In Britain:

Many charities have been told that they must extend their counselling and outreach services to men because of new equality laws which require local authorities to ensure that services do not discriminate on grounds of sex.

Fiona Mactaggart, the former Home Office minister, said an “unintended consequence” of the law has meant some domestic violence services have lost grants or contracts for refusing to do so.

She said: “There are some local authorities who interpret equalities to mean that a refuge has to provide for men, not only for women.

“There are some stupidnesses developing in the system that nobody intended.”

Indeed. There are excellent reasons why women’s shelters are women-only. Some women are so badly abused that the mere presence of any male around them sends them into a panic. That’s not to say male victims of domestic violence and abuse – don’t laugh; this is a real problem – don’t deserve help. They do. Just not in the same shelters. It’s not rocket science. Why can’t governments grasp such simple commonsensical concepts?

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Rebecca asks: Why not file a complaint with a human rights council against the abuse victims, who are clearly discriminating against men in this case? That’s only marginally stupider than all kinds of cases that actually appear before HRCs.

It will be fun to see if any radical pro-choicer has the gall to denounce this piece of legislation:

OKLAHOMA CITY — A bill in the Oklahoma Legislature would allow pregnant women to use deadly force in order to save the lives of their babies.

[…]

Oklahoma already has a law allowing a person to use force to protect himself or another person from someone else. The new bill includes an unborn child as “another” person. Oklahoma has also had a law covering the murder of unborn babies since 2005.

I believe anyone has the right to use force, including the deadly kind, when and where necessary to defend one’s own life or the life of someone else, born or not. So while I may find this law somewhat redundant, I’m in favour of it. But what of the folks who hate the thought of recognizing unborn victims (actual or potential) of violence, because it might lead people to reconsider their position on abortion? What of those who fear granting a fetus even the most basic rights because they see it as a slippery slope towards restricting access to abortion? Are they going to say pregnant women have no right to use force to defend themselves if and when attacked?

That’s the sound of my loud laughter over this piece.

Oh to have a job where you can declare success so easily with absolutely no proof.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a ton to make fun of in my world. Writing policy? Not always…as practical as it should be.

I have recently become concerned that I lack in the “practical skills” department. I therefore asked my mother how to make preserves. It’s very, very difficult, she assures me. Requires scientific accuracy, very, very clean jars, lots of sugar, but not too much sugar and the seal–the seal is critical. If you don’t have the right amount of suction when you put those jars on the shelf, you’ll have a winter of mouldy preserves.

Why do you ask? ask my parents, after a discussion of the percentage of bad preserves my grandmothers encountered on their shelves (2 of 12 jars, approximately). In case, I tell them, the economy gets really, really bad, and nothing is available. No food, like communist Poland.

Indeed, even my parents were looking at me like I have issues at this point. What did we do wrong? they think, looking at each other and shaking their heads.

OK–my dad consoles me–were it to come to communist times in Ontario–we’d be up the creek anyway. Because back in “the day,” city folks would take wheelbarrows of cash into the country just for a jar of sauerkraut. They recommend my purchasing jams and preserves from the local grocery store. Much more cost efficient.

But what I got from this discussion is that I need my very own farm. To grow the fruit before I preserve it.

Difficult, yes. But not totally impossible. I think I can do it so long as my farm has a good high speed internet connection.

Say, this is neat. Loblaws distributed a flyer for its line of Joe “underthings” that was, well, offensive and/or too sexy for the taste of many shoppers (including this one; I don’t like underage models in this sort of pose), and after a bit of an outcry decided to yank the flyer back and apologize.

No need for “human rights” tribunals or any of that rhubarb. Or as this columnist puts it:

Good for Loblaw, actually. A little tempest did not become a storm.

It is a useful reminder, too, that consumers are not powerless in the face of retail advertising they think is offensive or in poor taste.

“As consumers, we have a tremendous voice,” said Jane Tallim, co-executive director of the Media Awareness Network, a national group that advocates for media literacy, particularly among young people.

We all have a voice – as consumers, and as citizens. Let’s use it.

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Andrea is getting up the courage to tell her gym that she didn’t like the song “I kissed a girl” before, and she certainly sees no need for the remix version, now. It symbolizes the very worst of a sexually libertine, hedonistic culture to me, and it’s geared at young girls. Yes, kickboxing class does give me time to think. (To the beat of the music, bien sur.)

I was scratching my head trying to remember if there was anything on which me and Susan Riley ever agreed. I seem to recall we sort of both said once (years ago) that we didn’t care much about hockey playoffs. I believe that’s about it. Until this morning – her column about that famous Afghan bill that would allow, among other things, men to rape their wives, is one I have a lot of sympathy for.

The truth is that this particular law is the unremarkable outgrowth of an ideology, Islamic fundamentalism, that devalues women and still holds sway in Afghanistan.

The so-called Shia Personal Status Law hasn’t yet been publicly circulated. It would apply to an estimated 10 per cent of the population — a swing bloc of Shia voters that Karzai needs to keep his job.

UN officials who have read the bill say it denies married Shia women the right to refuse sex unless they are ill and prevents them from working, going to school, visiting the doctor, or even leaving their homes without their husbands’ permission. In custody disputes, children would be awarded to fathers or grandfathers. Earlier drafts tried to lower the marriage age for women from 16 to nine but were reportedly deleted after strenuous efforts by Afghan women parliamentarians.

Some argue that, whatever law emerges, we have to respect traditional Afghan values. Would that hold if it were Jews who were being confined to their homes, or blacks prohibited from going to school? Restrictive dress codes, sexist rituals, inequality in the job market: these have been struggles for women in every culture and can only be resolved within those cultures. But forcing unwilling women to have sex, and imprisoning them in their homes constitutes abuse — anywhere.

In pursuit of this emerging gospel of non-interference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been urging talks with “moderate” Taliban. This is an admirably pragmatic, non-imperialistic attempt to accelerate the diplomacy that offers the only resolution to this conflict. But it requires there to be “moderate” Taliban; it rests on the belief that the law Karzai signed is the last gasp of a declining thugocracy, not mainstream opinion in much of rural Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Independent newspaper reports that Taliban elements negotiating privately with Karzai have softened their position on beards and burkas. They are prepared, says the paper, “to commit themselves to refraining from banning girls’ education, beating up taxi drivers for playing Bollywood music, or measuring the length of men’s beards.” Burkas would be “strongly recommended” but not compulsory.

This is hardly a ringing endorsement of equality and is further undermined by reports from the Swat Valley, in northern Pakistan, an area recently ceded to so-called “moderate” Taliban. The dress code is back, girls’ schools have been menaced, there are public floggings and liberals are fleeing.

There is only so much that well-meaning, well-funded, outsiders can do if the dominant culture is irremediably tyrannical. As this realization dawns, public opinion will dictate our next move: out of Afghanistan.

Contrast this:

North Dakota, with its deeply rooted conservative politics and piety, may soon pass the most radical anti-abortion legislation in the United States.

In the next few days, the state Senate will vote on a “personhood bill” that would declare a fertilized egg a human being. If passed, it would apply all criminal laws now on the books – from murder to assault and prohibitions on slavery – to an embryo or a fetus. The law would also likely end in-vitro fertilization and embryonic stem-cell research in the state.

with this:

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday will lift restrictions on U.S. government funding for groups that provide abortion services or counseling abroad, reversing a policy of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush, an administration official said.

“It will be today. He’s going to make an executive order [lifting the global gag rule],” the official said.

The Democratic president’s decision is a victory for advocates of abortion rights on an issue that in recent years has become a tit-for-tat policy change each time the White House shifts from one party to the other.

I remain far from convinced that outlawing abortion is the way to go. If I had my druthers, we wouldn’t need a law stating that the fetus is a person the same way we don’t need one stating that women are persons too. (Though on the other hand, it did take a fair bit of legal wrangling to get to where we are. This is one of those cases where I’m sorry I don’t have a third hand.) But that’s not what bugs me.

What I find irritating beyond words is the way those stories start. Where, in the story about President Obama lifting funding restrictions do they talk about his entrenched belief that abortion is exclusively a “woman’s right”, which in my mind at least is a lot weirder than a belief (rooted in religion or otherwise) that a human embryo is a human person in development?

Just asking.

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Andrea adds: It takes a science text book to see an embryo as the very first stage in human life. It takes…ideology, leaps in logic and a sustained attack against those medical texts to view abortion as a woman’s right. People can and do choose their views on this topic. But that being pro-life is somehow viewed as extreme is very, very strange to me.

Hey, who doesn’t like a good mammoth fighter?

A study has also found the length of women’s hemlines reflect the times.

“In a boom the hemline was likely to rise, but in a recession the hemline was likely to fall,” Mr Salt said.

And as women lower the hemlines, their preferences for men change too.

“The recession will see the demise of the metrosexual,” Mr Salt said.

“In a boom, women are not worried about their financial security and are attracted to attractive, slim, weedy, geeky, metrosexual hairless males,” he said.

“Whereas in a downturn, evolutionary theory kicks in for survival, and women are concerned about their food supply and look for someone a little more muscular, more primal, a little more hairy.

“They want someone who can fight off a mammoth – and a metrosexual ain’t gonna do it.”

[via Maclean’s]

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Tanya adds: Wow… So I was way off base when I suggested we release the men’s PET-P shirts in pink and lavender. Grey was a good choice after all! (I’ll never second-guess you again, Brigitte.)