Support Bros

One of the greatest things about PM Stephen Harper's sudden professed interest in women's well-being -- at least that of those women who don't live in Canada, of course -- is how it's making many men here owning up to being pro-choice. They're actually blogging about it.

Now, a quick look at the male opinionators listed in my blogroll will reveal that there were already many guys out there who got it. It's just that, now, even more are speaking out. (And, yeah, even if it's about scoring partisan political points, who cares? We women need all the Support Bros we can get.)

In the US, in the wake of that Tebow anti-choice uproar, feminist bloggers are cheering on the likes of pro-footballer Scott Fujita as well as these guys:

Which brings us to this post today by BCer in Toronto Jeff Jedras (I added the boldface):

In a story in Embassy Mag (behind a subscriber firewall, but I’ve pasted the relevant sections below) Canadian International Development Minister Bev Oda confirms safe abortions, and even contraception, will not be part of the Conservative push on maternal and child care:

Oda says no abortion, contraceptives support
   

But the WHO reports that lack of both contributes to unnecessary deaths.

CIDA Minister Bev Oda says the government's child and maternal health strategy will not address unsafe abortions in developing countries or support access to family planning and contraceptives. Rather, she said that to ensure the aid agency remains effective, "it's the lives of mothers and babies that we are focused on."

<SNIP>

When asked about support for contraceptives and family planning in an interview last week, Ms. Oda said: "In order to maintain our focus, again our focus is on maternal and child health and mortality rates.

"We want to make sure that mothers, pregnant women, are healthy and can have safe births, and that the birthing process is made safer because if you look at the number of births during the actual birthing process, that's where a number of maternal deaths happen," she added.

"We also want to make sure when babies are born, they are born as healthy as possible so that they can live through their early age, up to the age of five, with as strong and good health as possible."

Which is pretty much on the same HarperCon Wombs on Wheels message track she was on when she spoke to CBC Radio's Carol Off last week.

I won't belabour all the reasons why maternal healthcare includes contraception, family planning, AIDS prevention and, yes, abortion. I've done it so often. I just want to emphasize Jedras' point:

The idea of a major push to address maternal and child care is a noble one. But ideology can’t be allowed to dictate the program and the help we’re going to give to women in need. We should listen to the experts on the ground about what is needed and what will be effective to meet the goals we’re trying to achieve and let them direct the resources accordingly.

That has always been the Canadian policy, and the Conservatives desire to address this challenge is legitimate, it shouldn’t change it now. Sadly, though, it seems that the trend of the Harper Conservatives allowing ideology to guide development and aid decisions is ever expanding.

Jedras also dug up this video. It's from CBC News yesterday.

Please pay special attention to the note The Family Canada put up with it.

Your letters and emails to Members of Parliament has paid off! Shelly Glover confirms that Abortion will now not be included in the Canadian Government's plan to help women and children overseas.

Pray for the Conservative Party of Canada and our Prime Minister! Donate and volunteer your time at www.conservative.ca

Forward this video to all of your Christian friends!!!!!

Canada: Now Under OMG Management.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Joyce Arthur has more.

Of course, Ignatieff is a politician, and bringing up abortion is no doubt a political strategy in part – but it’s also the absolutely right thing for him to do. It is impossible to tackle maternal health without addressing unsafe abortion, which is a leading cause of maternal death in most developing countries. Given the critical importance of legal safe abortion in saving women’s lives, and the Conservative Party’s well-known anti-choice stance, Ignatieff would have been remiss not to make it a burning issue. The majority of women in Canada are pro-choice, and we are surprised, pleased, and hopeful to see Ignatieff stand up to defend the rights of poor women in other countries.

Conservative politicians and commentators have heaped scorn on Ignatieff’s concerns, however, and condemned him for turning women’s health into a “political football.” But most of the politicking is actually coming from Ignatieff’s critics, who have launched attacks without the benefit of any facts, and even less compassion for women. Some of the coverage is so shockingly ignorant that it qualifies as being misogynist.

Go to her page for a misogyny round-up.

If you can bear it.

No relief

I don't think I need to tell you about the horrors of Haiti, especially now as the media move on to the next shiny object.

Here's colleague Jennifer Wells, there now. I added the boldface.

A man opens his shirt to display a pussing, oozing chest. A young woman holds out her grotesquely swollen foot and says the slight treatment has had no effect.

Pastor Franck Jean holds out the box of supplies he has been given as medical aid: surgical gloves, Hannah Montana tattoo bandages, syringes.

Esther Nelson gave birth nine days ago. She has seen no doctor, no nurse, and when it rains the water comes through her sheet-for-a-roof.

There have been many stories of how the women of Haiti are bearing the brunt of this earthquake disaster. Just last week, the Star's Catherine Porter filed this dispatch.

It's the women who care for the children. And in Haiti, around 66 per cent of them are single mothers, says Carole Pierre-Paul Jacob, one of the country's leading feminists. She has lobbied for years for the country's first paternity law, which would have required fathers to financially support their children, as well as a law recognizing common-law relationships. Both died with the government buildings on Jan. 12.

"We have a saying here: the family rests on the back of the woman," says Jacob, the coordinator to a leading Haitian women's group SOFA, Solidarité Fanm Ayisyen (Solidarity with Haitian Women.)

"This will increase the poverty of women."

By other measures, Haitian women are poor, too. Their life expectancy is only 50 years. They claim the title for highest mortality rate during childbirth in the Americas. Medical personnel were present at only one in four births in Haiti before the quake. That number is likely to drop even further, as the hospitals are still jammed with trauma cases.

And they are regularly raped.

Like I said: horrible.

There's so much written about water, food, shelter, and how the relief efforts are going. Or not.

But here's something even I have never thought of, until I read this tonight. It's by internist physician Doc Gurley, on the ground in the middle of it all.

I read a Medscape article pointing out the extreme risk to Haitian women of reproductive neglect and violence, and the shocking lack of aid to women in these areas despite all our massive relief efforts. What kind of "special care" are we talking out for women? The Medscape article recommended, for example, that all visibly pregnant women should be given a "birthing kit." I didn't know what a "birthing kit" was, and when I looked it up, and found more references online, I discovered that a birthing kit is a heartbreaking collection of items: a ziplock bag containing two clean strings and a straight razor (for cutting the umbilical cord), a sanitary pad, and some cotton/cloth/plastic sheets for dealing with bodily fluids. Could the situation for women in Haiti be this bad, and this badly neglected? Especially after all those hundreds of millions of dollars?

<SNIP>

So I decided to ask my journalist friend who just left Haiti a couple of day ago what the current situation there is, keeping in mind that Haiti is a predominantly Catholic country, and wanting her advice on whether it would be insensitive to intrude or make assumptions about issues of sexual protection, birthing, and birth control.

My friend's response by email:

A number of women's groups have expressed concern about the general neglect of gender-specific needs and problems in the relief efforts. Women I spoke to in Haiti were concerned both about sexual violence and the omission of items like sanitary napkins, tampons, condoms etc among the relief supplies.

Women's -- and, by extension, their children's -- specific needs are almost never considered. (And here I am, always complaining about the GST on sanitary products here, as if they weren't a necessity.)

Maybe it's a function of how relief efforts tend to be designed and run by men. Or maybe it's because so many of the charities that get in there are associated with various churches. 

According to Gurley's blog post, at least one charity in neighbouring Dominican Republic is accepting donations for female-specific supplies.

Please send all supplies addressed as follows:

URGENT HUMANITARIAN RELIEF FOR HAITI

Ms. Sergia Galvan and Mayra Tavarez

Colectiva Mujeres Y Salud/CAFRA Calle Socomo Sanchez, No 64

Gazcue, Santo Domingo, DR

As Gurley concludes ...

... consider buying and sending a pack of condoms, a Plan B pack, some tampons, or pads to the address above. Sending a Care Package is something that can be done on an on-going basis (hey! maybe every month - a lunar schedule to share your sanitary support!). Besides the heart-breaking issues of human dignity around hygiene products, the last thing Haiti needs is an explosion of unwanted pregnancies, and/or new HIV infections, all for lack of supplies.

Only women bleed.

H/T: Help a Mother Out

Labour pains

It just gets better and better.

Further to the previous post, about how the HarperCons are now caught between the devil and the deep  blue machine on the connection between maternal health and reproductive freedoms, this As It Happens interview last night by CBC Radio's Carol Off is a totally worth your time.

You can listen to it by clicking on Part II here -- the interview is at the top of the half hour -- or going directly to the Windows Media Player here.

First up is Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett -- who knows a whole more about maternal health than the entire Conservative caucus.

That said, I would have liked to have heard another Liberal MP on the subject, emergency room physician ob-gyn Keith Martin, who has been in the field in some of the hellholes for women of the earth. Maternal health is practically an obsession for him. He insists that it will have a positive impact on everybody's health. That's because, if you create the physical infrastructure (clinics, hospitals etc.) and train the people to help pregnant women -- as well as those who don't want to be pregnant -- your efforts extend to other areas of healthcare in the region.  (We had a long conversation on Thursday afternoon which I hope to write up soon.) He also doesn't shy away from the subject of abortion.

Anyway, Bennett is followed by Bev Oda, Minister of International Co-operation, the cabinet minister who was stuck with the tough questions after PM Stephen Harper made his grandiose, opportunistic and hypocritical announcement about ''championing'' the cause of maternal health last week.

Off keeps trying to pin her down, on how much the government is willing to commit, what exactly its plans are, whether it recognizes  the connection between maternal care, child mortality and reproductive rights ...

Oda gives an Olympic-worthy skating performance, doing triple flips to avoid dealing with the specifics and, more important, family planning.

My only regret is that Off didn't pin Oda down on maternal health and infant mortality right here at home.

Still, I knew this was going to be fun.

This may be the issue that brings the Harper government down.

My work is done here.

(H/t to reader Jay H. who sent me the link.)

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Via Dammit Janet  come this.

Despite harsh criticism from two prominent Catholic bishops, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff stood firm on Friday on his position that abortion rights must be tied to any Canadian plan to improve maternal and infant health in the developing world.

Calgary Bishop Fred Henry on Friday called Mr. Ignatieff’s proposal “pathetic,” while on Thursday Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto labelled the Liberal leader’s position on abortion and the developing world “sad.”

“In light of the many positive contributions that Canada can make to the improvement of maternal and child health, it is astonishing that the leader of the Opposition has issued an official statement advocating contraception and abortion as fundamental elements in addressing this important issue,” said Archbishop Collins. “Even those who think that abortion should be allowed do not, however, propose it as a positive contribution to the good of society.”

Bishop Henry was even more blunt.

“I thought it was pathetic for a political leader to suggest that abortion is somehow tied to the health of women and children,” said Bishop Henry. “It was a particularly crass remark in light of all the orphaned children we now see in Haiti. It was absolutely incredible that he would say that and he is alienating religious people with these comments. This will not win him votes.”

Male celibate priests who don't even believe in contraception pronouncing on women's reproductive rights in the 21st Century.

BWAHAHAHA.

Perhaps you gentlemen might get over that virgin birth thing.

Electile dysfuntion

Here's an absolute must-read by my Star sistah Susan Delacourt.

It's all about how the Liberals are wining that ''left-wing fringe group'' called women while PM Stephen Harper is playing to the oil guys and cowboys -- at the expense of the environment and Canadian unity, according to my other Star sistah Chantal Hebert.

Not surprisingly, its headline reads ''PM from Mars, Iggy from Venus?'' and it shows how Harper's Johnny-come-lately position on maternal healthcare, not to mention his utter disdain for the plight of our own First Nations kids, could make all the difference during the next election. I added the boldface.

... when Harper talked to Sports Illustrated this week about the "tough and aggressive and ambitious" traits of the Canadian national psychology – comparing it to the skills needed for hockey – it's entirely possible that those words found their mark with women. And child care may be as much a men's issue these days as it is a concern for women.

What may have an effect, though not strictly down the gender divide, is Ignatieff's rather risky decision to raise the subject of abortion.

He did it on Tuesday in the context of Harper's new foreign-aid priority – the Liberal leader asking whether help for women abroad would include aid to organizations that support access to safe abortions. This is a hot-button issue for largely Conservative, anti-abortion advocates. In fact, support for abortions is exactly what groups such as Campaign Life were asking Harper to avoid in the wake of his announced new focus on foreign aid for women.

Officially, Harper's office dismissed the Ignatieff announcement, accusing him of playing political games with an issue of conscience and morality.

Conservatives, however, are in a bit of a glass house when they throw rocks in that direction, with their own history of attacks on Liberals over sensitive issues such as anti-Semitism, patriotism and support for the troops. In many ways, this was a deliberate Liberal effort to turn those visceral, wedge tactics back on the Conservatives.

And unofficially, Conservatives were counselling each other to avoid falling into the Liberals' trap this week – to not get baited into another polarized debate on abortion, which, history shows, tends to drive more voters away from the Conservatives than it attracts.

The irony is, the Con men are caught between a rock and a hard place here. If they say they don't want to re-open the abortion debate -- as if it ever closed -- they'll anger their socially regressive base. If they do start talking about abortion, and let all those caucus members, overwhelmingly anti-choice, start yapping, then the Cons will drive away the fiscal conservatives who are socially progressive.

Heh.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Jack Layton, who today announced that he is battling prostate cancer, is getting in on the maternal healthcare action. Monday, he's holding a newser to ''challenge his three federal counterparts to seek common ground to make the concerns of women and children in Canada a priority in the next session of Parliament.''

Heh-heh.

Guess we're gonna see a lot more blue sweaters and kittens during the campaign.

Wake-up call

As many of you know, last September I created a Facebook group called Proud to be a Member of that Left-Wing Group called Women.

It was in response to PM Stephen Harper's scary speech in Sault Ste. Marie, where he thought only the party faithful were in attendance. Thankfully, a non-con was there and made a video which exposed Harper -- again -- for the nasty angry piece of work he is.

(The video is by my friend Pale Cold of A Creative Revolution, one of the admins for the group.)

We are now 4,072 members strong. Not the size of that wildly successful Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament (CAPP) Facebook group, where there are now more than 221,000 members.

But we are growing.

And we are growing angrier.

That's because we can see how the HarperCons are dismantling support for women, sticking to the agenda drawn up by the far right R.E.A.L. Women which appears to be financed, at least in part, by the Northern Foundation. (For background, read Emily's long but informative post here. And here is another one. Then check this out.)

You want to know more about UNreal Women? Read this, one of their latest missives designed to make it harder and harder for women to maintain their rights, economic independence, political voices and reproductive choices.

These people -- just how many women are there in UNreal Women anyway? -- are so extreme that they believe Harper's little poppet Minister of State for the Status of Women is too liberal.

Where is the Conservative Minister responsible for the Status of Women in all this, since she must approve these questionable grants before they are finalized?  The current Minister, the Hon. Helena Guergis (Simcoe Grey) must either be lacking in common sense to believe the nonsense plied her by the bureaucrats in her department, or she is sympathetic to the duplicity being carried out by her department and is delighted to push these funds into feminist hands.  Either way, she is an ineffective, toothless representative of the Conservative government and should be removed.

Over the weekend, I received an email revealing that it just isn't enough for Harper and his band of Con Men to lie about abortion, campaign against reproductive rights for women around the world or use backdoor means to make abortion illegal here. Oh no. Now, the ''government'' -- in quotes since it's out keeping the country on ice -- has gone after the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, formerly the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. Funding has been slashed by, wait for it, 99 per cent.

The federation, formerly the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada and still the Canadian member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, has charitable status, according to the Canada Revenue Agency. The CFSH says on its website that it “promote(s) sexual and reproductive health and rights in Canada and abroad.” It also admits being a “pro-choice organization.” Its member affiliates, which operate in all 10 provinces, provide sex information, contraception and abortion referrals; according to REAL Women of Canada, it is the leading abortion referral service in Canada.

According to the CFSH’s website, it is also involved in advocacy, “act(ing) as a national voice to protect and improve sexual and reproductive health and rights.” Although the CFSH does not list an amount it spends on lobbying, the old Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada admitted to spending up to 10 per cent of its annual budget on political advocacy, which is permitted under Canada Revenue Agency rules for charities.

According to the financial returns of the CFSH and the former PPFC, which are public information available at the Canada Revenue Agency website, the federation received $1,143,358 in federal government grants in 2005, while their total expenditures that year came to $2,360,903. In other words, Ottawa provided about half (48 per cent) of their operating budget.

In 2006, they received $1,285,674 in federal grants and spent $2,278,884. Government handouts accounted for more than half (56.4 per cent) of their expenditures in 2006. In 2006, the Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada changed its name to the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health.

Beginning in 2007, grants from the federal government began to decrease as it received $743,745. Its expenditures fell to $1,655,249.

In 2008, grants totaled $482,498 while its expenditures dipped to $1,467,005, about a million dollars less than it spent just three years earlier.

In 2009, total grants were $9,381. The Canadian Federation for Sexual Health’s expenditures last year totalled $815,153. Federal grants accounted for just 1.1 per cent of its spending.

More from Dammit Janet!

Can it be a coincidence that its funding was cut throughout the Con years?

I think not.

Or that UNreal Women spokesperson Gwen Landolt is ''elated'' about it?

I think not.

How does all this jibe with the fact that most Canadians support a woman's right to choose?

Well, in the HarperCon Good Book, it doesn't.

Anyway, we left-wing fringed ladies are taking advantage of the CAPP momentum to get some action going. We're tired of women's issues always taking a back seat to those of men, often in the name of economic expediency.

Which is why our Elizabeth Pickett, the group's life force, wrote this today on Facebook. I quote it here in full for those who don't have accounts -- although I urge you to please join us. 

I feel as though we've been sitting on a lot of eggs over here at Proud Fringers since the group blossomed from the work of Antonia Zerbisias. We've grown the group to 4000 women and men, we've been the keepers of the links, the followers of issues affecting "left-wing fringe groups", we've written letters and even had them published, we've expressed our outrage and given our support and encouragement to each other and to other groups.

I think we've reached a critical point. Spurred on by the work we've all done and perhaps by the excitement created at CAPP, many more people are energized by the issues we've tried to bring to attention over here at Fringers. The issues are exploding all around us. More and more often I hear us saying, "We have to do something."

I couldn't agree more. I believe now is the time. As Judy Rebick said, Harper has given us an opening. Many of us know that what we are seeing now has been there all along - Harper's Conservative government doesn't just ignore women and children and minorities and the disabled and vulnerable children and poverty and gays and lesbians - his government is active in attempting to propogate oppression. Strong word that, but appropriate. The call outs on Harper have started to gain attention in the mainstream. Now is the time to organize and act: now or possibly never.

As a second wave feminist, I'm aware of some of the mistakes we made, the things we failed to see and the way those mistakes and failures weakened our movement from within so that it could be more easily attacked and fractured from without. There were lots of things but I'm going to choose two, or maybe two and a half: 1.) we were fractured from within by our difficulty in seeing and integrating lesbians, trans women, racialized women - African and Caribbean women, Aboriginal and Inuit women, disabled women, women who were not middle class and who often were the poorest of the poor; 2.) we were more easily attacked from without because we were disorganized by our inability to act for all women, to speak with something resembling one voice.

If we're going to make Fringers into a movement, even a small one, we have to reach out to those people who are not now among us. To young women and much older women and any woman without an effective political voice. And to the men who are willing to join us, support us and to act with us, not just for us. I believe we have to do this as part of planning for action. And I believe we have to begin planning and organizing. It's been exhilarating doing the research, adding the links, getting in touch with women and men across the country. We can keep doing that and we'll have some effect. But to have the kind of impact I believe many of us want, I think we have to have plans.

I'd like to begin to contact those young women like Ontario RebELLES and women who have come to Canada from other countries, the groups of women advocates for the disabled, against child poverty, working for women against male violence, Aboriginal women, advocates for women in prison and so forth. I don't think it's an overwhelming task.

I'd like to meet in person with whatever core group can take part and skyping with those women who can't be physically present. We need ideas, we need some wisdom, we need to know what works and what doesn't, what HAS worked and what hasn't and we need a plan. We've started out slowly and we've built something. It's time to take the next step.

Let's get it together.

Together.

Support Bros included.

P.S. I took the photo at Dundas Square during the anti-prorogation rally on Jan. 23.

P.P.S. I have to question the pathetic media coverage of the Toronto rally.

CFTO-CP24 gave it maybe 20 seconds top on its 6 p.m. local ''newscast.'' The now misnamed Citytv have it nothing -- because it has canceled its weekend supper-hour newscast. All reports seriously understated the attendance.

Police estimate that, at any event, 7,000 people fill the square. At the rally's peak, people had spilled into Yonge Street, necessitating its closure. So, it was 7,000 at minimum. Perhaps more. Add in rallies in Oakville, Mississauga and other 'burbs -- and it's a movement.

Breast-beating

It's no secret that male and female brains are hard-wired differently. 

Years ago, I saw a documentary that showed a couple having sex in an MRI or similar scanning machine.

While the man's brain was red hot in one segment of his brain, the woman's brain was various densities of pink all over. This was interpreted to mean that men's brains are more specialized -- ie. with different sections responsible for different neuro- or motor functions -- while women used more of their brains, or at least greater parts of them.

I joke to my friends that, during sex, guys are focused on the deed while women are thinking stuff like ''Oh God, look at my stomach jiggling''' and/or ''I hope the kids stay asleep'' and/or ''Better remember to pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow'' and/or ''Geez, how did I miss those cobwebs on the ceiling?''

Whatever. These basic differences, the doc explained, could be why women have a better chance of recovering normal verbal or movement abilities after a stroke. Other sections of their brain would take over those functions -- while men were left with gaping neurological deficits because a pertinent part of their brain was wiped out.

I don't know if subsequent research has proven all this or not -- although the fact that there are gender-specific differences has been confirmed. 

I suppose you could explain this all with evolution. Women are generally better multi-taskers because they have to be. Through the ages, they minded the kids, tended the fires, gathered the nuts and berries, made the clothes, and all that other ''work is never done'' work. They also had to, as the weaker sex (at while least pregnant or nursing), be better able to get along with others in order to survive.

Men had to be more single-minded in order to seek and hunt down dinner -- or to fend off the neighbouring marauding tribes.

Following this logic, it would explain why men are more aggressive and/or assertive than women. Survival of the fittest, the biggest, the loudest, the most confident ...

Which brings us to new media wiz Clay Shirky's much-talked "Rant about women'' of last Friday. In a one line summation, to borrow from Chrystal, women ''need to learn to act like jerks.''

[W]omen in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, ... aren't just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can't say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.

<SNIP>

Now I don't know what to do about this problem. (The essence of a rant, in fact, is that the ranter has no idea how to fix the thing being ranted about.) What I do know is this: it would be good if more women see interesting opportunities that they might not be qualified for, opportunities which they might in fact f**k up if they try to take them on, and then try to take them on. It would be good if more women got in the habit of raising their hands and saying "I can do that. Sign me up. My work is awesome," no matter how many people that behavior upsets.

<AND>

Now this is asking women to behave more like men, but so what? We ask people to cross gender lines all the time. We’re in the middle of a generations-long project to encourage men to be better listeners and more sensitive partners, to take more account of others’ feelings and to let out our own feelings more. Similarly, I see colleges spending time and effort teaching women strategies for self-defense, including direct physical aggression. I sometimes wonder what would happen, though, if my college spent as much effort teaching women self-advancement as self-defense.

Gotta say, there's something to that. Instead of women spending so much time on Oprah admonitions to self-improve, maybe they'd be better off acting like it's everybody and everything else that needs fixing -- and they are just the -- irony alert! -- man for the job.

Bet that wage gap (PDF) would narrow really fast.

Fun multi-media extras! Click here for a 1950 CBC Radio forum on pay equity. The struggle continues.

And go here to see if your brain is more male or more female.

Brand X Chromosome

Just a quick blogging of today's treeware, with some linkage for the record:

Feminism is back in the news, south of the border anyway.

As for sexism, that never really went away – not if you monitor how women, left and right, are treated by the media.

Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin? Both still get "bitch-slapped'' around in the most virulent sexist terms. Women's looks, their clothing, even their voices – all are not-so-fair game, no matter how accomplished they may be.

Still, somehow, "the feminists'' remain the enemy in the endless battle to protect women's rights.

That's what's happening in seven states, where there are attempts to define personhood as beginning at conception. In Oklahoma, the legislature recently approved a move that would compel doctors to fill out 10-page forms on each abortion they perform – complete with questions about the woman's relationship with the sperminator – and then post all the details on a public website.

This vociferous anti-choice push is growing both in the U.S. and in Canada, where groups that would limit women's rights have a direct line to the Conservative government.

Also putting feminism in the spotlight are two new publications. There's Maria Shriver's report, A Woman's Nation Changes Everything, co-written with the liberal Center for American Progress. And there's When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, a book by Gail Collins, the first female editor of The New York Times' editorial page.

The Shriver report is a 400-plus page effort that examines how far women have come in a society that has yet to catch up with the changes the second wave, '60s and '70s feminists, fought to bring about.

Know that, here in the Great Pink North, where we have socialized health care and legally mandated maternity leaves, we are ahead of our U.S. sisters. That said, despite our greater numbers in the workforce and halls of academia, Canadian women still lag behind on everything from how many seats we fill in Parliament to how many corner offices we occupy.

And, of course, there's the persistent wage gap which is not just because "women's work" is undervalued but also because women bear the greater burden of child-rearing, elder care and housework. That means our paycheques and pensions are lower and more of us, especially in our "golden'' years, end up impoverished.

As for Collins' book, well, it is a masterpiece of little stories of huge significance. The woman who couldn't get a lease unless it was signed by her institutionalized mental patient husband. The woman who was shouted out of traffic court by the judge for showing up in slacks.

Oh yes, it really was like that. Mad Men is not made up, not at all.

As Collins writes in an open letter to young women on CNN's website, "Back then, if you wanted a career that involved travel, you'd have to have become a flight attendant ...''

"Coffee, tea ... or me?'' was the line for "stewardesses."

In fact, the back of the line is where you usually found women.

Now, despite the efforts of some hard-fighting young feminists with websites such as feministing.com and shamelessmag.com, many young women reject the F-word because it's been stigmatized as representing a hairy-legs-and- Birkenstocks pack of man-haters.

What a way to keep women in their place: with the "feminazi" lie. And, as we all know, young people are oh so label-conscious.

As my Twitter pal Cristina Simonetto – an ad copywriter, so she's the expert – wrote the other day, "Feminism needs to rebrand.''

Trouble is, too many misogynists control both the media and the message.

So, while feminism may be back in the news, women still have yet to move closer to the head of the lines.

No country for old-world men

Two weeks ago, Maria Shriver, in conjunction with the Center for American Progress, put out The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything.

According to the CAP release, it is

a groundbreaking examination of how "women's changing roles are affecting our major societal institutions, from government and businesses to our faith communities." For the first time in American history, women are half of all U.S. workers and mothers are the primary breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families. Considering that in 1967, women made up only one-third of all workers, this is a dramatic transformation that fundamentally changes how all Americans work and live, "not just women but also their families, their co-workers, their bosses, their faith institutions, and their communities." Unfortunately, America as a nation has not yet come to terms with what this means. "This report tries to chapter those things out and say all of these institutions have failed to adapt to this change that has happened, and that in order for them to survive and become smart about the American worker they must adapt and must change," Shriver said on NBC's Meet The Press yesterday. "Our policy landscape remains stuck in an idealized past," writes CAP President and CEO John Podesta in his preface to the report. "This report contemplates what a new America should look like after we finally embrace this important new dynamic in our lives and the changes it has caused in our homes and businesses."

Now, while the report deals with mostly US issues -- they have neither the healthcare nor paid maternity leaves we Canadian pinkos do -- there is some relevance to us here. For example, just like in the States, male-dominated jobs have been more affected by the recession than female-oriented jobs. 

That doesn't mean that women have escaped unscathed by the downturn. It's just that they didn't have as far to fall as do men. Except if they are in top executive jobs. There, women are crash landing

But, over all, women still suffer from ''shockingly high rates of poverty.''

Men still have many advantages and way better paycheques.

Men never get discriminated against for being fathers the way women do for being mothers, or having the potential to be mothers. While women may be graduating from law schools in equal or greater numbers than men, men have the major share of legal firm partnerships, for example. Although you'd never know that from the media.

Consider these words by The Nation's Katha Pollitt:

The gains of the last forty years--in political representation, reproductive rights, education, combating violence against women--would never have happened without the steady and massive increase in the number of working women and the transformative effects of all those paychecks. Some might be tempted to spin the magic 50 percent to suggest that feminism's job is done. First it was dead because it was a failure; now it's dead because it was such a success.

Maybe too much of a success. As Reihan Salam worries in his article "The Death of Macho," "The problem of macho run amok and excessively compensated is now giving way to macho unemployed and undirected--a different but possibly just as destructive phenomenon." If 78 percent of those who have lost their jobs in this recession are men, that must mean women's gains are coming at men's expense, right? Actually, no. Women may have a bigger slice of a shrunken pie, but because the labor force is still quite gender-segregated, mostly they are not competing with men for work. The top ten jobs for women are, in order, secretary, nurse, elementary- and middle-school teacher, cashier, retail salesperson, health aide, retail supervisor, waitress, bookkeeper and receptionist. Men have lost more jobs than women in the recession because the ax has fallen more sharply in heavily male fields like construction and manufacturing than in female ones like healthcare and clerical work. As economist Barbara Bergmann wrote in an unpublished letter to the New York Times, "An important reason for the failure to reduce the gap between women's and men's average wages is that little progress has been made in reducing gender segregation in jobs that do not require a college degree." Interestingly, according to the Wall Street Journal, on the professional end of the workforce, where men and women are more likely to have the same or similar jobs, as many women as men have been laid off.

The good news in all this, as Gloria Steinem points out, is that this economy-driven revolution in the workplace could result in a revolution at home.

Personally, I'm rooting for The Shriver Report to be right in its underlying assumption that government and business will have to adjust policies to meet women's needs as parents and workers in order to keep the economy going, and also that more men will get accustomed to women as indispensable co-workers and co-breadwinners, and thus increase their share of housework and childcare. Men will still have more to say about the success of this report than women do, so I recommend the essay, "Has a Man's World Become a Woman's Nation?" by sociologist Michael Kimmel. He offers a long list of benefits to men, women and children when fathers are egalitarian. It stretches from better sex for the parents to children who get along better with their peers and have more friends because they learn cooperation by doing housework with their fathers. This alone could be worth the price of admission.

For the record, that last bit is what feminism is all about: egalitarianism of the sexes.

Work it, Baby!

StatsCan released its Changes in Parental Work Time and Earnings study today. 

Not surprisingly, it reports:

Between 1980 and 2005, the time parents spent on the job rose substantially for families with children, mostly because of the rising labour market participation of mothers.

During this period, the proportion of families with two parents working on a full-time, full-year basis more than doubled from 15% to 32%.

Single-parent families, particularly single mothers, also increased their work time by substantial margins. Over that period, the proportion of single mothers with a full-time and full-year schedule rose from 43% to 51%.

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Two-parent families in all earnings groups saw increases in their work time but increases were greatest in the low and middle earnings groups. For example, the proportion of parents working full year and full time in the middle earnings group (comprising families who earned between $46,700 and $93,400 in 2005) tripled over the period, from 11% to 32%.

Single parents with low earnings also recorded significant increases in their work hours, especially lone mothers. Between 1980 and 2005, the proportion of single mothers with low earnings working on a full-year and full-time basis rose from 8% to 20%.

The study also examines the extent to which the rise in parental work time translated into higher annual earnings for families. Increases in earnings were divided into two parts: the part due to increases in parental work time, and the part due to increases in rates of pay.

Among two-parent families, increases in parental work time accounted for nearly one-half (45%) of the overall growth in earnings, with low and middle earnings families contributing more than two-thirds.

The rest of the growth (55%) was due to an increase in rates of pay, in large part because of rising wages among top earnings families. This helps explain the growing gap between top and bottom earnings families documented in other studies.

Among single mothers, increasing work hours contributed to one-third of the overall increase in annual earnings. These gains were mostly associated with the rising work hours of single mothers with low earnings.

Conversely, because single fathers increased their work time by much smaller amounts, most of the changes in their annual earnings were driven by changing rates of pay.

Right off the bat, that tells us several things.

First, the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer.

While lower-income single parents are struggling, single mothers have it especially tough -- and, indeed, other studies reveal that these families are among the poorest in the country.

More women work outside the home for pay. Ergo, there is a real need for affordable daycare spaces.

(Doesn't anybody question what the Harper government's $100 a month -- taxable -- pay-off has injected into the underground economy, and the lost tax revenues as a result? And how many of those under-the-table caretakers are struggling single mothers as well?)

Finally, this confirms that men make more -- since they didn't have to increase their hours as much to gain earnings.

And all that just from the news release.

Much more in the actual report, if you're interested.

Endangered specious

This is either good news or bad news, depending on how much you like to eat.

Women of the future are likely to be slightly shorter and plumper, have healthier hearts and longer reproductive windows. These changes are predicted by the strongest proof to date that humans are still evolving.

Medical advances mean that many people who once would have died young now live to a ripe old age. This has led to a belief that natural selection no longer affects humans and, therefore, that we have stopped evolving.

"That's just plain false," says Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University. He says although differences in survival may no longer select "fitter" humans and their genes, differences in reproduction still can. The question is whether women who have more children have distinguishing traits which they pass on to their offspring.

To find out, Stearns and his colleagues turned to data from the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the medical histories of more than 14,000 residents of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, since 1948 – spanning three generations in some families.

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Shorter, heavier women tended to have more children, on average, than taller, lighter ones. Women with lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels likewise reared more children, and – not surprisingly – so did women who had their first child at a younger age or who entered menopause later. Strikingly, these traits were passed on to their daughters, who in turn also had more children.

If these trends continue for 10 generations, Stearns calculates, the average woman in 2409 will be 2 centimetres shorter and 1 kilogram heavier than she is today. 

Well, that's assuming the human race lasts that long.

But, leaving that aside, as Echidne of the Snakes points out, the photo (above) that accompanies this New Scientist article is somewhat disturbing.

A bit biased, eh? Note the suit and the briefcase.

Not to mention aggressive stance, the power suit, the whole successful working woman attitude.

Frankly, the photo I would have preferred to see with the story would look more like this.