What passes for journalism these days....

So, on the bright side, this article made me want to post again for the first time in over a year (or maybe that has something to do with being back in academia).  On the down side, nobody is going to read this because I haven't blogged in a year...

This article in a local newspaper is one of the worst pieces of journalism I have ever read.  It is about the city's decision to fly the rainbow flag in support of LGBTQ athletes in Russia.

Not only does the article completely fail to contextualize the reason for the rainbow flag flying at city hall, but it presents some incredibly hateful views without refuting them or even suggesting that they might be discriminatory.

A few quotes...

"Raising the rainbow flag at Tom Davies Square will confuse children, one Star poll respondent believes."




I have children.  Neither of whom have ever been confused by a rainbow flag despite multiple exposures to them.

"“It's discrimination against married couples, having something like that,” another said, while a third person agreed."

Ignorance is discrimination against everyone... I win.  Also, note the completely heterosexist assumption that all married couples are straight.

Finally, the stats presented are absolutely absurd -

Of thirty-seven people called in to the poll hotline, 35 were opposed to the flag being flown. On the website 67% said no, 30% said yes and 3% were unsure.

Note that the other 165,000 people who live in this city decided that the rainbow flag is such a non-issue that they don't feel the need to pick up the phone to complain about it!

Seriously though, here is the problem - the average person reads this, shakes their head and moves on.  But people who hold homophobic opinions read this, feel that their opinions are validated and that most people think like they do, and they continue to spread hateful opinions on the internet, in schools, in the workplace, etc etc.

Not loving the anti-choice protest that I see Every Single Morning

I pass pro"life" protesters with pictures like this one every day on my commute to work.  It's a great way to start your day off with a grrr.

 

 It is my least favorite thing about working so close to the hospital (which is the only place that has abortion services in my city, which means it is the only place to put these signs to shame the women who need to access abortion services).

I just want to say, at 26 weeks, it is not an infant, but a fetus (or, if born at this age, a neo-natal preemie that may or may not be old enough to survive).  The language and photo are problematic for many many reasons.  Less than 1% of abortions in Canada take place after 20 weeks, and when they do, it is usually because the baby has no chance of surviving and the mother doesn't want to put her body through carrying a baby that is going to die to term.

Also, a fetus in the womb is probably not smiling.  But it looks cuter in the photo if there is a small smile on the baby, I guess.

Also, I keep planning on bringing a sign that I can fold up into my backpack that just says PRO-CHOICE in big letters and then I can hold it up while I walk past them, so I can at least feel like I am doing something.  I started trying to organize a protest, but they are usually gone by 10am and most of us have to work.

no words...

Seriously, how the fuck does this even happen?

 

The minister for the status of women actually votes for a bill that will lead to the criminalization of abortion!  This is clearly who Harper chose in charge of my rights...

Also on the attack against women, I just found out that the university is no longer going to fund a coordinator for the women's centre.  Because we don't have issues like sexual assault, sexual harassment, or any other form of sexism on campus anymore.

First attempt at blogging again

I have been trying to blog all week and have found it impossible to write about topics that I would normally be all over... like this one by a friend of mine.  

Last weekend, I received some news that set of my blogging spider-sense (that's a thing, right?) to the point where nothing else really mattered, and I can't write about it due to confidentiality issues and my lack of anonymity.  So I am stuck in this space of finally having my blog back and being thrilled to be online and committed to writing at least one post a week, but being entirely unable to think around this one block in my head when I think about social justice.

Does this happen to other people?

I have been talking a lot about the census release, so maybe I will start with trying to write about that after a reporter decided to strip everything critical that I had said about the topic... Wednesday, StatCan released data on families in Canada from the 2011 census and there are headlines about changing families or new types of families.  The problem is that single parents and common-law relationships are not new... if you really think about it, it is the nuclear family that is new.  But, as a news source, it is much more responsible to assume that the idea of family that exists within eurocentric capitalist patriarchal countries is the original family.  

Families take on different forms in various cultures at different times.  Same-sex couples are not new, but they are more often openly defining themselves as same-sex couples as opposed to pretending to be just roommates, and laws allowing them to adopt children and get married have allowed them to take part in what we consider to be more traditional family forms.  And they are now being measured on the census.  Single parent families are also not new, in the early 1900s there were a lot of women with children widowed in the war who raised families as single parents. If we take the census data seriously, homeless people do not count, and there isn't a single person in Canada who deviates from the gender binary.  

We have to stop thinking about the census as a reliable source of data or of the results as representing new forms of families as though the nuclear family is the ideal that other families are supposed to strive to achieve as it sets up one type of family as inherently better than other forms.  And we have to get more critical reporters.  

Back Online!

I have not been posting lately due to technical difficulties, but I am back and expect posts to resume shortly!

You have no idea how incredibly happy I am to have figured this out!

why do I bother watching the olympics anyway...

Why is it that women cannot be as good as men at sports?  If women even come close to performing as well as men in any given sport, they must be on drugs or they are really a man.

The idea that men's bodies might not ALWAYS be innately superior to women's bodies at EVERY task deemed important by athletics organizers appears to be a threat to every man.

In both of the situations from the previous links, there is also a huge element of racism involved in the accusations... if a "pretty" North American or Western European woman had a score on par with that of men in her field, there is a better chance that it might be seen as being due to athleticism and hard work, as opposed to "doping" and "tricking" us about their "real" gender.

My new olympic cheer... "Go Patriarchy! Yay!"  Now where did I put my pompoms?

Cat calls and comics

A few weeks ago, I went to the social sciences and humanities congress at Wilfred Laurier.  As I was walking from the dorm room to campus, someone honked at me for the first time in a very long time and this particular comic came to mind.

But thank you, whoever you were, for reminding me that as a woman, my body is on display and my worth is somehow tied to how many honks I get while walking down the street.