Today’s Globe has  a large spread on successful women. Nothing wrong with that. But I take issue with the tone. And I take issue with targets, which Sheelagh Whittaker, Director of Imperial Oil and Standard Life, advocates for in a taped message. You can listen here. (If you do, you’ll note her defence of targets isn’t very substantive and amounts to a desire for poor quality candidates everywhere. Furthermore, it’s quite condescending…”We’ll be equal when there as many incompetent women working as incompetent men”?? Really? You rose to the top on sentiments like that?)

I’ve been reading up on the female and male biological disposition in books like George Gilder’s Men and Marriage and other places too. And it has opened my eyes to the ways in which gender differences work. One thing is that men are naturally more aggressive and competitive than women. This is one of Gilder’s points and I happen to agree.

This means that in a competition in the workforce or in politics, men are, all things being otherwise equal, more likely to win. That doesn’t offend me. It just means Margaret Thatcher is that much more of a success. (And there are many other areas where women “win” since we are all so keen in our culture today on playing the gender warfare game. And we need things to be so very equal. One for the men, one for the women. It reminds me of spending time with my small and adorable nieces. Share! Your turn is over! That’s not yours! Thing is, they are both below the age of four. We really shouldn’t be doing this anymore as adults.)

The problem with targets is it is clear evidence that women cannot succeed without discriminatory policies (against men) working in their favour. I find that very patronizing, to use a word feminists wouldn’t like. This sort of discrimination causes unrest amongst women and men alike.

Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be working for Sheelagh anytime soon.

Senator Ruth has come out with a book in which, one must concede, she is talking to herself. The title? Speaking Truth to Power! But she is power these days, alongside all of her feminist friends. Now if I got a meeting with her, that might be called speaking truth to power. Though only over my cold, dead body would any book of mine be so entitled. Too cliché.

Table of contents and introduction, here.

A dialogue between Post writers, here. Interesting. Most interesting part is the excerpt below, for me, anyway, because it shows how people really can’t discuss the facts of abortion without labeling. This is as much true of pro-choicers as it is pro-lifers:

Libin: Ah, see, this is interesting: my response revolved around describing in fairly empirical terms the state of affairs in Canada as far as the status of a fetus goes, acknowledging the absence of regulation, acknowledging the lack of input a father can have on determining the fate of a pregnancy, acknowledging the political sensitivities around the issue, and suddenly I find myself being labeled by Scott as less pro-choice than he is. I expect this is precisely why we have the status quo that we do in Canada: because the issue is so fraught that we seem to reflexively start deconstructing any discussion of it by anyone to see where it falls in terms of easily understood concepts of pro-choice or anti-abortion.

A thoughtful article on the nature of graphic displays and what they achieve.

I personally believe the graphic abortion photos are necessary, but they only have a lasting impact when there is simultaneously a dialogue with those holding the signs. I’m pretty sure that’s the point of the Genocide Awareness Project presentation–it’s to get people talking and asking questions and thinking about it.

And I don’t actually think these are “shock” tactics. I hate movies with blood and gore just for the sake of it, and haven’t seen a horror movie since a grade five Hallowe’en party (The Watcher in the Woods). (In case you are wondering, my friend’s mother saw how scared I was and removed me–rescued me–to play by myself in my friend’s bedroom, where I was much happier. Oh, and years later, I tried the Blair Witch Project, which was a very bad mistake involving a lot of closing my eyes, plugging my ears and humming The sun will come out, Tomorrow! in the theatre, and that’s the end of horror movies for me, forever.)

But when the history is bloody, then show me the history. When I did Holocaust courses for my degree, there were sections so horrible I couldn’t keep reading. But when it is truth, then bring it on.

Abortion is horrible, therefore the photos and evidence is horrible. Showing what abortion is to an apathetic public is not a shock tactic, for shock’s sake alone. I support it.

Interesting.

The British Columbia government has filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson Inc., claiming the maker of the “Ortho Evra” contraception patch “aggressively marketed the contraceptive without disclosing the safety hazards associated with Evra.” The lawsuit claims that women using the patch “did not receive any warnings about the increased risk of developing blood clots, pulmonary emboli, strokes, heart attacks or deep vein thrombosis associated with Evra.”

At least 23 women have died from the use of this form of contraception, including an 18-year-old New York fashion student who collapsed in a city subway station. An autopsy on Zakiya Kennedy’s body found a blood clot had moved into her lungs, and the medical examiner ruled that the clot was a side effect of the Evra birth control patch she was using.

Blaise Alleyne over at University of Toronto Students for Life put a caption on one of the Carleton arrest photos. Well done.

A British columnist, Virginia Ironside, on killing as compassion. Have a look:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RAAhTL4Arg”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RAAhTL4Arg]

Should abortion protestors have been allowed to put up graphic displays at Carleton?

(scroll down, poll is on the right)

Tonight is a big night in Ottawa. People, we have choices.

Stephanie Gray is debating at Ottawa University. I’d go if I could but my attendance is pretty much required at the talk I’m giving at the Laurentian Leadership Centre:

Canada has a Status of Women department. Guest lecturer, Andrea Mrozek, asks if we need to create a Status of Men department instead. Our general lack of concern for men (and marriage) will spell the end of fatherhood and families as well as the social and economic prosperity we enjoy. Ms. Mrozek reviews the decidedly politically incorrect Men and Marriage by George Gilder (1986) placing it in the context of the new millennium. Tuesday, October 5^th, 2010, Laurentian Leadership Centre, 252 Metcalfe Street, Ottawa, 7:30 to 9:00 pm

Yes, it’s bad planning from the Centralized Agency of Forces Working For Good in Ottawa And The World. But it can’t be helped now. The only bad choice is staying home.