My take on it, in today’s Ottawa Citizen.
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Update: Some other women I like on the same topic. Tasha Kheiriddin in the Post, here and Margaret Wente in the Globe, here. Could it be? There’s a nascent sisterhood of reasonable women out there?
The time of year for what, you might ask? Well, in Ottawa we are experiencing Winter Part Deux, snow, sleet, ice pellets, rain and puddles that are more like small lakes. I’m preparing for a birthday party tonight and knowing that we all need a little summer, I found a recipe for a drink called “Summer Breeze,” (pineapple juice, pink grapefruit juice, soda, mint leaves and two ounces of gin, if you must know.)
I’m sampling one right now–because gin is pretty much what is required for a gal like me to read an entire Judy Rebick column.*
Yes, it’s that time of year–International Women’s Day. The centennial, I gather.
I could go on about why I don’t see things Judy’s way. But quite frankly, I’m enjoying this Summer Breeze too much, plus I believe I’ll have a column in the Ottawa Citizen next week on this very topic. We don’t want to be like Sweden, ladies, is the only thing I’ll definitely write here. They have a very different concept of feminism, and it’s actually a whole lot more traditional than many of us (Judy included) realize. (All their social programs are geared to helping women stay home, such that most women do. Any given day in Sweden, there’s 20 per cent absenteeism on the job, and a much lower percentage of their corporate managers and CEOs are women in the private sector.)
I believe in freedom. I believe women ought to do what they want. I believe they should also fund what they want to do themselves, alone or within families. Relying on a husband’s wage to stay home with kids isn’t insulting, it’s common sense. I don’t think a government program makes women “more equal,” hence my constant railing against Status of Women Canada. And I believe if women work fewer hours in different industries, which they do, as per Statistics Canada, then they should actually be paid less, and that 100 per cent “pay equity” would be evidence that we gave up on the free market.
This may well be the gin talking. Here ends the rant. Enjoy the lead up to International Women’s Day. And make sure you have the beverage of your choice on hand for every time they mention “abortion as a hard fought right.”
*I really don’t drink very much. I had to use egg cups to measure out my ounces–perhaps too generous a proxy, come to think of it.
Ok, so maybe not everyone will find this so funny. However, even if you are a feminist, I’d still recommend watching at least the first 11 seconds, until her computer-generated cartoon arm makes a sweeping gesture about “the patriarchy.”
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ro6fcj6Ek”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05ro6fcj6Ek]
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Brigitte adds: Hey! I’ve seen that gesture before! Right, Andrea? 🙂
“I’m able to really be there for [my kids] in that five or six hours of time,” says this mom who left her kids behind for a new life. To really find herself. She’s a better mom now, says she.
Is it just me or does it feel like this woman is not talking about human beings at all? Let alone her own kids. I’m all over flexibility in mothering, to be able to do things as you see fit but really, I have to say, up and leaving entirely somehow (call me crazy) doesn’t qualify. She appears to be more of a disengaged observer of her own life.
Youngest person ever to testify before committee. I like it. So should everyone–it gives the voiceless a voice. It makes the invisible in our society visible. If we were talking about the homeless or people with disabilities or any other disenfranchaised group, everyone would be thrilled:
The video and heartbeat recording of a nine-week old foetus is expected to be used as ‘testimony’ today by a Christian pro-life group in support of an anti-abortion bill. The testimony will consist of projecting an ultrasound image of the pregnant woman’s uterus onto a screen in the Ohio courtroom. The image will also show the foetus’s heartbeat in colour.
I am a Bell customer. I am not surprised by this story:
A couple from Merritt, B.C. has been battling Bell Canada for months over enormous bills – which they call outrageous and unwarranted – for thousands of dollars in unexplained data charges on their smart phone. “They basically made us scared of our phone,” said Daniel Methot.”We just stopped using it. We shut it off,” added his wife, Kate.
However, Daniel said, he has already ruled out that possibility because the charges continue even when the phone is shut off. He said he’s spent countless hours talking with numerous Bell representatives trying to diagnose the problem. Each time, he said, he had to tell the whole story from the beginning.
I know this is quite off our usual beat but when I even think about needing to call Bell for any reason at all I want to shoot myself, so given that circumstance, I am morally obligated to post this information. And another link to this.
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Deborah adds: I’m going to go out get my very first ever Canadian cell phone today. It’s been hard convincing myself it’s a good idea since it is so incredibly more expensive than in the USA . . . voicemail and caller ID aren’t automatically included with every plan?? And . . . long distance and roaming? They practically don’t exist for cell phones in the US. So now I know what company NOT to choose (and my husband already vetoed Rogers)! Canada needs a revolution. A cell phone revolution!
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Jennifer adds: I think it’s an epidemic. I had problems with Rogers as well, so switched to Virgin. My first bill with Virgin said my smart phone was “online” more hours than are in the day! Their excuse? My phone was “looking for updates” because I hadn’t updated it correctly. The problem is fixed now, but I still ended up paying an extra $40 in fees that I didn’t cause. I basically took out the battery and threw the phone in a box until the problem was fixed. It made me want to claw my eyes out! Not to mention that I’ll never get back the hours spent on the phone with their reps. Awful… I think I’m getting post traumatic stress just thinking about it.
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Brigitte is doing what she can to help:
Interesting article, if depressing, about current sexual mores:
When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn’t so bad. This isn’t to say that all men direct the course of their relationships. Plenty don’t. But what many young men wish for—access to sex without too many complications or commitments—carries the day.
If you’d like to hear more from the author himself, consider coming to the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada conference on May 5.
(h/t)
A beautiful column by Father De Souza about Bernard Nathanson’s conversion first to life, and then to Roman Catholicism:
Nathanson was an atheist Jew. Yet after reading deeply in philosophy and theology, and after witnessing the sacrifices of pro-life activists for “a constituency that is (and always will be) mute and invisible,” he began to entertain the idea of God.
I really like this:
At the threshold of eternity, one trusts that now Bernard Nathanson sees not the terrifying vision of the damned, but rather, as Dante concludes the Inferno, the “Love that moves the sun and the other stars.” That Love moves not only the immensity of the universe; it moves too the tiny baby in the womb.
This billboard is causing a stir in New York. It’s meant to highlight the high abortion rate among African Americans:
Mr. Faulkner said that he hoped the billboard would provoke a visceral reaction, like the one he said he had felt when he saw the abortion statistics. “It should be an offense,” he said. “This is not targeting black women. This is targeting the practice, and saying to black women, ‘If you find yourself in this crisis of an unexpected, unwanted pregnancy, there are alternatives.’
Now the mother of the girl in the photo, who signed a stock photo release, says she too is offended. I’d say that’s one billboard that is earning the publicity it wanted to achieve.
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Brigitte loves it!!
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Update: And it’s down.