Politics

Humanity, Recognition, and Interiority

/ Lauren / Leave a comment
Illustration from NatalieDee.com

Illustration from NatalieDee.com

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were in the car together and I asked him who he “talks” to–you know, who he’s traditionally turned to when he was upset, or his heart was broken, or things in general just weren’t going well. My husband and I have a very communicative relationship and we talk all the time (on our first date I was impressed by his excellent conversation), but he certainly doesn’t psychologically “dump” on me the way I sometimes do on him, and the way my sisters and childhood best friend and I have long “talked out” our disappointments, problems, and fears.

To my surprise and discomfort, he said he doesn’t, or at least not with any regularity.

My first impulse upon hearing this was sadness; I felt that my fun and social and considerate husband was somehow missing something important in his life. But TC says he doesn’t always need to “talk out” the way I do. His friendships aren’t built using all of the same blocks as mine (verbal sharing of Costco-sized amounts of psychological/emotional weight is not the only way to maintain strong bonds, as it turns out), and his emotional needs are, quite simply, different from mine.

So now my feeling is weirdness and discomfort. Intellectually, I accept that different humans are different. But it’s weird. Weird because for me talking (and, by extension, writing) is almost a medical necessity–I’m fairly convinced that if I didn’t share whatever is on my mind at some point, even good happy very exciting things, they would fester and eventually choke me. Discomfort because apparently it’s not the same for TC, and I don’t know how to process that. How can a need that is so significant and vital to me be almost non-existent in another person, especially a person that I usually feel so emotionally in tune with?

It’s especially discomfiting because despite my attempts to curb my natural self-interest, I sometimes have a hard time remembering that other people have inner lives, and that their inner lives are just as deep and rich and important as mine. For me, talking (or writing) is a huge part of the expression of my inner life–it’s how I remind the world, and myself, that I’m here. But some people don’t feel the need to prove the existence of their inner lives, or instead find other ways to express them. And I am so wrapped up in my own perception (one that sees through the lens of my inner life) that I fear I am sometimes in danger of assuming that an absence of expression (in a language I readily understand) equals an absence of interiority.

Recognizing the interiority of others is incredibly important. Not only does it make us better partners, family members, and friends, this recognition is vital to the way we treat each other as human beings. Many an injustice has been perpetrated against specific “other” groups of people by using the excuse, “They just don’t feel the way we do.” For examples of this excuse in action, we could look to former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. William Westmoreland’s statement that “The Oriental doesn’t put the same high price on life as does a Westerner” in the Vietnam war documentary Hearts and Minds, or Voltaire’s many and virulent assertions that the Jewish people, due to some inherent racial shortcoming, do not possess the capacity for generosity, decency, or hospitality (as you can imagine, Voltaire’s opinions on this subject gained a lot of traction with infamous anti-Semites like Adolf Hitler and continue to be quoted with glee in extremist fanatic corners of the Internet). When we present others as lacking interiority, we present them as “sham” people–hollow pretenders who deserve our hatred and prejudice–rather than as people whose experiences and pain are as legitimate as ours.

Humane treatment of others requires us not only to recognize the interiority of others as legitimate, but also to assume interiority even when it is not, or cannot, be expressed. Failing to do this has, historically, had serious implications for our treatment of non-verbal and/or non-communicative people, including the mentally ill, people with cognitive or other medical disabilities that prevent traditional communication, and infants. Did you know that as late as the mid-1980s (in the U.S. at least, but likely in Canada too), doctors erroneously believed that infants could not feel pain, and serious surgeries were routinely performed on babies without anesthesia? Apparently, their cries, grimaces, and physical attempts to push away painful stimuli were considered merely “reflexes” and though infants were given a muscle relaxant to prevent these “reflexes” from getting in the surgeons’ way, they were awake and aware for every excruciating moment of their medical procedures. If someone did this to an adult, it would be the very definition of torture, but because babies cannot verbally communicate their pain they way we do, it was assumed they couldn’t feel the way we do either.

It should be common sense to us that any human being, when cut with a scalpel for example, would feel pain. Our reason should tell us that this is the case regardless of the age, gender, race, religion, class or culture of the person involved. The problem, however, is that despite the earth being peopled for tens of thousands of years with folks whose biology, physiology, and psychology have remained relatively constant, the definition of who qualified as “human” has, until very recently, only included adult white males. Children were not human beings. Women were not human beings. People of colour were not human beings. Because these marginalized people were not considered “human”, it was assumed they did not have the same rich interior life as a white man (Freud, for example, despite the fact that most of his patients were women, did not actually believe women possessed complex psychology and so his theories were actually written exclusively for/about men). This lack of perceived interior life was then used to defend the inhumane and demeaning treatment women, children, and people of colour received (though of course a white woman or child would have been and usually still is a lot better off than a person of colour). It’s worth considering whether or not the fact that these “non-human” people weren’t usually ALLOWED to express themselves has anything to do with the perception that they had nothing to express, and the ways in which prejudice (and the mistreatment it engenders) is self-perpetuating.

The fact that the Western world eventually (and begrudgingly) extended the title of humanity to the poor, women, children, people of colour, and people with disabilities isn’t too much to pat ourselves on the back about. Recognition of our shared humanity was not given out of beneficence–it was wrested from the hands of the status quo by marginalized people (or, in the case of those who could not speak for themselves, by their passionate advocates) after long, difficult, exhausting, often violent, sometimes deadly struggles. And serious injustices continue in the present day, although slightly less overtly. At the same time, some formally very marginalized groups have gone on to oppress others in turn (white feminists, for instance, have frequently been accused of throwing women of colour under the bus to further the aims of a feminism they find more palatable). We aren’t done yet–we still fail at recognizing others’ humanity in so many ways.

I’d like to believe that most of us aren’t monsters. But many of us find it difficult to see the world through another person’s eyes. Most of us, for example, probably grew up believing that gender binaries were pretty simple and set. Boys were boys and girls were girls and though boys could be “girly” and girls could be “tomboys”, everyone seemed to agree on who was who and what was what, just as we agree the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. But we were wrong. Gender is NOT that simple, and not that set. We know this because it turns out that for people who are transgender, our assumptions didn’t add up. We know this because trans* people have TOLD us this is so, and TOLD us who they are. And yet, for some reason, many of us believe the reality of others is something we can have an opinion on, or that we need to agree with in order for it to exist. As if trans* people do not have a legitimate enough inner life to KNOW who they are, and to KNOW whether or not the gender they were assigned at birth (based on their physical characteristics) was correct. As if trans* people do not feel as threatened and humiliated as a cis-gender person would feel if they were forced by society into using the wrong gender’s bathroom. As if the countless indignities experienced (and recounted) by trans* people don’t exist, simply because we’ve never experienced them ourselves.

These attitudes are just plain silly. I’ve never had cancer (and hopefully never will), but that doesn’t mean cancer doesn’t exist, or that cancer patients are either lying or simply “confused” about their condition or the pain they’re in. We shouldn’t need to experience something first hand to accept that it is real, and to extend support wherever support is requested. Unfortunately, our inability to acknowledge and respect the interiority of others isn’t just silly. It’s dangerous, and it causes pain and suffering. Trans* women are raped and murdered at alarming rates. Gay teens kill themselves at alarming rates. African American men are shot and killed by police at alarming rates. Women are sexually assaulted at alarming rates (and then repeatedly asked if they are sure an assault is what really happened, if they are sure they didn’t want to have sex with their rapist). Even children, for whom we often claim we would sacrifice anything, are commonly treated by adults as if they are possessions, not persons; empty vessels for their parents’ or governments’ ideology, rather than thinking beings in their own right.

At the end of the day, it comes down to respect, whether it’s respect for the inner experience of your friend or loved one, or respect for the inner experience of a stranger, even a stranger whose culture, experience, orientation, and existence in the world is completely different from yours. Respect for those who have told us who they are and what they need, and also respect for those who haven’t, either because they lack the ability or because they simply don’t want to. An interior life can be just that–interior. Hidden. The red cells flowing through the artery, under the skin. No one owes us proof that they bleed and hurt just as we do, and the world would be a much better place if we could offer our respect without demanding to see the scars.

[Note–the debate about whether or not the recognition of an interior life can/should reasonably be extended to animals is taken up in J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, and though the book itself reaches no particular conclusions it is a great addition to the discussion.]

The forests are burning (your children are burning)

/ Lauren / Leave a comment
Photo: Brayden McCluskey

Photo: Brayden McCluskey

Sometimes I wonder why people still have children. I wonder when the sky fills with smoke and the air tastes like ash, when the heat comes in and sits, indifferent to the presence of the sea, indifferent to the ceiling fan, indifferent to everything that should shoo it out again. I wonder when I start to describe the blue sky as “relentless”–another day without rain. Another day without rain.

I wonder when I hear how many of these wildfires were started by discarded cigarettes, one person’s slow careless suicide ripping like a whip-crack across the tinder-dry grass and into a forest of–firewood, now–hot coals, now–charcoal, now–ash, now.

And still the heat envelopes me in bathwater arms, hot dishwater arms, drowns me in dry air, and still the sky, behind the smoke, relentless. Blue.

I wonder at our gleeful march towards death, our species hell-bent on fashioning this hell-scape on earth. And I know, we did this. We’re doing this. I wonder why I should have children. I wonder, if I did, what they would grow to see–their childhood home, consumed by the flames? Their spiral-shelled shorelines slick with the entrails of tankers, slick with the oil that should have stayed in the ground? And, if they live to be old, the sunny backyard where their parents were married, submerged in the rising sea? The ice caps are melting. The ocean’s expanding. We’re doing this.

Do you, you avaricious elders, deserve my children, deserve their flesh (my flesh) and their hope (your hope) and their bright new shiny spotless souls? When I was a child you told me that I was the future. You–teachers, government–told me that what you were doing was for me, for my own good, for me and my children and my children’s children. But I am grown up now and no one has saved the planet for me. And when I say, I want to save it, please help me try, you say I am naive, you say we all need jobs, you say “dollars and cents”, that we need to pull the oil out of the ground because it is worth too much, we need to ship the oil and sell the oil and burn the oil, you say money is more important than life.

Your children can’t eat money. We can’t draw money cool-sweet from the ground and drink it. Money can’t buy us rain or stop the hot beating of the blue sky, relentless.

Come now, you rich people, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. [James 5: 1-4]

Show me, wasteful citizens of a wasted planet, that you deserve my children. Convince me that you will not throw them into the flames as you have done with yours. Promise me you will not tell them that their hunger, their thirst, their choking for a clean gasp of air is naivete. Show me that you need them as more than just a bandage made of hope, as more than just a witness to our final ashy breaths.

The “play” is the thing

/ Lauren / 1 Comment
I can't find any images of children at play...so here is a picture of a goat.

I can’t find any images of children at play…so here is a picture of a goat eating dandelion leaves.

Though not an educator or a parent myself, like most adults (especially those adults who want to have kids sometime) I have Opinions about education and childhood.

I have Opinions about Kids These Days and What Are Teenagers Thinking?! and No One Respects Their Elders Anymore, etc. etc.

So when the idea of year-round school (essentially cutting out summer vacation and replacing it with one to two week holidays dispersed throughout the school year) is floated around, as it was in 2012 when the B.C. government introduced legislation allowing school districts to set their own calendar as long as they meet a specific minimum of teaching days, I have Opinions about that. I’m not for it. (Although there are a handful of B.C. schools that do operate on a year-round calendar, this has not been adopted province-wide or even district-wide anywhere to the best of my knowledge).

When all-day kindergarten was implemented across the board in B.C., I wasn’t for that either. I consider it a Band-Aid solution to the very real challenge of unaffordable childcare in an economic landscape that tends to require two working parents to support even a modest household. I do not agree there is any solid educational basis whatsoever for keeping five-year-old children in a classroom setting for twice as long as they used to be. According to the wisdom of the government, B.C. children were “falling behind” (this is also the government’s position on summer vacations, which is why although they are not forcing districts to adopt year-round schooling they encouraged it). But falling behind whom? Falling behind cultures where children go from morning lessons to school to tutor to night school and live in constant competition with each other and constant fear of disappointing their parents? Is that a lifestyle we really want to emulate? Besides, if all-day kindergarten were truly an educational imperative, kindergarten itself would be mandatory in this province, but it’s not. If you send your kid to kindergarten, you have to send them all day, every day, but if you decide to keep them at home for another year and just plop them into grade one when they’re six, apparently that’s completely okay and there’s no government hand-wringing about how far your kid has “fallen behind”. Can’t see the logic in that. [Note: I am not in any way passing judgement on the quality of kindergarten teaching in this province; I’m sure the teachers and support staff teaching the all-day kindergarten curriculum are absolutely fabulous, but the quality of the education is not the point.]

Children are not little adults. We don’t need to prep them for the labour market just yet. Kids should play. And I’m not talking about “play-based learning” in the classroom or whatever pedagogical buzzwords the Ministry of Education decides to throw around this year. I’m talking about unstructured, totally for fun, (mostly) unsupervised play. I’m talking about two months of swimming at the lake and camping trips and running through sprinklers and building forts and watching your dad stain the deck (and maybe getting to help paint ONE board). I’m talking about fishing grubby change out of grubby pockets and heading with your friends to whatever nearby store sells candy/ice cream (when we were in town that would have been “Susan’s Place”, but at the lake, etc. it would have just been the concession) and playing on rock piles and in the bush.

As it turns out, concerns about limiting kids’ play aren’t just rooted in nostalgia–Maclean’s just ran an excellent interview with injury-prevention expert Mariana Brussoni (June 29, 2015 issue), in which she  discusses research that demonstrates that not allowing children to engage in unstructured, rough-and-tumble play is actually detrimental to children’s health outcomes and social development. Risky outdoor play not only encourages physical activity and makes children familiar with their own physical limits, it also promotes the development of skills like conflict resolution and setting boundaries (which is very important if you want children to be empowered enough to say no to drugs or to practice safe sex). According to Brussoni:

In supervised activities, there’s somebody else guiding the activities; [children] don’t have to set the goals for what they want to do and how they want to engage in it. When they’re out in the neighbourhood [on their own], they’re deciding, “Okay, let’s build a fort. Let’s play prisoner. Let’s play capture the flag.” They’re negotiating back and forth to decide what the rules will be, how it’s going to work, who’s going to do what.

So basically, when we let kids play on their own, we let them develop the skills they’ll need to be adults. Without confining them to a classroom for another three hours every day, or forcing them to sweat it out in school in the middle of July or August instead of being on summer vacation. Huh. I should note that Brussoni was mostly talking about the detrimental effects of “anxiety-based caregiving” as it pertains to parenting and playground infrastructure (which Brussoni says is now too safe and too boring and not as good as a tree or some bushes), but it’s not hard to see how the B.C. government’s positions on all-day kindergarten and year-round schooling are rooted in and play to an anxiety-based methodology of teaching and caregiving. While there are absolutely cases in which some kind of summer programming can be beneficial to kids (children who don’t speak English in the home, for example, may risk losing a lot of newly-acquired English skills over summer break), special cases should not shape childhood experience across the board or indefinitely (once kids who benefit from summer programming acquire the skills they need I’m sure they’d love a summer vacation too), and it’s important to consider what kids lose when we take away their opportunities for play.

Just because play cannot be measured like grades in a report card, that doesn’t mean it is without value. Just because we aren’t keeping children in formal educational settings 24/7, and telling them exactly what they should notice and investigate and pointing their head in the direction we want them to look, that doesn’t mean they aren’t noticing and investigating the world around them. We need to give kids the same chances we enjoyed ourselves (and maybe a little push to take those chances, a push like limiting screen time). Children are naturally curious (that’s why they poke around and ask weird questions I assume). Why can’t we trust them to learn? Do we really think they’re so stupid, so inept, that their lives require elaborate choreography every second of the day? Is a skinned knee or a ripped coat (or even the occasional trip to the hospital for stitches or a broken arm) really such a bad thing if your child is confident, capable, and curious?

I believe in public education, and I know that formal education (especially getting a good grasp of reading, writing, and numeracy) is an incredibly important part of a person’s learning experience. But it should NEVER be confused with the actual act of learning, which is ongoing and unending and absolutely limitless.

 

On discourses, public transit, and wondering what the heck we know

/ Lauren / 1 Comment

If you currently reside in Metro Vancouver you’ve likely heard and read a lot about the current ongoing transit plebiscite (i.e. the plebiscite asking Metro Van residents whether or not they are willing to see a 0.5% sales tax added to the PST on goods and services sold in Metro Vancouver in order to pay for a major public transit upgrade). Whether you normally consider yourself political or not, it’s unlikely that you’ve been able to avoid taking a side and wading into the debate either in conversation or on social media.

Votin' yes.

Votin’ yes.

I myself have already voted “Yes” (and I urge you to do the same, for the sake of our city’s health and for the overall benefit of the planet), and have had my share of participation in a handful of these online debates, often squaring off against people whose opinion I usually respect and with whom I normally tend to agree (and sometimes against opinions I don’t respect as well). As I thought about perhaps writing a post advocating for the “Yes” side (as in “Yes, I want improved transit even if I’m not looking forward to paying more sales tax and I definitely hope Christy Clark isn’t our Premier after the next election because framing whether or not to improve transit as a ‘Do you want to pay more tax?’ question is completely disingenuous considering major road projects that benefit car-drivers are initiated without so much as a how-d’ye-do”), I started to become interested, and a little perturbed, by the sheer amount of information being thrown into the debate from both sides, and I started wondering how on earth we can possibly know the things we’re talking about.

On the No side, for example, the following arguments are fairly common:

  • “We already pay too many taxes” (this is sometimes accompanied by “The government should pay for transit improvements with the taxes they already collect” and sometimes “I don’t care about people who ride the bus; they can pay higher fares if they want better service.”)
  • “Voting No is not a vote against transit improvements” (i.e. a No vote sends a message to Translink and the provincial government that they need to do a better job at providing transit with the funds they have)
  • “Translink executives make too much money.”
  • “Translink is in cahoots with Christy Clark and the Mayor’s Council and they’ve launched a multi-million dollar campaign to promote the Yes vote”
  • “Translink is an inefficient disaster.”
  • “An increase in the PST in Metro Vancouver will hurt vulnerable families the most.”

Meanwhile, on the Yes side, the following arguments have been used:

  • “Metro Vancouver’s population is predicted to increase by 1 million over the next __ number of years. Without improved transit, this will mean hundreds of thousands of additional cars on the road and 26 (!) freeways will need to be built to tackle congestion.”
  • “Voting No is a vote against transit improvements” (i.e. a No vote will only send the provincial government the message that we don’t want transit and this will lead to cuts; it WON’T send the message to Translink that they need to do better)
  • “Executive/administrative pay is only 2% of Translink’s budget”
  • “Christy Clark is in cahoots with oil companies to discourage transit improvements and increase road infrastructure that supports more individual cars on the road.”
  • “Translink is one of the most efficient transit systems in for its size in the world.”
  • “Cuts to transit or an increase in transit fares will hurt vulnerable families the most.”

Since I’ve generally been paying more attention to the Yes side than the No side, I’ve also heard that the transit tax is supported by groups like the David Suzuki Foundation and paramedics and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and that a win for the Yes side is required to protect the environment and that without it at least 20 additional minutes will be added to the average commute EACH WAY (and also that most of the No rhetoric has been supplied through an intensive smear campaign initiated by the Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation, who generally oppose any increase in tax no matter how small the increase or how noble the cause).

Now, in addition to just arguing on Facebook, I’m sure I’ve read all these arguments somewhere more “legitimate”. I’m sure I’ve read them in articles and op-eds and materials for the Yes side and materials for the No side. And yet, I can’t really remember why I KNOW any of them, and I suspect a lot of other people participating in the debate would have to say the same. And even if we KNOW that we read such-and-such in the newspaper, let’s say, how do we know why that journalist knows what they know? Before these facts/factoids make it into our arguments, they journey through several layers of discourse, and become further and further from being things that we can actually claim to KNOW.

Let’s take the claim that “executive pay is only 2% of Translink’s budget”. I have seen this number quoted in several articles, and considering public transit in Metro Vancouver is an absolutely MASSIVE operation and since the CEO of Translink makes less than half a million dollars per year, I feel pretty good assuming it is true. Even so, it’s important to remember that between me having this fact and the actual truth of the matter, there are quite a few layers of discourse operating.

To work backwards:

  • I am saying, in this blog post, that administrative pay is only 2% of Translink’s budget. This blog post is MY discourse.
  • I probably originally read the “2%” number in an article like this one, in the Vancouver Sun. This is the columnist’s discourse (which is part of the Vancouver Sun’s overall discourse on the transit tax issue). The columnist in turn may have taken this number from another article (i.e. another layer of media discourse), or directly from Translink. At any rate…
  • At some point, SOMEONE likely gleaned this “2%” number from Translink’s 2014 Business Plan, Operating and Capital Budget Summary or a similar document (if you sit down with a calculator and page 15, administration does indeed work out to just under 2% of the total expenses for the 2012 numbers, though it’s closer to 3% for the 2014 projections). This is a document compiled by Translink ostensibly for reading by the public. This is part of Translink’s public discourse.
  • Bear in mind this document is called a “summary”, meaning that it is in fact a clarification and summarization of what is likely a vast plethora of NON-public documents (like memos, spreadsheets, reports, etc.) that have somehow been transformed into to the neat and tidy PDF linked above. Each of these documents can also be thought of as discourses that contribute to the overall discourse of the corporation.
  • And where do these spreadsheets, reports, and memos come from? They come from studies, meetings, and consultations, the results and transcriptions of which are discourses as well.
  • Which eventually, after quite a lot of paper probably, brings us to the root idea that preceding all of these discourses (which, as Michel Foucault liked to point out, are really just language and are no more representational of the actual truth than anything else) can be found a reality in which the administrators of Translink cash paycheques that are equal to 2% of the corporation’s budget.

And this is just one, small, quantifiable fact that was easy to locate in a publicly-available budget report. How do we know the others? How many layers of discourse are involved in the formation of our opinions?

This is not to say that any of our opinions are wrong (though, of course, I tend to think in terms of the plebiscite the Yes side is more right than the No side), or that any of the facts we have used to defend our positions aren’t true. What I am saying, in my own discourse, is that every article or report we read, every discourse, about anything, is simply a representation–it’s not the thing itself. So it can be interesting to think about what you think you know, and why you think you know it, and be critical about the information we consume and share.

I’m more afraid of C-51 than terrorists

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Let’s get one thing straight: I am definitely afraid of terrorists, and I am afraid of militant religious fundamentalists like ISIS. Images of terrified men in orange jumpsuits kneeling before masked militants, knowing they’re going to be beheaded in gruesome fashion and that the whole world (including their families) will be able to see video footage of it on the internet, fills me with a revulsion and a sense of panic that I must make a conscious and sustained effort to keep in check.

But I do keep it in check, and it is important to keep it in check. Because thankfully, in the whole entire population of the earth there are really very few people who want to hurt me simply for not believing what they believe, and it is quite likely that I will never actually know of anyone who has concrete plans to. Of course I am afraid that I, or someone I love, might be the victim of a terrorist attack. If you watch, read, or listen to the news, it’s hard not to be. But in order to live a full and happy life, I need to try not to be afraid, and it really shouldn’t be that hard, given the odds human beings already live with (illness, accidents, etc.).

What I mean is, I acknowledge that there are terrorists out there. I acknowledge that there are people committing atrocious and murderous acts in the name of religion or politics or personal revenge. I hope upon hope upon hope that neither I nor anyone I love will ever come into contact with any of them. But at the same time I acknowledge that the rest of us, whether Muslim or Christian, Jew or Gentile, liberal or conservative or pacifist or gun-lovin’, are, if not perfect human beings, at least not in any kind of mind to kill innocent strangers. We don’t need to be watched. We don’t need to be bullied into not being terrorists. And we, in Canada, certainly don’t need a bill with powers as sweeping and unregulated as bill C-51 (the Harper government’s new Anti-Terrorism Act, not to be confused with the bill C-51 of 2008, which made amendments to the Canadian Food and Drugs Act).

If you want to know why I am against bill C-51, despite the fact that I, like most people, really don’t want Canada to experience any terrorist attacks in the future, the BC Civil Liberties Association has compiled an excellent list that pretty much sums it up.

Of their eight points of serious concern, two really stand out for me:

Bill C-51 drastically expands the definition of ‘security.’

When you think of being secure, you likely think of being safe from physical danger. But Bill C-51 defines security as not only safeguarding public safety, but also preventing interference with various aspects of public life or ‘the economic or financial stability of Canada’. With this definition, a demonstration in favour of Quebec separatism that fails to procure the proper permit, environmentalists obstructing a pipeline route or a peaceful blockade of a logging road by an Indigenous community could all be seen as threats to national security.

It will severely chill freedom of expression.

It’s unclear even to experts exactly what kinds of speech and protest activity may be considered threats to national security if the bill passes; the average Canadian has little hope of feeling confident that their legitimate political activity hasn’t inadvertently crossed the line. Bill C-51’s expansive language means that Canadians will likely choose not to express themselves even in completely legal ways rather than risk prosecution. Legitimate speech will be chilled, and our democracy will be worse off for it.

Last autumn, I went up to the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area and joined those protesting Kinder Morgan’s drilling and testing activities (FYI, Kinder Morgan is a wealthy, Texas-based oil company that wants to put an oil pipeline through a conservation park on Burnaby Mountain). At the time, I seriously deliberated “crossing the line” (i.e. crossing the police tape that surrounded the Kinder Morgan work site and therefore voluntarily accepting arrest for violating a court injunction). In the end, I held back, afraid of what the minimal, but still very real, legal consequences could do to my future ability to travel, pursue various career avenues, etc.

If bill C-51 passes in its current form, with its current vague and broad definition of what constitutes Canada’s “security”, it would be entirely possible and dare I say likely that a pipeline project like Kinder Morgan’s would be considered essential to Canada’s “economic security”. Those who crossed the line into Kinder Morgan’s work site, or who organized civil disobedience activities designed to delay or halt pipeline construction, wouldn’t necessarily be treated merely as trespassers in contempt of a court order; it’s probable they would be considered a threat to Canada’s security and imprisoned as terrorists. More than a hundred brave people crossed the line last fall (and, in a strange turn of events, charges were dropped for most of them as Kinder Morgan had designated the boundaries of the injunction site incorrectly). They asserted their rights as Canadian citizens to go wherever they wanted in a public park, and to defend values they believed in. Very few will cross the line once C-51 is passed, and the Harper government knows this.

The government knows too that people are afraid of terrorism the way I have described being afraid, but instead of calming our fears, instead of exhibiting leadership and refusing to sacrifice our Charter of Rights and Freedoms to knee-jerk anti-Islamic sentiment, they are busy stoking it, counting on it to distract people from the state of the economy and the quagmire tar sands development (the cornerstone of Harper’s economic policy) finds itself in. In short, Harper is counting on our fear (and the thinly-veiled racism lurking beneath it), to win him the next election.

From Maclean’s Martin Patriquin’s article “Stephen Harper and the niqab gambit“:

Since the terrorist attacks in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the Prime Minister has taken to peppering his speeches with the words “jihad” and “terrorism,” whether speaking in Montreal or British Columbia or Brisbane, Australia.

[Remember who else liked to pepper his speeches with words about terrorism? Was it George W Bush? Oh, that’s right, it was. And what did he want? To invade Iraq. And did he find any weapons of mass destruction there? No, he did not. And are America’s actions implicated in ISIS’s current ability to sweep across that destabilized country? You bet.]

The Prime Minister’s recent declaration of “offense” at the idea of a veiled woman taking the Citizenship Oath (even after privately verifying her identity with a government agent), is all part and parcel of his ploy to bring out the worst in us–fearful, xenophobic, irrational–and to exploit these negative qualities for political gain (his caucus, for its part, are doing a good job flying the xenophobic flag, hence Conservative MP Larry Miller’s comment that women who want to wear niqabs when taking the Oath should “stay the hell where [they] came from”) . I’m not convinced that Stephen Harper is truly afraid that a Canadian-born jihadist group will carry out a large-scale attack in Canada, but I know he wants us to be.

The fact of the matter is, we are literally one thousand times more likely to be killed in a motor vehicle accident (inferred from the statistics cited in the Maclean’s article above) than by a home-grown terrorist. Notice that Harper is not giving CSIS sweeping powers to make us drive more carefully.

w-moose_s-2It should also be noted that as Canadians, we are (as noted in Scott Gilmore’s “How to end the fear economy“) more likely to be killed by a MOOSE than by a terrorist. Curious that I haven’t seen any government MPs gravely intoning that moose dwell in every Canadian forest, lurking along every highway. Considering I was in a close shave involving a car and a moose two Christmases ago (we were very lucky to have been going fairly slowly and only to gently nudge its hind leg with our side-view mirror), I’d be interested to know what Harper is going to do about the very real threat of moose-caused vehicular fatalities.

Answer: nothing. Because bill C-51, as currently written, isn’t about keeping Canadians safe. If it were, Conservative MPs sitting on the committee reviewing the bill would be listening to the very legitimate concerns of environmental and civil liberties activists, Muslim groups, and constitutional experts about the serious and democracy-eroding ramifications of the bill in its current state. Instead, Conservative committee members are asking their expert witnesses if they are terrorists (the argument being that if you weren’t a terrorist, you wouldn’t be worried about this bill). If the Harper government ACTUALLY cared about keeping people safe, they would hold an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women, and they would look into long-standing claims that tar sands activity has negatively impacted the safety of food and water in Albertan communities. But they aren’t doing any of these things.

Because the government doesn’t care about keeping Canadians safe. With bill C-51 and the government’s focus on “jihad” and “Islamic extremism”, it’s clearly all about playing on the politics of fear, and on the racism rooted in these fears. With its broad and sweeping powers in terms of surveillance, search, and seizure (CSIS only needing to make sure they don’t kill anyone or “violate their sexual integrity”), bill C-51 is also about making dissenting Canadians afraid–afraid to speak out, afraid to protest, afraid to question rather than immediately condemn that which the government calls a “threat”.

Harper wants his voting base to be afraid of terrorists. And he wants the rest of us to be afraid of him. And it’s working.

 

 

The Troika Collective presents “Nordost” (March 4 – 7)

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

Nord Ost_press kit_FINAL

Opening night is finally here.

We spent our tech weekend and dress rehearsals doing what we normally do on tech weekend and dress rehearsals–doing everything we can to make a good show great. We often talk about the “magic” of theatre, as if the nitty-gritty details of putting a show together are just unfortunate necessities (boring stuff like working out blocking, memorizing lines, and fine-tuning technical cues). But preparation is vital in the theatre. We prepare and prepare and prepare so that when we step out onto the stage (or into the booth, or take our seat in the audience, critical eye and notebook at the ready), we can lose ourselves just enough to take our audience with us.

Our phenomenal cast is prepared. When the lights came up on them at last night’s dress rehearsal, magic happened. They’d moved from knowing what they needed to do as actors, to understanding their characters’ motivations, to embodying three brave women trapped in horrific circumstances. It’s in them–in their faces, their voices, their bodies, and their hearts.

Obviously, as the production dramaturg for Nordost and co-artistic director of the Troika Collective, my opinion is extremely biased, but I could not be more proud of these actors, our director, or our designer. What these women gave of themselves to bring this show to life in Vancouver (a North American premiere, no less), is beyond my ability to thank them. I have no idea what good deed I must have done to deserve to add my name to the program alongside them but I could not feel more privileged. This is a damn good show.

And an important show. In the buzzing silent moment after the dress run and before the cast had taken their bows (it’s good to practice them, even with no audience), I couldn’t help but reflect on Nordost‘s story of trauma, terrorism, and desperation, and think, “And we’re doing it all again.” The world is not so different now than it was in 2002–except maybe we’ve become used to things we shouldn’t be used to, and maybe we haven’t learned as much as we should have. This play is serious, yes, but also necessary.

And it’s a great show.

—

Nordost will be playing at the Havana Theatre (1212 Commercial Drive) March 4 – 7. All shows are at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $20/$17 and can be purchased online at Brown Paper Tickets or at the door (cash only at door).

David Tushingham’s English translation of Torsten Buchsteiner’s Nordost was originally commissioned by Company of Angels, London, and first presented at the Salisbury Playhouse Studio in April 2013.

Women in Canada can wear what they want (and that includes niqabs)

/ Lauren / 4 Comments

(Hopefully) soon-to-be Canadian citizen Zunera Ishaq has recently won a court battle allowing her to wear her niqab (a veil, worn by some Muslim women, that covers most of the face) during her public citizenship ceremony. Prime Minister Stephen Harper called Ishaq’s wish to take the oath with her face covered “offensive”, and his government is currently appealing the federal court’s ruling.

Before I offer my opinions on the matter, some background (which you can also obtain by reading the article linked above):

  • Though Ishaq wants to wear her veil during the public swearing-in ceremony (at which a large number of people and photographers are usually present), she says she has no problem uncovering her face with a government representative in private to verify her identity before taking the oath. Therefore, the wearing of a niqab during swearing-in would not be a security concern.
  • Since 2011, a law introduced by then-immigration minister Jason Kenney has banned face-covering veils such as niqabs in citizenship ceremonies. This is the law which has been struck down and this is the law that the Harper government is trying to maintain.
  • Canadians’ right to religious freedom protects the wearing of religious garments, even in situations where such clothing would normally not be permitted. It is on these grounds that the government’s policy is considered by the courts to be unlawful.
  • According to Ishaq, wearing the niqab is her personal choice. She is not being oppressed or pressured by anyone to cover her face.

The issue of extremely modest religious garments like niqabs being worn in a secular country like Canada is one that it has taken me an incredibly long time to form an opinion on. I must admit that there was a time when I was against them–I saw face veils as symbols of misogynistic oppression based on sexual control rather than religious devotion, and I couldn’t understand why any woman who was NOT being coerced or oppressed would voluntarily choose to wear one. Then I realized that I don’t have to understand–it is not for me to decide what is appropriate for another woman to put on (or not) when she leaves her house.

1364139734MAC02_SUB1[1]

Maclean’s cover, January 2012

I have said before that I believe in a woman’s capacity to decide if and when she would like to be seen as a sexual object (without assuming she is being controlled by some villainous pimp, etc.). This may not seem related to the issue at hand, but my point is this: if I am willing to accept that women would sometimes make themselves sexual objects of their own free will, it would be hypocritical of me NOT to accept that there are also some women who voluntarily choose a course of extreme modesty. [Obviously, there are opportunities for exploitation and oppression at both ends of this spectrum, and that is never okay.]

In the case of Ms. Ishaq, wearing the niqab is not only an expression of her modesty, it is an expression of a deeply-held religious belief, and part of her identity. Whether or not she wears one as she takes the citizenship oath should be of little consequence to the rest of us–once she is a Canadian citizen it seems extremely likely that Ms. Ishaq will continue to be veiled as she goes about her daily life. Her face, even mostly covered, will be the face of a Canadian citizen. It will be her right, as a Canadian citizen, to keep her face covered on the street and at the grocery store and in the post office if that’s what she wants. She has been here since 2008. Hers is a Canadian face now, and we need to understand that. Muslim children are born in Canada all the time, and the Islamic faith is no longer an “import” to this country–it is a part of our Canadian landscape, a landscape that includes many cultures, many religions, and many ways of being spiritual (or not). Why would we, as a country, choose to degrade and humiliate a woman at the very moment she is becoming a Canadian citizen?

Instead of just admitting to an Islamophobic bias (which really seems to be the root of the issue), the Prime Minister is trying to appeal to some kind of sense of decency–the way he’s telling it, of course it’s just “offensive” to cover your face when you take the citizenship oath (even if your identity has been privately verified so there is absolutely no security concern), it is, in Ol’ Steve’s words, “not how we do things here.”

Now, I could point out that muzzling scientists, calling law-abiding Canadian citizens who like the environment “radicals”, cutting services for veterans, turning Question Period into a sad farce, making partisan Senate and judiciary appointments, jumping in on America’s wars, committing election fraud, and being embroiled in scandalous cover-ups has traditionally been “not how we do things here,” but apparently the Prime Minister’s sense of Canadian decency extends only as far as your clothes and whether or not his fearful, aging, conservative Christian voting base is afraid of Muslims.

I must agree with Ol’ Steve that clothes are important, and they do send a message about a person’s respect for the honour they are about to receive. This is why I am sure Prime Minister Harper sought a legal appeal when drunk-driving pop sensation Justin Bieber showed up to receive his Diamond Jubilee Medal wearing baggy denim overalls, a backwards ball cap, and a wrinkly t-shirt. To be given a medal (which most recipients earned through years of volunteerism or public service) on behalf of our head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by the most powerful man in the country, and not even bother to do up both overall straps is certainly NOT “how we do things here”. If anything is offensive to Canadian values and decorum, that surely is.

But Justin Bieber is a celebrity, a Christian (believe it or not, he has actually thought about a hot-button issue like abortion for long enough to be against it), and a rich white guy. Which means he can wear whatever the hell he wants and the Prime Minister will smile and shake his hand.

I hope Ms. Ishaq will be able to take her citizenship oath soon. I hope she will be allowed to wear whatever she wants (though I assume no matter what she will be nicely and respectfully attired). Given how much she has fought for the religious freedoms enjoyed by all Canadians, I know she will not take the privilege of citizenship for granted. There are many ignorant people out there who will say things like, “If she doesn’t like our rules, she can go home,” and they have not a damn clue what they’re talking about. Ms. Ishaq DOES like our rules, and OUR rules, as enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, say that she can wear what she likes. It is OUR rules she is fighting to preserve. Niqab or no niqab, Zunera Ishaq is already home–in Canada, a woman can wear whatever she wants.

Work Less, Contribute More

/ Lauren / Leave a comment

[Just to preface: I really love my job–that is, the work I do for money. I love it because I like my co-workers, I like what I do, and incredibly importantly, I love that I work 26 hours a week, have every Monday off, and still make enough to add a decent chunk of change to my household’s income. I’m not writing this post to brag–I’m writing it because I am one of the lucky ones, and my case really shouldn’t be so unusual. I believe my current department benefits almost as much as I do from this arrangement, and it should be more common.]

William Morris textile print

William Morris textile print

Work isn’t “work” anymore.

Work isn’t “a good day’s work” anymore.

Work is a Holy Grail for those who don’t have it, and an abusive partner to those who do, telling them, even if their job demeans and short-changes them, that they’re so lucky to have it, because who would take them if they left?

Work is not productive. It rarely “produces” anything of value.

Work no longer defines you–work is divorced from your personality. Work is a thing that takes so much of your humanity from you you must have expensive hobbies and Instagram just to know who you are.

Most of what we call “work” is of little benefit to society, and of no direct benefit to ourselves. We are not growing the food we eat, we are not building our homes, we are not weaving our clothes. Those of us who are employed to benefit our communities in the most direct ways (i.e. those on the public payroll, like teachers, nurses, garbage collectors, public works crews, etc.) are often resented by us for “stealing our tax dollars”.

Now, work means “making money”. If you can make money by taking someone else’s money (or a surplus of your own) and multiplying it through investments or interest or the stock market or some other jiggery-pokery, you are among the most highly respected and well-to-do members of society, even though the janitors in your office probably have to put in a much harder day at work than you do. We accept this as fair even though deep down we know that it’s not.

Work is not fair.

Work is not healthy–work sickens us, mind and body.

Work is not the best thing for your family–you hardly get to see them.

Work does not connect us–if it did, we wouldn’t need so many “team building exercises” in our workplaces. Meaningful work is a team-building exercise in itself, but most of us are not engaged in meaningful work.

Simply working is not an end in itself. If we have worked enough to accomplish whatever it is we need to accomplish, we should be able to stop and go home for the day. If we have become so efficient that we can do what we need to do in less time than we used to, our reward should not be additional work. Our efficiency should not be a reward to our employers, who can now gain more work from less people.

“Jobs” are not natural. If they were, how can we explain the many people in North America working more than one full-time job to support their families? If a job is a natural part of the human-societal contract, i.e. you have a job and in return you are given what you need to support yourself and your family in society, how is it that any full-time job can exist which DOES NOT support you?

Employers profit in bad times. Their salaries and bonuses do not change. They can lay off employees and blame the economy. The remaining employees are scared. They will work more hours for less money. When the good times come back, the employer now has a lean workforce, overworked and underpaid, chained to the employer by fear. They will not raise wages. They will not bring back the permanent full-time jobs they cut. They will accumulate the difference.

Work does not enrich our lives. Work cheapens us, keeps us poor, and makes us dependent on the cheap labour of others in order to afford the things we need and want.

“Growth” is a misnomer. “Growth” is a decline. Our economy does not need to grow for the sake of growing. We are growing our civilization into an early destruction because the planet we live on is not growing with our avarice and ambition.

So what do we do? We’ve moved away from a social and economic structure in which we produce the necessities of our survival. It is unrealistic to expect a widespread return to a time of growing all of our own food, making all of our own clothes, building our own homes, and meeting all of our other needs within our local communities. Many of us don’t know how to “make” things, and so cannot live directly from the products of our labours. Most of us are inextricably linked into a system that involves selling our labour and time to our employer.

So.

Governments should stop being the plaything of wealthy corporations dangling “jobs” in front of them like a bone in front of a dog. Governments should not be compelled to provide subsidies, or green-light environmentally destructive projects, or keep cancer-causing asbestos mines open, just to provide “jobs” to more people.

We don’t need that many people working. We need less people, working less, and making more.

The minimum wage should be a living wage. Those who work the least desirable jobs should make the most money, since they are bearing a burden the rest of us disdain to take on.

There should be no reason for both parents in a family to work unless they want to. There should be no reason for parents to have to leave their children in childcare all day unless they want to. Employers should pay their employees enough to support their families, the way the employee is expected to support their employer.

And what should we give our employers and society in return for this increased financial security and free time?

We should give them what I give mine. I have always been a good, honest, and reliable employee and have striven to do my best in any job I have had, whether I actually liked that job or not. But since my switch from a full-time job to a part-time one, I have realized that I previously had not been everything I could be.

I am more engaged. I spend more time trying to anticipate my department’s needs and trying to become better at what I do. I feel that my department takes good care of me and I want to return the favour.

I am more productive. I work less hours, but the hours I do work are spent working, not refreshing my e-mail. Not waiting for the phone to ring.

I get sick less often than I did when I was working full-time. I have more time to recharge, be physically active, and sleep well, and eat well. I experience less stress. I can go to appointments on my day off, instead of taking time from work for them. I rarely need a sick day, and I rarely experience being sick at work.

And outside of work?

Because I work less, I can go outside more. I appreciate my community more. I appreciate the beauty of this incredibly beautiful province more.

Because I work less, I can pursue a masters degree, and, as it turns out, my liberal studies program is teaching me to be a better person.

Because I work less, I can be a better friend, and a better wife.

Because I work less, I can volunteer many hours of my time to a theatre company that makes art I believe in.

Because I work less, I can write this blog.

Because I work less, I can march for climate justice, and go to Burnaby mountain, and have the time to conceive of a world that is not all about dollars but is instead about common sense. Money will not help us on a dead planet, but you might not have time to care about this, because everyone who works a full-time week works too damn much.

When we work less, we can contribute more, to our families, our communities, and ourselves. But only if we’re paid what we are worth.

We are better than we feel we are, when we’re busy and stressed and all our running just keeps us in the same place. There’s nothing wrong with us. We’re doing everything we’ve been told we’re supposed to do to be happy and thrive, but instead we’re just surviving, and that is not our fault. We are good. But maybe our work is not. We’ve been lied to about work.

Maybe work just isn’t working anymore.

—

[Endnote: though I haven’t read it in a while, this post likely owes more than a nod to William Morris’ “Useful Work versus Useless Toil”. His vision of work was radical, but also beautiful. To anyone who dismisses labour reform simply because it is “radical”, consider how radical the Industrial Revolution was, with families ripped from the land and forced to live in squalour, working in factories for just enough to keep them from starving to death, all in the name of the “progress” and “capitalism” many consider to be so natural.]

Please Stop Fighting Straw Feminists (they’re not real)

/ Lauren / 8 Comments

As a feminist who is interested in one day having a family, I tend to spend a decent amount of time thinking about the values my husband and I will teach our future children, and the ways in which our ingrained ideas about gender will or won’t affect the natural expressions of our kids’ personalities.

So I was naturally curious about a blog post I came across recently, called,  “I’m a Mother of 2 Boys, and I Can’t (and Won’t) Support Feminism” by Tara Kennedy-Kline. Of course, my heart sank the minute I read the title of the post, but I have recently been having an interior conversation with myself about NOT disengaging from those who disagree with me, so I clicked on the link and read through to the end.

Not being a parent myself, and not knowing Ms. Kennedy-Kline and her children personally, it is fair to critique ONLY her views on feminism and otherwise assume that Ms. Kennedy-Kline’s two children are well-cared-for and loved. I have no reason to believe this is not the case. The author’s parenting abilities are not what I am taking issue with here.

What discourages, and frustrates, and occasionally enrages me, is the number of otherwise educated and well-meaning people out there who argue against and thereby continue to perpetuate the view the of sinister, man-hating feminism that doesn’t exist. As TC commented to me after reading Kennedy-Kline’s post, “Good thing no one has a lighted match because there are a LOT of straw men in there.” [Of course, perhaps as a spooky angry  feminist I should take offense to this and call them “straw persons“. But I digress.]

Throughout her post, Kennedy-Kline insists that she is raising her sons to be “gentlemen”, to be “dedicated providers”, and to tell the women in their lives that they are beautiful. She also insists that feminism would punish, label as predatory, and otherwise be offended by her boys for doing these things. These fears are overblown and misguided. Alyssa Rose, writing at the Good Men Project, has a thoughtful and logically laid-out response detailing exactly why Kennedy-Kline’s arguments are irrational. I’m not going to repeat her work here, but I am going to point out two things:

  1. Ms. Kennedy-Kline’s fears that feminism will punish her sons for being stereotypically manly assumes her sons want to grow up to be stereotypically manly. How does she know? What does “stereotypically manly” even mean in this day and age, where households containing two working adults are the norm? How does she even know her sons will want to date the “princesses” she encourages her sons to provide for?
  2. When Kennedy-Kline posits that it is not only her sons’ right, but that it is normal and good for them to grab a woman’s hand or tell a woman she’s beautiful because they’re gentlemen, she completely ignores context (how would she feel if, say, a strange man grabbed her hand in a shopping mall or on a dark street?). Some women might not WANT to be touched, or might not appreciate being told they’re beautiful if they aren’t interested in talking to her sons (see my post on how to meet women without being a creep). True gentlemen care not about their gestures, but about the intended recipient of those gestures. If there is any indication that their mother’s so-called chivalrous act will make a woman uncomfortable or even afraid, they shouldn’t do it (alternatively, if it seems that the woman in question would appreciate the gesture, go for it). This is a principle we all learn as kids–it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and if your playmate says they don’t like what you’re doing, even if you’re having fun, you stop doing it. It’s not feminist ideology. It’s just being a decent human being and respecting other peoples’ boundaries.

The post is not the worst take-down of feminism I’ve ever read, or even the worst written by a woman (MRA sites enjoy waving around posts by women who, it seems, hate other women, or at the very least hate feminist women). So why did it bother me?

It bothered me because Ms. Kennedy-Kline is obviously not some wingnut, and it’s distressing that a rational, loving parent can believe such silly things about a movement that, as Alyssa Rose points out, can only benefit boys and men as it improves the lives of girls and women. Her argument is not only misguided (because she’s arguing against something that doesn’t really exist)–it’s harmful. The more feminism is painted as something a “normal” parent, or a woman who loves her sons or husband, could not, in good conscience, ascribe to, the more these completely false myths equating feminism with hating, harming, or revoking the rights of men are perpetuated. And when people believe these myths they stop believing in the things feminism really stands for, like equal pay, and the rights of people to have their physical boundaries respected, and the rights of both women and men to be whoever they want to be, regardless of whether their identity is traditionally considered the purview of one gender or the other.

I hate repeating this, but I feel I have to: FEMINISM IS NOT MISANDRY. Just like being Christian doesn’t automatically mean you’re a member of the hate-mongering Westboro Baptist Church, being a feminist does NOT mean you ascribe to the views of those extreme but rare persons who DO hate men and use the feminist label as their justification (my dear friend, performance artist Frankie Vandellous, has written a beautiful post about some of the various, and even the harmful, interpretations of feminism that are out there). Just as the Westboro Baptist Church does not speak for Christians (and cant’ really, considering they seem to have completely missed that “love thy neighbour” bit), misandrists do not speak for feminists.

Contrary to the belief of many, feminism doesn’t mean you have to “tow the line” either. I don’t expect Ms. Kennedy-Kline to be a feminist just because she’s a woman. I don’t expect people who believe in equal pay and equal rights to control over one’s own body to call themselves feminists if they don’t want to. And I don’t expect every woman to want what I want. But that doesn’t make smearing feminism appropriate, and it doesn’t mean that women who don’t want certain rights for themselves have the right to prevent me, or any other woman, from accessing these rights, nor do these women have the right to tell their sons, or anyone else, that certain behaviours are appropriate only for certain genders.

As feminists (and other like-minded people) work hard to change perceptions about gender and about what is and isn’t appropriate for human beings living together in a society, there will be, as Kennedy-Kline’s post makes clear, some discomfort. It’s awkward to have to change the way you’ve always treated or spoken to/about certain people. It’s uncomfortable when familiar tropes are demonstrated to be false or hurtful (I’m sure many folks in past generations were a little confused when racial slurs became not okay anymore). You know you’re not trying to be hurtful with your choice of words/actions/opinions, and you’re not out there assaulting anyone, so what’s the big damn deal? Isn’t everything fine the way it is?

Well, it may be fine for you, but when 1 in 4 North American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, it’s obvious that things are NOT fine for a LOT of people. Just because I personally haven’t been raped (and hopefully never will be), that doesn’t mean I should prevent rape victims from seeking justice, or should willfully perpetuate rape culture.

When you say, “I think things are fine the way they are,” what you’re really saying is, “It’s never happened to me, so I’ve chosen not to care about it.”

When you say, “Why should I have to experience change just because SOME people don’t like the way things are working?” you’re really saying, “Being comfortable is more important to me than the physical and emotional pain experienced by a very large number of people.”

And when you go out of your way to say, “I can’t (and won’t) support feminism,” you are saying, “It’s okay with me that half of the population have less rights than the other half.”

If you don’t want to be a feminist that is 100% your choice. But please, PLEASE, don’t actively work against feminism by spreading false perceptions about it. Humanity has nothing, absolutely NOTHING to lose by the success of feminism. The only “rights” which could be lost by men would be the ones they never actually legally had in the first place (like the right to touch another person without their permission, or the right to make more money than someone else doing the same job). Feminism is inclusive, egalitarian, and ultimately freeing. Isn’t that the kind of environment a parent would want for their children?

I want to write about the Mountain

/ Lauren / 3 Comments

I tried to write about Burnaby Mountain this week, and the profiteering oil company Kinder Morgan, and the undemocratic and unscrupulous National Energy Board (who are really just a front for our unscrupulous and undemocratic federal government), and the courageous City of Burnaby who is doing what it can to fight both KM and the NEB (though losing as well–the company was granted the right to cut down trees and test drill in the Burnaby Mountain conservation area in defiance of Burnaby’s bylaws and the NEB and the courts have decided Burnaby does not have the jurisdiction to decide what happens in its own public parks). I wanted to write about the protestors and defenders of the environment, and First Nations rights, and justice, and democracy, who have been, in large and small numbers, on the Mountain since September, who have been so brave. I wanted to write about the people, old and young, First Nations and settler, rich and poor, who have willingly crossed the police line that marks the KM drill sites to be arrested. I want to write about how beautiful it is to calmly declare that you understand you will be arrested, and to cross a line, walk towards the RCMP on the other side, and be (sometimes gently) received into the shackles of a law that, I’m sure, many of the officers themselves don’t even agree with.

I want to write about Monday afternoon–my day on the Mountain in the mud, my day meeting (fellow) protestors, and chatting with the RCMP, and explaining what I believe, and listening to others explain what they believe, and simply standing in front of a yellow line, knowing that the people on the other side are different because they are in a uniform, but really not so different beneath, and knowing that behind them, partially out of sight, is a Kinder Morgan work crew, and knowing that the people on that work crew are different because they are doing something that is wrong, but really not so different underneath their jobs, and not knowing what to do with that information.

I wanted to write about discussing with my husband before I went up that day whether or not I should be purposefully arrested because perhaps the charge would not be so bad and perhaps it was the right thing to do. I wanted to write about the fact that this is the first time I have EVER thought that perhaps being arrested might be something I could do, and that I think that says something about how important this fight is. I wanted to write about the young man I walked up the mountain with, who asked me why I wouldn’t cross the line and “add to the numbers”. I wanted to write about telling him that maybe I was just more selfish. And that I wasn’t ready. And knowing that I’m not.

I wanted to write about the calm that descended on me as I stood on the Mountain. I wanted to write about the rain, and the umbrella someone lent me while he helped make a wooden track alongside the road (which had been blocked off by the RCMP) to help the protestors through the mud. I wanted to write about knowing that I was where I should be, and what it feels like to know you are on the right side of history.

I wanted to write about how it feels to know you are standing on the right side of history, but to know also that you might not win. I wanted to write about how unwilling I was to be angry, even when the shouting started. I wanted to write about how I just wanted to be a pair of eyes in a face. I wanted my gaze to help wedge someone’s spirit open, help them see that the world is worth saving, help them to be brave enough to NOT drill into a mountain even though it’s their job.

I wanted to write about how lonely but not lonely I was, by myself but surrounded by strangers who were allowing me to put my heart with theirs. I wanted to write about when the cold finally seeped into my bones, and I returned the borrowed umbrella, and said thank you, and walked down the mountain alone, and rode the bus alone, and watched my sodden mittens soak the lap of my jeans.

I wanted to write about how heavy I have felt since. So heavy I could not write this. So heavy because so many people, and so many organizations, can speak to what’s happening so much better than I can. So heavy because I’ve really been just a pair of eyes from the very beginning, following the story on the Internet, reading everything I could read, forgetting where I found it. A pair of eyes whose legs finally walked me up the Mountain, but could not walk me across the line.

So heavy because I just wanted to reach across the yellow tape, to the officers in their heavy vests and heavy boots, and touch them on the shoulder, and say “You are not a robot.”

So heavy because I wanted to thank everyone, wanted to tell them really and truly from the bottom of my heart how good they were to be there, but I couldn’t, because I was just eyes that day and a very quiet tongue. And the rain was so heavy, and so cold, and they said there was a fire and I could go warm up, but I didn’t feel deserving, and my feet that would not cross the line were rooted to a spot in the rain.

And so heavy because I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it will be so important, and everyday the world is so beautiful, and it’s starting to look like sunset now, and how do you write about that?

Burnaby Mountain police line