The horrible reasons Jonathan Kay feels compelled to "explain" rape

Contributor: Tasia Alexopoulos

Jonathan Kay, Gender Expert Extraordinaire.

Jonathan Kay is a name I associate with many things: "feminist" is not one of them. This morning while I was scrolling through Twitter I was surprised to see that an article he had written about rape was being circulated by smart, feminist peoples. Unless I really want to subject myself to bigotry, idiocy, and a far-right politic that terrifies me I generally ignore Kay's work (this ban also applies to his mother, Barbara Kay).

"The many horrible reasons why men rape women"  encapsulates why I ignore Kay's work and why I think the National Post is ridiculous for giving him a platform. There is no point of his article, he is barely making an argument, and he's using anecdotal evidence to make sweeping generalizations about rape and sexual violence.

Apparently being at a famous party where someone was raped makes Jonathan Kay an expert on the issue. The infamous Zeta Psi assault was a galvanizing event and, certainly, an important moment on the Canadian political landscape in terms of how we understand and view assault. It raised questions about the culture of sexual violence and rape on campuses, the silencing of victims, and the shortcomings of the justice system.  It was not, however, an isolated incident nor are incidents like it uncommon today. What I find offensive about Kay's piece is that he refuses to contextualize this moment in time, he doesn't refer to any of the work done around it (including the personal voice of the woman he discusses who has written about her own experience), and he seems to think that having a cursory knowledge of it gives him a unique view on the general topic of sexual violence.

Careful to point out that the victim admitted she was "too drunk" to know how she arrived at the location of her assault but remembered details from the actual assault, Kay discusses how no charges were laid due to "questions about the reliability of the victim's recollections of that alcohol-soaked night. As well, according to Kay, "this was the era before cell phones and so there was no hard evidence." Does Jonathan Kay realize that there have been successful rape prosecutions without photo and video evidence? There are other kinds of evidence but at the time (and now) the most important evidence of all, a woman's own recollection of what happened, was ignored and discounted. Had Kay done any research at all on rape/assault cases he might see a distinct pattern of ignoring women's voices, invalidating them, claiming they were too drunk/too slutty/too scantily clad, accusations of story changes, improper collection of evidence, and police insensitivity when it comes to "proving" allegations of assault. It is never as simple as there not being "evidence" to support a charge. In fact, women's difficulties within the justice system was a keystone of this case but rather than even doing a cursory Google search or paying lip service to this Kay trusted that his own personal opinion and recollection was enough.

Kay goes on to discuss the motivations of the perpetrator (there were three and others watching, but he focuses on one). In the mind of the accused, what he did was a "sort of lurid sexual theatre for his pals," "he was quite giddy during the incident, acting as a sort of sexual emcee for the others... he'd treated the whole thing as a show and at the time seemed delighted by the attention." So, because a rapist is "giddy" during the act or enjoys the attention it garners him, he doesn't realize that what he is doing is wrong? Or that him appearing to enjoy himself means that the act is not really rape because it's not really about power or violence? I'm so confused. What appears to be a point is forming here, but it's so convoluted that I can barely understand it. The man, writes Kay, was not popular. Before he became "sexually infamous" everyone in the fraternity already knew that letting him in was a mistake, which he knew. Ok.. so does being unpopular make someone more likely to be become a violent gang rapist? Is that what he's getting at here?   As far as Kay "can tell" the motivation behind the rape wasn't sex or violence but was a "desperate attempt to bond with higher status peers through the collaborative humiliation of someone helpless." The collaborative humiliation of someone helpless sounds a lot like violence to me. Proving that one views women as objects also seems like violence to me, violence that stems from a culture that sustains itself on privilege and entitlement. What Kay doesn't seem to understand is that even if this guy was raping someone to make his frat brothers like him more it is still violence and still a wielding of power. It is a product of systemic misogyny and sexism. There are people who are actual experts on this type of thing, maybe Kay could have supplemented his bizarre expoundings upon the nature of rape with some actual facts.

Kay concludes with some ask and answer: "Is rape sex? Yes. Is it violence? Yes. A criminal pathology, a product of booze and incapacity, perversion, sadism, an expression of dominance, a bonding agent for mobs, a means for dumb men to climb within hierarchies of other dumb men? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Rape can be any twisted combination of those things, which is why the crime is so tragically common, and so difficult to eradicate. It is also why the concept of rape can’t be reduced to mere slogans about sex and power. It’s much more complicated than that."

Who is reducing the concept of rape to mere slogans? What is the point of this article?!?! And, actually, rape is not sex. Rape is rape. Sex is sex. Kay simultaneously borrows from feminist rhetoric on sexual violence while spitting on it, offering no solutions.

This coming from a man who publicly berated anyone who had the audacity to connect the Montreal Massacre with sexism, misogyny, and violence against women. Writing the Massacre off as having "no larger social or political message at play [as just a] horrible tragedy that symbolizes nothing more than our inability to prevent bad things from happening to good people," Kay not only tightened his blinders in terms of the power  of social inequalities but also did so at the expense of the women who were murdered that day by a man who was a self professed woman hater. Jonathan Kay is correct when he says this problem is complicated and difficult to eradicate but it's not because rape is a nuanced thing. If we refuse to target the root of the issue, the systemic sexism and misogyny that operate at every level of our society, then how can we ever hope to eradicate symptoms of such inequality?

Bladerunner and the double edged sword of "disability"

Contributor: Tasia Alexopoulos


I'm not going to mince words: Pistorius shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Let's just be honest for five minutes and admit that he most likely murdered her like tens of thousands of people murder their domestic partners every single day. Women are most likely to meet an untimely demise at the hands of their intimate partner, this is a fact. I imagine that pro athletes have an increased rate of domestic violence considering their predilection for certain hormonal treatments that increase their rage and control issues(testimony today revealed that Pistorius was allegedly shooting testosterone). Sure, maybe that's a generalization, but in a world where most women have experienced violence at the hands of a loved one I'm just going to go ahead and generalize away.

I just think it's bullshit that you'd wake up in the middle of the night, partner out of bed, sounds in the bathroom and think "oh my god, there's a burglar in the bathroom!" Don't you think that if you figured a burglar had broken in your first thought would be "where is my girlfriend? Is she in danger?" Not if you're the Blade Runner. If you're the Blade Runner you whip out your 9mm and shoot blindly into a closed, locked door. Then later on you sob about how sorry you are and how much you loved her. Well, you didn't love her enough to call out her name when you thought there was an intruder in your home.

The trajectory of the bullets showed the gun was fired pointing down and from a height which conflicts with Pistorius' account of shooting up at the mystery intruder from the ground because he was without his artificial legs. Because he wasn't on his legs he felt "vulnerable." When you're feeling vulnerable you shoot wildly into the night, not caring who you might hit with your errant bullets! This is where I think the case gets incredibly interesting: if Pistorius was an "able bodied" athlete would his defense be using the vulnerability argument? I just really don't think it would be the same if they were like "OJ Simpson was feeling so vulnerable you guys, he was so vulnerable he didn't even think of what he was doing!" "Chris Benoit and Mark Rogowski were just feeling so terrified!" No. We don't say those things in the media about "regular" men. We talk about their rage. Their anger. How uncontrollable they are. Those are masculine characteristics and after wading through report after report of men killing their partners I haven't found a single one that said he did it because he was scared she was a burglar. In fact, masculine passion use to be considered a viable defense in a case where a man killed his partner. Seriously.

It's ridiculous. Pistorius is a world class athlete. He ran at the Olympics. This guy is fitter and more confident than most people in the world. Feeling vulnerable in his gated community, in his mansion? That is crazy. It is absolutely insanely crazy. The only reason that the defense is saying he felt scared is because he is a double amputee. His defense is using Ableism to convince the world that he didn't murder his girlfriend. They're using the argument that he is suddenly "less than" to say that fear made him shoot without thinking. Despite the fact that, even without his artificial legs, Pistorius could probably take down a burglar they are telling the world that we should pity him.

Well, we shouldn't pity him. We shouldn't think of him any differently. He is a man accused of shooting his girlfriend to death while she sat on the toilet in their home. A more pertinent question would be: if Pistorius was really so paranoid of a burglar that he would shoot madly like that, what the fuck is wrong with him? Instead of being swayed by the vulnerability argument why don't we look at statistics, at the world, at every single piece of evidence that points to the fact that Pistorius probably killed his girlfriend as part of a larger pattern of domestic violence.  Let's not ignore that women are most unsafe in their own homes.  Guess what: dudes without legs are capable of domestic violence too and of murder, even murders of beautiful law students who deserved much better.

Girls are dumb and need instructions on how to enjoy everything.

Today the New York Rangers (that is a hockey team, in case any GIRLS are reading) posted an unfortunate article via twitter. A Girls Guide to Watching the Rangers was a little puff piece about how girls can pretend to enjoy sports, for the sake of the men around them because only men watch sports. No, really: "when having either guy friends, brothers, boyfriends or husbands in your life watching games in any sport becomes unavoidable." Besides this being a terribly written sentence, it's also really stupid. I get it, some ladies do not like sports. Sports are traditionally a "male" thing and this has more to do with gender stereotypes (and also historical laws that banned ladies from going into the public to do things like watch sports) than it does with being endowed at birth with some kind of magical appreciation for sports just because you have a penis. Some men do not enjoy sports,some women love sports, this whole idea of "girls" needing to learn about sports and how to be acceptable whilst spectating is just so boring.

The author, Mirna Mandil (how can it be offensive when it's written by a girl?! Girls can't do sexism!) came up with the idea for the piece after being at a house where football watching was taking place. The men, she says, were there for the game. The women women were there for the deep fried turkey.  She could have sat and watched the game, but she doesn't care about foot ball "nor does [she] pretend to." Faking an "alpha male obsession" is exhausting. But that isn't going to stop her from telling other girls how to pretend to like watching sports!

She goes on to say that the NHL lockout caused a lot of excitement in the "male world" and was comparable to either a "70% off sale" to ladies. So, to help ladies understand what the end of the lockout means she says we should think about how we would feel if "the premier of the newest season of Girls being delayed by months" and suddenly it's coming back!! Oh my God, I totally get it now(this is what girls and women are supposed to say at this point, but they don't because it's stupid). Even if you don't understand the game, you don't understand what's happening in your man's mind, and even if you're bored as shit watching hockey or football Mirna is going to "help you understand
obsession, enthusiasm and passion, and help you hold your own during game nights."

THANK YOU LADY! Girls, obviously, don't understand anything unless we can see it in Guide format and our learning potential increases exponentially when there are slide show photos involved.

I'm not going to go through every point she wrote and rip it to shreds, because the article was taken down and I think that's enough embarassment for her for one day. What I'm more interested in is this idea that women should "pretend" to like sports and should schedule their lives around men who like sports. Also, women do like sports, so probably we don't have to fake liking it. Women also "understand" things. It's like explaining how to breath. We have this basic instinctual capacity that allows us to interact with other humans in appropriate ways, mostly, and this allows us ladies to partake in a night of sports watching without having to do weird things like "ask all the right questions at the exact right moment."

In case you doubt the veracity of my claims, I copied the text and it's also still available here.

Living: you're doing it wrong!!

Because women are the problem: An open letter to EA VP Gabrielle Toledano

Contributor: Tasia Alexopoulos


Seriously, enough said.

An Open Letter to VP Gabrielle Toledano 

Good grief, more of this shit?

Sometimes the lack of actual thought in this world seriously baffles me. Yesterday the Huffington Post published an article about former MP Ujjal Dosanjh, who tweeted about the horrific gang rape in India. Dosanjh tweeted the following:

"Absurd 2blame female dress 4 rape. If men unable 2control penises, they shud have them removed #delhigangrape"

 He went on to say (the Huff Post didn't cite where he said this) that "Obviously this issue is much broader and wider than the Indian case. Usually men blame women for the way they dress and I just wanted to put it succinctly to show the absurdity of the position."

I agree with half of what Dosanjh says, the half about women not being responsible for their assaults. What I don't agree with, and what makes me incredibly angry, is that people are having emotional knee-jerk reactions to this rape and they're saying things that are not only untrue but completely dangerous to the progress women and men have made when it comes to perceptions of sexual assault. The Huffington Post's tweet about their own article called Dosanjh's statement "bold" and I saw multiple retweets that applauded his sentiment. I understand the impulse to wish harm upon rapists, I think it's natural and can be a really helpful coping mechanism. This is not what Dosanjh has done. This is not a bold tweet, it is an incredibly stupid and incredibly revealing tweet about how ignorant people can be.

He, like many others(especially those who have no been exposed to the daily and often extreme violence which victims of sexual assault survive), has decided to take a "stand" against sexual assault in the worst way possible. In an attempt to be "supportive" without educating himself about the issues of assault he has attributed the gang rape of the Delhi student, and all rape and sexual assault, to lust. It doesn't matter how many penises you castrate, rape and sexual assault have absolutely nothing to do with sexual desire, sexual impulses, or controlling either of those things. Rape and sexual assault are always about power and control. You can only be an ally, you can only be part of the solution, if you know what it is you're fighting against. We aren't fighting against men who can't control their dicks. We're fighting against the GLOBAL inequality of women that leads to men feeling entitled to the control and denigration of women's bodies. It's a fight against people wielding power and control over women, men, and children not for bodily pleasure but because they feel entitled to the position that inflicting that kind of hurt puts them in. Castrating a rapist doesn't address systemic inequality. Castrating a rapist doesn't take into account that his penis has nothing to do with the crime.

This specific instance of idiocy is a great example of the way reactions have been pouring out in the media, facebook, twitter etc about this case of rape.It is a horrible crime, unimaginable to some. But the fact is that for some people it is all too imaginable, and not just in India. The Huffington Post article goes on to say that it in India it is "common for women to be blamed for sexual assaults, which in turns means few report it to authorities. Those who do find police often do not take their cases seriously. Politicians and decision makers in India regularly suggest that women should not go out at night or wear "provocative" clothes."

This statement could be said for any country in the world, at any time. Remember how Slutwalk started? When a Toronto Police Officer told women not to dress like sluts if they didn't want to be raped? This isn't an uncommon sentiment and the idea that women "ask for it" is not a rare response to sexual assault. Not so long ago it was legal to rape your wife in Canada because the law recognized a woman's husband as her master. What about the Christie Pits groper this summer? What did the police tell us? They told us to be alert, dress a certain way, don't go out after a certain hour etc etc. Mayor Rob Ford's niece tweeted that women should not dress like a slut if they don't want to be groped.  All things women need to do to protect themselves and "not ask for it." Women in Canada and the U.S also don't report their rapes and assaults because, guess what? Cops often don't believe them and the trauma of having to try to get police to believe you is sometimes too much for someone to bear. It isn't as easy as going to the police station, reporting your rape, and the bad person goes away. You have to give statement after statement, you have to describe what you were wearing, how they took it off, how they hurt you. Then you have to do it all over again in court. Then your rapist gets like two years in prison. In a perfect world where racism, sexism, and classism didn't exist everyone would report their assaults. In a world where there is so much inequality and so much discrimination it makes perfect sense to me that people choose to keep their assaults out of the justice system. The justice system in Canada, the U.S,  and India all have one thing in common: they are not designed for the comfort and security of victims of assault and rape and they have all been built on sexist assumptions and stereotypes.

After the Delhi rape a woman was gang raped in Thunder Bay and left for dead. So where are the tweets about that from our politicians? Where is the outrage? How dare a former MP of BC tweet something so ill-informed about rape when he used to represent a province famous for the murder and rape of indigenous women, which was essentially allowed to continue for years because authorities didn't care about the victims? This is not support for rape victims. This is not support for progressive legislation. This is emotion unfocused and set upon a world that doesn't need any more muddled ideas about sexual violence.

So let's just stop it with the "things are so bad in India" thing because we all know things are just as bad here. Let's also stop going with our gut reaction: you may wish your rapist had his penis cut off to punish him, but the idea that castration could stop rape perpetuates misconceptions we can no longer afford. Let's stop applauding every man or politician who turns their noses up at the Indian Gang Rape and calls for change while they totally ignore all other violence against women, all over the world.

Gender Neutrality, for boys!

I've been reading a lot lately about this gender neutral Easy Bake Oven petition and I think it's a really interesting idea. I think it's nice that a young girl was motivated to approach a large corporation and ask them to change. I think it's nice that she was trying to make the world a little easier for her baby brother, who wanted an Easy Bake Oven but assumed it was "just for girls" because of the insanely pink and purple, hyper girly way it's marketed. 

By now we all know, pretty much, that toys are marketed for girls or for boys using stereotypes about what each gender should be like and I can't really think of many toys that aren't. Toys seem to have become much more focused on gender in the past few decades: for girls toys have become much more feminized and sexualized; for boys masculinity and violence seem to be really played up. Walk down a toy aisle of boys toys and you see a lot guns, fake grenades, war-themed games and objects, cars and trucks, or trade themed toys(construction etc). The toys I saved from when I was a child that are still in production today have changed so much I can't even recognize them. Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite look like a bizarre mixture of grown woman and baby deer -- girls toys especially focus on appearance highlighting humongous eyes, teeny tiny noses, and pouty mouths.

It's just a fact that people buy different toys for girls and boys.These two lists from Squidoo of the "top toys of 2012/2013" are really telling:

Boys toys are all like "action!" "adventure!" "learning!" While girls toys seem to be more like "hair!" "caring!" "friends!" There are some crossover toys, like the Leap Frog Explorer Tablet, but a tablet would sell games and apps separately and I imagine they are pretty different when it comes to girls and boys.

These are "Novi Stars", one of the top ten girls toys for this year:

I'm sorry, but wtf are those things? When did we start making toys for girls that look like this? Each of the "stars" is wearing spiked heel shoes, have splayed feet, short skirts, massive doe eyes, and pouty pout lips. What does a girl do with these toys? Is she like, "heeeey, I love not being able to walk because my shoes are so cool!" What is the point of creating suggestive dolls for little girls? So that they want to wear high heels and show off their sexy alien legs? I don't know, but if I had a daughter and she said she wanted those I'd be freaked the fuck out.

Next we have a toy from the boys list, the Brachiosaurus! This toy is a machine AND a dinosaur PLUS you build that shit yourself. The dinosaur has no real physiological features, as a real dinosaur would, and you're encouraged to view it as a mechanical thing rather than an animal. Very similar to a Transformer. Sure, you can buy this for your girl and I'm sure she'd enjoy it but the point is that it isn't being marketed for girls.

I'm not saying there are no gender stereotype breaking toys -- On the girls list there is Doc McStuffins(also on the list) , a show about a little girl who "fixes" toys. The boys list doesn't really include anything all that stereotype busting and this is one of the reason I am really conflicted about this gender neutral Easy Bake Oven.

I think it's really problematic to push for gender neutrality based on the assumption that "girls toys" are damaging for boys. Gender neutrality on boys behalf ignores the fact that "for girls only" marketing and toy design also hurts girls by acclimatizing them to stereotypes that they may or may not be inclined towards. Why has a black and silver Easy Bake Oven been on the design table for 18 months if what they're building is gender neutral? If it's gender neutral then just take the toy you have and make it a different colour, use a plethora of colours! Kids love colour! The fact that Hasbro had to re-design the "girly" Easy Bake Oven suggests that gender neutrality is not actually the goal, but rather that satisfying a more "boy friendly" audience is. It's not alright for boys to play with a pink Easy Bake Oven, but allowing girls to play with it is fine? How does the Pink Paradigm damage girls at the same time as it alienates boys? Go gender neutral Hasbro but don't ignore that often times "gender neutral" really means "not girly."

Another thing I find interesting about the Easy Bake Oven debate is the voice of celebrity Chefs piping in. Bobby Flay publicly supported the petition, saying that he used to play with a green Easy Bake Oven as a child and it pushed him towards cooking as a career. This makes me really, really uneasy. Are we really suggesting that making Easy Bake Ovens more available to boys will make them more likely to become chefs? If so, then we need to take a huge step back and look at the gender dynamics of the Culinary Arts. I think it's really important that boys learn to cook, just as girls should.  I think boys should be made to feel comfortable cooking as a hobby or for family, with love, just as girls are taught. What I'm not comfortable with is that men outnumber women in the Culinary Arts, particularly at the executive level. Talk to any female Chef and she will tell you how few women she works with and how hard it was for her to get into a kitchen (except, of course, as pastry Chefs; the area of Culinary Arts that women often get funneled into). There are so few female Executive Chefs and women are underrepresented in kitchens so I don't really think that boys need an Easy Bake Oven to inspire them to be Chefs. What about an industrial Easy Bake Oven for girls that isn't about making cookies for your friends but instead helps develop skills they'll eventually need to become real Chefs, as a career?

What about all the toys for boys that leave girls out? How do we make a Construction set more appealing for girls? By making it pink? No. We make it more acceptable by changing societal views about who does what. We don't tell girls that pink is for them and blue is for boys. We don't applaud aggressive behaviour in boys while reviling it as "unnatural" in girls. We don't assume that boys who play with a pink Easy Bake Oven(or any pink toy) are 'fags' or 'wusses'.  We teach children that they can play with whatever they want, be whoever they want, and they will not be judged for it. That is gender neutrality.

Gender neutrality is an important but lofty goal especially when we consider that anything labelled female or feminine is looked down upon. Gender neutrality cannot mean "for boys" just as much as it shouldn't mean "for girls." Neutral isn't always neutral and we shouldn't applaud something right away just because someone tells us it's a step forward. An Easy Bake Oven that is black and silver does not mean that we've reached some kind of gender equity, it just means that now there are black and silver Easy Bake Ovens. I guess the only real question that needs to be answered is since there are still separate toy aisle for girls and boys, which aisle will they display it in?

The Way Must Be Tried.. Over and over and over again.

The Way Must be Tried.. Over and over and over again.

contributed by Tasia Alexopoulos

What is that old adage, oft used but rarely followed? "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

It seems that our administrators at York University, who exalted the past during York's Anniversary, are refusing to learn from history at all. For several years, like most Universities, York has experienced a very serious issue with sexual assault of all forms. From groping to stranger rape, York has seen it all. This isn't a new phenomenon: sexual assault is common on all campuses, in all towns and cities, and in all people's lives. What should be new is the way we approach this issue.

Yesterday the University and our illustrious President Shoukri help a Forum on Community Safety for students, staff, faculty, and community members. Instead of being an actual open Forum for questions and serious discussion the event was a mere publicity stunt; an opportunity to reveal the University's "new" security measures and dedication to safety.

At the open Forum yesterday President Shoukri announced that the University would be graciously spending over $10 million on safety and security on campus. Shoukri not only announced that the money would be spent, but that he has "embraced" the effort to increase safety on campus. The promised funds have already been allocated, with no real input from the University community nor those who are experts in gendered violence. Not once has the President, the Dean, or any VP stepped up and said "Hey, Women's Studies students: What do you think we could do about violence on campus?" Not once have they seriously approached any anti-racist group on campus and asked what those students would consider meaningful safety measures. Unfortunately for all of us, York has a bad track record when it comes to dealing with safety in all forms despite taking a hardline stance. We've seen over and over again how they deal with sexual assault and more often than not it entails telling the ladies on campus to "be aware of their surroundings" and to "lock their doors." For real, several years ago Alex Bilyk of York University told women that the moral of the story (because sexual assault is a story with a moral other than "don't be a rapist") that they need to keep their doors locked. He was responding to a stranger assault in a University residence, perpetrated by someone who did not live in the dorm.

In almost every Security Bulletin we receive about an assault on campus women are advised to buddy up, to be aware of their surroundings and the people around them, and to report suspicious people to York Security Services. This is an outdated approach and hopefully the new Security strategy takes this into account. It does not matter how aware you are of your surroundings or of suspicious people, it does not matter if you buddy up, if somebody wants to assault you they will assault you. The most recent assaults on campus have been in daylight at busy times -- one of them occurred in the lineup for the 196 York Rocket bus, one of the longest bus lineups of all time. A person who will assault a woman in broad daylight, surrounded by people, is someone who knows that the culture on campus permits them to do so -- they know that they will not be stopped and they will not be caught, they feel invincible.

This has nothing to do with how many Security guards are around or how well armed they are. It has to do with the culture on campus that does not take safety seriously, or racism seriously. It's about being part of a campus community that doesn't educate young men about misogyny or assault but, instead, chastises women for not being aware of their surroundings. We are part of a campus that allows sexist advertising to pervade. On a broader political scale we are part of a University that has only had ONE female President and in which some Faculties have never had a female Dean. We are part of a University that discourages students to stand up for themselves when they are harassed by Professors or employers. We are part of a University whose Administrators treat students, staff, and faculty with outright scorn. There are parts of campus that still aren't wheelchair accessible. We are not part of an inclusive, respectful, anti-sexist, anti-racist campus.

The Open Forum on Community Safety shouldn't have been an opportunity to smile at the cameras and pledge your allegiance to the flag of safety, President Shoukri. It should have been an opportunity for students to voice their discomfort, their feelings, their ideas. Instead, when a group of students came to the forum to express their concern about racial profiling on campus they weren't given space, the moderator instructed the microphone runners to ignore certain questions, and VP Morrison smirked the entire time they spoke. A culture that doesn't accept sexual assault also encourages respectful dialogue and this is just not occurring at York. President Shoukri claimed that the "floating" microphones were used to address accessibility issues but when asked how the moderator planned to manage the questions queue he had no response.

So the University will spend $10 million on re-training Security Staff, arming them, and giving them the power to arrest people. They will install more emergency phones. They've created new staff positions and renamed committees.  Nowhere does it say that York is committing itself to ending sexism or racism on campus. Nowhere does it even mention gender. It's great to increase Inclusivity training, but what does that really mean? What we need is York to take a political and ideological stance against what really causes assaults and violence: power imbalances.


I wrote this two years ago, about York University, and in the years since then nothing has changed:

"Sexual assault is an epidemic in Canada and York needs to address the culture of sexism on campus more than it needs to release the metrac report. Sexual assault is not leverage. It is not fair to say "sorry you were raped, young lady, that could have been prevented with more lighting". We need to think, "hey, maybe we need to educate ALL students about sexual assault." Maybe we shouldn't cut funding to women's studies programs, maybe we should increase education around the politics and issues behind sexual assault instead of just acting like cameras and lights are going to save the day."

What is the point of re-training Security officers when you're not educating students?When you're not combating rape culture, sexism, and inequality on campus?

York's motto is "The Way Must Be Tried." This way HAS been tried. It is time to recognize, once and for all, that women have taken responsibility for their own safety and that telling us to be aware of our surroundings will not save us from being assaulted. More Security will not mean less assault, because more Security does not mean less sexism. More heavily armed Security personnel will only increase violence against University community members. It is time for the University to stop calling itself innovative and actually innovate new responses to violence on campus.Yes, prevention is the key but prevention cannot occur until we begin to seriously address the sexist and racist culture on campus. We can't let the administrators, and whatever corporations or political interests they may serve railroad true change just because they hold a community meeting and grace us with their presence. These "safety" initiatives are not enough, we need the University to commit itself, once and for all, to social justice. We need education and cultural shifts, President Shoukri, not more Security guards with tasers. 

Finally, a car just for women!

There are a lot of products on the market "just for women." Some of them are necessary such as, you know, tampons. Some of them are kind of necessary like just for women back packs that have a narrower strap so they don't pinch your side boob when you're hiking. The rest of "just for women" products are basically useless and exist to grab cash from women, who will apparently pay extra for something stamped with a flower or something that smells like a tropical rain forest under their armpits.

Some of my least favorite products for women include anti-perspirant (because you actually can't buy deodorant for women) which I wrote about here : "Because nobody wants to be with a girl who is careless about her underarm odor." The ad campaign for this particular product (which is a "motion sensor underarm anti perspirant) wanted to remind women how much they move by making them wear jingle bells on their wrists all day. Shudder.

There's also the new Bic for Women! A pen designed specifically for a woman. I haven't written about that at all, partly because I was away and partly because I was just like fuck that, I'm not writing about a pen for women.

Another product I can't stand are razors for women. In "Gillette: the choice of women, girls, and pedophiles everywhere" I looked at how this craze for women's products is starting younger and younger and how women's products mainly just capitalize on sexist fears around women's bodies. Hey, 12 year old girl, better shave those legs unless you want someone to think you re DISGUSTING. Right?

There are trillions of products for women that are pink. Pink computers, pink phones, pink headphones. You  name it, there's a pink one for the ladies. Superfluous, unnecessary, transparent, and sexist are basically all of the words that come to mind when I see any "for women" product and today I came across a new one: The new Honda She's, a car for women.

A CAR FOR WOMEN.

The website is in Japanese, so you'll have to use the translate function but here's the general gist of it: this is a car just for ladies. Ladies who don't work. Ladies who use their cars to jet off to the coast and buy flowers in their pink skirt. Ladies who want "adult-cute".

What are the special "women only" functions of the new Honda She's? Well She's' trim is all pink, pink stitching, it has a pink interior, but it can also be bought in 'eyeliner brown'.The really annoying thing about this car is that the windshield blocks 99% of UV rays and they've created a new AC system that is meant to improve air quality within the vehicle. Why would that possibly be annoying?  Air quality and UV rays in a car are serious issues but the Honda She's isn't interested in anything serious (how could She? She's a lady after all) and these new features are sold as being "anti-aging." Anti. Aging. Car. Apparently women don't care if the UV blocking windshield protects their skin or eyes, they'll buy it because they're told it will guard against premature wrinkling. And the new AC system isn't touted for its allergen decreasing, pollution halting filters but rather for "improving" your lovely porcelain skin.

If you want a pink car, that's great. Go buy yourself a car and get it in pink. Spend the extra cash and even get some pink trims if you feel like it. Cars are just like any other personal product and people want (and should be able to) customize them however they want. This isn't about pink. It's about how companies target women using sexist stereotypes about what women want. As a woman who drives a lot I don't want a car that everyone is going to stare at. When I used to have to drive in Northern Ontario on lonely isolated highways, surrounded by big trucks, I wouldn't have wanted to have a pink fucking car that looked like a blown up toy because that just seems unsafe to me.  I don't want a car with a sassy trim. I want a car that has a seat belt that doesn't cut my arm because I'm petite. I want a car that has an airbag that isn't going to cut my head off because I weigh under 120lbs. I would love a car that had an AC system that increased air quality and I would love a car that had UV protection in the windows, because those are things that everyone would want. Driving is serious. Being a driver is serious. Have a nice car, add some personality to it, but this ad campaign makes it seem like women drivers don't need safety features and also that they don't exist in the world of actual driving.

I have read pretty  much every review of the She's that's been written so far and not ONE of them mentions a single safety feature. Normally when a new car is released the reviews focus on the exciting aesthetic features, the comfort, the luxury but I have never read a car review that didn't mention a safety feature at all. This is why I don't like products for women. When you buy a car you should know everything about it. You should like how it looks, how it feels, and you should understand how it works and how it's going to keep you safe. Different cars are safe for different terrains. Some cars aren't good for certain areas. Some cars are designed for cities, some for country. If all of the reviews of this car (and the website) ignore the features of a car that would normally be selling points what it's saying is that women who are going to buy this car ONLY care what it looks like and in the world of cars that should never be encouraged. Buy this pink car because you're a lady and ladies love pink! All you need to know is that it's soooo cute!! Who cares about anything else? Caring about safety will give you wrinkles! Is the seatbelt actually just a silk ribbon that you can tie into a pretty bow? Maybe the airbag could just be a gigantic powder puff. Perfect!

Women are not children. A pink car for women, whatever. But a pink car for women that only publishes anti-aging features and trim colour infantilize women and sets a dangerous precedent not only for acceptable ways that companies can sell cars to women but the kinds of cars they can sell to women. 

Cathal Kelly and the Spectrum of Seriousness: Homophobia versus Sexism

In today's Toronto Star Cathal Kelly addresses Yunel Escobar's eye black gaffe. Escobar had the phrase "Tu ere maricon" into his eye black which is a Spanish phrase that can sometimes be interpreted as a homophobic slur.

It's pretty stupid, regardless of what Escobar meant, to write anything in his eye black that could be considered at all homophobic. There are a billion cameras taking your picture so maybe just keep the messages off the field. But no, Escobar did it and now he has to deal with the fall out.

Cathal Kelly is on a mission to educate us all about "how bad" this slur really is. Is it really so bad, he asks.  Yes, the phrase COULD mean "faggot" but it can also be an "effeminizing epithet" according to one of three Spanish professors Kelly approached. Some of the professors said that depending on the different cultural contexts the phrase could mean something different, but all agreed it was offensive. What Kelly seems to be insinuating is that there is a spectrum of offensiveness here that we need to understand: full on homophobia is OFFENSIVE where as a little jab about a man being like a lady is only a bit offensive.

That's bullshit.

I don't really know how many sports Cathal Kelly has played but the idea that calling a man a wuss, a "girl" is actually an insult to women is ridiculous. What are effeminate men? Fags. So telling someone they throw like a girl or that they're wimpy and prissy,is short hand for calling them a big fat homo. And even if Escobar wasn't using it as an outright homophobic slur(despite what the Cuban experts said about the cultural context of that phrase in Cuba, where Escobar is from) it's still offensive to belittle the physical prowess of women and it still calls into question a man's masculinity.

Let's deconstruct this phrase in very terms of basic sexist and homophobic assumptions that are not uncommon:

Women are weaker than men. They are bad at sports.
Men should be strong and naturally they are great at sports.
If a man is not good at sports he is not a real man, he is "less" than a man.
If a man is not a real man, he is more like a woman.
A man who is like a woman is gay.
Gay men are like women, they are weak and bad at sports and less than a real man.

How is this, as Kelly puts it, a "grey area?" It isn't grey, the language and context can vary but the phrase is always in bad taste and is at most extremely aggressive and offensive. Why is it not "on the dark side of the spectrum" to make a sexist remark?

Oh, I forgot that this article comes from someone who doesn't believe that women's boxing is a real sport because it's degrading to women's "nature." So I guess to someone like Kelly an offensive phrase about women isn't so bad on the spectrum(because they're probably true) and Escobar can be forgiven as long as he wasn't doing the worst thing of all: questioning the sacred realm of Masculinity.

The Olympics and the spirit of sexism

The Olympics are interesting. Seeing the best athletes in the world compete is thrilling. For some reason during the Olympics people seem to feel that National boundaries slip away and the world comes together, which is kind of bizarre considering the athletes compete country vs. country. National pride during the Olympics is akin only to national pride during soccer tournaments, which can border on the absolutely insane. But people like to watch sports,and people like to have national pride so during the Olympics we have a healthy sense of cognitive dissonance and we pretend that the countries pitted against one another haven't fought wars, engaged in exploitative economic or political campaigns, or launched genocide.  The world has a lot of problems, so the Olympics is a nice distraction.

The one conflict we seem unable to give up during the Olympics is the gender war. The Olympics, more than sport general, is the battleground for gender as binary and only binary. Considering athletes bodies are put on a pedestal as better than normal, as beyond normal, as almost transcendent, people sure spend a lot of time trying to ensure that female athletes fit into a normative female gender framework. The most recent example of this is the Caster Semenya "scandal" in 2009. Semenya, a South African runner, a World Championship runner and gold medalist in the Commonwealth Games, improved her time on the 800m by a margin that made the IAAF(International Association of Athletics Federation) suspicious and when women improve vastly and quickly the first test that Officials do is the "Gender Test." In Semenya's case her gender testing was made public and she quickly became the target of intense scrutiny, sexism, racism, and moral panic. Semenya ended up withdrawing from competition for a period of time but was eventually "verified"as woman.

Here's the thing about gender testing, it isn't just a simple blood test or a peek under the skirt. gender testing today includes a trip to the gynecologist, endocrinologists, psychologists, and internal medicine specialists. All of this testing is extremely invasive physically and mentally not to mention it adheres to old and outdated considerations about gender. This testing reinforces the idea that there are two genders and that everything else is an anomaly that needs to be fixed. In fact, more recent scientific discovery about the genetic makeup of human beings has asserted that there are more than two genders and that, chromosomally and physiologically, the two gender model just doesn't work anymore. Ideas about gender, about femininity, have been used against women for centuries: your boobs are too small, your labia is too long, your clitoris is too big, your muscles are too manly, you have a mustache, you have internal testicles. This policing of femininity causes women to constantly be on guard, constantly defend themselves, or constantly be working to look more feminine; fuelling the billion dollar cosmetic/skinlightening/weightloss/plastic surgery industries. Considering we all grow out of the very same material, it makes sense that our bodies wouldn't be cookie cutter copies of "perfect genders"--which, by the way, have historical roots in colonialism, racism and slavery.  Women athletes have not only had to fight to participate in sport at all, but have had to battle stereotypes of women being incapable, too weak, of women athletes being unnatural, all to do what men are allowed to do naturally.

Unfortunately, the Olympics has a long and disturbing history with gender--up until 1992 gender testing was compulsory and once included female athletes derobing and being examined by an Olympic board in the nude to ensure their "female-ness". Apparently this comes from the fear that males will pretend to be women in an effort to win more medals for their nations. I think it's more likely that it stems from a fear that allowing women to be fully athletic undermines the carefully cultivated control over women's bodies, that if we accept that there is no such thing as "female" and "male" then we can no longer put men at the top of the hierarchy of strength.

It is with all of this in mind that I stumbled upon a surprisingly disturbing article in The Toronto Star yesterday."Some sports-like women's boxing- don't belong in the Olympics", written by Cathal Kelly. To be honest, I saw the headline and ignored it. Generally speaking when there are articles about a sport that shouldn't be in the Olympics it's because it hasn't been developed to a high enough level, there aren't enough competitors, or that there aren't enough interested spectators. When I actually read the article today I was surprised that it had made it into the Star's official coverage of the Olympics because it reads like an opinion piece. Kelly's premise is that women's boxing doesn't "belong" in the Olympics because watching women beat each other up is "distasteful" akin to "bear baiting and gander pulling."  Interesting, both of these examples are considered cruelty towards animals so... are two women boxing like two animals being pitted against one another? I'm so confused.

Kelly claims that once the women's match started the audience went silent  and "several thousand people were having a simultaneous internal ethical discussion, trying to figure out if it’s OK to enjoy watching women beat each other up."  Not only is it pretty presumptuous to assume you know what everyone else is thinking, but it's pretty telling that Kelly assumes those thousands of people are thinking what HE is thinking. I'm going to guess that somewhere in that gigantic crowd there were people enjoying the sport, cheering for the women, impressed by their skill, and not experiencing sexist tension around whether or not it's okay for them to watch two amazing athletes compete at a high level.

Kelly rips the "post-bout" drama of "one day old" women's boxing, comparing it to a Soap Opera. Has he ever watched men box? Men's boxing is all about the drama, it's about posturing and showmanship, it's about constructing rivalries. Only when it is two women boxing does a mainstay of the sport become catty and silly. Women's boxing, somehow, is "kitschy" and Kelly doesn't seem to recognize that it isn't a new sport at all, it's just new to the Olympics.

Kelly continues his embarrassing tirade: "If this is about inclusiveness, the International Olympic Committee will cave to the British male synchro swimming team that is lobbying for a spot in Rio. Since no one will watch guys in nose plugs doing pas de deux, the IOC is not going to cave. Some sports just don’t translate across the sexes, however long we hold our breath and wish for a perfect, genderless world."

Why doesn't synchronize swimming translate across the sexes? Most major synchronized swimming competitions allow men to compete and it makes no sense that no one would want to watch men in this sport when they already DO. Some people value the skill that synchro swimming demands, and those same skills have been valued in male gymnasts and male dancers. Ballet translates across the sexes, and hundreds of thousands of people watch men without nose plugs do a pas de deux  so why wouldn't they want to watch them in the Olympics?  Nobody is holding their breath, wishing for a perfect genderless world. Men being able to synchronize swim at the Olympics doesn't symbolize a "genderless world". People have desires and wants, they fight for the right to fulfill those desires and wants, and what we get is a more balanced world where people are just people doing what they like to do.

So, Kelly doesn't want to watch a sport that doesn't reinforce traditional gender roles. Watching women beat each other up is distasteful to him because women haven't traditionally been encouraged to beat each other up in the ring. Well, if Kelly wants to watch sports that only make sense in terms of gender maybe we should have child birth as a sport. Or rape. Maybe we could build a complex arena that simulates a city, fill it with predators, and have female "athletes" traverse it. Maybe women could compete in "who can change a diaper fastest"? Who can roll their hair in curlers the fastest?  I'm not trying to be facetious here, I just really want to point out where a statement like "women's boxing doesn't belong in the Olympics" comes from and what kinds of stereotypes it upholds and perpetuates. Just because something is accepted or traditional doesn't make it right or natural. It is only distasteful to watch women beat each other up in a culture that feminizes women as weak caregivers, who are innately more loving and nurturing than men, and that strength and aggression are unnatural. If you aren't a sexist, then watching two women compete at the highest level at their sport doesn't throw you into "ethical" turmoil.

What is truly distasteful is a white, privileged man assuming that he knows the thoughts of thousands of sports spectators. It is distasteful for a male journalist to devalue a sport that demands rigorous training and dedication, to relegate it to the realm of a circus act. Just because this is the first time women are boxing in the Olympics doesn't mean it's the first time these women have boxed at all. These women are world champions, they are incredible athletes, they are disciplined and focused and for some journalist sitting in the crowd to pompously proclaim their sport as garbage simply because of their gender is truly shocking. 

Myths of Men and Women. Or: Myths of Men, because what they say about ladies is true.

Yesterday the Metro News published an article written by Julia West entitled "Myths of Men and Women: He said/She Said, How to overcome gender stereotypes in the office."

"Gender stereotypes can be a severe hindrance to your work", writes West. A stereotype is something commonly believed or accepted but that rarely reflects reality. Gender stereotyping can completely hinder your work and your career advancement because any decision based on a stereotype is defined as discrimination. In Canada, discrimination is illegal. It is illegal to discriminate against somebody based on something that should not factor into your decisions: race, religion, age, sex,gender, sexual orientation, ability. Discrimination violates the Ontario Human Rights Act, the right to be free of discrimination is part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and most businesses have policies around discrimination at work.

When I read the first sentence of her article I was encouraged. I thought maybe it would outline processes around dealing with discrimination or solidarity building tools for workplaces.  I was wrong. I was very, very wrong.

What I thought I was about to read was something along these line: "gender discrimination still happens, it's a big problem, and it's bad. So, here's how to fight it."

What I actually read, was this: "[gender stereotypes] also distract from serious issues and affect a person's comfort level. "Women who unwittingly adhere to gender stereotypes are less likely to be taken seriously for their abilities and contributions."

The article is essentially a How To Guide on "Proving Stereotypes Wrong" and the first piece of advice to women is to from Brenda Fiala, a Strategy SVP at some company: "Be Excellent...Set for yourself an expectation of delivering excellent work, and strive to do it positively and consistently," she says. When you're a good employee it gets noticed, regardless of sex."

Oh really? How interesting! I guess that explains the pay equity gap : women just aren't as good as men at their jobs, which makes it an individual problem and not a systemic one. Problem Solved! Thanks lady!

 Another business lady/author adds to the advice:  "Your role...is to contribute to the success of the business.  If you are not doing that first, you will be hard-pressed to blame gender discrimination."

That is because we live in a Meritocracy, a society in which the only thing holding us back is ourselves. If you are a dedicated, talented, hard worker than you will be rewarded and be successful. Right? Pull yourself up by your boot straps, get yourself off the ground, get back on the horse. We are supposed to be able to get what we want by working for it but, in reality, there are invisible(and not so invisible barriers) to our success. Sure, if you're a shitty employee you probably can't blame gender discrimination, but by definition discrimination is actions that are baseless and not informed by facts which is why discrimination is illegal. People realized that no matter how hard they worked, or how much better they were at their job than their colleagues, they weren't advancing. They were given more of the crappier work to do, got less recognition, less pay, and less opportunities for raises and promotions. That's because "being excellent" can't stop discrimination. Being an excellent worker, doing your job, "contributing to the success of the business" doesn't mean anything because the people who are evaluating you and who are in control of your well-being are only looking at one part of you, in this case they're only looking at the "woman" factor.

When Julia West writes "it's time to stop stereotypes in their track and move forward" she doesn't mean stop stereotyping, she means women need to stop being so stereotypical. "If there's a stereotype that you find offensive or degrading, simply don't perpetuate it." Resist your natural urge to gossip, because women are stereotyped as gossipy. "Maybe you know someone who insists that female bosses are moody or rash?" Well, in this case you shouldn't report them to your superior,you should prove them wrong by being "a strong leader by laying out expectations clearly and giving direct feedback." This advice isn't problematic because it's stupid, it's problematic because it assumes that stereotypes about women being bitchy, moody, irrational, and catty are true and that it's a woman's responsibility to "unlearn" these things. This flies in the face of decades of evidence that shows that certain groups of people are less likely to make equal pay, advance through promotion or salary raises, or even be offered job positions.  Individualizing a systemic issue doesn't stop gender discrimination, it allows it to become more entrenched because we ignore the true causes and effects of it. Acknowledging discrimination IS moving forward, what West and these other businesswomen have done is take a huge step backwards.

West's final piece of advice is about the "important of an appropriate wardrobe." No, seriously. If you want to be taken seriously, or as she puts it "a vital contributor to the company" you have to "look the part." Don't dress like you're "going out" you should dress in attired that you are comfortable in but that build confidence. "This doesn't mean dress like a man--it means keep it clean." Ohhh, I'm not making as much as my male colleague because I dress like I'm going to a club instead of going to work? I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that most professional women have to deal with sexism so much that they are hyper vigilant about their business attire.

Women aren't discriminated against because they're naturally dumb shits and have historically proven that they can't work like men can. Women are discriminated against because they have been systemically oppressed and shut out of the public work sphere for centuries by institutions like the Church and State who benefit from having a group of people to do unpaid domestic labour.

That this article ran so nonchalantly in a paper with huge circulation is a testament to how ingrained sexism and gender discrimination still are.  Metro News should be ashamed that they ran something so insipid and uninformed, and Julia West should be ashamed that her name is on an article that sounds so ignorant.

Ian Brown and the Case of "Casual Sensuality"

by: Tasia Alexopoulos

___________________________________

"Dorsal view. Glimpse of shiny skin between T-shirt and white gym shorts. Bending, over a window sill, in the act of tearing off leaves from a poplar outside."(Nabokov, Lolita)

After reading Ian Brown's column in the Globe and Mail, "Why men can't--and shouldn't--stop staring at women", I mainly just felt embarrassed for the author. Spring fever has inspired Brown to try to compose something 'sensual', honest, raw, and fundamentally masculine. Maybe he's been watching too much Mad Men and he's yearning for bygone years, but he doesn't seem to realize that very few (talented) authors in history have been able to really pull off this kind of writing without coming off like old perverts justifying their leering.

This sloppy essay probably seemed like a really sexy idea after a respective drink with each source of "research" Brown encountered; writing at his desk late at night, under lamplight, some kind of fancy scotch at hand but in the cold, hard light of day all illusions of grandeur are completely dispelled. Not only is this piece badly composed and unfocused, it's also completely boring.

We all know that some men stare at women. Women, especially, know this. It's creepy sometimes, scary other times, once in awhile it can be reciprocal, and it's always an every day occurrence. Most people also know, by now, that turning women into objects that need to be admired to survive is probably not ok. It's not surprising to me that a bunch of 50-60 year old upperclass professional men are sitting around waxing philosophical about staring at 20 year old asses, what surprises me is that Brown insists on painting all men with the same brush.

It's natural, all men do it, because no man can help it. Men are animals! And women should be flattered when men look at them because, as one charmer puts it:

"[men are always]only two clicks away from double penetration and other forms of pornographic nastiness, the act of merely looking at a girl who is naturally pretty – I mean, we should celebrate that.”

Can the Globe and Mail just casually print the term "double penetration"? Also, because there is a huge market for pornography and this married man can access any type of woman any time, women on the street should celebrate still being viable? This guy isn't making a good point, he's just pointing out that he's sleazy. He and Ian Brown want to convince the reader that all men are like them, but that just isn't true.

Brown's compatriot laments “the problem for us as men is that we're in the wrong culture, and we're men at the wrong time. We're not a culture that empowers men with casual sensuality.” What does being a man at the wrong time mean? Does it mean that you weren't alive during a time when women had no rights and, therefore, truly were objects? Does it mean a time when women were sexy secretaries and flight attendants? Casual sensuality exists, it just doesn't mean what these men think it does. Casual sensuality isn't blind to the conditions of the world because 'casual' and 'predatory' are two totally different things.

What Brown and these men(and lady) are doing is projecting their own wants and desires onto young, female bodies without considering how that human experiences the world. Women as works of art, women as flowers, women as trophies. It's not sexy and it's not sensual, it's gross and passé. Brown doesn't ask the young women that he's describing in such detail how they feel about his lechery, he doesn't ask their names or what their professions are because he's decided that the opinions of his male friends is more accurate and carries more weight.

What Brown is doing, I think, is most deftly demonstrated by Nabokov in Lolita. Nabokov's narrator describes in detail his voyeuristic experiences with young girls and women, and when his affections transfer to Dolores Haze(his Lolita) he completely erases her identity. Readers don't experience Dolores they experience Lolita, because the narrator can't enjoy his compulsion for young girls if they are humanized. The reader doesn't experience sexual assault or rape, kidnapping or abuse, the reader experiences the gratification and fruition of all of Humbert's sexual desires. Brown engages in this kind of dehumanizing rhetoric when he says things like "it's not as if they're hiding", "Ki's waitresses are brain-stopping, cleavage seems to be the prix fixe", or saying that the girls are so appealing because they are "free." How does he know they're free? He doesn't but any attempt to fill out this "free" girls' personality would effectively kill his fantasy.Brown and his fellow men discuss how the women they are staring down are the same ages as their daughters but that doesn't make them off-limits. How can men who have daughters be so disconnected from the experiences of young women? How can they care so little? So they accept and are completely fine with the idea that their daughters are some old man's Lolita? Really? That kind of mental disconnect just seems bizarre.

For all of these reasons I found Brown's article less infuriating and more humiliating. It makes me shudder to think of these men sitting at fancy restaurants and coffee bars enacting this manly, sexy shtick , throwing back their "manes", and revelling in their virility. Sad, fading masculinity, grasping at any and all vestiges of power that they can.

Ian Brown (and those like him) is not special or interesting and is no Vladimir Nabokov, but he is kind of a Humbert Humbert.

wow, do you really need us to spell it out toronto star?

This is all over the 'news': women fare better during the recession than men!!

In the Toronto Star the headline was "Why women fared better in the recession than men."

Apparently "when it comes to employment numbers women were hit less hard then men during the economic downturn. They also continued to hold far more part time jobs than men, but made significant gains in professions where they would earn a higher paycheque."

Interesting.

According to a Stats Canada report(which you can see here) women "dominate in service industries" which includes the health care, educational, and social assistance professions.

In 2009 women held 67% of teaching, nursing, and other health positions.

In 2009 70% of part-time work was done by women in Canada--a stat that hasn't changed much in three decades.

So "women did better" during the recession than men. That means that women, who generally have to take more part-time jobs and do caring work for little pay got to keep their crappy jobs while big banker and lawyer men were losing their awesome jobs that paid a lot of money.

That's not "faring better", actually. not losing your job in the mall, or your three jobs at three different nursing homes is not "faring better." It means that while men are losing their jobs more frequently and staying unemployed longer, women's status isn't really changing at all.

And how is it "faring better" when women are supporting children and jobless partners? Then are they "faring better"? No, they're not. It means they're working part time jobs or long hours at demanding and low pay jobs and now they are the only provider for their family.

This is the problem with just grabbing stats and making it news--there is no analysis. The Toronto Star is just like "hey women are doing GREAT!" Why are we doing great?! Because we can still get jobs as servers at restaurants and bars? Because high paying, full time jobs were historically not available to most women so instead of doctors women became nurses? And because nurses were primarily women the job got less respect and less money than doctors did?

That's called the "feminization" of a work place. It means that a career or job is treated differently because women are the primary holders of it and it isn't an indicator of women "doing well."

It's too bad actually, the Toronto Star could have taken the stats and actually utilized them to write an interesting piece but instead they were just like "picture of pretty teacher, snazzy headline, and we're off to the printer! let's get drunk!"

"guys aren't supposed to be short, that's funny!"

these videos from second city? hilarious.

it's like bringing sexy back, but with the devil.

so roman catholic priests in the states attended a conference this weekend all about the joys of exorcism-- a practise that some in the church are pushing to have a comeback, kind of like fanny packs.

you can read the post about that here. "this is why religion is fucked"


for years, countless damaging stories have flown around about sexual abuse in the church so it's no surprise that these priests are trying to bring exorcism back.

like this story today from the toronto star about the huge problem of not only abuse in the church, but the powerful of the church covering the abuse up.

see, if the church can bring exorcism back they won't have to deal with children and adults who say they were /are being abused by their trusted priests. the church will no longer have to deal with the courageous individuals who dare to come forward, defying their faith and often their community, because they can just exorcise those little devils right OUT of them!!

i mean consider this: if 40 years ago your kid was acting insane because they were being abused by your priest but you didn't know why they were acting insane. if exorcism had been more popular and "acceptable", your priest could have just insisted that your child was possessed by the DEVIL. that would take care of that tricky, sexually abused child always causing trouble!

if powerful figures in the church were willing to cover up abuse they knew about, there would have been no problem approving exorcisms to help cover them up.

but, we all know the church is slow moving so it makes sense that they're only now jumping on the exorcism bandwagon.

maybe now they'll finally get around to exorcising all of the witches that wriggled out of their grasp during the great burnings!!

too little, too late weirdos.

sure, it's trashy... but why are we really freaking out about Lake Shore?

everyone is having a goddamned fit about this new "show" Lake Shore.

i've seen the trailer and it's certainly something that i wouldn't like to watch, so i won't watch it. but what about this program is causing such public outrage and furied tweeting/facebooking about how horrifying it is?

there are petitions to stop it from airing, people declaring it's the end of the world, that it signifies some kind of shift, and basically all around pointing to it as something meaningful and new.

but how new is it really? how extra-offensive is it compared to programming that's been airing for years?

my favorite thing right now is seeing my friends who were obsessed with shows like "a shot at love with tila tequila", who watch the "jersey shore", or who consume any number of offensive and trashy reality tv posting articles and videos about Lake Shore like it's different from everything else they've been watching obsessively.

it's not different from those shows. there is ALWAYS race baiting in reality tv, it's one of the factors that keep people going back--to see what outrageous racist, sexist, homophobic thing these idiots will say next. is there really a huge difference between what was on that trailer for Lake Shore and watching the "america's next top model" contestants talk about how they're the best model and most worthy of winning because they're white?????

this article in the toronto star called "pushed into race-bashing" describes how lake shore contestants were pigeonholed into different races and asked to play them up. uh, yeah, duh. the kind of outrageous shit that they do on this show and EVERY reality tv show pushes ratings, are you telling me that on jersey shore they weren't asked to play up their "guido-ness"?? because they most certainly were, because that's how they sell their product.

in shows like "a shot at love with tila tequila" we watched people get wasted out of their minds, fight with one another (verbally and physically), and line up to make out with one person. do we really think that these people weren't asked to be extra dramatic and skeezy for the cameras??
we've been watching the worst of people magnified on television for as long as reality tv has existed.

do people really think that the people on Lake Shore are somehow being taken advantage of? there is a certain kind of person who wants to be on reality tv, for a myriad of reasons, but can we stop pretending that reality tv and documentary are the same thing here, because they really aren't. reality tv shows are about the spectacle, about being the MOST offensive, the MOST disgusting, the MOST caricature, and the people who get on these shows are into that--and they're allowed to be.

so why are we freaking out about Lake Shore? because it's based in toronto? because it's canadian?

remember the reality series "the lofters"? that was based in toronto and it was pretty trashy. that was in the era of hidden camera reality tv, which was always totally creepy but promised to catch people at their worst (or at their most naked).

sure, it's pretty nasty that Lake Shore labels people by their "race"-- the turk, the jew, etc.. but jersey shore already does that and pretty much every reality tv show has people playing into stereotypes about race and race relations.

i think people are going nuts for a lot of reasons, the biggest one being that this show is being produced in toronto and features canadians. long gone are the days where we can feel good about all of the trashiest shows being produced in america and consumed by americans because now we are just as bad (and if you listen to some media outlets, we're WORSE).

this show didn't come out of nowhere, toronto, and pretending that it exists in a vacuum doesn't really do anything except give the show tonnes of media exposure.

if you don't like reality tv, don't watch the show but let's not pretend that we haven't been participating in this exact system happily all of this time.