All the single ladies

Via Dammit Janet:

Crazy right wing lady conbot Phyllis Schlafly, self-styled as America's ''leader of the pro-family movement since 1972,'' exhausted from her travails against gays and lesbians, uppity women, healthcare advocates, liberals, anti-gun activists, etc. etc. etc., has now set her sights on that scourge of western society ... the single welfare mother!

Unmarried women, 70 percent of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you've got to have big brother government to be your provider."

On Thursday, in an interview with Talking Points Memo, Schlafly repeated her link of single women, Obama and welfare, and added.

"Yes, I said that. It's true too. All welfare goes to unmarried moms.''

No, there are no single welfare dads. No welfare disabled. No welfare elderly. No welfare veterans. No welfare gun victims. No welfare anything except Single! Welfare! Mothers! and their bastard babies (but Heaven forbid that they have abortions, eh Phyllis?)

And you thought the Harris regime was over?

Pawned

Longtime readers -- and I do appreciate your loyalty and patience during my absence from the blogosphere -- know that I have bitched loud and often about how US/Canada/NATO have used and abused women and their (human) rights as an excuse to continue the war in Afghanistan.

Oh, it's never about the oil, the pipelines, the mineral rights, the regional hegemony, or anything like that. No no. It's always about the women. Save the women. Think of the women. Even though Afghan women themselves have decried the current corrupt regime as well as the continued oppression of women which appears to have been stepped up because of the war.

Even though there have been numerous occasions when NATO has allowed women to be sold out.

Just read this, this, this, this, this ...

Now comes this despicable cover story in Time magazine.

The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband's house. Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn't run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Aisha's brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose...

Now you would think I would be all for the exposure of the terrible treatment of women in Afghanistan, and that I would be cheering on the NATO foot soldiers who are dying because they believe they are fighting to make things right in that blighted country.

The thing is that I am all for these things and more. Much more.

But here's the other bigger thing. If the west gave a rat's tail about women's rights, it would also be in the Congo where women are being gang-raped daily in the fight for, among other things, the minerals that go into our iPods and mobile phones. It would not be in bed with the Saudi Arabian sexist apartheid state where women are chattel. It would not be bombing Afghan women and children, making the occupation worse and worse for them everyday.

And besides, wasn't the ostensible real purpose for going there in the first place to find the terrorist masterminds behind 9/11? (And let's not forget Prime Minister Stephen Harper's March 2006 speech about how our soldiers were also there to halt the drug trade.)

I don't know what the answer to Afghanistan's problem is but I do know that it doesn't come in the form of drones, tanks and fighter jets.

My principle -- and principal ;-) -- objection to this cover story is how it EXPLOITS the mutilation of a beautiful young woman to promote the continued war that really, let's not kid ourselves, has nothing to do with women's rights. I mean, come on. And I am not the only one who says that.

Here's The Nation's Greg Mitchell, with links to more must-read critiques of the Time story:

... worth mentioning: the girl on the cover was attacked not in long ago days of Taliban rule but with tens of thousands of  U.S. troops in the country.

I  have to ask:  In Time's mission to really "illuminate what is actually happening on the ground" has it ever put on its cover close-up images of  1) a badly wounded or dead U.S. soldier  2)  an Afghan killed in a NATO missile strike  3) an Afghan official, police officer or military commander accepting a bribe from a Taliban war lord.  Alison Kilkenny has her own examples here.

No one makes light of the plight of women and children in Afghanistan under the Taliban--and, contrary to (Time editor Rick) Stengel's claim, many Americans do know about it.  Indeed, liberal women's groups in the U.S. have raised the issue often and expressed mixed feelings about staying (or even escalating) in Afghanistan because of it.  It's a serious issue.  And please see the response to Time by the Feminist Peace Network.  Jezebel with another good take here.

I like what Peter Hart over at FAIR has to say:

Something tells me that no one at a the magazine's editorial meeting suggested a "What Happens if We Stay  in Afghanistan" cover headline, which would have been accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.

Finally a few words from, you know, an actual Afghan woman, Sonali Kolhatkar, author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. She is also co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports women's rights activists in Afghanistan. (via The Institute for Public Accuracy).

This is the same type of justification that the Soviets used (among others) to explain why they should remain in Afghanistan: to save Afghan women from the 'backward' fundamentalists. Foreign armies have always sought to protect Afghan women from violence by fomenting violence themselves. But in the end, just like the Soviets did backroom deals with radical misogynist groups, the U.S. has been empowering non-Taliban misogynist fundamentalists since the start of this war. There are incidents happening every day in Afghanistan of women and girls being harassed, raped, flogged and killed by pro-U.S. warlords and local commanders that are not working with the Taliban -- these incidents are rarely covered by the Western media. In many ways the U.S. occupation has actually made things worse for Afghan women. Afghan women activists I work with prefer to resist two threats to their security (the Taliban and the U.S.-backed central government) instead of three (the third being the U.S./NATO occupation) and have long called for U.S. forces to leave. Time magazine is playing to age-old racist stereotypes: that brown women need a foreign white army to save them from their men.

What a difference it would make in Afghanistan if, instead of spending hundreds of billions on bombs, we just gave all the money to the women and let them build a better society for everybody there.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: On a related note ... this.

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

Women overboard

Didn't want you to miss this by friend and colleague Olivia Ward in yesterday's Star.

It's about how women may be thrown under the bus if NATO types, ie. the US, decide to get out of Afghanistan by reinstating the Taliban.

Yeah, I know that's not how it's being phrased in polite circles. But let's not mince words here, okay? Because that's what they would really do. After all, didn't we install our man in Afghanistan Hamid Kharzai? Of course we did.

That said, the latest word from HellHolistan is that the Taliban isn't going to deal.

But that doesn't make the plain fact of how quickly NATO was prepared to give up women.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Any future peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban should include a clear commitment to respecting women's rights, a United Nations women's rights body said on Friday.

It also voiced regret at what it called the exclusion of Afghan women from the high decision-making level of the London conference on Afghanistan last week.

Anyway, to Olivia's piece:

Even now, young girls who dare to go to school have acid thrown in their faces, suicide bombers kill indiscriminately, beheadings and amputations await those who resist their resurgent rule and women activists receive dreaded "night letters" that mark them for death.

So it's not surprising that the rising chorus of Western voices in favour of reintegrating mid- and lower-level Taliban fighters into Afghan society – and whispers of reconciliation with top militants – have sent a shudder through liberal Afghans who long for peace, but have grave doubts about the return of a relentlessly repressive enemy.

"If you bring them back, it will push us back," says Homa Sabri, who heads the Afghan division of the United Nations women's fund UNICEF. "We will lose the gains of the past eight years."

With the Western leaders who supported the 2001 invasion now groping for the exit, thinking the unthinkable is creeping onto the agenda. War cannot rage forever, and, at the end of the day, peace is made with enemies.

<SNIP>

GIRLS, BARRED from school under the Taliban, now account for more than one-third of the 6.2 million children enrolled and female literacy rates have risen from single digits to about 13 per cent.

In employment, women have made gains in the civil service, and 75 per cent of the Women's Affairs Ministry is female. Women are no longer officially barred from the workplace, and numerous micro projects have allowed them to start small businesses.

In health care, soaring infant mortality has declined modestly and the percentage of women getting pre-natal care risen to more than 32 per cent.The government also set up a human rights commission where women can complain if they suffer violence or other abuses.

Women have joined numerous community groups across the country for social and economic support, as well as political action. The constitution reserves 25 per cent of seats in the lower house and 17 per cent of the upper house of parliament for women.

But today's Afghanistan is not a golden age for women. The Taliban's primitive interpretations of religious law, and the tribal culture from which they sprang, cast a dark shadow over their lives, and the ideals of the constitution are sparsely enforced outside of Kabul.

A recent law has undermined Shia women's rights, a warning to others that political expediency can trump their promised equality, and an unsettling hint for the future. Under international pressure, Karzai allowed the law to be amended. But doubts remain about how far the West would be prepared to support women's rights once its troops have departed.

Even now, the Western military presence has done little to improve the lot of women, and some argue that it has worsened it by exposing them to bombs and bullets.

In addition, a Human Rights Watch report found that, more than eight years after the fall of the Taliban, women and girls are still targeted for violence and discrimination, and have little access to either justice or education.

At least half of Afghan women experience violence, it found. More than half of marriages are of girls under 16 and up to 80 per cent take place without the bride's consent.

Hundreds of girls' schools have been destroyed by the resurgent Taliban, and hundreds of schoolgirls wounded or killed. Only 11 per cent of secondary school-aged girls are still attending school. A mere 4 per cent make it to Grade 10.

Meanwhile, women in public life suffer threats, intimidation and assassination attempts — or death. Women who want to work outside the home face threats and discrimination. There are numerous reports of despairing women attempting suicide by setting themselves on fire.

"The situation for Afghan women and girls is dire and could deteriorate," warns Reid. "It's critical to make sure that (their) rights don't just get lip service while being pushed to the bottom of the list by the government and donors."

When the fog of war clears in Afghanistan, women and progressive thinkers hope that they will have a place to stand. But they know much depends on what the peacetime landscape will look like, and what tradeoffs are made to arrive there.

Yeah. Trade-offs.

Bargaining chippies.

Women have always been a commodity.

Out of commission

I have mentioned the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism only a couple of times, and always in passing, mostly because I really don't see it as part of my mandate, despite the fact that my beat is, officially, ''social issues and cultural trends.''

A quick summary of what the Coalition is about:

The CPCCA (Canadian Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism) was formed in March of 2009 and brings together 22 Parliamentarians from all parties in the House of Commons for the stated purpose of confronting and combating antisemitism in Canada today. The group is broken into two committees: the Inquiry Panel (chaired by MP Mario Silva) and the Steering Committee (chaired by MP Scott Reid).

The Inquiry was launched on June 2nd, with an open call for written submissions by the Canadian public. After receiving nearly 200 written submissions, the committee will begin its public hearings starting on the 2nd of November. At the conclusion of the hearings, the committee will produce a report to the Government of Canada, and anticipates that the Government will respond to this report no later than the fall of 2010.

The CPCCA is not affiliated with the Government of Canada, any NGO, or any advocacy group. It is associated with the Inter-parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism, the international steering committee which organized the conference in London in 2009.

One could make the case that redefining antisemitism to include criticism of Israel -- which appears to be what the CPCCA's intent is, at least judging from its website FAQs -- is very much a social issue in that it affects Canadians' freedom of speech. But I'll leave that to my Star colleagues Tom Walkom, Haroon Siddiqui and Linda McQuaig as well as blogger Dr. Dawg -- although I have posted articles about it on my Facebook profile to some interesting and very heated discussions. (Incidentally, the CPCCA has received pitifully little corporate media coverage.)

Today I received a copy of an open letter to Liberal MP Hedy Fry which ties directly into what I see as my beat. Here it is, unedited, with some links added by me:

To: Dr. Hedy Fry, M.P.
From: Joanne Naiman
Re: Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism
Date: Dec. 8, 09

Dear Dr. Fry,

This past Sunday—the twentieth anniversary of the Montreal massacre—I attended the memorial you spoke at in Vancouver. Your speech was moving and touched on the real concerns of women across the country. However, while you spoke, I was seething underneath. You see, I am a retired sociologist, an activist, and a Jew. This summer, I made a submission to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism, of which you are a member. In that submission, I noted that, while anti-Semitism certainly exists in Canada, it is a minor social problem when compared to, say, homelessness, the conditions of indigenous people, or other forms of ethno-racial discrimination. I am ashamed to say that what I didn’t think to compare it to, but should have, is the problems faced by women in this country.

I stood in the cold with you on Sunday thinking to myself that my chances of being harmed—whether with words, low wages, or by a gun—are statistically far greater as a result of my being female than my being Jewish.  For example, if I were a young Jewish woman on a university campus in Canada, I would be at much greater risk of experiencing physical assault or abuse because of my gender than because of my religion. On average, 182 females were killed every year in Canada between 1994 and 2003 (www.statcan.gc.ca) and almost half of all women in 1998 reported having been sexually assaulted after leaving high school (Jewish Women International). And if I were a native woman, I would be at least five times more likely than other women in Canada to die as the result of violence.

I am not trying to make an invidious comparison between the suffering of one group as compared to another, but the facts speak for themselves. Anti-Semitism is an odious but minor reality in Canada, and has been so for many years. Meanwhile, the conditions for women have been deteriorating, and most of the poor in this country continue to be women. In recent years funding to women’s organizations has been cut drastically, a proposed national childcare program has been abandoned, unions are being attacked resulting in lower wages and worsening working conditions for many women (particularly in B.C.), the long gun registry is under threat of being dismantled,  native women continue to suffer the consequence of their peoples’ horrific maltreatment,  and—according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Nov 2008)— “...hundreds of cases involving Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention.”  I’m sure, Dr. Fry, that you are well aware of these facts.

The obvious question, then, is, why have you agreed to participate in this unprecedented and undemocratic Parliamentary Coalition that is spending a great deal of time and money investigating what must be described as a minor social problem? Instead, why aren’t you and your party calling for a similar entity to resolve even a few of the serious problems faced by untold numbers of women in this country? Imagine if we had a Canadian Parliamentary Coalition on Women’s Issues (CPCWI) that planned to make its report to government in the next few months and—as seems to be the case with the CPCCA –expected “that the Government will respond to it by the spring of 2010 (CPCCA news release, June 2, 2009).” Just imagine if this government were to respond to women’s concerns so quickly and so favourably.

Of course, as others have recently noted, the CPCCA—in line with the International Commission for Combatting Anti-Semitism—is not primarily about anti-Semitism at all, but rather is clearly an attempt to muzzle serious legitimate debate about and criticism of the policies of the State of Israel towards Palestinians—men, women and children. This is clear from reading the CPCCA website.  How else can one explain why this Coalition has largely ignored submissions from among the many individuals and groups (including those in the Jewish community) who are critical of Israel’s policies?  Why is the last group to be called to these hearings (in January and February of 2010) police officers, whom, we are told, will make “recommendations regarding standard definitions of antisemitism to be adopted by police forces across the country”? Why else would this Coalition expect the Conservative-led government to respond so favourably and so quickly to its report? Lastly, why, despite statements to the contrary on its website, has the CPCCA refused to date to reveal its funding sources?*

As a Jew, I am proud of our tradition as a caring and compassionate people that has advocated for universalism, that is, the rights and freedoms of all people. It is this tradition that led many Jews to actively support the Black civil rights movement in the United States and the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa. But while the narrow and dangerous terms of reference of this Coalition therefore make me outraged, they also make me afraid.  As noted in my submission, this unprecedented Parliamentary Coalition will doubtless convince those already predisposed to believe it that Jews hold undue sway in the political arena, and it will therefore inevitably fan the flames of anti-Semitism in this country.  I therefore, lastly, ask you to explain to me why you and your party continue to be part of the CPCCA.

I look forward to your early response in this serious matter.

Sincerely,


Joanne Naiman, M.A., B.Ed.
Professor Emerita,
Department of Sociology
Ryerson University
Toronto
(now living in Vancouver)

c.c. Joyce Murray, M.P.
      Carolyn Bennett, M.P.
      Judy Wasylycia-Leis,  M.P.
      Sid Shniad, Independent Jewish Voices, Vancouver
      Lynda Lemberg, Educators for Peace and Justice, Toronto

Two things I will add here.

As I marked with an * above, I don't know that anybody has actually asked the CPCCA for the source of its funding and has been refused the information. Also, the website states that the inquiry is ''independent of the Government opf Canada, although the hearings are being held in the Centre Block on Parliament Hill.

And, for the record, one submission to the CPCCA, which is currently holding hearings, actually hints that even questioning the need for an inquiry is antisemitic.

And so it goes ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: I like this letter to the editor in today's Star. Here's part of it:

The public incitement of hatred section of the Criminal Code should be amended to conform to Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, thereby granting protection to girls and women. Currently, the law only protects those identified by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin and sexual orientation.

Omitting girls and women from the list compromises their safety. This gap between the Charter of Rights and the Criminal Code is a stark piece of unfinished business. Why is it taking so long to deal with it?

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.

Barely scary

Further to this, this and Wednesday's treeware column, which I didn't get around to blogging, this cartoon by Andy Marlette which says it all.

And for good measure, a snip from Wednesday's treeware musings:

Mr. and Mississauga, this weekend, when your daughter spurns the Hermione sweater vest for the prostitot getup, be ready to put up a fight.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I loved to smear lipstick on my face and wear my mother's cocktail dresses. You can be sure I wanted to go out looking like jail bait. But no way would I have gotten past the foyer.

Which is why I got nostalgic at last week's Mad Men when Sally and Bobby dressed as a gypsy and a hobo.

One Halloween, my dark-haired sister, Irene, was outfitted – all from stuff we had in the house – like a gypsy, while I had dirty smears on my face as a hobo.

I was insanely jealous of her eye makeup.

Now, of course, homemade costumes just won't do. At least not from what I can see every year at this time: frazzled parents lining up to get into It's My Party on the Danforth, where all the Riverdalers go for their Halloween supplies.

It's also where big girls can go for their outfits, invariably skimpy sexed-up versions of nurses or sorceresses.

But, no need to look for parking. Just Google "Halloween costumes sexy" – and you'll find all you need to look as if you're working in the kinky division of your local brothel.

Even in plus sizes.

If you hit the club district this Saturday night, you'll see sexy French maids, sexy firefighters, sexy everything.

As for the guys, they may be costumed, or not.

Consider how the men dress up: more often than not as zombies or vampires, gangsters or super- heroes, athletes or cops.

Boys and men invariably opt for personas that represent power or strength, for good or bad. I can't count the number of Freddy Kruegers that continue to show up at my door on Halloween.

So what is it about the female sex that drives them to strut their stuff in thigh-high fishnets at least once a year?

That's a heck of a lot scarier than some of the ghosts, monsters and other fright sights back in the day. Check out these vintage photos for the homemade hauntings I can recall.

Happy Halloween.

Via Sociological Images.

Another reason I hate religion?

It's too often too much about hate. (I added the links.)

The newly-installed president of the United Nations, Ali Abdussalam Treki, has said that homosexuality is "not really acceptable".

Treki, who is the Libyan secretary of African Union Affairs, opened the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly Friday with a press conference.

One question concerned the UN resolution which calls for the universal (de)criminalisation of homosexuality.

In reply, Treki said: "That matter is very sensitive, very touchy. As a Muslim, I am not in favour of it . . . it is not accepted by the majority of countries. My opinion is not in favour of this matter at all. I think it's not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition.

“It is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy . . . I think it is not,” he added.

Way to get started in the job, especially after a lot of blah-blah about human rights.

I guess we can't expect a whole lot of universal hand-holding and singing of Kumbaya from this guy.

Not that I'd want to hold his hand. Feh.

And we're still waiting for the UN to get its act together on women's rights which, the consensus among intelligent and civilized people is, would lead to changes that would make the world a better place.

OOPSY DATE: I quoted from a link with a major typo which I missed. It's fixed now.

Of course, the UN resolution is the Declaration for the Universal Decriminalisation of Homosexuality, made official on December 19, 2008.

(Thanks to CatBoreal and JB in the comments for that catch.)

Grassroots to grassfire

So, about that column 11 days ago:

I'm thinking of making T-shirts: "Proud to be a member of that `left-wing fringe group' called `Women.'"

They'd be pink, of course, for socialism – and also for the pink triangle, the badge the Nazis made gays and lesbians wear before shipping them off to the camps.

Thanks to Prime Minster Stephen Harper, those T-shirts will make me rich!

Well no, LEAF is a registered Canadian charity that helps women and minorities fight for their rights.

So props to you, P.M., for letting down your hair, and your guard, last week at that not-so-closed-door speech in Sault Ste. Marie.

Thank you for finally admitting that your government shut down the Court Challenges program in 2006 not just because, as then-Heritage Minister Bev Oda claimed in Parliament, you "recognize the importance of women" but because you believe that that women's rights are "left-wing fringe" rights.

Now, with a little help from my 2,720 (and counting) Facebook friends, as well as the ladies at LEAF, the Women's Legal Action and Education Fund, the t-shirt has become a reality.

Okay, so it's not pink but black. That's more slimming. Plus it made it easier to come up with a version for supportive men.

Order yours here.

Props to Francesca Dobbyn, Jude Macdonald, Pale Cold and Michael Hanna-Fein for making this all happen.

Big ups to Dwayne Radzik Radke for the photo manipulation you see above.

You can bet that Mr. Harper won't be putting us on...anymore.

On the fringe

As I type this, the Facebook group ''Proud to be a member of that 'left-wing fringe group' called 'Women'" just topped 1,000 members, with many supportive men in there.

That column of mine has really taken off. (Thanks Mr. Harper!)

Now there's news: LEAF (Women's Legal Education and Action Fund) has agreed to take on the T-shirt enterprise as a fundraiser.

Pale Cold is tweaking Francesca Dobbyn's original design. Friends Jude MacDonald and Michael Hanna-Fein will take over the group administration.

Please check the Facebook group or back here for how to order t-shirts. That info will be up soon. (And just FYI, there will be a curvy fitted version, a square version up (to XXXL I believe) plus a man's version. (Dammit Janet! has a proposal.)

All proceeds will go to LEAF, a registered charity which has intervened in many of the cases fought by the Court Challenges program.

Okay...

Since my last post, a couple of new items have hit my screen that I think are relevant to all this.

After all, that Court Challenges program -- which helped ''left-wing fringe groups'' such as women, visible minorities and the disabled win landmark rights cases in the Supreme Court -- also helped gays and lesbians win same-sex rights.

So: Yesterday it was reported that Conservative cabinet minister Diane Ablonczy was stripped of her funding powers after she gave a $400,000 grant to Toronto's Gay Pride back in June.

Industry Minister Tony Clement's office directed bureaucrats to "scrutinize activities" of major tourism events up for stimulus funding, just two weeks after Toronto's Gay Pride festival received a federal grant.

And documents suggest Clement had a direct hand in dumping cabinet colleague Diane Ablonczy from the helm of the program, notwithstanding assertions the leadership change was always in the works.

There was "no relieving" Ablonczy of her duties at the Marquee Tourism Events Program following the controversial Pride grant, Clement's office said publicly in July. Ablonczy is the junior minister in charge of tourism and small business.

Darren Cunningham, Clement's spokesman, said at the time that the program was simply entering a second phase that would be managed by the senior minister.

But documents obtained by The Canadian Press under Access to Information legislation raise questions about that line.

"This is to formally advise Minister Clement has revoked delegation of authority for the Marquee festivals program," Clement's chief of staff, Bill King, wrote to senior bureaucrats on June 29.

"All files, projects, correspondence and communications are now to be managed, approved and signed off by Minister Clement instead of Minister Ablonczy."

Today Clement denied that.

"I know you're looking for the smoking gun or some sort of other agenda but quite frankly, you know, to be accused as I have been accused by [Liberal MP Marlene]Jennings to be some form of homophobe, you know, quite frankly I find that offensive and anyone who knows me knows that that's ridiculous," Clement told reporters.

The Canadian Press reported this week that Clement had a direct hand in formally revoking Ablonczy's authority over the Marquee Tourism Events Program, as outlined in a letter his chief of staff sent to bureaucrats last June.

The letter came just two weeks after Ablonczy had handed over $400,000 in funding to Toronto Pride, a move that incensed Canadian social conservatives and some in the Tory caucus during its last meeting before the summer break.

An internal memo, obtained through Access to Information legislation, also indicated bureaucrats were told to "scrutinize" tourism activities on the same day Ablonczy was turfed from the program.

"The minister of Industry recently ordered bureaucrats to scrutinize tourism events directly related to gays, lesbians, women's groups and so on," Jennings told the Commons.

"Will the Conservatives now tell Canadians exactly which groups are on their blacklist for special scrutiny?"

Well, one thing we know. Just after that happened during the summer, a Montreal gay-themed event was also cut off from funding. Coincidence?

Meanwhile Pride Toronto is pitching the city for World Pride 2014. It would not only be one awesome party, it would give the city a huge boost.

The event would fall during the regular Pride week in 2014 but would be substantially bigger and more expensive, costing an estimated $10 million rather than the $4 million spent this year.

The economic payoff could be big. Toronto's three-day gay and lesbian festival in June attracted 1.3 million people, and organizers say it generated $100 million in business. World Pride would include a human rights conference and opening ceremonies at a large venue, such as the Rogers Centre, possibly with an Olympics-style flag parade.

Hide your children from the ''homosexualists,'' shrieks the Conservative peanuts gallery -- the very same folks who encouraged the Harpies to kill the Court Challenges program.

Promoters of Toronto's sordid annual homosexual "pride" parade are upping the ante with a bid to have the city host World Pride in 2014.

"We believe that hosting World Pride 2014 in Toronto will engage and inspire people from around the world, be a fabulous celebration of Pride and showcase Toronto as one of the most diverse and accepting cities in the world," wrote Pride Toronto co-chair Mark Singh in a Pride Toronto press release.
 
Singh claims that this summer's homosexual festival, held during the city's garbage collection strike which filled parks and streets with rotting refuse, "attracted 1.3 million people" and generated "$100 million in business."

Cecilia Forsyth, national president of REAL Women of Canada, released a letter following the Toronto homosexual parade in which she protested the nearly $400,000 grant given to the Toronto Gay Pride Festival by Conservative Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism, Diane Ablonczy, and questioned the attendance and financial figures proffered by the homosexualist group.

"REAL Women of Canada is deeply offended" over the grant, the letter states. "The Gay Pride Parade is well known for its full nudity, open engagement in public sexual acts and its deliberate disregard of behaviour acceptable to most sectors of Canadian society.

"The parade is about hedonistic exhibitionism and narcissism, promoting a deadly form of sexuality.  The parade is designed to shock and titillate and the week-long 'celebration' has become an excuse for partying, drug use and promiscuity."

Forsyth observed that the attendance figure is absurd from a purely mathematical point of view, due to the limited size of the parade route. "The crowds would have had to be 80 deep along the 3.1 kilometer parade route," she said. "It is also highly questionable that the 'celebrations' that week contribute millions to the economy, as alleged, as this figure again appears to be part of the air of unreality surrounding the event."

The controversial $400,000 grant, given by Minister Ablonczy as part of the Marquee Tourism Events Program, has been harshly criticized by pro-family advocates and members of the Conservative caucus, many of whom claimed they were unaware that Ablonczy had directed the money to the homosexual event.

Saskatoon MP Brad Trost expressed his disapproval of Ablonczy's actions in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com on July 6th, and also hinted that the Minister may have lost the portfolio as a consequence of the embarrassment she caused the Conservative Party, although the government claims there is no official connection.

<SNIP>

A spokesman for Industry Minister Tony Clement, who now administers the Marquee Tourism Events Program, told the Star that future funding of Toronto's homosexual parade was "under review" to ensure it was providing a genuine stimulus to the economy.

(They said a ''a genuine stimulus.'' Heh.)

These are the people who are the Conservatives' base. This is the kind of Canada their majority would create.

All this is what Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested in that Sault Ste. Marie speech he didn't want you to see he would prevent, if only he could get enough votes.

I have to wonder: Who is further out on the fringe?

No wonder that Facebook group is growing.

1,034 members ...

1,039 ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: We're just about to break 1100.

Just want to thank some of the bloggers who jumped on my column: Alison, who kicked off the virtual T-shirt, Pale, who came up with some of her own (and is involved with the official version), Cathie from Canada, the Dammit Janet ladies, as well as guys Warren Kinsella, Kevin Page and the Rev. Paperboy.