Studying the history of law in Iran might help point the way to improving legal systems in the West
You might be tempted to think Jairan Gahan’s interest in the legal history of sex in Iran is purely academic. She is most fascinated by the early 20th century, following Iran’s Constitutional Revolution of 1906, when the country was drafting its criminal code. How could that possibly be relevant to life in the modern state, especially…
Gender-based data needed to help make services more equitable, say authors
The first report of its kind in Canada to examine how women use public transit suggests their travel needs aren’t always being met by standard planning and service models. “In a lot of transit agencies, women are the majority of riders,” explained Priyanka Babbar, a master’s student in the University of Alberta’s School of Urban and Regional Planning.…
Time away from home contributes to low morale and difficulty maintaining healthy habits
The mental health of contract workers who fly in and out of Alberta’s oil sands compares poorly with that of the general population, according to a new report co-written by University of Alberta sociologist Sara Dorow. In one of the first studies in Canada to examine mental health and well-being in the fly-in, fly-out (FIFO)…
Roberto Alomar was a great baseball player but there’s more to being a human than athleticism. The real hero is the woman who reported him
Public opinion is fickle. We love to sing the praises of individuals and put them on pedestals, but we’re just as apt to demonize these same people in the court of public opinion. Is this type of thinking getting us anywhere? Aren’t we all simply humans with the capacity to do good or bad things?…
When the fire gets too hot in the political kitchen, the Trudeau government always looks for an escape hatch
On Monday afternoon, Global News’s Mercedes Stephenson tweeted out the following: “Liberal motion to shut down the defence committee hearings into sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces passes with BQ support.” Did you do a double-take? You weren’t alone. The controversy surrounding retired general Jonathan Vance, the former chief of the defence staff for…
Two explosive military investigations mean the dark clouds of controversy won't soon fade for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government are dealing with two major controversies involving our military. Both situations went from bad to worse in 24 hours. So did the possible fate of a minister of the Crown. The first controversy involves Gen. Jonathan Vance. He served as chief of the defence staff for the…
What constitutes manhood in sports culture is archaic. As if the sports world has been frozen in time – Neanderthal time
What former New York Mets general manager Jared Porter did to a female reporter is despicable. He certainly deserved to be fired after admitting to sending dozens of explicit text messages and photos to the reporter in 2016. The sad part is almost everyone inside baseball – most notably women in baseball – know this…
Tipping promotes age, race and gender bias, and make servers more vulnerable to sexual harassment from customers
In North America, the tipping culture has always been a source of pride, giving customers the last word when human interaction is involved. Good service deserves a good tip, while an unsatisfactory experience results in no reward for the server. In some European and Asian countries, the tip is included in the price at the…
Gillette has stepped boldly into the socio-political minefields of #MeToo, bullying, spousal abuse and male self-absorption
It’s tempting to take the recent’s ‘controversy’ over the Gillette shaving company’s new advertising campaign at something less than face value. For starters, controversy itself is no longer the conversational cutting edge it once was. In this era of fake-versus-false news, universal short attention spans and ludicrous overstatement as the entry price for even being…
We’re supposed to be standard-bearers for traditional family values in western society. What happened?
When the #MeToo movement began to pick up steam last October, most of the men accused of sexual harassment and/or sexual assault were on the political left. As time goes by, more men on the political right are getting caught in this web, too. In particular, Canada’s right has faced a few recent instances of…