We may see more articles like this one. (The women who don’t feel this way are too busy with families to write. The ones who do have just arrived as fully-fledged columnists/tenured profs/professional authors.)

Women are often the worst enemies of feminism because of our genetic make-up. We have only a finite time to be mothers and when that clock starts ticking we abandon our strength and jump into bed with whoever is left, forgetting talk of deadlines and PowerPoint presentations in favour of Mamas & Papas buggies and ovulation diaries.

Anyway, I’ll file this one away in the Gender is a Social Construct category. Why just last week when it was so rainy and cold, the men in my office agreed that they’d just rather be at home baking chocolate chip cookies with a cup of tea. Yes indeed, it was a touching moment of gender equity–and I would have shed a tear, but for the fact that real women don’t cry.

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Brigitte adds: Oh dear. I feel sorry for her. But I must disagree with this:

I thought that men would love independent, strong women, but (in general) they don’t appear to. Men are programmed to like their women soft and feminine. It’s not their fault – it’s in the genes.

I do not believe being a mother means one can’t be a strong woman. I’m pretty sure being strong and independent-minded are two important requirements for the job.

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Andrea adds: There’s quite a lot I disagree with in there. I didn’t have time to get into it. In short I do wish we all could roll with the punches a bit more…Who is to say she isn’t exactly where she is supposed to be? But then I’m one of these types who believes everyone’s life has intrinsic value irrespective of what one is doing.

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Rebecca adds: I think, as a belated Valentine’s Day present, I shall tell my husband how glad I am that I stumbled upon him when I abandoned my strength and jumped into bed with whoever was left.

More seriously: “My mother had children early and has brilliantly juggled a career as a filmmaker and parent. She was part of the generation that overlapped, that had feminist values but had children early. She hasn’t had the job opportunities of my generation, she had to make sacrifices and take lesser jobs to be at parents’ evenings. Choice and careers are vital, of course, but they shouldn’t be pursued relentlessly.”

Is it really news to anybody that, while you can pursue education and career advancement until you go senile, your odds of starting a family are highest when you’re young? I don’t know any women who want a career and a family who haven’t traded things off at one point or another. And to almost the same extent, this is true of men: you can have your children while you’re young, in which case you’ll have more energy and likelihood of fewer medical problems, but you’re putting yourself on the slower track, financially and professionally, at least for a few years; or you can do it when you’re older, when you’ll have more patience, more money, and a more established career, but it’s physically harder and less likely to happen.

The conceit that this is a problem for women only rests upon two ideas: first, that the work of raising children falls only on the mother, so men who start families young aren’t affected by the time kids require; and second, that men can wait until their 40s and then happily settle down with a fertile someone a generation younger. To my great relief, neither of these is true of the vast majority of men of my acquaintance.

Less seriously: she wrote a play inspired by friends who wanted to be just like Madonna? What part of being Madonna were they hoping to emulate? Cult membership? A series of failed relationships and custody fights? A gruesomely low level of body fat?

Someone forwarded me this Glamour article about women who have abortions. I sent it round to the PWPL team to see if someone had time to post about it—where it quickly became an internal email exchange about losing weight while you sleep. (Apparently some among us have always wanted to gain weight, while others (the majority) would gladly hand over extra pounds–while sleeping, or otherwise.)

 Ok, fine. So I’ll post about the article.

 My first thought: This is Glamour. A mish mash of articles on how to have better sex, “Valentine’s Dos and Donts” and yes, how to lose weight overnight mean I have a hard time taking their abortion article seriously. This is in depth—for Glamour. Is this a bit like saying you are a really serious swimmer—for a kangaroo?

My second thought: While they rely on rhetoric, they don’t actually use the usual euphemisms as much as I thought they would. The story opens on a scared, cold woman, her feet up in stirrups, her uterus being vacuumed out. Empowering? Or degrading, classified as empowering? Any woman who has had a pap smear knows this is uncomfortable stuff. So they open on an uncomfortable scene, and then make little effort to change that image.

The first woman they interview says this: “My boyfriend and I had been together for only one month and I got pregnant the first time we had unprotected sex. I didn’t even consider the possibility of keeping the child.” Those are stark words in print and anyone with even the haziest notions on personal responsibility should balk at what she’s just said. (This interview points to my suspicion that only the very most ardent supporter of “abortion rights” –ie. not “your average woman” would even volunteer to speak on the record for this article. I guess this based on the troubles—the phone call after phone call after phone call painstakingly placed when I was a reporter trying to get someone to comment on the record for issues far less controversial.)

This certainly is a bad article—they are still trapped in “abortion is a right, and it is empowering” land—even if they give no proof for that, no back stories on how the women’s lives improved. They actually fall back on the standard Don’t Think Too Much About This rhetoric of abortion supporters. They are trying to normalize abortion–but it’s an uphill battle, at best. Which always leaves me wondering–how is it that pro-lifers are on the losing side? I’ll know we’re winning when they open with the exact same lede–and move on to describe how many different and truly empowering options that woman could have chosen–how in a different time they actually thought this marked “progress” but we can see more clearly now–thank goodness.  

Which leaves me with only one question–I just woke up, and I weigh the same thing as yesterday (I just popped on the scale to check). If there’s a way to lose weight in my sleep, I would dearly love to know.

A rambling rant on this question–what if Margaret Thatcher had stayed home with her kids?

Given the choice, what kiddy wouldn’t opt for an ambitious, go-ahead mother rather than a slattern who sat at home all day watching Jeremy Kyle, drinking cans of lager and plotting to have one of her progeny kidnapped?

There you have it: Ambitious career mom OR drink beer all day.

A reader sent this link to a passionate and eloquent 12-year-old in what seems to be a speech about abortion to her class. Reminds me of grade five, when as part of learning about the political system, we had to organize an election. I ran for Prime Minister. I won by a substantial margin, after getting help from a lawyer-family friend who suggested I campaign on a ticket of extended recess/lunch hour and no uniforms. I might add, I was the Conservative candidate, making me not unlike our Conservative Prime Minister today–completely without principle or small-c conservative ideology, but really keen on winning. I digress–the other winning element was a friend (today a corporate lawyer) who made up a cheer to the tune of the Mickey Mouse song: “A-N-D, R-E-A, M-R-O-Z-E, K! Andrea Mrozek, (Andrea Mrozek), Andrea Mrozek (Andrea Mrozek!)”  This marks the first and last time I campaigned for office and the last time that anyone has been able to pronounce–and spell–my name properly. Good times.

Anyhoo, here’s the speech now:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOR1wUqvJS4]

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Tanya adds: I gave a similar speech in 7th grade (and I highly doubt I was nearly as well spoken… especially since it was for my French class). I do remember my teacher looking at me with a smile during the speech. Thinking back on it now, I wonder if it was an encouraging smile, or a condescending (we’ll see how you feel when you’re older) smile. Enh! Either way, I still feel the same now as I did then.

I have a letter to the editor in today’s Post. The original looked like this:

Though Stephanie Gray’s manner of fighting abortion is drastically different from my own, I fully support her. Gray is not saying abortion is exactly like the Holocaust or slavery. She is saying that where we fail to see people as people, atrocities easily occur—today, as in history.
At risk of sitting on the fence, I just don’t see much of a debate here. Killing our children is at the heart of abortion. And that is what is so unpopular, not the manner in which we draw attention it. Offering truly compassionate options so that women don’t have to kill their babies is one solution. Gray helps us to be compassionate insofar as she reminds us about the facts on what abortion is—facts so many today readily choose to ignore.

“Calgary students union revokes anti-abortion group’s club status“.

John Carpay, a lawyer with the Canadian Constitution Foundation who is representing the group, said Campus Pro-Life’s charter right to free speech is being violated. “It’s very sad when universities and students unions seem to be disregarding the mission of the university, which is to be a place of open debate and frank discussion and free enquiry,” he said.

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Tanya draws attention to a comment left below this article:

the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not apply to universities”

Wow, I haven’t heard a more telling phrase in years. I ran into this as a lecturer at a post secondary institution here in Edmonton as well, and was forced to resign, effectively ending my career. Such is the price for bucking the establishment. But, I still am perplexed by the logic of the argument being used, since the University of Calgary is almost entirely funded by taxpayer’s money, you would think that the rules of fair play that apply to public institutions would apply. Somehow, these publicly-funded schools are now considered “private property”! Whose, I wonder?”

I first saw Barbara Kay’s article while I was on vacation. I dutifully hid my head in the sand (not literal) and didn’t even read it. (In favour of ice cream on the beach, sorry.) Can’t do that anymore because it’s back to the cold grindstone in Ottawa.

So let me draw your attention to Stephanie Gray’s rebuttal to Barbara Kay.

Where do I stand in a nutshell: Though Gray’s positioning is drastically different from my own, I fully support her. I do not agree with Kay–Gray’s techniques are far from a waste of time. She is not saying abortion is exactly like the Holocaust. Nor is she saying that women are like Hitler (thank you, St. Mary’s students, for this vapid interpretation). She is saying that where we fail to see people as people, atrocities happen.

Nor do I think Gray’s way is the only effective way of combatting abortion.

The other story to hit my inbox while I was away was that of a botched abortion–a woman, outraged at the treatment she received when her baby was actually delivered alive–by accident–in an abortion clinic–subsequently put in a plastic bag and thrown out.

The surprising thing here is not that the baby survived and was subsequently thrown out in a plastic bag–the surprising thing is that this happens every day as a routine course of action. That we as women enjoy the “right and privilege” of going to specially sanctioned centres to kill our children. That this is killing is very, very true (Gray’s main point)–that it is not necessary, not a “right” and that it hurts women is also very, very true (my main points).

So, at risk of sitting on the fence here, I don’t see much of a battle in the pro-life world on this one. Pro-lifers–forge on (in the manner you are comfortable, which will be different for everyone). I remain 100 per cent convinced that we shall win this (and I don’t think that about any other social/cultural battle I am also engaged in). Killing babies is at the heart of abortion. And that is ultimately what is unpopular, with the women who have them, and with just about anyone and everyone out there.

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Rebecca adds: I agree that explicitly suggesting abortion is akin to the Holocaust is potentially offensive, and thus counter-productive (the point is not to get diverted into a discussion of whether the Holocaust was unique and so on), but I also agree that they are both the results of cultures in which the sanctity of human life is diminished. I’m also not sure it’s a genocide in any meaningful way; “genocide” implies a concerted effort to eliminate a specific people, and the babies aborted in Canada come from all different races, religious groups, both sexes, and range from perfectly healthy to profoundly disabled.

The one thing they all have in common is that they’re inconvenient, either for their mothers, or for their fathers or grandparents, who pressure their mothers into aborting. And I truly think we need to emphasize this: the vast majority of aborted babies are terminated because they are inconvenient. Not to save the health of the mother, not because they were conceived in rape, not because they are suffering from conditions that will result in their death anyway. The great majority of babies aborted would be joyfully borne by other women, or by the very same woman a year or two down the road, or in a different relationship.

Since starting this thing, I’ve talked about the tendency of the elite, very much including academics, to assume pro-choice=good and pro-life=anti-choice=very, very bad.

This column is a good one–about how Jojo Ruba was shouted down while giving a talk at St. Mary’s University.

Those who read Orwell’s Animal Farm will recall how discussion on the farm was quickly shut down by animals shouting, “Four legs good, two legs bad.” Well, it’s like that, and although the video doesn’t show the whole thing, (mercifully,) it goes on for 35 minutes.

There’s good news here, however. Pro-choice academics have gone unchallenged for quite a while and today across Canada we see plucky pro-life students who aren’t giving up the fight for the sake of degrees or grades. This is more than I can say for myself back in the day–and I’m impressed.