Sarah Palin. I second this nomination, for the abuse she endured because she is religious and pro-life, for the stands she took and held, publicly, under great duress from supposed friends and enemies alike, and generally for being an advocate for the unborn as a successful woman everywhere she went.
Courageous Canadian students
A column in today’s Citizen in which ProWomanProLife is mentioned:
The spirit of the thing is renewed, in Canada today, by, for example, Andrea Mrozek and the girls at the Ottawa website, ProWomanProLife. Just as strident feminism renews itself, by finding a new generation of embittered young women and confused men, attracted to the task of infiltrating our legal and political bureaucracies, so also we find a new generation of women determined to resist them, and to defend common sense with unflappable courage.
But thankfully, there are many more like us at PWPL. I can say I met many great students–both male and female, from New Brunswick all the way to British Columbia this weekend, speaking at UofT and at the National Campus Life Network conference–very courageous, very cool people, working in an environment far more difficult than where I find myself, and doing it at an age where I didn’t give serious issues a serious thought. It’s good to see. (And one of them has put one of the presentations I made on YouTube: should you have absolutely nothing to do, come oh say, mid-winter, feel free to look it up.)
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6gvvbpJ5g]
This issue ain’t dead yet
From what I can tell, the Ottawa Citizen alone has three Morgentaler-Order-of-Canada-articles. (Here, here, and here. )
After Morgentaler became a member of the Order of Canada, a pro-choice friend said she thought the manner in which it was awarded was quite “heavy-handed.” That’s where so many of us can unify: Not over our position on abortion but the rule-breaking and secrecy that went on to get him the award. More on that, here.
We might often grumble that the “ruling class” in Canada — the smug, selfserving, “progressive” political, legal, academic, and media elites, including the prime example at Rideau Hall — belong to some other world than the one from which they suck taxes. But seldom is there an event so stark, that we see them as they are. The Morgentaler award revealed that to so many Canadians.
And on that note, keep calling, Canada: The Governor General, your MP, your MLA, and others. See list here. Not happy with this appointment? Do something about it.
On brush cuts and life as I don’t know it
One of my very first writing assignments while still a student was to cover a Take Back the Night rally. I went (no journalistic training) and was surprised to find I was close to the only female in attendance over five feet, not sporting a brush cut and army pants. I had a hard time taking the event seriously. The resulting article was promptly published in the opinion section of the student paper, with a clever accompanying cartoon that read “I thought this was Take Back the Right!”
But why this walk down memory lane? Because of this article, which is worth a read (and should you not be able to follow my non-sequiturs, mentions Take Back the Night rallies).
The article prompted more than nostalgia for my university days, but also the question: What would a woman’s life look like today without the second and third waves of feminism? This sort of analysis would interest me. I’m aware of my schooling being infused with these waves of what I think is shallow and faulty thinking. I’m aware in small moments of these second and third waves when I meet women who refuse to acknowledge that any work associated with hearth and home could have any value (the legacy of Ms. Betty Friedan, I’d wager; for those who have not been so lucky as to read her, she called mothering a “waste of human self.”)
It would present an interesting study. But sadly, I think, impossible. Firstly because we can’t really entertain “what if” questions (as in what if Churchill had been more aggressive at Yalta? What if the Allies had bombed the rail lines leading to concentration camps?) and secondly because the only type of academic likely to entertain this particular question is a feminist, whose conclusions I would mistrust.
Couldn’t care less
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGqroT1FZ5Y]
It’s nice sometimes to be able to read a blog with some accompanying music… I just want everyone to know that I’m posting this “coolly and dispassionately.” Save for the fact that I recently launched a pro-life web site, and am now staking my very being and reputation on being a smart and savvy pro-life woman who knows better than to advocate for abortion on the basis that it is a “woman’s right,” save for all that, I really couldn’t care less. In short:
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
–REM
Devil in disguise
Loved this column. And I say that as a policy analyst.
The ultimate sacrifice
He’s on to something:
At first there is a net increase in CO2 “costs” as people die and their corpses decay. But later, after they have finished decaying, there are substantial and permanent net savings on the CO2 account. “Short term pain for long term gain.”