Party Line Dancers

Reader Heather posted this in the comments on SOWwatch below. I think it deserves its own post.

''Defenceless persons?''

Only because your government likes it that way, Bub.

Canada appears to be dragging its heels in responding to a demand from a United Nations human-rights panel. It probably won’t be until December 2014 that the country will file its next report regarding its compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, an international treaty ratified in 1981.

However, when the CEDAW committee met in Geneva in 2008, the panel was so concerned about poverty and violence here that it asked Canada to report within one year—and not wait until its next scheduled report in 2014—about how it is dealing with these issues. The UN panel made the request when it released its observations on Canada’s treaty compliance on November 7, 2008.

According to women’s-rights advocate Shelagh Day, the report is due by the end of November. But the codirector of the Poverty and Human Rights Centre and member of the B.C. CEDAW monitoring group says she doubts that Canada has much to say.

And lookee here. No report. None here either. Don't even bother looking here.

Actually, all Canada had to say was "Eliminate the long-gun registry!''  That's the one formed partly as a result of the hard lobbying by the families of the Ecole Polytechnique massacre victims. (It must be noted that a number of Liberal and NDP MPs also voted to throw women under the gun bus.)

A survivor of the murderous rampage at the Ecole polytechnique says the government will have blood on its hands if the controversial federal gun registry dies and there is a spike in firearm-related killings.

Heidi Rathjen, a former engineering student at the school, was among those who worked to reform Canada's gun laws and set up the registry in the wake of Marc Lepine's attack on the school on Dec. 6, 1989.

"I feel that what the Conservatives are doing, especially at this time, is a slap in the face to the victims of the Dec. 6 massacre and all victims of gun-related crimes," she said on the eve of the tragedy's 20th anniversary.

"What does it say about all future gun victims? If this goes through and the registry is abolished and gun-related murders and crimes go back up, the Conservatives will have blood on their hands."

<SNIP>

Rathjen said she has spoken to some of the families of the Polytechnique victims and said they are "devastated, terrified that this is going to go through."

She had scathing words for Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton, saying they demonstrated a "complete lack of leadership on this issue, allowing a free vote on what they absolutely knew was a disguised government bill."

She said the Liberals and NDP actions were a "betrayal" of the two parties' commitment to victims of violence and women.

"What good are all these wonderful Liberal values, NDP values if you can't stand up when it really counts? Words are just words. It's action that counts."

Rathjen, who joined an anti-tobacco organization in Montreal after the gun legislation was passed, said she'll rejoin the fight to help the Coalition for Gun Control to protect the registry, which she says has been an unrelenting target of misinformation.

She said former students are getting organized and will head to Ottawa for hearings on the bill.

Rathjen did have praise for the Bloc Quebecois, which she said had shown unstinting support for the registry.

Yes, Status of Women has tossed a few million at shelters, which are bursting at the seams with some 70,000 women and children. But that money can't make up for how the Harpies removed advocacy mechanisms, nor can it compensate for how many women are suffering in isolation in homes where there are guns.

What's more, $22 million over three years can't even begin to make a dent in violence prevention. What's needed is ongoing support to help make women independent of abusive partners.

Which brings us to today's treeware column, where the gun nuts are weighing in in the comments section. Here it is, with some linky freshness.

If it weren't so hypocritical, it would be hysterical.

On Wednesday Tuesday, at a Parliament Hill ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Dec. 6 massacre at Montreal's L'École Polytechnique, Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner co-starred in Status of Women minister Helena Guergis's show of sympathy.

Bad enough that, last month, Guergis voted for Bill C-391, the legislation that aims to kill the long-gun registry and Hoeppner was the one to introduce it in the House.

No wonder that Status of Women committee members Anita Neville (L-Winnipeg South Centre), Irene Mathyssen (NDP-London- Fanshawe) and the Bloc's warrior queen of women's rights, Nicole Demers (Laval), boycotted the ceremony.

As Neville told me Wednesday, "The Conservatives' record on women has just been abominable.''

Never mind that, since the registry was introduced in the mid-'90s, the number of women killed by their rifle-wielding partners has dropped significantly. But, even with the registry, Statistics Canada reports, one out of three femicide victims is still killed by a rifle-wielding partner.

It was in the wake of that terrible night in December, when that misogynist shooter targeted female engineering students, killing 14 women and injuring 10 more, as well as four men, that the former Conservative government, the one we used to call Progressive, struck a task force to look into violence against women.

For a frigid few days, I followed the panel around rural Quebec, where it heard horror stories from women whose partners took advantage of their isolation to terrorize and torture them.

There were testimonies from local social services groups recounting terrible murders. Meanwhile, back in the Montreal area, women were being picked off at an alarming rate by former spouses, even those served with restraining orders.

One of the things that many of the gun nuts espouse is more guns – for women. As they say, "You can't rape a .38.''

That may be true if you're walking your dog or coming home from work late at night, but it's going to land you a murder charge if you pull the trigger while being "date raped.''

In any case, it's pretty tough to be packing, say, in an aerobics class, especially when the assassin sneaks in, turns off the lights and starts firing – which is what happened in Pittsburgh this summer when three women were killed and many others injured.

What's more, there's no guarantee that an abused wife could actually get a gun, or not get it used against her.

Research shows that the determining factor in preventing most violence against women is helping them to be economically independent, through secure employment with appropriate benefits and fair wages, or decent rates of welfare, adequate social housing and daycare.

Little of which is forthcoming from the Conservative government.

That said, it has bumped up funding to some shelters this year. But that does nothing to head off violence.

In fact, according to Neville, "Their whole focus on violence against women is what one colleague refers to as `after the gavel.' That means putting more people in jail, harsher sentences, mandatory minimums, that kind of thing.''

Or as Hoeppner recently said in committee: "The best thing we can do to protect women is to make sure that people who commit crimes against them go to jail and stay there for as long as they need to." Which, not only closes the slammer door after the deed has been done, it does nothing to get women out of dangerous situations and into self-sufficient lives.

As for Guergis, well, although her resumé includes many years of volunteering at Barrie's Rape Crisis Centre, she just tiptoes the party line.

With girlfriends like these, who needs enemies?

Not much to add but this: In committee yesterday, Hoeppner complained at the start of proceedings.

It would be as if, if people disagree with the long gun registry, they have every right to disagree with it, but to politicize this remembrance is wrong. To demonize me and to say that I don't care about women and that somehow I don't have the right to be at that event, and I was told that by every party, everybody that's at this table—

Which is when the chair, Liberal MP Hedy Fry, shot her down.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Emily has more.

Comments

[stellersjay]

We really can’t expect much from Guergis or Hoeppner. They’re bench candy, there for the sole purpose of making the Conservative Party look a bit less like the sausage parade it is. The only women who will ever have a place in that party, thanks to Peter MacKay, are women who are happy to kick their sisters to the kerb in their pathetic pursuit of mock-power.

[Jim M]

Why does it seem like there are plenty of men who would do a better job as SOW Minister than Helena Guergis has done so far? I suppose her hands could be tied by a Prime Minister who may already know of a ready-made plan to help women, as put above, "to be economically independent, through secure employment with appropriate benefits and fair wages, or decent rates of welfare, adequate social housing and daycare." Maybe the Prime Minister is just waiting for Ted Turner to finish colourizing the following film (and for a war to start) before the Conservative government can roll out their 'new' plan to protect women. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oooOlCR1Ti0

[Jim M]

The video montage at the link below might fit under the topic of this post for its contrasting effect. It shows scenes from a TV adaptation of the 1855 novel "North and South" and uses a Kate Bush song as soundtrack. I have never read the novel or seen the TV adaptation, but my impression is that the heroine of the story does not have very much in common with Helena Guergis or Sarah Palin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUz70WT4YMk

[Keith]

Antonia, Can we explore this statement of your's.

"Research shows that the determining factor in preventing most violence against women is helping them to be economically independent, through secure employment with appropriate benefits and fair wages, or decent rates of welfare, adequate social housing and daycare."

When talking of nonsexual Domestic Violence, victimization rates are nearly equal between men and women. Bringing in sexual abuse, ie rape, the incidents of violence against women goes up nearly 10 fold. Based on this, it is safe to say that rape is the type of violence most frequently experienced by women.

So will you show these studies that show that making women ecomically independant reduces the incidents of "most violence against women"?

In addition, if you were not referring to sexual violence, please explain why women deserve some type of special treatment to obtain economic independance when women and men experiece nearly equal victimization rates of nonsexual domestic violence. Do these same studies show that men experience less violence when they are economically independant?

How many women who are the ultimate victim of violence, were killed by a gun due to social policies which enslave men to pay the female victim money, in the form of so called child support, to make the women independant while making the man destitude? Seems to me, the existing policies that you advocate are actually causing the victims that you are trying to prevent.

[Antonia]

There's a link in my blog post. Click it.
http://vaw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/3/276
It talks about men too.
All your questions are answered Keith -- except for the absolutely revolting last one.
''How many women who are the ultimate victim of violence, were killed by a gun due to social policies which enslave men to pay the female victim money, in the form of so called child support, to make the women independant while making the man destitude?''
Nice.

[hysperia]

Keith for gawd sakes you don't mean it?!!! Even if you are a member of a Men's Rights group surely you don't mean that a man who is ordered to support his child is excused if he shoots and kills his wife? No, you can't mean that. Because if you did, I could have no sympathy whatsoever for the position of men who become "destitute" while their ex-spouses become independent. That would be a pity because I do have some sympathy. Governments force men who aren't so wealthy to support their children in part because such men have a responsibility to do so, but also, because our governments privatize the cost of bearing and raising children. They don't want to make the pay-outs for universal daycare at affordable rates and other costs of having kids that y'all have to pay. Of course, there's also the fact that divorce puts women and their children below the poverty line far, far more often than it does men and we could wonder why that is and how men such as you have managed to create such a fog around this issue that many people actually believe that men are the victims - that itself is really a crime, not just for women, but for their children who suffer very very high rates of poverty in this country. I know you're concerned because I can hear what a concerned man you are. You can't mean it when you seem to suggest that men suffer equally with women from domestic violence, I just know you can't. I'm sure of that because I know you've read Statistics Canada reports on domestic violence that point out that women are far more likely to be severely injured or actually killed as a result of domestic violence. On the eve of the mass killing of fourteen women in Montreal for no other reason that they were independent women that a man resented just for that, I know you wouldn't, just wouldn't justify such acts. So thanks for not doing that Keith. Thanks.

[Andrew]

Keith:

Canadian women make 70 cents on every dollar that a man makes. That makes it more difficult for women to leave a domestic violence situation with her children than for a man to do the same in a hypothetical situation.

Even if victimization rates were equal between men and women for domestic violence -- which is absolutely untrue -- it doesn't change the fact that social and economic inequality makes it more difficult for women to get out of those situations.

It's not that women need special treatment to escape domestic violence. They need equal treatment to escape domestic violence.

[Keith]

Hysperia, I made no attempt to justify anything anyone's actions. I was mearly pointing out the cause and effect relationship of the privledge status given to women at the expense of men that causes the death of women. But hey, people don't kill people, guns kill people.

Divorce causes the economies of a single household be compared to two households. Mothers have a single home that they must support while fathers have two homes that they must support. Mothers are not obligated to provide any support to the child's needs while the child is in the Father's care. That's privledge without equal responsibility plain and simple.

[Keith]

Andrew Women make less because they choose to work less. When adjusted for hours worked and years of experience, men and women earn essentially the same. The feminist choose to ignore this reality, and instead advocate for society to finance the choices that women choose to make.

As for DV, call a domestic violence shelter and see what kind of support you are offered. You will mostly likely not be counted as a incident/victim of DV based solely on your gender. Despite the blatant prejudice, the victimization rates are still essentailly equal. Research has shown that the severity of injuries in domestic violence increases when the violence mutually between the partners. The research also shows that in mutually violent relationships, the female intiates the violence roughly 65% of the time.

The statistics of deaths at the hands of inimates is tainted by women's preferred method of killing. Women choose to have other people kill thier inimate partners for them, and because they don't pull the trigger, those men's deaths are not recorded as Domestic Violence murders.

[Antonia]

Keith, you still make a case for killing women who you have to pay child support to. Don't deny it. That's a sick thing to do.

And you pay NO attention to the research I find and link to here.

Or perhaps you CHOOSE to ignore it to continue to make your wah-wah case about how men are the victims.

I have NEVER denied that men have often gotten a bum deal in divorce but you know what? The system is stacked not against the man but against the woman and her children. That's because they often don't have the resources to fight the husband. Vindictive men have spent tens of thousands of dollars and more, if their emails to me are to be believed, to fight their wives.

Do I think some women are unreasonable? Absolutely. I personally know a few. But they are in the minority.

Fact is, many more single parent families living in poverty are headed by women, not men.

While it's true that, in part, women make less because they work less outside of the home for pay, they also work MORE. They bear the burden of responsibility for the kids, the household, aging parents etc. How many men compared to women take the day off to stay home with a sick kid?

Stay at home women or those who work part-time get less EI benefits, and smaller pensions if their husbands walk. I know LOTS of women who have sacrificed everything for their families only to be dumped in middle age.

Furthermore, women's work is systematically undervalued.

Do you honestly believe teachers -- who are educated and deal with the stress of today's unruly ADHD kids -- should make less than garbage collectors? If teaching paid more, maybe more men would be teachers. Ditto nursing. Ditto a whole host of so-called women's jobs, from social work to daycare worker.

As for shelters. Well, let's see. Men make more so they have more places to turn to. They can rent rooms, apartments etc.

This is not to say there are no public resources for men. There are tons of them. Most shelters overall put up homeless men. The system is overall designed to house more men. Jails filled with men, many of who abused their women and children. The system has anger management courses, alcohol and drug abuse programs, counseling and other social services geared towards men.

Here. Knock yourself out.
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ncfv-cnivf/familyviolence/pdfs/2004abusmn_e.pdf

But you never take the whole picture into consideration, do you?

Women's shelters are hardly health and beauty spas. They are overcrowded, understaffed and filled with frightened women and children with NO MONEY, who often were lucky to have gotten out with their lives.

Next, your constant harping about how men are abused at equal rates to women.

PUH-LEEZE. Kindly post some statististics.

Let me start.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2009000/aftertoc-aprestdm2-eng.htm

Your turn.

Note: Next time you make your spurious claims without solid research to back them up, I will personally see to it that your comments are deleted. So don't come back here unless you have credible evidence that men get their arms and jaws broken as often as women do. (Oh and please let us know how many women hire hit men to kill their husbands. You are so full of it.)

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

YOU POST FROM A U.S. IP.
DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO THERE?

[Antonia]

Ess,

The creepiest think about Keith's comments are that they are not unusual. Sometimes they translate into actual femicide.

[hysperia]

Good old cause and effect Keith! Such a charming fellow. I'll remember that name.

[hysperia]

Aaaannnnnd, of course, it's no longer even true that women work fewer hours outside the home than men. It's just that they are more likely to earn substantially less money, less likely to have job benefits, less likely to have good pensions or any pensions at all, less likely to work in unionized workplaces and therefore less likely to have job security... and so on. But let's face it. Keith and his ilk simply don't give a damn.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"One of the things that many of the gun nuts espouse is more guns – for women. As they say, "You can't rape a .38.''

That may be true if you're walking your dog or coming home from work late at night, but it's going to land you a murder charge if you pull the trigger while being "date raped.'"

OK .... you "feminists" are very good at agitating to get laws changed .... what would be the problem with changing the culture here as well? Enough decent defence lawyers and juries ...bit like all the Morgentaler-related jurisprudence, really.

Remember, the "Second Amendment" was actually written down by Americans - but the dispensations it was based on predate the US, even some of the original 13 colonies.

[Ashley]

Wow, Keith sure is one-of-a-kind isn't he? Or at least I sure hope so. It's a frightening concept to think otherwise.

[Jim M]

After reading Keith's comments and the responses he received, I still don't know if a sound is heard when no one is there to hear a tree fall in the forest.

[PaulR]

"The system is stacked not against the man but against the woman and her children. That's because they often don't have the resources to fight the husband." --Antonia
-----

Can you clarify why would you speculate on the inputs (resources available to most mothers and fathers in custody battles) as a way of approaching the comparative effectiveness in determining who the system is "stacked against"? There is no apparent need for such a proxy when superior outputs (ie % custody awarded by gender) are readily available.

[Antonia]

How about you talk to some women who have no money to fight their controlling and abusive exes, who use high-priced lawyers, to protect their children.

There's no legal aid for that sort of thing.

And we know women make less, especially if they work part-time or not for pay in the home.

[PaulR]

"We" don't take it as granted at women make less for equivalent work, but I will accept it for the sake of this argument to point out why your analysis got the conclusion backwards.

Looking directly at the results of child custody allotment, we see over 90% of contested child custody awarded to the mother. In any other gender equity issue, be it domestic violence, education, wage parity you have set the bar much lower for claiming a de facto conspiracy against women. You don't even attempt to present the appearance of using the same yardstick here.

And yet, taking your assumption of the impact of financial resources at face value, with men's vaults of riches and fleets of counsel at the ready, only 1 in 10 gets custody. This, despite their riches. What are Joe Hardhat's odds? Sorry, *who* is the deck stacked against?

With this staring you in the face, how is it that you find naught but a platform to discuss pay equity? Is your stance in this thread consistent with being onside with gender equity?

[Antonia]

Your figures are wrong.

Joint custody is awarded in about 40 per cent of divorces right now.
Men get sole custody is about 10 per cent.
Women in the rest, about 50%.
About 80 per cent of divorces are NOT contested, with parents able to work out arrangements.

You can thank feminism for that. Before the second wave, custody was almost always awarded to women who not only got support, but also alimony.

After that, it became for the best interests of the child which is what it should be. No father's rights. Not mother's rights. But children's rights.

Usually that means access to both parents.

But not always.

There is a strong correlation between women who are abused and women seeking divorce. These are not healthy situations for children to live in.
http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/pub/faculty/seitz/abuse09.pdf

Abused women are generally less likely to be employed outside the home because they live in isolation in rural settings or their mates are very controlling and keep them where they can see them. (I personally know of one woman locked up in her bedroom all day, away from a window, for years, until an observant neighbour cop figured it out and saved her.)
Ergo, they have fewer resources.

There's tons of research and documentation showing that women in these situations who get out often have to represent themselves (and their children) in court, without legal help.

Men tend to become richer after divorce. Women become poorer. Why that is I can't say for sure. maybe because men are more likely to remarry and increase their household income. Maybe because, as they get older, their salaries increase.
http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&source=hp&q=men+richer+after+divorce&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=men+richer+after+divorce&fp=19cc94387d0edd95

As for contested divorces, they are only 20% of the cases.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/040504/dq040504a-eng.htm
.
If custody is contested, very often (but not always) it's because a controlling abusive man wants to punish the woman for leaving. Disputes tend to happen when there is an abusive husband.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/040504/dq040504a-eng.htm

Non-abusive men don't spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to gain sole custody. They come to reasonable joint custody agreements. They can negotiate. They can work thinks out. It is not a zero sum game.
Thankfully, this applies to most men.

You have yet to delve into the issue of violence against women. You are simply pushing the usual men's rights agenda, despite your denials.

Next comment that goes off topic goes into the vapoursphere.

[PaulR]

What is the topic? The original article was a grab bag, your support is a convoluted grab bag mixed with a history lesson, and your ducking of my first question about clarifying your statement in the comments led to a second. Now you want me to talk about domestic violence, which unless all domestic violence victims turn into gun toting lunatics who kill strangers - has little to do with L'Ecole Polytechnique. Do I analyse your custody data, or would that be off topic?

May I quote Don Draper? "Tell me what to say, Antonia."

[Antonia]

Be it resolved that Helena Guergis was hypocritical when she ''honoured'' the massacre victims by voting to scrap the long-gun registry.
Discuss.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

"Be it resolved that Helena Guergis was hypocritical when she ''honoured'' the massacre victims by voting to scrap the long-gun registry."

speaking for ....

the Esteemed and Beautiful Moderator ......

against ... we have ... S&SD ... who will argue the following points:

the long-gun registry is a useless distraction
Helena Guergis is not being as hypocritical as feminists who decry violence against women, but at the same time argue against real empowerment for women, such as concealed weapons laws.

... how many juries would have convicted any woman who had managed to take out Gamil Gharbi after he fired the first shot? come on now .....

and how many commenters on this thread, if they had found themselves on such a jury, would have voted to convict?

[PaulR]

"Have you ever been convicted of genocide?" They asked me that in my green card interview. Bizarre to expect that someone of such diabolical genius as to participate and get away with genocide would finally break his conscience and out himself in answering a stupid interview question truthfully.

Similarly, if Marc Lepine saw fit to use guns to terrorize and murder, what possible expectation would we have that he would pay mind to his civic duty to register his weapons? And if he did, what of it? It's not a prohibition or a limitation. It didn't even happen in his own dwelling, and by the time police arrived, they were well aware that he was armed, registry or not. After Columbine, my old highschool banned the wearing of "goth" clothes on premises. What does one have to do with the other, other demonstrating hysteria subverting our best intentions?

I suspect the long-gun registry is the Liberal equivalent of Tory-leaning "get tough on crime" legislation. They both mollify hysterical idealogues by presenting the appearance of action while distracting our attention and funding from effective means of correcting or even identifying the problem. It needn't be partisan - it's typical in any moral panic reaction. The long-gun registry has little effective relevance to Polytechnique whatsoever, whatever its original intention was.

On the other hand, I've seen way too many sanctimonious "memorials" twisted by opportunists into the rhetorical equivalent of a SCUD in a schoolyard, using candles and the dead to launch soap box canards about pay equity and domestic violence while paying no mind to the politics those women endorsed at the time, or most importantly, their lives - and that is hypocritical. And of course, I've seen the objections to the noting of Lepine's paternal ancestry on the basis that it is bigotted, while at the same time endorsing the view that this lone man's actions are somehow representative of men. That's just swapping one form of bigotry for another - hypocritical. But I've also seen you do the same thing, Antonia, noting the "white, male" ethnicity of those poking at Garbi's paternal ancestry, as if their masculine caucasian descriptors are themselves as latent menace. Again, hypocritical (unless you were attempting to satirize them with a taste of their own medicine).