Does the party really believe women can't win in a fair fight against men?
Political parties propose and support many policies and ideas. Some ideas are top-flight and beneficial to their political fortunes. Others seem good in theory, but may require additional tinkering or minor adjustment(s). Still other ideas may turn out to be untenable, or require a significant overhaul or have to be abandoned. Then there are ideas…
Marie Henein is unapologetic and controversial, largely due to her defence of Jian Ghomeshi
If you buy criminal defence lawyer Marie Henein’s new memoir hoping for the inside scoop on her high profile cases, you’ll be disappointed. Ethically, she considers those details off limits, confined there by the parameters of the lawyer-client relationship. However interesting the stories might be, Henein believes they aren’t hers to tell. They belong to…
Was the icon of feminism really a racist?
Oh, dear, the statue-defacing vigilantes are at it again! One of the latest targets is erstwhile Canadian feminist icon Emily Murphy (no relation). Her Edmonton statue got the red paint treatment in mid-July. Predictably, the ‘racist’ epithet was deployed. Indeed, the National Post’s news story went beyond merely noting the racist allegation. It accepted it…
Undermining staff, students and faculty members who experience it
Racism is often too easily shrugged off as someone being “overly sensitive” or “misunderstanding” what was done or said. It’s that invisibility that makes systemic racism against Black people, Indigenous people and people of colour so difficult to dislodge at the institutional level in post-secondary schools – and so undermining of staff, students and faculty…
Federal Child Support Guidelines biased against men and need to be overhauled
If Christopher Sarlo is right, Canada’s Federal Child Support Guidelines are wrong. The economics professor at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ont., made an in-depth analysis of the guidelines and found them wanting. A 100-page examination leads him to one conclusion: the guidelines are biased against men and deserve an overhaul. Fights over money are…
Women across the world know a silent truth: they’re bearing the brunt of the pandemic’s economic fallout. These hectic months have placed an extra burden on women’s shoulders and persistent lockdowns threaten to erase decades of gender equality earned in the labour force. Although COVID-19 kills slightly more men than women, the labour market impact…
Domestic violence, no matter the gender of the victim, is wrong
I remember being 12 years old when my stepfather scarred my face for the first time. He had graduated to his fists from his belt some time before, and while he usually confined himself to battering me between the waist and the shoulder blades, the non-visible portions of my anatomy, occasionally he lost control. This…
Victim stories negatively affect us and our attitude towards others and life, yet we all carry them around
As much as we hate to admit it, we've probably all told victim stories. We've certainly had them told to us. It's time to banish them. The victim story is the one you auto-share that alerts everyone (including yourself) that you've been wronged by someone or some unfair situation. The telling (and retelling) confirms the need to feel…
We don't need to disparage masculinity in order to celebrate the qualities and contributions of women, or to encourage social equality of the genders
One of brightest students in my university department was seriously intellectual and widely read, always taking an active and constructive part in seminars. The student was approached by two others who complained that the student took up too much space and time, and should step back. No professor ever advised such a thing to this…
Banning the wearing of religious clothing robs public servants of the right to make their own choices
Legislative hearings on outlawing the wearing of religious clothing or symbols by specific Quebec public servants could easily be dismissed as proverbial lipstick on a pig. In fact, they’re worse, much worse, than a skin-deep brush with porcine cosmetology. They are part of a calculated exploitation of the deep human spiritual need to push other…