Have not looked further afield in the world, but it would seem so in Canada and the USA at least, from both sides of the political spectrum and indeed appears to be starting now in society at large.
Perhaps this thread can document some of the ongoing actions against women's safety and established human rights that are occuring.
As a stand alone action, this may not have appeared to have been an attack against specifically women, but given the similar one of last evening, in the same city indicates clearly that it was.
In this the lead up to Dec 6th activities, it seems particularily ominous.
Has the the destruction of the Status of Women Ministry indicated to some, that women can be clear targets of oppression and hate again without society caring?
Fire at women’s shelter kills resident, 61
OTTAWA — A 61-year-old woman is dead after a fire in a women’s shelter in downtown Ottawa Sunday night.The fire broke out in a second-floor apartment at 515 MacLaren St. at about 10 p.m. Firefighters freed the resident, but she was declared dead at the scene.
J.P. Trottier, spokesman with Ottawa paramedics, said the woman suffered burns to 80 per cent of her body. She died soon after paramedics began to treat her, he said.
The woman’s name has not been released.
About 33 firefighters responded to the blaze, which Platoon Chief Dennis Gobey said was confined to the apartment.
How is this specifically attacking women?
In the previous fire a 45 year old man died...
I think you're trying to create something that is not there.
Maybe it was just a fire, they happen. Especially where elderly and children are in the mix.
Now of course the article says they are trying to confirm, as because they too I am sure understand the implications of 2 blazes in Ottawa targeting women....but words like "molotov cocktail" do not get thrown around without some fire going on.
Indeed later reports on the BC news have stated it is obvious that an accelerant was used.
Fire investigators are trying to confirm that a blaze that gutted an all-female rooming house in Ottawa late Saturday night was deliberately set.Fire officials said it was lucky no one was injured in the fire that engulfed the ground floor of the 19-room facility. Women ran from the building wearing nothing but pyjamas and bathrobes, some with nothing on their feet.
Investigators sifted through the ground floor to confirm reports that a Molotov cocktail had been thrown into the residence, home to 17 tenants, including many international students at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University.
Remind, I thought exactly what you did when I saw this news report yesterday. It's the second suspicious fire to affect a women's residence within a week. Maybe those "just happen" - but [b]I don't think so[/b]:
[url=http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/local/article/370234--women-s-rooming-hou...'s rooming house struck by suspicious fire[/color][/url]
Ottawa police are inspecting the scene of a fire in a downtown rooming house for women after reports that a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the first-floor window around 11:39 p.m. Saturday.[...]
The building is a rooming house for around 20 women. Most of them are new to Canada and looking for short-term accommodations.
[...]
This is the second fire to affect a women’s residence in a week. Firefighters continue to investigate a fire at Cornerstone women’s shelter on MacLaren Street that killed a 61-year-old woman last Sunday.
"SparkyOne" sounds like an odd nickname in the context of these stories...
In the larger political context we have this recent action of Obama's, and the formerly reported here reality of the defunding of women's shelters and programs for victim's of violence, to consider as well...
It is bewildering that Barack Obama sacrificed women's rights and health in a vain attempt to woo Republican ideologues.....You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidised health insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and pro-choice women should shut up and take one for the team.
"If you want to rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon "cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter, Representative Stupak and your 64 Democratic supporters, Jim Wallis and other anti-choice "progressive" Christians, men: Why don't you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?
For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth-hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak becomes part of the final bill.
Barak Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination's tax exemption. The Catholic church would be a good place to start, and it wouldn't even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions.
Why should anti-choicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don't want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women's abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don't want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.
Women Democrats have taken an awful lot of hits for the team lately. Many of us didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary because the goal of electing a woman seemed less important than the goal of electing the best possible president. Only a self-hater or a featherhead didn't feel some pain about that. And although women are hardly alone in this, we've seen some pretty big hopes set aside in the first year of the Obama administration.
The Paycheque Fairness Act, which would expand women's protections against sexism in the workplace, is on the back burner. Meanwhile, the Office of Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships is not only alive and well. It's newly staffed with anti-choicers like Alexia Kelley of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, which, as Frances Kissling notes in Salon, has compared abortion to torture.
I know what you're thinking: conservative Democrats like Stupak took Republican districts to win us both houses of Congress. Thanks a lot, Howard Dean, whose bright idea it was to recruit them. But those majorities would not be there, and Obama would not be in the White House, if not for pro-choice women and men - their votes, talent, money, organisational capacity and shoe leather.
We knocked ourselves out, and it wasn't so that religious reactionaries like Stupak - who, as Jeff Sharlet writes in Salon, is a member of the Family, the secretive rightwing Christian-supremacist congressional coven - would control both parties. Elections have consequences, you say? Exactly: Obama, the pro-choice, pro-woman candidate, won. Stupak didn't put him in the White House, and neither did the Catholic bishops or the white anti-feminist welfare staters of Beinart's imagination.
We did. And we deserve better from Obama than sound bites like "this is a healthcare bill, not an abortion bill. " Abortion is healthcare. That's the whole point.
Though the following incidence could at first glance considered to be of a lesser note than the occurances above, but in truth it has very far reaching and strong social commentary on the status of women in society, it clearly indicates women as being less than men.
These young women, as like so many of my daughter's age and younger who erroneously believe that society is now equal, and all things have been achieved...and that nothing could be eroded, have indeed received a huge wake up call through this action by the courts and VANOC/IOC.
One wonders what the final result of this would will be, as opposed to what it should be....
Women skiers who had hoped the B.C. Court of Appeal would breathe life into their dreams to jump in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics were left in tears and rage Friday after the court quickly dismissed a case they had brought against the Vancouver Organizing Committee.In a one-sentence oral ruling in which they said written reasons would follow next week, Justices Anne Rowles, David Frankel and Harvey Groberman simply said they were dismissing the women's appeal of a lower-court ruling that found while the International Olympic Committee had discriminated against them, VANOC wasn't obligated to hold a competition for them.
OOps missed that.
At a time when domestic violence facts are shocking -- 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime, among other distressing statistics put out by the Domestic Violence Resource Center -- and many insurers are excluding domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, understanding domestic violence is crucial. Domestic violence is on the rise
....Initiatives such as Violence UnSilenced -- with its mission to shed light on the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault by providing online space for survivors and victims to connect, reach out and help one another as well as guidance for how to get help -- are important efforts to give women a voice, help them feel less alone, and get safe access to help and support.
Maggie, the founder and moderator of the Violence UnSilenced project, offered some insight and perspective in an interview about domestic violence and the awareness month.
Even environmentalists want to get in on the exploit women action that is so acceptable nowadays, it seems.
Bill McKibben wants to have supermodels strip to help broadcast his message to stop global warming. He hopes to offend some folks so they will help spread the word. We'd like to ask Mr. Bill McKibben strip off his clothes on camera next to his intellectual cronies who join him wiggling and giggling as they strip, like the models do. This sort of stunt by a known environmentalist could have just as easily gone viral but Bill McKibben chose to exploit women in his plight to save the earth. Wake up McKibben, you needn't stoop so low. Consider letting him know he should not have to exploit anyone to help save the earth. His email is: [email protected]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdz555JBIwY
http://mediawatch.com/welcome.html
exploit? for 6 years an annual fund raising event called dancers for cancer has donated money to the cause to end breast cancer...the exotic dancers donate their services and the club owners donate the money they would have normaly spent on wages for the dancers. why is it automatically exploitation is a sex industry related activity is taking place in support of a cause...
sex industry workers are socially and environmentally conscious, why would you assume they were being exploited?isn't it possible that they chose to take part and believe in the cause? your statement is like an attack against women, sex working women in that you assume exploitation instead of conceiving the possibilty that sex industry workers are politically aware contributers to society who actively take part in the causes they believe in.
i think this is in conflict with the title of the thread.
So you are now calling super models sex workers?
Unless I missed something, it seems the first fire, that claimed the life of a 61 year old woman was undetermined-- investigators were brought in because of a death, not because there were immediate suspicions of arson.
Be that as it may, it doesn't make the second fire any less disturbing in my mind.
London's had a bad year for fires. One fire official said on the news what I was thinking: Some buildings were being torched for insurance, due to the bad economy; some are accidental fires set by homeless people trying to stay warm in abandoned buildings; and it's likely that some have been set by a serial arsonist. But telling them apart is difficult, if not impossible.
But a molotov cocktail says something else entirely.
It's funny how sex industry worker finds it's way into so many threads lately.
So you are now calling super models sex workers?
yes....i guess so...in your reference they were "stripping" and you found that exploitative.
i guess the sex industry is everywhere and so will find it's way into all kinds of areas.
There is an informative diary on Daily Kos today with stats and graph:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/16/804876/-SheKos:-Death-by-in...
Here in Portland, Oregon, area residents have been rocked by a pair of grim tragedies. Last Tuesday, Rob Beiser of suburban Gladstone pulled up to the Tualatin office where his estranged wife Teresa worked and shot her numerous times. After killing her and wounding two of her co-workers, he turned the gun on himself.
Two days later, the bodies of a family of three in Bethany, another suburban-Portland community, were discovered inside their home. It was determined that the husband, Mukesh Suther had shot his wife Varsha and their nine-year-old son, Ronak.
As genuinely shocking as events like this are, there is also a certainly feeling of familiarity when one learns that the perpetrator was the husband, or the boyfriend, or the ex. In my workplace (very near where the first incident took place), before we had any details about who had been shot and who had done the shooting, we were all concerned and horrified. Once we found out that the person responsible was married to one of the shooting victims, our horror was partially replaced with a kind of sad but familiar resignation, as though it was something we probably should have guessed.
Even as I noticed this, however, I wondered - Is that feeling of "oh, no, not again" really justified? Are we perhaps perpetuating an unfair stereotype when we think in such terms? I mean, I know it seems like I hear about men killing their wives, girlfriends, and ex-wives far more often than the other way around, but is that perhaps media spin distorting reality, as with the obsession with the "missing white woman" to the exclusion of coverage other equally or more urgent cases involving women of color? Is the prominent coverage of men killing their female partners really an accurate presentation of reality?
So I did a little research and found that it indeed is accurate. Very definitely, and quite sadly, accurate.
interesting read, thanks for posting wage zombie!
...the exotic dancers donate their services and the club owners donate the money they would have normaly spent on wages for the dancers.
So, basically, it's the exotic dancers making the contribution to charity. All the (presumably male) club owners are doing is getting free publicity. Sounds exploitative to me.
Well if its exploitative, its commonplace since mainstream companies do the same for charity like CIBC for the cancer walk.
But a molotov cocktail says something else entirely.
Yes, it is, and they are being all silent about it today, as they understand the implications too....
Well if its exploitative, its commonplace since mainstream companies do the same for charity like CIBC for the cancer walk.
CIBC scoops their workers' salaries and donates the money to charity?
Well the bar owners only do it for the girls that agree. And the CIBC does have a thing where their employees contribute overtime to set things up and do not get paid so yeah
Well, that's mighty big of those business owners, I must say.
I agree, anything that gets money to a desperate charity is good
I should point out theres quite a bit of pressure to contribute and work for free at the CIBC. There was no such pressure at the bar I was helping with. My CIBC employee friend was a bit bitter about the pressure
2 points in another thread indicate that this action by the Canadian government should be in this thread too.
This registry is a step in the right direction of helping our police cope with domestic violence. One out of three women killed by their partners is killed with a long-gun. (Stats Canada) For a woman experiencing any form of domestic abuse, a gun in the home is an unspoken threat, a potential risk to her safety.We need to keep this registry, we need to keep tools in the hands of our police so that more women are not killed. As we come upon the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, we reflect upon what that taught us, what preventative lessons we could learn. This registry was one of those lessons, one of the steps taken to protect women. Between 1991 and 2006, the use of shotguns and rifles in homicides declined by 65% because of stricter controls (Statistics Canada 2008).
This registry isn't about farmers and red tape, it's about women's safety
I remember going down to the University of Toronto in December 1989 and standing silently, in shock, with a large group of women, many current U of T students, thinking of these women who laid down their lives just because they wanted an education.And now, on the 20th anniversary, the government wants to celebrate by revoking the very law that was brought in on account of these women, a law that helps keep women safe.
Thanks remind :)
Some stats from the Sisterhood is Global institute (they're at http://www.sigi.org/):
Women and Violence• Everyday, 6000 girls are genitally mutilated - more than 200 000 per year
(2000).
• Every year in India, 5000 brides are murdered or commit suicide because
their marriage dowries are considered inadequate. (2000)
• In the US, one in five women will be victims of rape in their lifetime. A
woman is raped every 3 minutes. 55 percent of American women report
having experienced rape and/or physical assault in their life-time. 10
women are killed by their batterers each day (1998).
• In Russia, half of all murder victims are women killed by their male
partners. (1995)
• Israel, Japan, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil, Pakistan, Peru, Argentina, Costa
Rica, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Ecuador and Tunisia each have less than 10
shelters for battered women (1995).
dancers for cancers is organized by DANCERS not club owners......it's in a different club every time....the women are the organizers...oh right ...they couldn't possibly organize somethig and donate money of their own free will. you people have to make everything we do exploitative....it is a worker created event. clear now?
dancers for cancers is organized by DANCERS not club owners......it's in a different club every time....the women are the organizers...oh right ...they couldn't possibly organize somethig and donate money of their own free will. you people have to make everything we do exploitative....it is a worker created event. clear now?
Here's what you said, Susan:
...the exotic dancers donate their services and the club owners donate the money they would have normaly spent on wages for the dancers.
It was the "and the club owners donate the money" bit that caught my eye.
Clear now?
Hostile much G.Pie?
Hostile much G.Pie?
Interesting that my exact duplication of Susan's phrasing "Clear now?" leads you to believe that I (but not Susan, of course) was being hostile.
the donation of dancers wages was negotiated- as a term of a club being priveledged enough to host the event- by the dancers. it is a prerequisite, the dancers are in full control of the event and in spite of your "opinion" or perseption it is extremely empowering for them and they love the event it brings them together as a community, it respects a member of their community who died from breat cancer and it is completely run by, designed by, directed by, promoted by, controlled by the dancers themselves.
negotiated by the dancers......club owners are not involved in decisions around the event but instead go out of their way to meet requirements in order to be awarded the hosting of this prestigous and most successful event.
Susan, I said nothing whatever negative about the dancers. Their charitable program is a wonderful thing to do and I applaud them. You are inventing negative opinions and perceptions out of whole cloth.
My point was: The club owners are actually doing fuck all to help cancer research. Why are they getting praised?
whatever......?i wasn't praising them as much as i was trying make a point that sex industry workers are socially conscious and what is the difference is super models get naked for charity? wy is it automatically deemed exploitative for women to get naked for charity? why can't these women decide for them selves if they feel exploited rather thhat us assuming so just because nudity and women are involved......
it's always nice when you try to make it about something it wasn't- ie club owners....who cares...the point is the choices of women....
Susan, you were the one who praised the club owners, not me.
exploit? for 6 years an annual fund raising event called dancers for cancer has donated money to the cause to end breast cancer...the exotic dancers donate their services and the club owners donate the money they would have normaly spent on wages for the dancers. why is it automatically exploitation is a sex industry related activity is taking place in support of a cause...
sex industry workers are socially and environmentally conscious, why would you assume they were being exploited?isn't it possible that they chose to take part and believe in the cause? your statement is like an attack against women, sex working women in that you assume exploitation instead of conceiving the possibilty that sex industry workers are politically aware contributers to society who actively take part in the causes they believe in.
...the exotic dancers donate their services and the club owners donate the money they would have normaly spent on wages for the dancers.So, basically, it's the exotic dancers making the contribution to charity. All the (presumably male) club owners are doing is getting free publicity. Sounds exploitative to me.
Susan, I said nothing whatever negative about the dancers. Their charitable program is a wonderful thing to do and I applaud them. You are inventing negative opinions and perceptions out of whole cloth.
My point was: The club owners are actually doing fuck all to help cancer research. Why are they getting praised?
I don't see anyone praising the owners anywhere in this thread. You said nothing positive about the dancers leaving a deliberately negative impression of the event as exploitive of women. You wove the cloth with your negative opinions and perceptions.
No, what I think is exploitative is that the dancers are making this generous donation but they're sharing accolades with the club owners who do nothing. I'd thank you not to presume to know my opinions or perceptions.
You have again stated your opinion and perception that this was an exploitive event because of "accolades" for club owners. I presumed nothing.
Neither Susan nor anyone else gave any accolades to the club owner. She described the events dynamics and you said it was exploitive because the club owners "get all the praise." I have heard of the event and I have never heard the club owners being praised and I looked carefully through this thread and have seen nothing that praised the owners so IMO we are left with you calling this event exploitive with no foundation for that claim.
Susan gave them equal billing when she first mentioned them in this thread.
I hereby withdraw from this ridiculous argument over such a picayune matter.
Girls face alarming rates of violence
Two recent studies carried out in Ontario schools, one conducted by Toronto’s School Community Safety Advisory Panel and the other by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), found that sexual harassment and sexual assault of girls are occurring at alarming rates. The Panel stressed that the problem requires immediate attention.
Following up on the Panel’s report, the Toronto Star ran an article on discussions with girls from five Toronto high schools. They reported being subjected to a barrage of hateful comments – girls are routinely called skank, ho (whore) and slut -- as well as being grabbed on the breast or backside “at any time in the halls”. One 14-year-old student said, “You hear stuff like ‘What’s up, bitch?’ and ‘Hey, ho’ every other second”. Dr. David Wolfe of the CAMH warns that, “All these behaviours, from physical violence to verbal harassment, can be harmful and have serious effects on their well-being.”
We haven't come a long way, baby: exclusion of women from Canada's Criminal Code hate propaganda law
that's terrible. there should be classes about respectful behaiour in schools.
(Thank you for the link, remind. Have been looking for sites like this)
So where do our boys get these attitudes ?
Here is one source.
Much Music, owned by CTVglobemedia.
I am looking for their complaint department.
A Video I am watching right now !
Not an exact quote ,but the last word is clear.
"like a girl you've never seen before...nothin like the neighbourhood whore"
Ladies and Gents this is prime time pop culture.
http://www.thefreeradical.ca/MUSIC1.htm
http://www.thefreeradical.ca/Gangsta_rap_feeds_sexual_violence_in_Toronto_schools.htm
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/parents/music/inappropriate/negative_effects_music.cfm
Edit to add this link. http://www.cbsc.ca/english/complaint/
Here's a quote Slumberjack posted in this thread:
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/anti-racism-news-and-initiatives/hatred-and-ignorance-hip-hop
"Janel Hobson, assistant professor in Women's Studies at State University of New York, Albany, says the misogynistic images in rap videos are found in country, rock and heavy metal music videos, too." "I think it's a dicey argument when you start to blame rap music. This marketing of violence and misogyny is reinforced in mainstream society, not just in rap music," said Hobson, who teaches a course titled Black Bodies, Blonde Ambitions, Global Trends: Women and the Media. "We have to be careful not to condemn rap as the only culprit; that just isn't true."
Your welcome thank you for your links, am going to look through them
I love the blues but there are certainly many misogynists in the genre. But then Spike TV is considered part of the MSM. How detrimental to respect for women are most of their programs. Unfortunately I see many young women who accept this cultural misogyny as normal, maybe even more so in the last ten years than in the past.
Let's see, what's on today.
(Much More) Wild'N Out (comedy ???) 5 pm
Content warning, "not suitable for younger audiences"
Interesting that the censors chose to blur the, jumper cable to crotch, moment.
Why ? no kids watching right ?
Acceptable joke sample "what does the women do that just got out of the battered womens shelter....the dishes"
Of course its all in good fun.
Well it's not all bad at MM. Need to hear more from the likes of
Beyonce "If I was a boy" aired at 8:50
Am I on a anti MM crusade.....maybe Yes, until they stop airing "not suitable for younger audiences" after the kiddies come home from school !
AND their censors read the following:
Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Equitable Portrayal Code
"Equality of the sexes must be recognized and reinforced through the proper use of language and terminology. Broadcasters shall employ language of a non-sexist nature in their programming, by avoiding, whenever possible, expressions which relate to only one gender."
http://www.cbsc.ca/english/codes/epc.php
Yeah, I haven't had cable for years and stuff like this just confirms my decision. That's awful, rework.
They are under attack because I believe women can make this world work. Pie in the sky but eehhh?
Yes, women can make the world work, but we aren't doing a very good job, are we. The mostly white North American and Western European women who, comparatively, occupy positions of relative freedom and and enormous privilege, are too busy hair-pulling and name-calling to address the most important issues at hand.
Sineed brought out some very important stats about women's experience in Eastern Europe, South Asia and Africa. These were ignored in favour of yet another derailment to sex trade work. Enough already. If we can't see the broader picture because we're too busy eating our young, it's no wonder we're floundering.
I'm not suggesting that we, the privileged, shouldn't stand vigilant and be outspoken about violence against women in our own backyards - quite the contrary. But if we don't analyse the divide-and-conquer strategies set forth by the male-dominant mainstream corporate culture, the bombardment of self-hating propaganda that has us at each others' throats from childhood onward, we'll continue to flounder, to be cramped by our experience of personal pain and fail to gain strength through solidarity.
We can't deal with attacks against women until we stop attacking each other.
Woo hoo!!
At the risk of being boring, more stats:
Statistics paint a horrifying picture of the social and health consequences of violence against women. For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability [2]. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data about ten selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria [3]. Moreover, several studies have revealed increasing links between violence against women and HIV/AIDS. Women who have experienced violence are at a higher risk of HIV infection: a survey among 1,366 South African women showed that women who were beaten by their partners were 48 percent more likely to be infected with HIV than those who were not [4].
Read more here:
http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/violence_against_women/facts_figures...
According to Unifem, violence against women is the most pervasive human rights' violation in the world; that studies show 1 in 3 women worldwide have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused. The problem is we haven't enough power - we are under-represented in governments, comprising 18.4% of seats in national parliaments.
Any women here thinking of running for office? I wouldn't personally; my diplomatic skills are nascent at best. But some politer babbler women may have political aspirations they haven't exercised.
Anybody?
We need you. All of you. Unite. Fuck the sausage fest @ babble.
