Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘women’

. . . was nice.

I headed down there over the weekend, and I managed to squeeze some city exploring in between the business I had to do. It’s been a number of years since my last visit, and I can’t get over how much the city has changed. Not just the conspicuous absence of a couple of towers. But also how much more patriotic everyone seems. And how clean the city is in general, compared to what I remember from my last time there. Still expensive though. That hasn’t changed.

At any rate, I missed a bunch of news over the weekend, and rather than play catch-up, I’ll post a few links:

Allison, Lynn, and Harry commemorate Yom HaZikaron. Barry has been all over the North Korean train crash story. David weighs in on the abortion debate. And Meryl tries to take back the F-word from the nutbags. (In case you’re wondering, the F-word in question is feminism.)

In other news, seems like the only Habs fan cheering these days is none other than Vinny Lecavalier. *Sigh*.

Why does this somehow not surprise me?

This year, The Link would like to dedicate the International Women’s Day Issue to the memory of Zahra Kazemi and Rachel Corrie. While various Link members and staff may or may not have disagreed with the politics these two women held dear, we all agree the violent deaths they suffered in their non-violent opposition to human rights abuses was tragic, and a travesty of justice.

This as part of the Concordia paper’s special Women’s issue, which was, as they put it, produced by throwing “all those who identify as men out of the office and allows the women a Women Only Space to complete production of the paper”.

There’s been another suicide bombing in Israel. A female Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up at a Gaza checkpoint, murdering at least four Israelis, in a case that yet again displays how every attempt by the Israelis to extend courtesies to the Palestinians is exploited and thrown back in their faces:

Brig.-Gen. Gadi Shamni told reporters that the woman evaded metal detectors by claiming she had platinum insets in her legs.

Shamni said she was taken to a side office and then fell over, the Jerusalem Post reported. When soldiers rushed to her help, she blew herself up.

“Because she was a woman, a female soldier was sent for, to inspect her. The terrorist made use of the waiting period for the arrival of the woman soldier, made her way further into the complex, and exploded,” Shamni said.

You can imagine how the human rights groups would scream if, heaven forbid, a male soldier were to inspect women who set off metal detectors. How could they deny the terrorists these valuable loopholes to claim more innocent lives?

People who know me know that I’m not exactly the militant feminist type. I don’t go around looking for patriarchal conspiracies, or getting all worked up over someone calling women “chicks”.

But even I was offended by George Jonas’s latest column in the Gazette last week (no link – I guess even the Gazette was embarrassed), in which he claimed that women should be flattered, not offended, to be groped by Arnold Schwarzenegger, because he’s a good-looking movie star.

Several letter-writers to the Gazette shared my sentiment:

There’s a difference between the kind of sexual advances Schwarzenegger has been accused of and a mere sexual invitation. Hollywood good looks are not a licence to behave inappropriately – and possibly criminally – without repercussions.

I couldn’t agree more. And I can’t believe that Jonas can still get away with publishing such crap. It’s 2003, not 1903, and he – and the paper’s editors – really ought to know better.

I’m not saying Arnold’s guilty. There was an icky feel to the smear campaign that conveniently materialized just days before the recall vote. And didn’t work, I might add. If there’s actual evidence against Arnold, then charge him. If not, he’s innocent unless proven guilty.

But to suggest that a movie star can’t be guilty of sexual harrassment because women would be flattered to be groped by him? That kind of dark ages mentality should have no place in print.

Climbed out of a long black hole today – fever’s come down (mostly) and I’m finally feeling more like a human being than flattened truck remains. Pop quiz: which of these things don’t belong? Bed rest, chicken soup, fluids, blogging. Yeah, you guessed it.

So even though tons has happened this week, I have no intention of recapping all of it – heck, I probably don’t even know about most of it. So please refrain from the irate comments about my failure to mention such-and-such, k? Thanks a bunch.

I did catch a few interesting headlines, this week, though, and made somewhat fuzzy mental notes to blog them later. Israel marked Rosh Hashanah with the senseless murders of two people, including a 7-month old baby, by Islamic Jihad terrorists. The Palestinians have assembled a new Arafat puppet cabinet that is sure to make zero progress towards eradication of terrorism. Nigerian Amina Lawal, who faced death by stoning on charges of adultery and became an international symbol of oppression of women, was cleared.

Bush and Blair came out singing No Regrets about the war on Iraq, (though I don’t think to the same tune as Tom Cochrane). Speaking of musical legends, singer Robert Palmer passed away of a heart attack.

Closer to home, a local private French high school put in its bid for a stupid discriminatory act of the week award by expelling a Muslim girl for wearing a hijab. The Alouettes clinched first place in the East. And the Hell’s Angels mega-trial ended with a bunch of guilty pleas.

Onto next week.

A man’s place is . . . in the kitchen (hat tip: Mark):

The mayor of a southern Spanish town has declared Thursdays “ladies’ night” and says he will fine any man found strolling about town in the evening, in an attempt to encourage them to stay at home and do the chores.

Ladies, I think we’ve found ourselves a new Utopia.

Bernard foot-in-mouth Landry is in trouble again, this time over a comment he made that is being viewed as insulting to women:

Yesterday as a three-day policy convention of his Parti Québécois to prepare for the coming election wound to a close, Landry was caught by a Radio-Canada camera saying he would rather meet with the chairman of Sun Life than with women’s groups. Landry’s words were captured as he reluctantly voted for a resolution calling for a law requiring that 50 per cent of candidates in an election be women.

“It’s for the women’s groups,” Jocelyne Gadbois, a member of the PQ executive, explained to Landry.

Landry turned to Gadbois and said, “I would rather meet the chairman of Sun Life.”

In 1978, shortly after the National Assembly adopted the PQ’s Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, Sun Life moved its head office from Montreal to Toronto, saying it couldn’t work with the language law.

This barely a month after his “birdbrain” comment got him in trouble with poverty groups.

It seems to me that if the PQ wants to win this election, they need to muzzle Landry and lock him up.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that racketeering laws cannot be used against anti-abortion groups using violence and intimidation as tactics.

By an 8-1 vote, the high court said in an opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist the judgment that the anti-abortion activists had violated the racketeering laws must be reversed.

The civil lawsuit against Operation Rescue, the Pro-Life Action League and three of the league’s leaders was brought by the National Organization for Women and others. At issue were tactics that included violent demonstrations to block access to clinics.

This is yet another miserable example of the courts engaging in social engineering. What does it say about the U.S. judicial system, whereby judges are appointed by the administration in power and make decisions in line with the party who appointed them?

If violence and intimidation are being used on a case-by-case basis, the perpetrators should be prosecuted for those crimes. But when these tactics are being used on an organized, planned basis across a country, then individual prosecutions are no longer sufficient. That was the intention of racketeering laws (usually used against organized crime organizations such as the Mafia) – to prevent wide-scale use of threats and intimidation to coerce people or businesses into closing or committing illegalities.

Apparently, women seeking abortions – or doctors performing the service – aren’t seen as deserving of these protections, according to the Supreme Court. Disgusting.

Banana Republic now has a line of clothing for petites! Woohoo! But the line is only available online and only to US customers. Does nobody care that there are short women living in Canada? Eh? Eh?