the above issues. They are not raising money to open shelters for homeless or abused men. They are not starting up suicide hotlines for men. They are not lobbying for safer workplaces or gun control. Instead, they are crying about feminism, pooh-poohing the idea of patriarchy and generally making the world a sadder, scarier, less safe place to live in. In fact, I would argue that their stupid antics are actually a detriment t0 the causes that they claim to espouse, because they’re creating an association between actual real issues that men face and their disgusting buffoonery. So good fucking job, MRAs. Way to fuck vulnerable men over in your quest to prove that feminism is evil. I hope you’re all really proud of yourselves.

The Men’s Rights Movement is not “feminism for men.” It’s not some kind of complimentary activism meant to help promote equal treatment of men and women. And it fucking most certainly  is not friendly towards women, unless we’re talking about women with crippling cases of internalized misogyny. I believe in equality for men and women, but I also believe that we’re not born with an even playing field. Women still face disenfranchisement, discrimination and a lack of basic freedoms and rights, and although feminism has done a lot of great work over the last century or so, we still haven’t undone several millennia’s worth of social programming and oppression. So that’s why it’s not “men’s turn” to have a social justice movement. That’s why we have the fem in feminism. That’s why fairness and equality involve promoting the empowerment of women, rather than promoting the empowerment of both genders in equal amounts. Because, to use a stupid analogy here, if one person starts out with no apples and another person starts out with five apples and then you give them both three apples each in the name of fairness, one person still has five more fucking apples.

So yes, let’s talk about issues that affect men. Let’s come up with solutions for problems that disproportionately hurt men, like suicide and homelessness and violent deaths (while at the same time recognizing that the fact that there are issues that affect more men than women does not mean that men are oppressed because of their gender). Let’s work on opening up shelters for abused men, let’s create campaigns bringing awareness to the fact that men are also the victims of rape, and let’s pressure the government to improve workplace safety. But let’s find a way to do this that’s not at the expense of women. Instead, let’s join together and fuck up the patriarchy real good, because that way everyone wins.

p.s. If you actually think that straight white men aren’t encouraged to be “proud” of themselves you need to check your privilege a million times over and then check it some more because seriously

How I Feel About MRAs

How I Feel About MRAs

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You Don’t Have To Be Pretty – On YA Fiction And Beauty As A Priority

23 Mar

“I’m not trying to be self-deprecating,” I say, “I just don’t get it. I’m younger. I’m not pretty. I –”

He laughs, a deep laugh that sounds like it came from deep inside him, and touches his lips to my temple.

“Don’t pretend,” I say breathily. “You know I’m not. I’m not ugly, but I am certainly not pretty.”

“Fine. You’re not pretty. So?” He kisses my cheek. “I like how you look. You’re deadly smart. You’re brave. And even though you found out about Marcus …” His voice softens. “You aren’t giving me that look. Like I’m a kicked puppy or something.”

“Well,” I say. “You’re not.”

– Veronica Roth, Divergent

This handful of sentences, spoken by Divergent‘s protagonists Tris and Four, might be some of the most revolutionary words ever written in a young adult novel. In fact, they’re pretty incredible no matter what the genre. These words may not look like much, but trust me, they’re actually pretty mind-blowing when you really think about them.

Let’s just take a moment to digest what’s being said here, shall we?

Tris, Divergent‘s heroine and current YA dystopia It Girl, has just kissed the boy she likes. He’s a few years older than her – in fact, he’s her instructor – and, although it’s been clear throughout the book that she has a total lady-boner for him, she didn’t think she stood a chance. Throughout the book she and others consistently describe her as homely, skinny and flat-chested; she herself says, “I am not pretty – my eyes are too big and my nose is too long,” and one of her antagonists, catching a glimpse of her naked, crows “She’s practically a child!” Among her peers, she either fades into the background or else becomes a target because of her apparent helplessness and vulnerability. In short, she’s a real Plain Jane.

Having the female protagonist of a young adult novel believe that she’s ordinary-looking, uninteresting and unnoticeable is nothing new. In fact, it’s a trope that’s been pretty widely covered throughout the genre — from Katniss Everdeen to Bella Swan to Hermione Granger to Mia Thermopolis, it seems like just about every heroine needs some convincing to realize how beautiful they are. Because, of course, they are beautiful — though often the character requires a makeover before she herself and the world around her (except, of course, for that One Special Boy Who Always Knew) realize her true beauty. Think of the scene when Katniss first arrives in the Capitol, when they shave off her body hair, tame her eyebrows and slather her with makeup. Or the part in The Princess Diaries when Mia takes off her glasses, straightens her hair and poof, she’s a babe! Or else Hermione’s appearance at the Yule Ball in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when she puts on a fancy dress, bewitches her frizzy hair into submission and suddenly gets everyone’s attention. The message that we get over and over is that beauty, even hidden beauty, is somehow part and parcel of being an exceptional, successful young woman. And of course every girl longs to be pretty, right?

But not Tris.

Tris is pretty matter-of-fact about not being beautiful; she mentions it once or twice, but it’s not pivotal to her character. She doesn’t seem to give her appearance all that much though, probably because she has other, more pressing concerns like her own survival. She does get a makeover of a sort, but not one that especially improves or feminizes her appearance. Being pretty is not a priority for Tris and, amazingly, her prettiness is not a priority for her love interest either. Look at the words he uses to explain why he likes her – smart and brave. These attributes are the reasons that he wants to be with her, not her appearance. Of course he finds her physically attractive – he does say that he likes how she looks, after all – but that’s not her main appeal for him. He’s more drawn to her because of what she does rather than how she looks. And that is pretty amazing. Having a plain, ordinary-looking female protagonist whose looks don’t, at some point over the course the book or movie, wind up being “fixed” is something I have actually never seen before.

When we talk about women’s appearance, we often get hung up on the idea that all women deserve to feel beautiful. Many initiatives meant to empower women hinge on the concept that all women are beautiful in their own way. The message is that though we might not all be super model material, each of us has our own special brand of prettiness. This is thought to be helpful in deconstructing the beauty ideals that our society for women – the idea that “pretty” only comes in a package that’s tall, white, skinny and blond – and is often embraced as part of feminist ideology. But while I know that the intentions behind this message are good, I can’t help but feel that it’s not a very healthy thing for young girls to be hearing.

The problem is that when we promote this idea that all women are beautiful, what we are really doing is emphasizing that it is important for women to be physically attractive. We are telling girls that, as females, the way that they look is a huge part of who they are – that we expect prettiness from them, and that we expect them to want it. Even if we don’t mean to, we are still attaching a high value to physical appearance. And that’s messed up.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m all for people feeling good about themselves and being comfortable in their own skin. I want everyone to be happy with how they look. But I don’t want girls believing that feeling pretty is equal to or more important than feeling smart, competent or powerful. I also don’t want them to think that not feeling beautiful or not putting a premium on their own beauty means that there’s something flawed or unfeminine about them. Instead of living in a world where every woman struggles on a daily basis to find something attractive about herself, I would rather live in one where women are told that it’s fine not to care about how they look.

I know that this has been said before, but it bears repeating:

Girls, you don’t have to be pretty. Your sex does not place you under any obligation to feel beautiful. You are so much more than your appearance.

We never say that all men deserve to feel beautiful. We never say that each man is beautiful in his own way. We don’t have huge campaigns aimed at young boys trying to convince them that they’re attractive, probably because we very rarely correlate a man’s worth with his appearance. The problem is that a woman’s value in this world is still very much attached to her appearance, and telling her that she should or deserves to feel beautiful does more to promote that than negate it. Telling women that they “deserve” to feel pretty plays right in to the idea that prettiness should be important to them. And having books and movies aimed at young women where every female protagonist turns out to be beautiful (whereas many of the antagonists are described in much less flattering terms) reinforces the message that beauty has some kind of morality attached to it, and that all heroines are somehow pretty.

Can we please change the script here? Instead of saying that all women deserve to feel beautiful, can we instead say that all women deserve to feel smart? How about all women deserve to feel respected? Or all women deserve to feel capable? Let’s tell women that they are something, anything, other than pretty. Because seriously, we deserve to be so much more than just pretty.

Divergent-roof-jumping-scene

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Beauty Standards Are Bullshit

17 Mar

You’ve probably heard that Marilyn Monroe was a size 14.

Or a size 16, or a size 12, or a size 10, depending on who you ask.

Whatever number someone quotes you, the message is always the same: our standards of beauty have changed, and not for the better. The women whose bodies we worship now are thin and sickly, all of them suffering from eating disorders. Things aren’t how they were before, when we appreciated “real,” “normal,” “average” bodies. Our current standards of beauty should serve as evidence of how deeply fucked up our society is; we ought to return to our parents’ and grandparents’ ideals.

This whole concept is so popular that there have been a string of memes made about it:

89ujy1

become-hotter01

tumblr_luezhpTwGx1r62kg6o1_500

You know what makes me say fuck society? The fact that we think it’s totally cool to compare two women and declare one of them the champion of sexy. Because you know what’s super empowering to women? Telling them that there’s only one right way to be.

Beauty standards in the past maybe have been different than today, but that doesn’t mean they were better. They still offered a narrow, rigid idea about what made a woman attractive, and anyone who didn’t fit that ideal was not good enough. Why do we have the idea that the past was some kind of magical time when women had it easier in the looks department? Because let me tell you something: when it comes to their appearance, women can never, ever, ever fucking win. They’re always too old or too fat or too thin or too tall or too short or some combination of the above. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about now, or fifty years ago, or one hundred years ago, the story is always the same: women can never win.

I see people swooning over shit like the picture below, and I want to tear my hair out with frustration.

15d6b7a8e333805f05e1384b9be08756

This is not some kind of revolutionary fat-positive advertisement; It’s the same old shit we’re being sold day in and day out, just packaged in a different way. Stuff like this isn’t so very different from all the diets pushed on women today – both are ways of making women feel bad for whatever size they are. Both are ways of making money off of women by encouraging them to feel that their bodies are wrong or inadequate. Shaming one body type in order to promote another is never acceptable, no matter how you do it. There should never be a right way or wrong way for a person to look. All bodies are good bodies. I seriously cannot emphasize that enough.

All bodies are good bodies. All bodies are real bodies. All bodies are worthy of love and respect.

And if I hear one more person talk about how much “healthier” women looked in the past, I’m going to start flipping tables. You can’t tell how healthy someone is just by looking at them. There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding that fact, so let me repeat it: you cannot tell how healthy someone is just by looking at them. Unless you are someone’s doctor, unless you have run extensive tests and made note of their blood pressure and their iron levels and their thyroid function, you have no idea how healthy another person is. This applies to all people everywhere – you have no way of knowing if a fat person exercises or eats vegetables just by glancing at them, and you can’t tell if a skinny person has an eating disorder based on the circumference of their waist.

I’m not saying that our society’s obsession with skinny women is anything other than problematic –  the recent spike in eating disorders can almost certainly be attributed to how pressured women feel to be a certain size. We’re obsessed with thinness, and that obsession permeates nearly every aspect of our culture, from how food is branded and marketed to us, to “vanity sizing” in clothing, to every headline ever in women’s magazines promising to tell you how to lose weight, how to keep the weight off, and which celebrities lost their “baby weight” the fastest. Our attitudes towards weight and size are actively harmful to women, and I seriously cannot overstate my concern about girls and young women growing up in this climate. I think we’ve only just started to see the detrimental effects of our infatuation with thinness, and unless a major societal sea-change happens, things are only going to get worse.

But.

But.

None of this means that we should be criticizing thin bodies, because all bodies are good bodies. Some people are naturally quite thin, and making comments about how unhealthy they look is pointless and hurtful. And if someone genuinely is unhealthy? If someone has an eating disorder? How do you think they will end up perceiving their comments, when their disease is warping how they view body size in general and their own body in particular? I can promise you that any remarks you make will do them more harm than good.

I would wager that all women feel fucked up about their bodies, and sometimes tearing down another body shape (especially if that shape is the status quo) in order to build yours up can seem like the fastest and easiest way to make yourself feel better. But seriously, you guys, we have to get out of this cycle of putting each other down, criticizing each others’ looks, and making each other feel bad. The best way to fight the patriarchy is to stand united. The best way to empower ourselves is to celebrate all body types. The best way to fuck with beauty standards is not to change them, but to do away with them all together.

And the best, most feminist thing that we can do is to love ourselves just as we are and refuse to let anyone profit off of our insecurities.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Bush X – Lady Music III, 90s Edition

16 Mar

Because bushes. And X chromosomes. And 90s bands. Get it? No but DO YOU GET IT?

This is the third instalment of the women in music series that my friend Nathan and I are doing.

You can find part I here and part II here.

1. No Doubt – Just A Girl

Possibly every girl-of-a-certain-age’s first feminist anthem? Or at the very least, listening to this was perhaps the first time that many of us questioned society’s treatment of us, and the ways in which we saw ourselves. I mean, come on, these lyrics:

‘Cause I’m just a girl, little ‘ol me 
Don’t let me out of your sight 
I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite 
So don’t let me have any rights

SOMEHOW STILL RELEVANT NEARLY 20 YEARS LATER

2. Jale – Ali

From the days when Halifax was referred to as the Seattle of the east. Because of their music scene, not because they unleashed a chain of ubiquitous coffee shops on the world. Anyway, I had this Jale cd when I was fourteen and I thought it made me the coolest person ever because no one else in my school had ever heard of them. Yeah, I was a hipster before it was cool.

3. The Cranberries – Zombie

Everyone I went to school with thought this song was about the first world war (because of the reference to 1916 I guess?) but it turned out it was actually about Ireland’s Easter Rising. And then I made the mistake of asking my Irish grandfather about the Easter Rising and that ended about as well as you could imagine. So, thanks for that, Cranberries?

4. Hole – Olympia

This song taught me about the futility of trying to be an individual among a sea of people who are also trying to be individuals.

To wit:

When I went to school in Olympia
Everyone’ss the same
And so are you in Olympia
Everyone is the same
We look the same, we talk the same, yeah
We even fuck the same

Even non-conformists end up conforming to something.

Ah, the life lessons I have learned from Courtney Love.

5. The Cardigans – My Favourite Game

As a bitterly contrary teenager, I was determined not to like The Cardigans because they were popular, and I eschewed all things popular. I mean, they had a song – the song, really – on the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack. Leonardo DiCaprio was in that movie. Obviously I couldn’t like them.

But then, damn them, they won me over with their sweet pop sensibilities and adorable voices. And then I realized that cardigans were, like, my favourite item of clothing ever. And I even learned to love Leo. So. Looks like a win for everyone involved.

6. Jewel – Morning Song

Ah, the song that introduced a generation of girls to Anaïs Nin.

I wish I could explain to you the look on the librarian’s face as my fourteen year old self checked out House of Incest.

7. Juliana Hatfield – Ugly

DON’T TELL ME YOU NEVER CRIED YOURSELF TO SLEEP WHILE LISTENING TO THIS SONG.

YOU AND I BOTH KNOW THE TRUTH.

8. Sneaker Pimps – 6 Underground

This was the kind of band that 90s teenagers took enormous delight in, at least in part because when their parents asked who that sweet girl was that they were listening to, they could smugly answer, “The Sneaker Pimps.”

And then your parents would be like, “Excuse me, the sneaker whats?” you would be like, “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ME OR MY ART.”

The Sneaker Pimps. I mean, man. They don’t make band names like that anymore.

Their music was pretty great, too.

9. Garbage – Only Happy When It Rains

One of the great anthems of the depressed, disaffected youth.

Oh how my Prozac-popping teenage self loved these lyrics:

I’m only happy when it rains 
I feel good when things are going wrong 
I only listen to the sad, sad songs 
I’m only happy when it rains 

I only smile in the dark 
My only comfort is the night gone black 
I didn’t accidentally tell you that 
I’m only happy when it rains

I mean fuck yeah I only smiled in the dark! Fuckers.

10. The Breeders – Cannonball

I was ten when this song came out.

I believe it was the first time I’d ever heard of bongs and reggae.

Not to mention libertines.

Music is good for your vocabulary.

11. Lisa Loeb – Stay

I wish I could put every frigging song from Lisa Loeb’s Nine Stories on this list because goddamn I loved that stupid, shitty album. The lyrics were laughably terrible (at one point she sings, “your hair falls soft like animals,” and even my clueless 13 year old self knew that was embarrassingly bad), sonically she was pretty boring, but man did I ever love her. Part of it was that she was one of the first people to make Girls Who Wear Glasses cool and cute. And she loved cats! And was friends with Ethan Hawke! In New York City!! I mean, she was basically everything I wanted to be in life, except that I wanted to be able to write words that didn’t make pubescent girls cringe.

12. The Innocence Mission – Bright As Yellow

Is there a more quintessentially 90s movie than Empire Records? I mean, that is a rhetorical question because we all know that the answer is no. Empire Records is basically the entire decade summed up in a delightful 90 minute package about sticking it to the man and shaving your head. Not only that, but it introduced me to this delightful little song. I dare you to listen to it and not get even just a little bit teary-eyed with nostalgia. I MEAN COME ON REMEMBER WHEN THEY DANCED ON THE ROOF AT THE END? YOUR TWEEN SELF THOUGHT LIFE WAS GOING TO BE LIKE THAT. AND IT’S NOT. SO BOW DOWN AND WEEP.

13. Mazzy Star – Into Dust

Forget everything you think you know about this song. Forget about the terrible sex you had with your first boyfriend while it played on a loop. Forget about how your sixteen year old self put it on a mix cd she made after said boyfriend broke up with her and then listened to it until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Forget that it was used in that one episode of The O.C. where they go to Tijuana – coincidentally the episode where you realized Summer was adorable and hilarious and actually way too good for Seth Cohen. Forget every association you have with this song, close your eyes, and really listen to it as if you’re hearing it for the first song.

You guys, this song is basically perfect.

14. Indigo Girls – Romeo and Juliet

Hey remember when everyone told you that listening to the Indigo Girls would turn you into a lesbian? But then you did anyway, in secret, and then you had a sex dream about that one really hot blond girl in your biology class (who, by the way, is now a professional Marilyn Monroe impersonator) and you were pretty sure that it wasn’t because of the Indigo Girls but you could never actually be sure?

Anyway, here they are covering my favourite Dire Straits song which is just way too many things that I love all at once.

ALSO REMEMBER THAT SCENE IN EMPIRE RECORDS WHERE MARK DUSTS THE TOE OF THAT CUTE BALLERINA GIRL WHILE THIS SONG PLAYS? BOOM. NOW YOU’RE CRYING AGAIN BECAUSE ETHAN EMBRY WILL IN ALL LIKELIHOOD NEVER EVER DUST YOUR TOE.

15. Bikini Kill – I Like Fucking

Because I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, babe

16. Sleater-Kinney – Call the Doctor

Hands down the best song to shout along to when you are drunk and fucked up with your girlfriends. Because they DO want to socialize you and purify it and GODDAMN IT YOU ARE NOT GOING TO STAND FOR THAT SHIT.

I know they were kinda problematic and for sure not inclusive enough but fuck I miss the Riot Grrrl movement. RIOTS NOT DIETS.

17. Liz Phair – Fuck and Run

You will never be as cool as Liz Phair. Neither will I. It’s probably for the best if we all just accept that reality right now.

I remember listening to this song when I was what, 12? And thinking about the future day when I would be bad-ass enough to have one night stands and all that shit. Cut to ten years later where my first “one night stand” winds up being with the dude I will someday marry.

So.

18. Fiona Apple – Criminal

This is the song everyone loved to hate or, conversely, hated to love. It’s annoying as fuck but SO GODDAMN CATCHY.

Anyway, this song will probably now be in your head for the rest of forever, so you’re welcome I guess.

19. Tori Amos – Me and a Gun

Tori Amos was hands-down the most important musician for me during my formative years. I spent hours and hours and hours locked in my room blasting her music on my shitty old tape player, until my mother would tell me that no one wanted to hear my sad woman music anymore at which point I would sulkily plug in my headphones, lie down on my back and stare up at the fairies I’d attempted to paint on my venetian blinds.

Me and a Gun is one of the hardest fucking songs to listen to, but also one of the most important for me and, I suspect, quite a few other people. She is singing about her experience of being raped. She is singing this beautiful, acoustically stripped-down song about being raped after a show by a man who had been in the audience. She is singing about having a gun pointed at her and being forced to have sex. And her strength in this song is raw and empowering and beautiful. This is the song I want everyone who makes stupid Tori Amos jokes to listen to, because fuck man. This song. This song takes guts.

20. Natalie Merchant – My Skin

There was a time – like, most of my teenage years and my early twenties – when I truly thought that my body was this foul, ugly, untouchable thing. I was convinced that anyone who saw me with my clothes off would immediately lose their lunch. I hated everything about myself – my greasy skin, my crooked face, the way my stomach stuck out, the way I smelled, the hair that was all over my body, everything. Everything.

Whenever I would start dating someone, I would think that I’d somehow tricked them into it, or that they had incredibly low self-esteem or something. And I would spend the entire relationship waiting for them to figure out how disgusting I actually was. The first time anyone ever went down on me I tensed up and started crying because I felt so badly about my body. The poor guy (also a virgin) had no fucking clue what he’d done wrong, and I didn’t have the vocabulary or bravery to explain it to him. AWKWARD. Shortly after that he broke up with me, saying that things are changed. I was sure it was because my vagina was so repellent that he never wanted to be within a ten foot radius of it ever again. Man, being young is the fucking worst. Needless to say, being in my thirties and being comfortable in my skin and with my sexuality is pretty fucking rad and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Anyway. I basically I thought this song was about me.

21. Sixpence None The Richer – Kiss Me

This is, like, every smart, sentimental, Tennyson-reading teenager’s dream song. If Anne Shirley had been alive in the 90s and in a cute indie band, this is the song she would have written (except then the line would have been, “you wear those shoes I will wear that puff-sleeved dress”). This song is so twee and adorable that you feel like you should hate it, but PSYCH YOU DON’T.

There is no explaining why you love this song; you just do.

22. Natalie Imbruglia – Torn

Ah, the music video that made me cut off all my hair and realize that a cute bob looks really fucking good on me.

23. Brandy & Monica – The Boy Is Mine

OK BUT WHOSE BOY WAS HE???

24. TLC – No Scrubs

A scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly
And is also known as a buster
Always talkin’ about what he wants
And just sits on his broke ass

A scrub is basically a Nice Guy™ who wants to know why you are friendzoning him. Also he wears a fedora and loves Richard Dawkins. He is certain that he is somehow entitled to a relationship with you, based entirely on how awesome and special he is. As always, TLC are full of excellent advice: RUN, LADIES.

25. Bran Van 3000 – Drinking In LA

What the hell am I doing not drinking in LA at 31?

MY FRIEND SYREETA LIVES THERE AND I COULD BE DRINKING WITH HER RIGHT NOW.

26. Lauryn Hill – Doo-Wop (That Thing)

I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is one of the best, most important albums to come out in the 90s or maybe ever.

Fuck I miss Lauryn Hill, you guys.

27. Queen Latifah – Living Single theme song

Nathan insisted we include this song.

Maybe just don’t ask why.

28. Elastica – Waking Up

I was, like, a HUGE Blur fan when I was in my early teens, so I was sort of contractually obligated to like Elastica. Because, you know, Justine Frischmann and Damon Albarn were a thing.

HOW IS IT THAT I CAN STILL REMEMBER THIS NEARLY TWENTY YEARS LATER BUT I CAN’T REMEMBER TO TURN OFF THE GODDAMN STOVE SOME DAYS.

29. Salt-N-Pepa – Shoop and Push It

When discussing which Salt-N-Pepa song to include, this conversation happened:

Me: which salt n pepa song?

Nathan: Are you fucking kidding me?

Me: … no?

Nathan: Shoop!

Nathan: Or Push It.

Nathan: Fuck!

Nathan: No, Shoop.

Nathan: …

Nathan: …

Nathan: I think.

Me: SEE, IT’S HARD

Nathan: Well it is definitely between those two.

Nathan: I’m asking my sister her opinion.

Then Nathan’s sister went rogue and said that Let’s Talk About Sex was the best Salt-N-Pepa song and we were like DAMN IT SHE’S RIGHT, TOO.
So we give you all three songs, because we just couldn’t choose:

 

 

30. Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2U

OH YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO MAKE IT THROUGH THIS LIST WITHOUT HAVING TO LISTEN TO THIS SONG, DID YOU?

WELL GAZE UPON SINEAD’S GLORIOUS FACE AND WEEP BECAUSE MOTHERFUCKER HERE IT IS

Tags: , , , , ,

Tired of Talking To Men

15 Mar

I am tired of talking about feminism to men.

I know that I’m not supposed to say this. I know that as a good little third-wave feminist I’m supposed to sweetly explain to you how much I love and value men. I’m supposed to trot out my husband of nearly five years, my son, all of my male friends and relatives and display them as a sort of badge of honour, proof that I am not a man-hater. I’m supposed to hold out my own open palms, prove to you how harmless I am, how nice I am. Above all, I’m supposed to butter you up, you men, stroke your egos, tell you how very important you are in the fight for equality. This is the right way to go about it, or so I’ve been told. As my mother would say, you catch more flies with honey.

But still. I’m tired of talking about feminism to men.

I’m tired of explaining to men that the feminist movement will, in fact, benefit them as well as women. I’m tired of trying to hawk gender equality like I’m some kind of car salesman showing off a shiny new sedan, explaining all of its bells and whistles. I’m tired of smiling through a thousand thoughtless microaggressions, tired of providing countless pieces of evidence, tired of being questioned on every. single. damn. thing. I’m tired of proving that microaggressions exist, tired of proving that I’m unfairly questioned and asked for proof. For a movement that’s centered around the advancement and empowerment of women, why do I feel like I’m supposed to spend so damn much of my time carefully considering how what I say and do will be taken  by men?

I’m tired of men who insert themselves into feminist spaces with claims of hurt feelings. I’m tired of men who somehow manage to make every issue about them. I’m tired of men like the one who recently stopped by a friend’s Facebook thread in order to call feminism “cunty,” then lecture the women involved for being too “hostile” in their responses to him. I’m tired of men telling me that my understanding of feminism and rape culture are wrong, as if these aren’t things that I have studied intensely. I’m tired of men who claim to be feminist allies, then abuse that position to their own advantage. I’m so fucking exhausted by the fact that I know that I will have to, at some point in this piece, mention that I understand that not all men are like that. I will have to note that some men are good allies. And all of those things are true! And all of you good allies get cookies! But honestly I’m tired of handing out cookies to people just because they’re being decent fucking human beings.

I spoke today on a panel about rape culture, and while the whole experience was fucking fantastic, I was totally disheartened by how many of the other presenters went out of their way to convince the men in the room that rape culture affected them, too. The phrase “rape culture isn’t a women’s issue, it’s a everyone’s issue,” kept coming up, and though I understand why it could be valuable to frame it that way, the rationale behind that makes me kind of sick. Because what we’re really saying is that if rape culture is understood to only be a woman’s issue, then it won’t be as important to men.

Rape culture is something that men should care about not because it might affect them, but because it affects anyone at all. Men should care about women’s safety, full stop, without having the concept somehow relate back to them. Everyone should care about everyone else’s well-being – that’s what good people are supposed to do.

Is it really so hard to have compassion about something that might not directly affect you?

I find that the more that I engage in activism, the more men seem to think that my time belongs to them. There seems to be this idea that if I’ve set myself up as an educator about feminism and gender and women’s rights (and I know that I have, and by and large I enjoy that role), then  it’s somehow part of my job to take the time out of my busy day to explain basic feminist concepts to them. If I don’t, then I’m accused of all kinds of things – not properly backing up what I say with facts (though the facts are easily accessible to those who want them), not caring enough about “converting” men who might be on the fence (though they could convert themselves if they really wanted to), not being strong or smart enough to engage in a discussion (which we both know isn’t going to go anywhere). I used to burn myself out by patiently laying out my talking points over and over, directing people towards resources, never walking away from an arguments be it big or small. But I’m not doing that to myself anymore. This is my space; I get to decide what happens here. If I don’t want to reply to comments, then I won’t. If I don’t want to engage someone, then I’ll ignore them. Yes, I am here to educate and to explain, but I am not under any obligation to do anything that I don’t want to. That is not my job. If you want to learn more, then that’s your job.

I’m going to call on all the men out there who consider themselves to be allies and ask them to step up to the plate and walk their own talk. When you see a woman being mansplained, you be the one to step in and call him out. When you see a bunch of men making misogynistic jokes, you be the one to tell them to fuck off. When someone asks for “proof,” don’t wait for a woman to provide it – you be the one to offer resources. Show us what a good ally you are by standing in the line of fire for once, and when you do, don’t immediately turn around and ask us for praise.

I’m tired of talking to men about feminism, but it doesn’t have to be like this. The burden of this discussion doesn’t have to be on women; we don’t have to be the only ones fighting the good fight. So please, men who are reading this – instead of the usual knee-jerk reaction towards these types of posts, instead of rolling your eyes and saying, “great, another feminist shitting on men,” I’m asking you to instead get involved and do what you can to affect change. I’m not going to condescend to you and try to explain why that will make the world a better place; I trust that you’re all smart enough to figure that out by yourselves.

This image came up when I googled "mansplain" and I'm just going to run with it.

This image came up when I googled “mansplain” and I’m just going to run with it. ETA: this is apparently Milan Greer, a sort of cat whisperer from the 50s. Apparently he was pretty rad and feminist so why someone tagged his picture as “mansplain” I’m not sure. WELL YOU LEARN SOMETHING EVERY DAY AM I RIGHT?

 

Tags: , , , , , ,

St. Jude’s Home For The Nasty (Lady Songs Part II)

10 Mar

You can find part one here

Title inspired by this Hark A Vagrant comic

26. Janet Jackson – Nasty

27. Solange – Losing You

28. M.I.A. – Pull Up The People

29. The Knife – Heartbeats

30. Poliça – Leading To Death

31. Charli XCX – You’re The One

32. The Organ – I’m Not Surprised

33. Friends – I’m His Girl

34. Worriers – Cruel Optimist

35. Anna Calvi – Blackout

36. Rilo Kiley – Wires and Wave

37. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps

38. Tegan and Sara – You Wouldn’t Like Me

39. Grimes – Rosa

40. Frankie Rose and the Outs – Little Brown Haired Girls

41. Eleanor Friedberger – My Mistakes

42. Zola Jesus – Lightsick

43. Florence + The Machine – You Got The Love

44. Daughter – Landfill

45. Basia Bulat – Tall Tall Shadow

46. El Perro Del Mar – God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)

47. Alabama Shakes – Hold On

48. Neko Case – Man

49. Giant Drag – This Isn’t It

50. Lissie – Pursuit of Happiness (Kid Cudi cover)

Tags: , , , ,

Lady Songs Part I

9 Mar

Nathan and I were sending each other favourite songs this morning. This is a thing that we do fairly often – pretty much anytime one of us thinks of something the other should listen to, and then it’s impossible to avoid the rabbit hole that is Songs Nathan Knows – but today we were only sending songs with female vocalists, in honour of International Women’s Day.

And then I had a genius idea.

Me: OH MY GOD NATHAN CAN WE PUT A WOMEN’S DAY PLAYLIST TOGETHER ON MY BLOG PLEASE

Me: Pleeeeeeaaaaasssse

Nathan: I think I can manage that, but we have to include an Against Me! song.

We were originally aiming for fifty songs, but we somehow ended up with nearly three times that number. So you get SIX DAYS worth of posts about lady music instead of just one. Aren’t you lucky?

But why songs sung by women? I mean, International Women’s Day aside, what’s the appeal?

Personally, I’ve always preferred female musicians, probably at least in part because it’s easier for me to sing along with them. I’m also far more likely to identify with what they’re singing about – I’m a sucker for a good song about struggling to get through tough times, or a weepy hymn to heartbreak, or an empowering lady anthem. There’s something else, though, about a woman’s voice that’s hard to articulate. It gets right down into you, and it’s hard to shake loose. Women’s voices have teeth.

Nearly all of my earliest musical memories are of female musicians. My father had an extensive record collection, and I found my first favourites there – singers like Tracy Chapman, Cyndi Lauper and Michelle Shocked. I memorized all the lyrics to Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody, and my parents found it hilarious that I sang, “I wanna feel the heap with somebody,” instead of “I wanna feel the heat with somebody.” Listening to music meant time with my father, and it was an activity that he took very seriously. To this day, I can count on one hand the number of people who listen to music as thoughtfully and as deeply as he did – my grandfather is one of them, and Nathan is another. Even I’m not on this list because, as much as I love music, I don’t seem to have quite the same ability to become as thoroughly absorbed in a song as they do.

Listening to music with my father was a sort of transcendent experience. He always had a stick of incense burning while we listened, so my memories of these times are all wrapped up in a thick, sweet, smoky smell. His record player was in the basement, so it was always cool and dim, a perfect sonic atmosphere. I would watch reverently as my father placed the record on the turntable and carefully placed the needle. The two of us would sit in silence through the static hiss of the first few seconds, and then once the music came on we were immediately both lost in it. I think that listening to music was the closest my father, a lifelong atheist, ever came to having a religious experience.

Here are the first twenty five songs. Enjoy!

1. Haim – The Wire

2. Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues

3. Howling Bells – Low Happening

4. Torres – Moon & Back

5. Marnie Stern – Every Single Line Means Something

6. Le Tigre – Deceptacon

7. Blonge RedHead – Falling Man

8. Lykke Li – Sadness Is A Blessing

9. Yuna – I Wanna Go

10. Waxahatchee – Dixie Cups and Jars

11. Heartless Bastards – Mountain

12. Dum Dum Girls – Coming Down

13. St. Vincent – Save Me From What I Want

14. Russian Red – Cigarettes

15. London Grammar – Wasting My Young Years

16. Joan As Police Woman – How Come You’re Solid Gold

17. CHVRCHES – Recover

18. Bat For Lashes – Prescilla

19. Azure Ray – Scattered Like Leaves

20. Coeur De Pirate – Place de la République

21. Postiljonen – All That We Had Is Lost

22. Broadcast – Subject To The Ladder

23. Lianne La Havas – No Room For Doubt

24. EMA – California

25. Slow Club – Beginners

(BONUS – DANIEL RADCLIFFE IS IN THIS VIDEO)

Tags: , , , ,

Rape Culture at the University of Ottawa

28 Feb

On February 10th, Anne Marie Roy, president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, was sent screenshots of a chat that had taken place earlier in the month between two student federation board members and several other students who are either elected to or participate in various faculty associations. The chat had taken place during the student federation elections, and all five men involved were members of a campaign opposing Roy’s (Roy has been president of the student federation since May 2013, and was re-elected this month). The conversation was about Roy, and the portion she was given contained graphic sexual descriptions about what the men wanted to do to her, including a rape joke that could, potentially, be taken as a rape threat.

Below are the screenshots. The participants are as follows:

Bart Tremblay: a non-elected student involved with the association for the Arts faculty

Alexandre Giroux: On the board of directors of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, and VP Social for the Science Student Association

Alex Larochelle: VP Social for the Criminology Student Association

Pat Marquis: VP Social of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa

Michel Fournier-Simard: VP Social for the Political Science and International developement Association

Screen Shot 2014-02-28 at 1.56.05 PM

Bart Tremblay: Let me tell you something right now: the “tri-fluvienne” [nickname for someone from Trois-Rivières, Québec] president will suck me off in her office chair and after I will fuck her in the ass on Pat [Marquis]’s desk

Alexandre Giroux: Tri-fluvienne? Who’s that?

Alex Larochelle: PJ I believe?

Bart Tremblay: Anne-Marie Roy, you dipshits, she comes from Trois-Rivières

Screen Shot 2014-02-28 at 1.56.45 PM

Alexandre Giroux: What? No. What a shit-eater. She says that she comes from somewhere in Ontario.

Alex Larochelle: Fuck yeah Anne Marie Roy

Bart Tremblay: She told me Trois-Rivières

Alexandre Giroux: Haha shiiit

Alex Larochelle: Someone punish her with their shaft

Alexandre Giroux: Well Christ, if you fuck Anne Marie I will definitely buy you a beer

Screen Shot 2014-02-28 at 1.57.07 PM

Alex Larochelle: Hahah, I’d buy you a beer too

Bart Tremblay: Lol

Alexandre Giroux: BAHAHA

Pat Marquis: I’ll get a 24 for Bart if he does it

Bart Tremblay: [Thumbs up symbol]

Bart Tremblay: Yeeee

Screen Shot 2014-02-28 at 1.57.41 PM

Michel Fournier-Simard: Dude she has chlamydia. And she told francophone students that she was from Trois-Rivières but she moved to Southern Ontario when she was five years old. It’s a super political strategy.

Alex Larochelle: Hahaha I heard she has syphilis

Alexandre Giroux: Well look hahhahahah

Alex Larochelle: But those get treated bro lol. Someone told Pat and I when we were in Boston. It’s such bull shit hahaha.

Someone punish her with their shaft. Someone punish her with their shaft. This is the type of thing that’s said about women in positions of power – not a critique of their policies, but a threat of sexual violence. Not a comment on how they do their job, but graphic fantasies about how they should be sexually degraded. Nothing about their intelligence or capability, just a string of jokes about how riddled with venereal disease they are. This is misogyny, pure and simple. This is slut-shaming. This is rape culture.

Can you imagine anything like this ever being said about a male leader? Try to picture, for a moment, a female candidate saying that her opponent is going to eat her out, or that she’s going to “punish” him with her vagina. Sounds pretty unlikely, doesn’t it? And yet, this is the kind of thing that women are subjected to all the time; the truth is that no matter how far we might think we’ve come, no matter how many female CEOs there might be, the belief that women are little more than a collection of fuck-holes persists. Oh sure, people might pay lip-service to the fact that women are equal to men in intelligence, talent, and capability, but at the end of the day we can’t escape the fact that a woman is still viewed as being less than a person. Because that conversation right there? That is not how you talk about a person.

What’s even worse is that events like these are nearly always downplayed. It’s just a joke, people say. They would never have said that if they’d thought you would hear it. In fact, three of the five men involved in the conversation are considering legal action against Roy on the grounds that it was a private conversation that should not have been made public. That’s right. They want to pursue legal action against her because she publicly called them out for making rape jokes about her. This is the fucked up culture we live in.

To make things even worse, these men are all in a position of leadership at the University of Ottawa. These are the people that the students look up to, that they use as a sort of moral compass to navigate university life. If these men face no consequences for their actions – indeed, if they are able to press charges against Roy for publicly addressing their comments – what are the students going to learn from this? They’ll learn that rape is a joke, that women can be terrorized into silence, and that it’s useless, maybe even dangerous, to speak up. Are these the lessons that we want our student leaders to be instilling in the heads of seventeen and eighteen year old kids?

Since this incident was first brought to light, Pat Marquis, the VP Social for the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa, has been in discussions with Roy about the accountability measures he can take for his role in this conversation. It is their hope that these measures can be a public conversation between Roy and Marquis, and could serve as a learning opportunity for the student body. Alex Larochelle has also contacted Roy and tentatively mentioned participating in this conversation as well. As for Bart Tremblay, Alexandre Giroux and Michel Fournier-Simard, they are continuing to attempt to pursue legal action against Roy.

I reached Roy this afternoon for a statement, and she had this to say:

“It’s definitely concerning because these are individuals who are responsible for putting on social events, many of which involve alcohol, and they are also responsible for the safety of membership at these events. On a personal level I feel that this is very misogynistic, I feel that this is a reaction that these men are having because I’m a woman in a position of leadership. My concerns on this are twofold: first, the issue of student safety in general, and second, that women are not going to feel safe running for positions of leadership on campus.”

I think she pretty much hits the nail on the head with that assessment.

ETA: comments are now closed on this post

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Why Won’t You Educate Me About Feminism?”

22 Feb

He doesn’t hate women.

Above and beyond everything else, he wants you to know this: he does not hate women.

He has two daughters, for god’s sake, and a wife that he adores beyond anything else, and a sister that he texts every day and a mother who is the strongest person that he’s ever known – yes, stronger than any of the men he’s met. So don’t think that this is because he hates women.

If anything, his real problem is loving women too much.

See, he just wants his daughters to grow up safe and happy. And to be honest, some of the things that you’re saying – that these feminists are saying – are troubling to him.

He just wants to have a sort of academic chat. Peer to peer. Grownup to grownup. That’s all. He’s not saying you’re wrong – not by a long shot! He just wants you to explain a few things. He’s a reasonable, logical man, and he’s only asking for what any reasonable, logical person would want: proof.

After all, if you’re going to call yourself a feminist, you should be willing to back that belief up with facts, right?

And if you’ve got all the facts, it should be easy enough to convince him, shouldn’t it?

And after all, how is he supposed to understand anything if you won’t educate him?

He just wants so badly to understand.

If you don’t mind, could you start by providing him with some kind empirical data that women continue to suffer from systematic oppression? He doesn’t care about the past, and doesn’t want a history lesson. He wants to talk about the here and now. And from what he can see in the here and now, women are doing pretty well. Just look at you! Smart, well-educated, pretty. What about your gender could you possibly imagine has ever held you back? If anything, it’s probably done you a few favours!

He wonders if, for instance, you knew that there are now more women in post-secondary institutions than men? Gee, it sure seems like being a woman has benefited you in that regard!

He wonders if knew that more men were killed on the job than women, or that more men died violent deaths than women.

He wonders if you were aware that the rate of suicide was higher for men than for women.

He wonders if you even care about men, the way that he cares so much about women.

When you bring up the wage gap, he tells you that women make less because they work, on average, fewer hours. He tells you that men receive bonuses for doing more hazardous work, which skews the numbers. He tells you that the wage gap isn’t based on discrimination, but rather on mitigating factors that you obviously haven’t taken into consideration.

When you bring up rape and domestic violence statistics, he tells you that of course he’s sympathetic to female victims, but then asks why you didn’t mention male victims. He ponders aloud how interesting it is, the fact that you focus so much on women and seem to care so little about men. Don’t you think that men are victims of rape and domestic violence too? Have you ever thought about the fact that men’s numbers might be so much lower because stigma prevents so many victims from reporting their attacks? When a woman is raped or beaten, she’s treated with kindness and pity, but if it happens to a man, well, you can only imagine the comments about his masculinity and sexuality. And there are no men’s shelters for male victims of domestic abuse, there are no workshops for men to learn how to defend themselves against rapists. So wouldn’t you say that men actually have it worse with regards to these issues?

He doesn’t like the term “victim-blaming,” because, well, he finds that people use it when they want to escape the consequences of their actions. The thing is, if you’re a young girl out drinking and partying with the boys, he’s sure we all know that certain things might happen. Of course any rapist is a terrible person and deserves to be punished, but. Well. Women need to practice risk management, don’t they? If we know that rapists exist (and we do), then logically why would women make certain choices that would increase their risk of being raped? Rapists are monsters and we can’t change that, but women can certainly do their part to make sure that they stay safe.

After all, if someone’s house is robbed because they didn’t lock their door, we acknowledge that locking the door could have prevented the crime, don’t we? We don’t hold the person whose house was robbed to be completely blameless just because in a perfect world crimes would never be committed, do we?

Or to put it another way, when we drive cars, we wear seat belts, not because we think that we are bad drivers, but because we can’t control what other people on the road might do.

He wants his daughters to dress and behave modestly because although he trusts them, he can’t trust other people. That’s not victim-blaming, that’s just common sense.

He asks if you think that his daughters should serve as collateral damage for some point you are trying to prove.

He asks why it’s fine to put his daughter’ lives at risk for your so-called feminist principles.

He asks why you would want his daughters to dress and act like sluts – wouldn’t you rather they attract boys with their brains and character rather than their looks?

You see, it’s not that he hates women – not at all. He cares a great deal – obviously more than you do – about their health and safety. He wants his daughters to marry men who treat them well – men who hold open doors, men who pull out chairs, men who treat women as the exalted creatures that they are. He tells you that women – all women – deserve nothing less than this, because they are better, kinder, sweeter people than men. Women are stronger than men, he says – how else could they endure childbirth? Women are more nurturing and loving than men, he says – that’s why for thousands of years they’ve stayed home with the children while the men were out providing for the family.

Why would you want to deny his daughters all these wonderful qualities of womanhood and femininity?

Why would you want his daughters to be more like men, who are so obviously the lesser sex in so many regards?

You bring up the way that we as a society perpetuate and reinforce traditional gender roles; he counters with anecdotes about little boys being naturally interested in trucks, while little girls gravitate towards dolls and cooking sets.

You bring up the extreme beauty standards that women are held up to; he scoffs and asks if you’ve noticed how attractive the men in Hollywood are. He wonders if you think that women are alone when it comes to having body image issues – do you truly believe that men don’t face the same pressure that women do?

You bring up abortion; he bemoans the fact that men have no say over whether their child, their own flesh and blood, is born.

He uses the term “logical fallacy.”

He uses the term “straw man argument.”

He uses the term “ad hominem attack.”

When you tell him that he is not using any of these terms correctly, he calls that an ad hominem attack.

When you try to end the discussion, he accuses you of being too emotional about this. After all, here he is being all calm and rational, while you seem very, very upset. Here he has sat politely listening to you, presenting some very valid arguments, treating you exactly as he would treat a man, but you can’t seem to handle it. He humbly suggests that, if you cannot have a calm, rational discussion with him, perhaps women are not as equal as you imagine.

He asks why you so enjoy the role of the victim.

He asks why you would want to reduce his smart, competent daughters to victims.

He asks why you want to think of his mother, his brave, strong mother who raised him all on her own, as a victim.

He would never think of women as victims because, unlike you, he does not hate women.

mensClub

Tags: , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →