Philoillogica

CP24 to rape victim: how cool was your rape?

Not only is it bad enough that an idiotic Toronto judge has let a man walk free from a rape charge with the defense that he can't be held responsible for his actions because he was asleep at the time, but CP24 has decided that only "women's rights activists" would find such behaviour troublesome:

If you haven’t heard of Sexomnia, you’re likely not alone.  After all, it’s not even present in medical textbooks. 

But the bizarre medical condition, which causes one to act out sexually while they're asleep, was rousing outraged women’s rights activists on Tuesday, after a man who admitted to having sex with a women without consent walked out of court a free man.

The circumstances of the case are crystal clear: John Luedecke, the accused, fully admitted that he raped the victim.  He fully admitted that he even put on a condom before the rape.  He fully admitted that he knew about his supposed "condition" of "sexsomia" from its appearance in FOUR of his prior relationships (his ex-girlfriends testified on behalf of the defense that Luedecke had sex with them while he was asleep), and regardless of his known propensity to act out sexually in his sleep, he chose to "crash" after a party in the proximity of sleeping women. 

Despite all of these undisputed facts, Justice Russell Otter ruled that Luedecke had not committed a crime in his raping of the victim, because his actions weren't "voluntary."  Apparently having a mental disorder that is potentially fraught with harm to others does not give pause to Justice Otter, who did not impose conditions on Luedecke such as treatment for his illness or status as a sexual offender.  If Luedecke's specious mental condition is not a fraud, he is as much of a danger to society as any pedophile - every time he sleeps he has the potential to do anything with carte blanche as far as the law is concerned.  What Justice Otter has done is given Luedecke (not to mention any other man who can get himself diagnosed with "sexsomia") a license to rape.

But CP24's story seems more interested in the circumstances of this supposed condition than the dangerous outcome of the trial, opening and closing its article with the sensational novelty of the disorder.  "It's so new, medical textbooks don't list it!" they gush, willfully ignoring that the victim of the crime was forced to have sex with the side show of the accused against her will.

In all fairness, we do get a little bit of "objectivity" from CP24.  In giving us the victim's side of the story, we learn that "Upon hearing the verdict, the victim left the courtroom in tears."

Of course, immediately this "objectivity" is destroyed in the next two paragraphs that implicitly suggest that the sex was consensual and the victim engaged in risky behaviour, but really, what else should a drunken woman expect?

The woman, who remains anonymous, met Luedecke at a party in 2003. Both were drinking and had apparently decided to crash there overnight.

The woman fell asleep on a couch, and reportedly woke up to find the man having sex with her. She pushed him off, then told police she’d been raped.

"Both were drinking", ergo, the woman's memory of the events are flawed and suspect.  Note that the man's are not.

"Reportedly" - the woman's testimony is called into question by this qualifying adverb, even though the accused's story corroborates hers.

"Having sex with her" - he was raping her, and doesn't deny that he did, but it only becomes "rape" once the victim decides she didn't enjoy it.  That's when she tells the police.

One wonders whether or not Luedecke would've been acquitted without restrictions on his behaviour had he raped a child in his sleep, or committed a bank robbery, or built a bomb that killed someone.  Somehow I don't think so.

But isn't sexsomia fascinating? That's far more interesting than the boring old story of a raped woman any old day!

Vancover Sun to Nursing Women: Even your breast milk is fat

And in this week's "women are dreadfully inferior no matter what they do" news, researchers have revealed that Canadian women's breast milk is 7% poison.

Or trans-fats.  The point is that women are BAD, and the baddest of all are those breedin' ones, who lactate chicken McNuggets whole from each nipple (emphasis mine):

Canadian breast milk, not just chicken nuggets and french fries, is one of the highest sources of trans fatty acids in Canada's food supply, a federal committee heard Wednesday. The average lactating woman in Canada consumes 10.6 grams of trans fatty acids per day, and the harmful fats account for seven per cent of total fat in her breast milk, University of Guelph Prof. Dr. Bruce Holub told a 23-member panel charged with finding ways to eliminate, or reduce to the lowest levels possible, trans fatty acids in foods sold in Canada.

Let's just clarify this, shall we? Dr. Holub of Guelph University, supposed to find ways to cut harmful trans-fatty acids from the processed foods that we Canadians stuff into our faces in vast, delicious quantities, has determined that the real problem is LACTATING WOMEN. 

Now, I don't know what kind of milkshake's brought to the Holub dinner table, but I'll venture that most Canadians over the age of six months do not regularly partake IN BREASTMILK.  Those of us who prefer our liquid calcium in udder rather than boob form have bigger concerns with the safety of Canada's food supply, and since we're the majority (and some of us are of the species that make said breast-milk anyway), we'd like to know about Dr. Holub's efforts with lightly-milled solids.  Could you say something about chewable food, Dr. Holub?

Holub stressed in an interview that women should not stop breast-feeding. Rather, he said, "we can change and improve the quality of breast milk" by cutting industrialized trans fats "off at the source."

I'm sorry, Dr. Holub, but who's this "we"?  And how fucking creepy is it anyway that anyone's talking about "the quality of breast milk", as if it's some sort of national industry in need of agricultural support?

If women reduce their intake of trans fat, within days their breast milk benefits.

Holub says there is no safe level of the fats and that food producers should "cease and desist the industrial production of trans fats in the country."

Riiiiiiiiiight. But what about the rest of us who eat the food, Dr. Holub?  Are trans fats worth eradicating only because - gasp - they can get into breast-milk?  The breast-milk that good, unselfish, saintly mothers use to feed their sweet little innocents with?

The joint Health Canada and Heart and Stroke Foundation panel expects to make its recommendations to the government by the end of this month on strategies to reduce trans fats to the lowest levels possible.

But the group still has not decided how low to go -- or how to get there, meaning whether through guidelines or regulations.

How does this press release come about, exactly?  Can you imagine this conversation?

"Gee, Bruce, what are we gonna do? We've got to report back to the federal committee tomorrow, and we haven't done a damn thing!  We don't have a single idea for how to improve the safety of Canada's food supply!  The Heart and Stroke Foundation is going to kill us!"

"No worries, Steve," says Bruce, brushing invisible lint off his labcoat.  "We'll just blame nursing mothers - everyone's a sucker for headline on breast-milk, and it's not like breast-feeders are in any position to complain we're dumping on them.  Hell, with the amount of hormones pumping through their bodies, they'll probably just curl up in little balls on their sofas and weep."

"Brilliant!"  says Steve.  "I'll call the press."

Thoughtfully, The Vancouver Sun has graced us with a paradigm of Holy MartyrMotherdom in the accompanying boxed text, "Mother of Two Taken Aback", so that inferior mothers may know the blackness of their shame:

Now that she's breast-feeding, Sara Abbasakoor is very conscious about what she eats.

"Like, before I knew the glory of womanhood that comes from spawning my DNA, I totally didn't care about what I ate.  When my body was just for me, my inferior gender characteristics led me to believe that I was below contempt - and I was! Now that I'm a mother, I'm eating for two - and I have to shower all the love on my infant that my worthless self could never otherwise deserve."

The 33-year-old mother of two tries to buy only organic meats, is selective about the dairy products she'll consume and has a basket of organic produce dropped at her east Vancouver home every two weeks to limit the amount of pesticides she passes on to her two-month-old son.

Isn't Sara Abbasakoor GOOD?  She only eats organic, pesticide-free food because she recognizes the pollution inherent in her body, and she refuses to pass any corrupted influence on to her offspring.  Readers, are YOU doing that? ARE YOU? NO? It's what - expensive and privileged to have organic food delivered right to your door?  Puh-leeze.  We've all heard that excuse from selfish, bad mothers.  We all know you could afford it if you were willing to make the sacrifices necessary for your sweet, innocent, pristine, saintly children.

Quick, somebody bring out the torches and peasants!  We're gonna have a shunning!  Let this be a lesson to the rest of you: if you want to assuage society's tremendous motherguilt, you'd better get a bimonthly organic vegetable home-delivery!

On Wednesday, however, Abbasakoor learned the volume of trans fatty acids she may be passing on in her breast milk and that she could be doing more to watch what she is feeding her baby.

Unless, of course, we come up with some other reason for mothers to feel guilty.  (But did we fool you with the organic home delivery thing? did you really feel good about yourself for a second there? did you think you were actually a good mother? SUCKER.)

"I'm very conscious of some of the risks of things translating into breast milk and that you do have to be careful," she said, explaining her diet is already relatively low in trans fats, but that she will try to keep a closer eye on her intake of the harmful fats.

"The problem with pregnancy and breast-feeding is you are hungry a lot and you have cravings," she said. "It's sometimes hard to fill up on all healthy stuff."

No, Sara, the problem with pregnancy and breast-feeding is that society keeps telling women that it's all they're good for, and the infinite ways that those who choose it keep doing it wrong. 

Cursing...

...A&E, who just reported in their "History of the Vampire" special that Bram Stoker was inspired to write Dracula by "the 1832 epidemic of syphilis in London."

Talk about lousy research: it was cholera. 

Spookerific of the day

Yesterday's efforts at SSHRC writing bought the dearly-needed reward of 28 Days Later, a beautifully hideous viral-zombie film shot with the breathless attention to cinematography that only a Brit can provide.  Alongside the threat of bloodshot, rage-induced maniacs, director Danny Boyle treats the audience to shot after shot of London's eclectic architecture and England's rolling green farmland, all terrifyingly void of human inhabitation and resistant even to the trite shortcut of suspense-building violins. London's streets echo with the footfalls of the delicious Cillian Murphy who, for a pleasant twist on the ubiquitous "the zombies won't eat me if I show them my heaving bosoms", is naked for more than half the film:

Mmm.

And speaking of zombies engorged on manflesh, Rebecca Eckler is now writing her vacuous and insipid prose for The Globe and Mail.

Yes, it seems that Canada's tedious answer to Carrie Bradshaw has apparently lost her National Post byline, and is infecting the older and more expensive of our two national dailies with her own unique brand of pointless tedium. 

This week, the putupon wannabe who makes Bridget Jones look like a rocket scientist is complaining about the latest thing in her oh-so-inventive "this is the latest thing" trope:

There are certain words even the most mature women dread hearing from the ex.

"I have syphilis?"  "You kiss like my sister?"  Er, no:

"I'm getting married!" is one of those sentences. Nowadays, there are a few more words being added. Instead of just hearing that the ex is starting a life with someone new, we're also getting asked to share in the festivities.

The old question of sex with the ex is giving way to: "Should I go to my ex's wedding?"

Oh, right. Marriage. For those of you new to Eckler's heteronormative world, the roles between the sexes are clearly defined. Men buy things in order to make women like them.  Women also buy things to make men like them, but they also take the things that men buy, and there is a large amount of expensive salves and unguents employed by women to trick men into buying them stuff. 

In Eckler's world, all relationships may end in one of two ways: marriage and not-marriage. 

Because all women want marriage, any relationship that ends in not-marriage is a necessary failure, and women are therefore naturally concerned with promoting the unhappiness of their ex-boyfriends and relishing in any unfortunate occurrences that may befall them.  If Eckler knew the term "schadenfreude", doubtless she'd use it here - she had a German boyfriend once who was a total tiger in the sack, a very sweet man who was certainly marriage material, but he once got a piece of spinach stuck in his teeth at dinner, and it totally "wrecked the magic" afterwards, so she dumped him.  What was I saying? Oh, right: schadenfreude.  Anyway, she knows that word.

That's why it's SO surprising that lately, women have been staying friends with their exes and wishing them well and stuff, instead of cursing those happy bastards to the heavens, dolling themselves up and going out to buy a new pair of shoes and drink cosmos and flirt shamelessly.  Apparently, cursing your ex is SO over now, it's wearing Uggs.  Forgiveness is in.

Even though they broke up four years ago after a two-year relationship, they're still friends. "Most people thought it was weird that I went," Munro says. "Most of my girlfriends didn't understand it and my family didn't understand it. I was the only one who thought he wanted me to come for the right reasons. That is, we were in love when we were dating, then we became very close friends after we broke up. He became like a big brother."

SO mature!  And this wedding planner (Eckler's resident guru in male-female social behaviours) agrees:

Maria Vella, a Toronto-based wedding planner for the company Thee Wedding, says, "It's absolutely a good thing to invite the ex. It definitely happens all the time. If they are still good friends, why not?" she asks.

Aha! Aha! Yet another trend spotted by our very own Yummy Mummy with Sevens and a blow-out!

That Eckler.  I like, totally want to be her.

Cursing...

...my brilliant idea to reschedule my missed class the hour before its assigned time - 8:30 - pushing our starting time back to 7:50.  However did that seem like a good idea!?!

And curse their agreeing to it!  Why couldn't they just have taken the assignment instead?!?

Edited to remove the glaring "it's" error - all the more proof I should not be allowed out of my apartment before 8 am.

He who destroyes a good booke, kills reason it selfe

Geez.  I've only read 27% of the books on the American Library Association's 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books 1990-2000, and most of them I read in grade school.  Guess I've got a lot of catching up to do to become a real troublemaker.

The idiotic thing is that most of the children's books on the list are banned for the most inane reasons, like a visible nipple in the Where's Waldo books (but good luck finding it) or something titled "Scary Stories" actually having *shock and horror!* scary stories in it. 

1.    Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
The hook, the hitch-hicker's sweater, the babysitter...they're all here...waiting to corrupt fourth-graders...bwahaha....
2.    Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3.    I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
You know what's seditious? Maya Angelou now writes cards for Hallmark. 
4.    The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5.    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6.    Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7.    Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling 
8.    Forever by Judy Blume
9.    Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
This is a heartbreaking, thoughtful story about the platonic friendship between a boy and a girl.  God forbid children ever get to learn to interact with the opposite sex as equals.  Better ban it.
10.   Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11.    Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12.    My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13.    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 
14.    The Giver by Lois Lowry
15.    It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16.    Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
Beelzebub reads them to the lil' demons before tucking 'em in. Nuff said.
17.    A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18.   The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19.    Sex by Madonna
20.    Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21.   The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The last thing we'd want to do is write a positive story about a little girl in foster care, 'cause that might give kids the idea that they can get all uppity.
22.   A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
No! Not a Christian novel about theoretical physics!!! You're upsetting typical religion vs. science  dichotomies!!! Would somebody please think of the children!!!
23.    Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24.    Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25.    In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26.     The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27.    The Witches by Roald Dahl
This is just dumb.  It's a "How to Spot Witches" guide, for pete's sake: no toes, blue spit, claws, bald.  You'd think this would be helpful for the "Burn them! No, DROWN them! No, BURN them!" chorus, but nooooo-oooooooo.
28.   The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
You can do it in the bum.  Ssssssssssssshhhhhhh.  Don't tell anyone.  We don't think they'll figure it out without the manual.
29.     Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
What was the most offensive part, I wonder - the fact that Anastasia talks to her goldfish, or that her father is a professor at Harvard?
30.    The Goats by Brock Cole
31.    Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32.    Blubber by Judy Blume
33.    Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34.    Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35.    We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36.    Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37.   The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Quick, pull them off the shelves! The president doesn't want to be accused of plagiarism!
38.    Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39.    The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40.    What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
Don't need this one. The "You're a defective, inferior, stinky mass of human flesh unworthy of love" pamphlets have much nicer pictures, don't you think?
41.    To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I think this is on here 'cause it be a big ol' lie.  They don't kill no mockin' burds in dis here book. Nossir, not e'en ONE.
42.    Beloved by Toni Morrison
43.    The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44.    The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45.    Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46.    Deenie by Judy Blume
Because good girls don't masturbate.  Even in metaphor.
47.    Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48.    Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49.    The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50.    Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51.    A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Fair enough.  If you put a brassiere on a camel and then write a poem about it, you know what to expect.
52.    Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53.    Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54.    Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55.    Cujo by Stephen King
Rabid dogs, even imaginary ones, eat babies.  That's why. 
56.    James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Giant peaches also eat babies.
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
This used to be shelved in the anarchy section at the World's Biggest Bookstore in Toronto.  Seriously.
58.    Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59.    Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60.    American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61.    What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62.    Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
God does not want to know about your period, you perverted little girl. Now go burn your copy of #40 right now, and read this pamphlet.
63.    Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64.    Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65.    Fade by Robert Cormier
66.    Guess What? by Mem Fox
67.    The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69.   Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Boobs. Oh, and we firebombed Dresden during WWII, and there were American POWs there. Ssshh.  Don't tell.
70.    Lord of the Flies by William Golding
No women are abused or belittled in this book. That will simply not do.
71.    Native Son by Richard Wright
72.    Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Don't be ridiculous.  Women don't like sex. Stop giving them ideas.
73.    Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74.    Jack by A.M. Homes
75.    Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76.    Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77.    Carrie by Stephen King
Too much menstrual blood.
78.    Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79.    On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80.    Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81.    Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82.    Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83.    The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Mr. King, we've warned you before about taunting the CIA. 
84.    The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85.    Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86.    Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87.    Private Parts by Howard Stern
88.    Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Boobs, again. 
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Sympathetic Nazi forces rethinking of simplistic concept of evil. 
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Promotes vegetarianism.
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

More banned books (with links to purchase) at Forbidden Library.

If you've memorized your civil rights don't forget one

Yesterday was a lovely day in Fredericton.  The air clean and crisp, the birds singing, the anti-choice women-haters demonstrators swarming in buzzing streams, their pitchforks and torches glittering charmingly in the afternoon sun.

I liked the six-year old holding the "abortion stops a beating heart" sign best.  Slaves of oppression are always so cute at that age, what with their little pigtails and Sunday dresses and their enthusiastic pumping of their tiny pink-edged placards.  It's good to see the anti-choicers indoctrinating their young to truly appreciate that their right-to-life is dependent on being Mommy and Daddy's sweet little heartstring-tugging pawn. 

Such a nice way to spend a Sunday.  It made me feel positively saintly to go off afterward and celebrate my baby-killing heathenish ways by purchasing a pair of low-rise jeans that barely cover my pubic bones.  As I figure it, I need to start planning my wardrobe now for any unplanned pregancies that might arise in my future.  All pant choices hereafter need to remain unaffected by my rising bulge, which should artfully amass itself over any sufficiently low waistband.  After all, if enough coerced six-year-olds have their say, I might not be able to gad about at CFB Gagetown on Friday nights with impunity anymore, thoughtlessly filling myself with semen and soldiers in what can only be described as a "come one, come all" affair.  My post-market Saturday sojourn into the Morgentaler clinic for a little D n' C with my latte would go by the wayside, and I'd have to find someplace else to spend my hard-earned $500 that I've been monthly earmarking for baby-killing.

Because, you see, that's what an abortion in New Brunswick costs, even though abortion is considered basic health care under the Canada Health Act.  The provincial government refuses to adhere to the policies of the CHA, choosing to fully fund abortions only if they are performed in a hospital and found by two doctors to be "medically necessary."  For the record, there are only two hospitals in the entire province of 750,000 people that perform abortions. 

And here's what that means:   
         
New Brunswick's Medical Services Payment Act, Regulation 84-20, Schedule 2(a.1)) states that abortion is only eligible for payment by Medicare when:

"…performed by a specialist in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology in a hospital facility approved by the jurisdiction in which the hospital facility is located, and two medical practitioners certify in writing that the abortion was medically required."        

This regulation violates women's constitutional rights, as well as all five principles of the Canada Health Act (comprehensiveness, universality, accessibility, portability, and public administration)

• It forces women to pay out-of-pocket for abortions at the Morgentaler Clinic, while funding them at hospitals. But Health Canada says that medically required treatments must be fully funded regardless of where they are performed, hospitals or clinics.

• It forces women to obtain approval from two doctors before they can get a funded abortion at a hospital. This violates women's constitutional rights to freedom of conscience, liberty, and bodily security. The Supreme Court of Canada said (in the 1988 Morgentaler decision that threw out Canada's abortion law) that abortion is a woman's private decision that the state is required to respect, not approve.
               
• It forces the two doctors to certify in writing that the abortion is "medically required." This is redundant because the province has already deemed abortion to be medically required by funding some of them at hospitals. By definition, all abortions are medically required and must be funded, just like all childbirths are medically required and funded - regardless of the woman's reasons for wanting an abortion or a baby.
               
• It requires abortions to be performed by a specialist in Obstetrics/Gynecology. This limits access unnecessarily, because abortions can easily be done by family physicians, who are far more numerous than Ob/Gyns.                
               
• It violates the rights of New Brunswick women who need an abortion while outside the province. All Canadian citizens are covered by Medicare when they move or travel to another province. However, New Brunswick has used its abortion regulation to justify keeping   abortion on the list of services excluded from its reciprocal billing agreement with other provinces.

Also, hospitals in New Brunswick perform abortions only up to 12 weeks gestation. This arbitrary policy exists even though the province forces women to wade through red tape that often delays the procedure past 12 weeks.

Hence the Morgentaler clinic, which performs abortions at cost that women must pay for themselves, to compensate for the basic health care that New Brunswick does not provide.  Morgentaler is currently suing the N.B. government for failing to provide this essential part of women's health care, which is apprently of insufficient importance to draw the attention of health minister Elvy Robichaud.  When the federal government pointed out that N.B.'s refusal to offer abortion services is a failure uphold the Canada Health Act, Robichaud's official position was that "jurisdictions can decide which procedures to fund in their jurisdiction. If he was to proceed with the dispute resolution we will be ready to defend our position."

Nice.

So it remains to be seen what exactly the anti-choice protesters were protesting yesterday, given that for all intents and purposes their viewpoint is illegally shared by the provincial minister of health.  Perhaps, then, what I saw was not a protest but a celebration, the little girl in pigtails demonstrating the way that the "right to life" movement is rendered ironic by a steadfast refusal to admit that baby-makers have lives too.

Regardless, it made me clamour for a copy of Consolidated's "Butyric Acid":

Anything to empower women, that's for damn sure
Know what it means when they're bombing all the clinics,
who's going to say get off the fence to the cynics
Harassing g.y.n. with a death threat,
say that you're doing god's work, well, yeah but
Respect women and give her some room,
believe in her rights, stay out of her womb
If you want to see women stop termination,
give her a future and a real education
Do you think women want to kill their own babies?
If you've got your own twisted baggage, then maybe

If you don't want a Nazi in your house, don't let one,
(you) Don't know a fundamentalist 'til you've met one
If you've memorized your civil rights, don't forget one,
If you don't want an abortion, don't get one

Rest of the song lyrics (plus more pro-choice tracks, and an interesting debate) here.

Or as I tell my female students, "Just spread your legs and fly"

According to Charmaine Yoest, we now live in a "get it over with" society, inundated by an "MTV sex culture" that devalues virginity.  Yoest is rightly fuming over the New York mother who pimped her 13-year-old daughter and her daughter's 14-year-old friend out for sex, first plying the girls with liquor before allegedly advising them to "have sex and get it over with."  Now this woman's behaviour is reprehensible (not to mention criminal), but Yoest's latest missive overlooks the demented mother in question to instead aim fiercely at vocal proponents of a woman's right to be more than just a frenzied, pokey lay:

We've spent the last several decades letting a sniggering, crude, crass, adolescent, Get It On approach to sexuality overtake our sexual mores.

Yeah, I'm talking about you, Wonkette.  And you, Amanda Marcotte.

Virginity, once respected and valued as a mark of self-discipline and self-respect, is now often viewed skeptically as a burden and an embarrassment.

This apparently, is a problem for Yoest, who believes that the attendant shame associated with loss of virginity is a good thing, and that self-discipline and self-respect are worthwhile only so long as they are dependent on a thin, breakable membrane.  The second girls start thinking that their bodies are theirs to be used for their own pleasure instead of fields to be plowed with the seed of a righteous man, we enter into "a sniggering, crude, crass, adolescent, Get It On approach to sexuality" that demands that mothers intoxicate their offspring to feed into a the patriarchal desire for vaginal bloodshed.  Didn't you get that memo?

But no, that doesn't really work, does it?  I thought that the notion of female virginity as a pure "mark of self-discipline and self-respect" was supposed to idolize womanly virtue or some shit, "protecting" women by making them prizes to be doled out in exchange for civilized male behaviour.  Women "gain the upper hand" by limiting male desire, giving their word to stop at third until the magic tying of the marriage knot and loosening of the chastity belt lets sexuality into their little worlds on Tuesday nights before The Daily Show comes on.  But the downside to letting women be the limiting factor on sexual encounters is that it necessarily requires that men are always the desiring party making demands on a limited supply.  Virginity becomes fetishized to the point where the hymen is worth more than the act itself - "popping a cherry" is a desirable experience to men not because it is enjoyable, but because it is rare.

We have a host of vocabulary for the first sexual act, all of it focused on the male perspective of conquest:  "He took her virginity"; "She gave himself to him".  Virginity is a tangible thing to lose or to be given away, and the words we use to talk about it always suggest that the female is one who does the giving and the losing. 

And this, I think, is what that hideously misguided New York mother was trying to point out with her "you might as well get it over with."  The value placed on virginity is a burden borne by young women - and by young women alone - at a time when their self-identity is most in question, when their vulnerability is greatest, and when their physiology makes them most desirable to the dominant male gaze.  A young woman cannot help the size of her breasts or her hips, can't help her stutter or her shyness, cannot help a host of characteristics about her self and body during this insecure time in her life, but she can control whether or not she is an even more valuable commodity in a paradigm of male exchange.  She can use her body for her own pleasure, and in so doing, remove the oppressive burden of safeguarding "female virtue" that society sees fit to place upon her.  So long as her value is determined by her unfamiliarity with a certain act, her value is dependent on maintaining that unfamiliarity - and she is continually vulnerable to having her inherent value stolen by rape.

What kind of message is that to send out to young women? "Your self-respect and self-discipline should be determined by your physical wholeness, your denial of self-pleasure and your implicit vulnerability to men.  These things are constantly under threat, so you must be vigilant, steadfast and worthy of the idolization placed upon you, otherwise you will become worthless coin in our female body economy."

Since Yoest is so fond of blaming mothers, I'll happily point out that this is hardly a worthy sentiment for a mother of three girls to espouse.

Hat tip to Amanda for the link.

 

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.*

I haven't been writing as much lately, because, like most Canadians, I've been super busy beating off all those darn Pakistani rape victims that have lately been infiltrating our country in droves.  These days, you can't turn around without being accosted by swarming rape-victim millionaires milling about the streets in their finery, high-fiving each other and writing letters back home saying:

"if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

It's really getting quite annoying, actually, what with the detailed "how-to" pamphlets that explain the ranking system (gang-rape good; gang-rape ordered by village council better) being handed out on every corner and the coffeehouse lectures on exploiting the complicated nuances of honour killing (women are property to be bought, sold, traded and destroyed, so try to be pregnant before the rape to instantly double your value) for personal gain.

That's why I'm really thankful that Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf has finally called attention to this money-grubbing practice - it really isn't fair that Pakistani women can profit by simply "getting themselves raped."  I mean, it's not like it's a particularly skilled activity to pursue in Pakistan - any woman can do it without even trying - so it's truly a "money-making concern" for the Musharraf regime.  Think about the damage to the Pakistani economy if women started having independent value and agency!  What's next?  The Amnesty International Treatise on the Rights of Furniture?

States should condemn violence against upholstery and should not invoke any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination.1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Sofas.

Musharraf: always looking out for Canada's best interests

It would be chaos!  But seriously.  I think that Musharraf has really demonstrated some great leadership on this issue, because people were starting to think that Pakistan was a hideous nightmare of systemic human rights abuses committed against women, which is obviously untrue.  I mean, since women are just "getting themselves raped" for fun and profit, cashing in on that "hymen-free zone" entry loophole into Canada, it's a good thing this whole money-making aspect came up.  I was a little suspicious when the Immigration and Refugee Board started their popular "Get hideously disfigured by your family, win $1,000,000" program, since fleeing from your life and culture is super-easy and kerosene only pennies a litre. 

Honestly, these damn rape-victims are everywhere.  It's about time that somebody did something about it.

*Aristotle, source unknown

Monday morning bile rising

Now that I don't take vomit-inducing birth control pills every morning, I'm always looking for a way to facilitate my morning purge.  It keeps me looking peaky with that elegant dewy sheen that Revlon's always on about.  This morning I was delighted to find this article by The Windsor Star that did the job quite nicely:

Saumil Desai isn't afraid to admit it.

He wants a babe -- specifically, a babe who looks a lot like Angelina Jolie.

"She's fabulous." Desai's lips break into a broad smile as he lists the actress's attributes. "She's not only sexy, she has a playful, mischevious [sic] look, like a trickster."

"I think she presents a real challenge." Desai is still smiling.

Jolie is the "perfect woman" and the standard by which he measures all others.

Barfing yet? Saumil Desai is the lead in "Sexy stars raise men's expectations", yet-another exercise in blame-the-women-for-men's-failings, the new fun and easy workout routine from our friends at Patriarchy Inc ("We put the phallus in fabulous!").  Apparently a study by Top Sante magazine reveals that 80% of women feel that the way they are perceived by men is distorted by the omnipresence of perfect celebrity bodies.

Saumil is just a beacon in a sea of men's displeasure with women's squishy, stinky, lumpy bodies, and thankfully he's seen fit to let us all know what he's looking for in a mate, engaging in that crucial form of appearance-based sexual selection that evolution has decreed is men's exclusive right. 

"For women," our vomit-inducing hero tells us, "looks aren't as important as they are to men. What matters more is personality, what a man does professionally and how he treats her."

Gee, since Saumil has discovered that we women put so much weight on what they do "professionally", he must be a super catch, right? A doctor, maybe? Or a civil rights lawyer?  Did you guess rocket scientist? Children's librarian? Hospice volunteer? Group home administrator? Daycare worker?   And since his ideal woman is Angelina Jolie, his real-life girlfriend must be amazingly hot, right?  To live up to those standards?

Well, no.

"I believe that's why I don't have a girlfriend right now," says the 21-year-old business administration student at the University of Windsor. "All these standards I expect to be met. With women out there, I have criteria on which I judge them -- their appearance, the way they speak, move and the people they hang around with.

"I'm extremely picky."

Right.  'Cause you're gonna reel in the ladies with that business admin degree, sweetheart.  Or with your control-freak, sociopathic tendencies.  Women are just falling all over themselves looking for men who'll tell them who their friends can be, and how they can move.  Nothing gets us hotter than some guy to tell us when and how to speak, and the right way to bend over to pick up your dropped remote control. 
   
While Saumil himself is certainly barf-worthy, I hurled again when I noticed the way Windsor Star writer Grace Macaluso structured her article, making sure she covered the more serious side of this whole patriarchy thing by noting that these kinds of attitudes are *gasp* a problem.

After decades of struggling to be accepted for their intellect rather than their appearance, women believe that cosmetically enhanced celebrities and airbrushed images are reversing their fortunes, not boosting them.

WHAT?  You mean the systemic objectification of women as lovely objects to be admired hasn't been working out for us? When did that start happening? I was so certain that looking prettier for my boss was the key to corporate success, and surely, if I could base my entire being on looking remotely like Jessica Simpson, well, that would enable me to become General Electric's youngest CEO ever, wouldn't it?  It wouldn't? Women are supposed to know stuff now?  Use our intellects?  And this attempt to has been going on for, what, DECADES?  [ed. Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Wollstonecraft along with a host of others have just been obliterated from history folks, check that out.]

But hey, Macaluso managed to redeem herself by interviewing one of them "feminist" broads, the real kind from one of those *snort* woman's studies programmes, who ends up saying that this sort of behaviour by men isn't all that bad:

While the survey's findings don't surprise feminists like Anne Forest, director of Women's Studies at the University of Windsor, they say men's expectations aren't necessarily to [sic] high, but too particular.

"The so-called epitome of female beauty is bounded by culture, age and race," says Forest. "It's an ideal that would be difficult for any woman, particularly for women of different cultures and race."

Now wait a minute.  Forest certainly claimed that standards of female beauty are too particular, but she certainly didn't dismiss the "too high" claim.  But anyway, who cares about accuracy, when really, everybody knows that women just judge men too, so none of it really counts as sexism at all.

See? This random guy seems to think so:

But, Kyle Baptista, a 21-year-old environmental engineering student, says "it works both ways."

"Women are also affected by media images -- not only of the perfect woman, but of the perfect man."

Aha!  See?!? Women are just as awful!   Quick, Grace Macaluso, find a quote to back that up!

Just ask Izzy Azenabor, a 20-year-old business administration student. Hunky Shemar Moore of the soap opera Young and the Restless is worthy of her lust.

"I love his height, his skin tone, his facial features, his acting," says Azenabor. "He's just perfect. I guess everyone has an ideal."

Whew.  That was close.  You nearly did some responsible journalism for a second there.  You might as well celebrate by offering as a truism a statement that really deserves closer examination:

"In real life, men aren't that fussy. What you're attracted to is one thing, what you settle for is another."  And, "smart men will know that women will settle for whatever they get."

Flush.