Meant to mention this. After the march on Thursday I went to the Rose Dinner, a Campaign Life Coalition event.
At my table: A policy writing woman, a nurse (female), a woman in politics, a female student of political science. Another woman working in policy, and some women over at the other end I never got a chance to talk to. Two men at our table of ten.
To think, pro-choice types had me convinced I’d meet a man doing this pro-life work. And everywhere I go–women, only women–as far as the eye can see. I’m just saying.
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Rebecca adds: Based on my very circumscribed experience (my acquaintances skew academic, liberal and secular) pro-lifers tend to be women. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of men, including some young men, at the marvellous conference in Halifax last weekend. Most of the women I know are pro-choice but feel strongly that they would never have an abortion themselves; most of the men I know think it’s a very good thing indeed that abortion lets them off the hook if they accidentally get someone knocked up. This makes a sort of sense to me; abortion is something that’s done to women’s bodies, to a baby within a woman’s body, and I can see why women dislike it on a visceral or intuitive level more than men do.
Of course, because I spend most of my time around academic, liberal and secular types, I have come across some men who are pro-life, but have had the metaphorical stuffing beaten out of them whenever they voice this, and so have learned to keep quiet.
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I meant to ask this yesterday. The Ottawa Citizen mentioned in their article that “men dominated the podium.” Was that really the case?
I’ve been looking for mainstream coverage of the march, and have come up with almost nothing. What have the rest of you found?
That’s great that so many women were at the dinner, especially working in policy! But its not too hard to understand the stereotype given that the only MPs who spoke were men, and only one woman MP was recognized and she didn’t speak. There are lots of women working in policy and behind the scenes, but the spokes”men” sometimes seem to be just that- men. Thank goodness for blogs like this, more power to you guys – or should I say girls! We need more women out in the open
Look, male MP’s are going to dominate because there are far more male MP’s than female MP’s in Parliament.
Maybe we should have a women’s only March for Life.
I’m not surprised that there were more male than women MPs there. But were MPs the only speakers? I’m on the other side of the country, so I know nothing about what the program was. Who spoke? What did they say? I’m really curious as to what happened, and, other than on a few blogs, there was no media coverage of the event.
try these sites:
http://www.soconblogs.com
http://www.bigbluewave.com
They have photos plus some videos. That 12 year old girl, Lia, who was a sensation on YouTube with her pro life speech, was a speaker at the March in Ottawa.
Thanks Julie!
SUZANNE,
I am all in favour of a women’s only March for Life. I think even at roughly half the numbers, it would make a very powerful statement. That, my friends, would get media coverage, if that is the goal. (I never thought media was the goal, and therefore am not upset when there isn’t any. if media coverage is the goal, then repeating the same effort that won no media coverage in prior years again and again is…what’s that quote about “if you repeat the same thing many times and expect different results it makes you crazy?”)
Anyways, there are women in the House right now who are at least nominally pro-life who were not on the podium. I wonder why. Perhaps they felt the risks of showing themselves publically on that stage outweighed the benefits. This I can understand–note how Planned Parenthood Ottawa swung into high gear when First Place Pregnancy Centre was chosen for that raffle way back… a couple of angry old school feminists could do a lot of damage to one’s chances for re-election.
https://www.prowomanprolife.org/2008/05/20/planned-parenthood-ottawa-their-choice-or-no-choice-at-all/
Considering the possible self-interest motivations, I wonder how the pro-life percentage of males varies according th regional laws regarding child support payments.