Jarrah Hodge2013-05-24T18:51:11-04:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=jarrah-hodgeCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Jarrah HodgeGood old fashioned elbow grease.Where Is The Love In Social Struggle?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31933372013-05-02T12:51:08-04:002013-05-02T13:40:11-04:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/
When B.C. filmmaker Velcrow Ripper started making "Occupy Love" in 2009, some of his activist friends weren't sure what to make of his questions. How can the crises we're facing socially, economically and environmentally become - of all things - a love story?
"Occupy Love" is the culmination of twelve-years spent filming social movements for his Fierce Love trilogy (it's the third installment, after "Scared Sacred" and "Fierce Light"), but Velcrow Ripper's involvement with social activism started even before that.
Growing up in Gibsons, B.C., in high school Ripper became involved with local environmental campaigns protesting the spraying of DDT, and worked to establish a student-run broadcast cable channel that still exists today. In 1995 he filmed and participated in the environmental protests at Clayoquot Sound and he says the fact that he grew up in a province with such a vibrant environmental movement shapes what he does today. It's certainly a part of this trilogy.
Despite the initial confusion on the love story question, Ripper continued filming social movements from the Arab Spring to the European Summer, Occupy Wall Street and environmental movements. And he started seeing a shift, with more and more people responding: "Of course it's a love story."
What that means is that the social movements emerging in response to these crises are becoming a movement of movements, joining in interdependence and interconnectedness.
I asked Velcrow Ripper about the way we see these kinds of movements represented in the mainstream media, about how if you're not actually involved on the ground you might think some of the movements are no longer active. Ripper replied:
"I think the mainstream media doesn't understand social movements, they don't understand the interconnections between movements. They think in terms of news cycles and they only respond to spectacles...They see things in isolation, which is a real problem in Western society in general...it's only when movements really have this full bloom moment that they get noticed but movements don't stay in that mode all the time."
He noted there are so many things happening outside of just demonstrating on the street, such as developing local food production or alternative energy, that are an integral part of building social change.
I also wanted to know what he, as someone who's spent more than a decade involved in social movements, thinks about the common belief that young people -- at least in the West -- just don't care about issues or political involvement. While he stressed that one of the most important things about the movement of movements is that it's open to everyone regardless of age, he thinks young people are playing an important role, and he mentioned in particular the energy First Nations youth have shown taking part in Idle No More.
"I think there's been a shift in the new generation that's coming up, the youth of today. I think the time of the slacker is over and the new generation is solution-oriented. They are inheriting a world that's been messed up by greed and they want to reclaim that world. Rolling Stone Magazine said the Occupy Movement was a generation going on strike against its own culture. I have a tremendous amount of hope for the generation that's coming up."
One of the most interesting things about the way Fierce Love Films is rolling out the project, is that they've made it available to the community before movie theatres, when usually it's the other way around. Ripper connected this approach to his practices of spiritual activism, where the process is important and not just what you achieve:
"In Brazil there was an outdoor screening with 1500 people watching it for free at night. It's really important because it's a movie about communities and moving out of our isolation and our selfishness into a world of interdependence and interconnection, which is what I mean when I say love."
They've made it really easy for practically anyone to host a community screening. Over 200 screenings have happened or are being organized in more than 25 countries. Iin the next week there will be (just in Canada) screenings in Prince Rupert and Harrison Mills, B.C.; Bathurst, New Brunswick and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The theatrical tour starts May 3 and along with that they're also launching a new mobile app called Found Love. The app will let users upload photos of hearts they see around their communities (in the film Ripper uses his phone to take pictures of all the heart-related graffiti he sees wherever he goes) and the pictures will be collected into a map to show that love and the desire for change is all around.
]]>Putting Off Pap Tests 'Isn't Worth The Risk': Cervical Cancer Survivortag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19924732012-10-22T14:13:46-04:002012-12-22T05:12:01-05:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/Pap Awareness Week runs Oct. 22 to 28 and Nanaimo resident Shawnna Taylor is taking the opportunity to remind all B.C. women to get a Pap test when they need it.
Taylor, 30, learned the importance of Pap testing the hard way. When she was 28, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer after having gone seven years without a Pap test.
"I knew that I was supposed to go get them but it was never really pushed to me why it was so important except for STDs, and I was with my husband so I never worried about that," said Taylor. At the time she thought the idea of the procedure and talking about sexual health was embarrassing.
It turns out that others in her family shared that difficulty discussing it. After she was diagnosed, Taylor found out five people in her family had had cervical cancer but nobody had told her.
"My great-aunt, who I'm quite close with, had had a hysterectomy because she had cervical cancer," Taylor said. "And when I asked my family they said, 'Oh, it's one of those cancers, so we don't talk about it.' That's when I knew I had to do something. This shouldn't be 'one of those cancers.'"
Unfortunately, by the time Taylor's cancer was discovered, the inoperable kiwifruit-sized tumour required aggressive treatment. They initially hoped to avoid treatment that would allow Taylor to still have children but things progressed from bad to worse.
"I started to hemorrhage and it was the tumour that was hemorrhaging. It was my husband and I in the ER on our five-year anniversary with me trying not to bleed to death," Taylor described.
Taylor also recalled the difficulty of going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments, including internal radiation.
"I lost eight pounds in a week, I couldn't keep anything down. They finally did get the meds sorted out to make me feel okay compared to what I had been feeling, and then the radiation effects started to kick in. I couldn't leave the bathroom and I was exhausted," she said.
Internal radiation left her violently ill from the combination of sedatives and pain medication that she felt didn't even really touch the pain.
At one point Taylor was in Vancouver for a medial appointment and she and her mother were in Chinatown when she saw a pamphlet for Pap Awareness Week, run by the LACE Campaign (which stands for Live Aware, Create Empowerment), funded by the B.C. Cancer Agency.
"I grabbed it and thought, 'Too bad this wasn't around before'," she said.
Now that Taylor is out of treatment she's getting more involved with LACE and using her experience to tell other women about Pap Awareness Week and the general importance of regular Pap testing. She says she's heard from a lot of women who don't know you need to go even if you're in a monogamous relationship, or who postpone it because they think it's uncomfortable or embarrassing. Many were surprised like she was, that you could get cervical cancer at such a relatively young age.
"I want people to learn about what I went through because it was a stupid mistake and there are days when I kick myself for not going. It's the past and I can't change it but I can help others go get tested. It's only five minutes and it's uncomfortable but not nearly as uncomfortable as what you go through with cancer," she says.
Dr. Dirk van Niekerk, medical leader for the B.C. Cancer Agency's Cervical Cancer Screening Program says:"
While British Columbia's cervical cancer screening participation rate exceeds the national target of 70 per cent, there are some age groups and areas of the province where rates are significantly lower than the target. It is critical that all women be aware that a Pap test is an excellent way to prevent cervical cancer, and the only way to detect abnormal cells in the cervix which, if left untreated, could develop into cancer."
The agency recommends that women start getting Pap tests at age 21. After three annual normal Pap tests, women will be advised to have a Pap test every two years until age 69.
"I think it's genius because so many people don't have a family doctor so they don't get them. I think the option for people to get it done even when they don't have a doctor or their lives don't conform in the regular doctor schedule is a great, great thing," she explains.
She was particularly enthusiastic about an initiative spearheaded by a group of woman residents in Obstetrics & Gynecology to establish a Rapid Access Gynecology Clinic for Paps at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) all through the awareness week. Dr. Nicole Todd, a 5th-year resident and key organizer, is calling the event a series of "Pappy Hours."
Taylor is on the road to recovery but the side effects of the treatment are still with her months later and she hasn't been able to return to her work as a landscaper. She has damage to her hip, bladder, and bowel from the radiation and is so exhausted that she sleeps 12-14 hours per day.
She hopes talking about what she's gone through will help other women realize that they can't afford to put off their Paps. She says given what she's learned, if she hears from someone who thinks they can delay the test she'd say: "Don't. Go to the doctor right now. It's not worth the risk, it's not a waste of time, it's definitely worth it."]]>Calling It 'Bullying' Doesn't Do Amanda Todd Justicetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19643372012-10-13T22:34:43-04:002012-12-13T05:12:01-05:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/
But calling it "bullying" or even "cyberbullying" doesn't do it justice. "Bullying" erases specific social factors and makes it seem like something that you age out of. Adding the "cyber" prefix doesn't necessarily make it more accurate. Technology was a catalyst, but webcams, cellphones, and the Internet aren't the key to understanding what happened to Amanda; systemic sexism is.
Girls in North America are under incredible pressure and subject to conflicting messages. On the one hand you're told to protect your purity in order to maintain your reputation. On the other hand, practically all the role models around you in the media -- in romantic comedies, advertising, even Disney movies- - are telling you that your worth is based on your desirability. You get the message that you are nothing without a boyfriend.
Danielle Paradis at Flurt! sums it up like this: "The prevalent culture around her sends mixed messages, such as take your clothes off to get the affection you desire, but don't do it in the wrong way or with the wrong people or you'll be seen as a dirty, worthless whore."
The men Todd met online told her she was "stunning" and "beautiful". That's why I have a hard time seeing Amanda and others talk about what she did as "mistakes" -- because it's so understandable given the context.
As Krissy Darch wrote in her outstanding piece on this issue, "In a context in which women are told in manifold ways that everything about them is wrong -- their emotions, their bodies, their fat, their lack of fat, their developing, their aging--when someone comes along and tells you that you are perfect and beautiful, that's some powerful stuff.
Meanwhile, boys are generally taught that there's no need to respect women and that one way to prove your masculinity is through sexual conquest of women (this is also tied in with homophobia as men police each others' masculinity with pressure to "prove" they're not gay).
The gendered pressures and expectations put on boys and girls are a system of systemic sexism in which kids like Amanda are collateral damage.
Blog continues after gallery
We saw a similar situation with 13-year-old Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being attacked on MySpace by a former friend posing as a boy. The night she died, Meier told her parents about some of what was happening:
"They are posting bulletins about me. 'Megan Meier is a slut', 'Megan Meier is fat,'" she explained, in tears.
Likewise, in May, 13-year-old Minnesotan Rachel Ehmke also took her own life after months of harassment. She had never even kissed a boy, but she was repeatedly called a "prostitute" by a group of girls and having the word "slut" scrawled across her gym locker.
Many girls like Rachel, Megan and Amanda are stuck in a lose-lose situation: either you're a loser because you can't get a boyfriend or you're a "slut," though as Rachel proves, this label can be attached to you regardless of how you dress or behave. If you're a "slut" you're expected to feel dirty, guilty, inferior, damaged, and not worthy of respect or love.
If you have never been called a slut, try to imagine what it would be like if you were 15 and were convinced to feel this way. As someone who experienced that, I can tell you that I am still trying to fully shake the insecurity more than a decade later.
Instead of calling it bullying, which brings to mind "kids being kids," we can call it sexual harassment, or we can call it technology-facilitated slut-shaming.
But no matter what, if we don't take seriously the systemic gender inequality underlying these cases, if we don't teach boys to respect girls and girls to respect themselves, there will continue to be girls who slip through the cracks.]]>Leggo My Leggings!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14602722012-04-30T12:01:03-04:002012-06-30T05:12:02-04:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/CTV the following statement:
Tights which are being worn in an inappropriate manner are not acceptable for school. If students choose to wear tights, they should have a long shirt or sweater to cover the front and backside. Yoga pants can fall into a grey area, depending on the style and manner in which they are worn. The administration will use their discretion with these cases and have the conversation with the student."
Yoga pants a grey area, people?! Yoga pants?!
I'll note Eastern Passage isn't the first school to go this route. A few schools in the U.S. have singled out leggings and yoga pants for being "immodest" or too "form-fitting" and they were also banned by an Ottawa-region Catholic school last year.
I'm generally opposed to school dress codes anyway, but two things about this really irk me.
First, it seems to be about reading adult sexuality onto girls' clothing choices. Leggings have been around since at least the 13th century and have been worn around the world by both men and women. There is nothing inherently sexual about them. If there were, they would hardly have been suitable as a piece of military clothing, which they were throughout the First and Second World Wars.
Just because when you look up "yoga pants" on YouTube you get a bunch of videos of "hot girls" in yoga pants (as I found out) doesn't mean that's why everyone chooses to wear them. Same with leggings.
And we're talking about kids who are tweens and in their early teens. I'm not naive -- I wouldn't be surprised if some girls are getting dressed up in leggings or yoga pants partly to be attractive, but to read that intent onto every girl in the school is logically questionable and kinda creepy.
And where do you draw the line? Girls are exposed to all kinds of media messages telling them their self-worth is defined by appearance. You can't possibly ban all the things a girl could possibly do in an effort to make herself more sexually attractive. If you're concerned about the pressure on girls to be sexy, you need to deal with that culture and its ideas through media literacy, not banning individual items of clothing that may or may not be manifestations.
My second big problem with the leggings ban is it places the blame onto girls for being "distracting" instead of onto those who might be getting "distracted" spending all their time ogling the girls. The school danced around the issue, saying only it was distracting "to the learning process." Karen Green at Canadian Family writes she thinks there's a subtext to what Eastern Passage is arguing: "The real answer, I think, is distracting to the boys. Possibly even the male teachers. That seems a more likely answer to me. And a much more disturbing one."
I'm inclined to agree. The fact that no comparable rules were set out for boys shows the hallmarks of that same old attitude that "boys will be boys," that they will see girls as sex objects while it's up to girls to uphold their own honour and fend off advances.
I would love to be wrong. I would love Eastern Passage to whip out some peer-reviewed study showing that leggings and yoga pants adversely affect educational outcomes. Because if that's not the case, I think it's only a small step from "if you wear yoga pants you'll distract the boys" to "if you wear a skirt you're asking to get raped."
Now the school isn't quite there yet and it has a chance to back off. They need to think about those 30 or so girls who defied the ban and ask themselves whether it's really worth pushing them even further into a culture that tells them what they wear determines how they deserve to be treated.]]>Sexism Skating on Thin Icetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11340192012-03-26T11:31:57-04:002012-03-26T12:16:44-04:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport, figure skating's gender roles are running far behind the times.
Last year's Vancouver Olympics brought the gender dynamics of figure skating to the forefront as the battle between Evan Lysacek and Evgeny Plushenko turned into a debate on whether men skating without a quad jump was "effeminate." US skater Johnny Weir was the subject of homophobic remarks by commentators. Over the years, skaters like Elvis Stojko have argued that figure skating needs to be re-branded as more masculine to appeal to boys. And organizations like Skate Canada have on occasion taken up that torch with ad campaigns.
Adams' book gives historical perspective to these issues, showing how figure skating originated as a gentleman's sport. Over time society changed, and so did the technique, rules, artistry, and demographics of figure skating, leading to it now being dominated by younger women.
"The thing about skating more than other aesthetically-judged sports is the division between presentation, and technique, and athletic qualities. The relative weight and balance of these things and what they mean for both the sport and for the people who participate in the sport has been a debate since the beginning of the 20th century. The subtext of this debate was once more about class and keeping skating exclusive. Now, it seem to be more about gender," Adams told me in an interview.
Adams points out that the very way we score skating today is based on arbitrary gender roles. In addition to obvious gender markers such as women's costumes (women skaters were forced to wear skirts in competition until recently) the women's long program is thirty seconds shorter than the men's, which has real implications in terms of the scoring. Adams continued:
"The thing that surprises me most is that these rules persist -- the spirals, the timing -- and the illogicalness of them given, say, that female pairs skaters skate longer and female dancers do manage to skate for those extra 30 seconds. The anachronisms of figure skating are stunning given what women figure skaters do now, and have done. They pretty much always do what the men have done except for one or two things -- and we then place the emphasis on those things."
This includes the quad jump: widely purported to be the ultimate goal for male skaters. Reigning world champion, Canadian Patrick Chan will be looking to hold his title this month. Until this season Chan did not have a consistent quad jump in his arsenal, but was able to make it to the top with impressive artistic expression, and incredible technique in other difficult elements. However, now that he feels he has a reliable quad himself, Adams points out his commentary has started to change to emphasize the importance of the jump.
"There is nothing in the world apart from ideas that makes jumping the most important thing in skating," Adams states," We value the athleticism more for men partly because that is seen as more a masculine way of physical expression."
Adams points out that homophobia is still a huge factor structuring figure skating and limiting figure skaters in the men's and women's competition:
"The fear of men who are feminine is huge. This is not just in skating or in sport, but in many parts of our culture. It makes so-called feminine, and expressive activities very threatening for men...We can see that binary operating in a really clear-cut way as men are expected to be the more athletic skaters and women are expected to be the most artistic skaters. For skaters who challenge those assumptions they...ruffle people's feathers."
Looking ahead, Adams believes artistic and conceptual change would greatly benefit the future of the sport.
"I think it's really important for Skate Canada and other skating organizations at the local level, coaches, etc. to be really explicit in order to emphasize that we want to be encouraging boys to express themselves in whatever way possible. It's 2012 and we should be able to say we're an organization that isn't just supportive, and safe but has an environment where gay kids can thrive," Adams says.
For the worlds title, Adams suggests that while Chan is going to be hard to beat, we should keep an eye on Japanese men's skater Daisuke Takahashi: "I like Takahashi a lot, mostly because he has so many different versions of himself on the ice. He clearly is using this as a form of self expression or artistic impression. He is his own person on the ice, which is what I like to see."
]]>Do Edgy Heart and Stroke Foundation Ads Go Too Far?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10930162011-11-17T10:46:26-05:002012-01-17T05:12:01-05:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/
That's the approach the Heart and Stroke Foundation has taken in its new "Make Death Wait" ad campaign. The TV portion of the campaign consists of two ad spots, one designed to announce the statistic that one in three people will die of heart disease, and another targeted at women to help them realize that heart disease is the number one killer of women.
The ad for women features a male voiceover that says, "I love women. I love older women, professional women..." over various images of women: a long shot of a woman by a pool, a younger woman running with her child in a stroller, an older woman dancing with her husband.
At the end of the ad, a female voice encourages us to "Make Death Wait," to donate, and lets us know the stat about women's risk for heart disease. It's an edgy ad that is likely to get noticed and provoke a variety of reactions.
My reaction was to feel unsettled. I felt the distanced visuals made the disembodied male voice sound like a stalker. One of the images on the Heart and Stroke Foundation's website reads: "Death Loves the Ladies" only reinforced the creepy feeling for me.
Courtesy of Heart and Stroke Foundation.
But I know how important the issue is, so I wanted to see what others' reactions were. I put the link to the ad up on Twitter and Facebook with no comment about my own opinion and asked people what they thought.
Turns out I wasn't the only one who found the ad off-putting. One Twitter follower said, "[It's] like they had a good idea at first (conversation about women's risk) but degenerated into awful stalker ad." She continued, "Also showed it to 2 female co-workers, neither of whom identify as strong feminists. Both hated it - stalker, rapist, creepy."
A Facebook commenter replied, "Making death sound like a creepy humanized stalker? No thanks."
"This gives the impression that the weird voyeur is eventually going to catch us. I cannot stress enough how uncomfortable that made me feel," said another.
In addition, some commenters expressed concern that the ad stereotypes women by implying all women put their husbands and families first: "It reinforces the idea that women always put themselves last, and it also makes very heteronormative assumptions about women's lives. What about single women, lesbians, those who may be partnered but not married, and so on?" asked a woman from Edmonton.
Though most of the commenters weren't people I knew, I realize an informal survey of my social networks is not a scientific measure of public reaction. I also think the reaction could be generational, since the older women in my office tended to love the ad, conceding they felt it was creepy but necessary to get people to realize the importance of the issue. They felt it grabbed their attention and made them want to take action.
To better understand the ad's goals, I spoke with Lisa Chicules, the vice president of marketing and communications for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. She said it was important for the Heart and Stroke Foundation to put out something that would grab attention because of how unrecognized women's risk is.
"We wanted to make sure we were getting a message out to Canadians about the risk factors around heart disease and stroke. People felt risk wasn't urgent and relevant. There was a perception versus reality issue and we needed to close that gap," she said.
I asked her about some of the concerns I had with the ad, specifically the stalker factor. She said she had never heard that concern expressed and that it didn't worry the organization.
"It was more about creating concern around the issue. More just to recognize you're at risk. You have to use a powerful tool or it won't be noticed. If we just came out and told women in a matter-of-fact way it doesn't have the same impact in terms of capturing their attention," Chicules said.
Chicules emphasized that the final ad and a range of other versions had gone through extensive testing to measure impact. The one that's currently airing was deemed to be the most effective.
"I think part of it is to remember that our goal was to drive home the urgency of these diseases and we had to do it in a way that was powerful and impactful. Our research showed almost 50 per cent of women don't know the fact and realize they're at risk for heart disease. It should be 100 per cent. People don't talk about it," Chicules pointed out.
Regardless of people's reaction to the ad, it looks like it will be sure to get people thinking more about the issue. I asked Chicules what women should do if they're concerned about their risk for heart disease.
"I'm hoping women will say, 'Oh my gosh, I had no idea I was at risk and I should do something about it.' And the 'do something' could be a variety of things -- go online and do a risk assessment, talk to your doctor, look for health information. And of course if you wanted to you could also donate," she concluded.]]>Canadian Pro-Lifers Take a Page From Tea Party's Booktag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9594332011-09-15T09:10:45-04:002011-11-15T05:12:01-05:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/Taking a page out of the U.S. Tea Party's book and a cue from Ontario Conservative premier-wannabe Tim Hudak, a Canadian "pro-life" group is trying to rally public support around defunding abortion services.
The Campaign Life Coalition is planning a rally on Oct. 22 at Queen's Park to "make defunding abortion an issue in the newly elected provincial government," according to Campaign Life Youth Coordinator Alissa Golob, who's organizing the rally.
The prospect of that government being a Hudak government certainly can't hurt, since Hudak "may have" signed a petition calling for abortion defunding.
As for the argument behind her push, Golob is alleging abortions cost Ontario taxpayers $30 million per year, though even "pro-life" websites like The Interim acknowledge that's just an estimate, as no provincial or federal health ministries release abortion-related medical costs. The Interim also cites a 2011 Abacus poll that found slightly more Canadians (45%) supported public funding of abortion than those who did not (42%).
But the fact that the public narrowly supports public funding isn't why I'd argue against Golob. After all, Canadians' basic rights shouldn't be subject to a vote of the electorate, regardless.
What's relevant here is that we have a public health care system in Canada, one that is supposed to cover all necessary medical procedures, including abortion. The system wouldn't work if we started excluding relatively cheap, relatively safe, medically necessary procedures simply because a portion of the population had a moral objection. Health coverage under the Canada Health Act has to be decided by doctors and governments making decisions based on logic and medical evidence, not politics.
Canadian law also has a thing or two to say on the issue. Though the 1988 Morgentaler decision didn't specifically address women's right to funded abortion, it struck down an abortion ban for infringing on women's Charter rights to "bodily security, liberty, and conscience." Public health care abortion funding could not be cut without hurting at least some women's access to the procedure. It's clear the most marginalized women would be the ones to suffer.
In 1991 when the Saskatchewan Conservative government held a referendum that won popular support attempting to defund abortion, the government lost the next election. Lawyers brought in to study the referendum results believed a defunding law would not survive a Charter challenge as it would discriminate on the basis of sex.
One of the most insulting aspects of this Campaign Life push to defund abortion is the idea that Canadians are too stupid to figure out that abortion is far cheaper for our health care system than forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term. American figures show about a 1:4 cost difference. The costs to the medical system could be even higher if we say to some women who cannot afford the procedure that they must choose between continuing to carry an unwanted fetus or having to obtain an un-funded, potentially sub-standard abortion.
Just like we can and should carry the medical costs of women who choose to become mothers, so too we can and should cover a full range of women's reproductive health choices, including the choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
I have little doubt that Campaign Life is trying to use this defunding effort like the Tea Partiers did to Planned Parenthood: as an attempt to drive a wedge between moderates and open the door to a full abortion ban. At least groups like Kelowna, B.C. 's Right to Life Society don't focus on a financial pretense when they're promoting the city-sanctioned "Protect Human Life Week" happening later this month.
If they want to pretend this is about money, anti-abortion activists are insulting your intelligence because they know they can't get you if they talk about equality and rights.
]]>What We Learned From the Amp Radio Breast Implant Contesttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9060042011-07-21T16:20:39-04:002011-09-20T05:12:01-04:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/Last month Calgary's AMP Radio started running their "Breast Summer Ever" contest. For a chance at the grand prize of a $10,000 breast augmentation surgery, participants were asked to submit a picture and a description of why they thought they should win.
The initial reaction from some feminist bloggers was to condemn the contest for perpetuating damaging standards of feminine beauty. For example, Gauntlet awarded AMP their "Outstanding Enforcer of the Patriarchy Award" for "telling women that they are not good enough the way they are and suggest[ing] other women follow in the winner's footsteps."
The mother behind Calgary-based blog Extra Fancy One complained that the contest made it that much harder for her to help teach her 6-year-old daughter self-acceptance when the radio was promoting surgery as the solution.
"I would feel almost complete," said finalist Kass in her pitch video, when asked why she wanted the surgery, referencing the "beauty on the outside and the inside" she said she saw the surgery bring others.
The concerns raised about the contest were legitimate. But many entrants challenged the idea that cosmetic breast surgery is always something women to do conform to a beauty ideal and please men. "I'm doing it for me. I'm not doing it for anyone else out there. This is something I've wanted for ten-plus years," said entrant Diana.
Another finalist, Lindsey, lost a lot of weight after suffering from extremely high cholesterol and was looking to get a breast reduction due the difficulties she experienced exercising and finding bras in her size. Many of the other contestants echoed her problems dealing with body changes after significant weight loss.
Maybe the contestant who most challenged the conventional idea of breast augmentation surgery as a "cosmetic" procedure was the eventual winner, Avery: a trans woman who garnered three-quarters of the final votes.
Avery was unable to access funding to get sex reassignment surgery (SRS) and she's also experienced difficulties accessing voice therapy. The Alberta government cut all funding for SRS in 2009.
"I didn't even think I'd ever be able to get this done," Avery said in her post-win interview with AMP. Winning this competition was clearly a meaningful and important experience for her. She did an extremely brave thing and deserves congratulations.
If there's a real tragedy behind "Breast Summer Ever" it's that Avery had to go on a radio show to get the surgery she had a legitimate medical need for. Not all trans people choose to undergo surgery but for those who need it, sex reassignment surgery is a crucial treatment, and is anything but "elective" or "cosmetic". Egale Canada advocates for greater access to SRS and related medical procedures because they can alleviate discomfort associated with Gender Identity Disorder: "Failure to remedy feelings of dysphoria can cause significant health care concerns. Health issues transsexual persons face include; depression, anxiety, anger, stress, drug and alcohol use, eating disorders, childhood trauma, self-harm and suicide." Egale argues that helping people with GID access SRS can actually lower health care costs by preventing these health issues.
The Canada Health Act guarantees all Canadians access to comprehensive, universal, accessible health care. It's not supposed to be limited based on how few people require the treatment or affected by discrimination. But coverage for SRS procedures is inconsistent across Canada and people in some provinces people are required to jump through more hoops than in others (for an overview, check out this interactive map via xtra.ca).
According to Xtra, In Alberta, Nova Scotia, PEI, and New Brunswick, no surgeries are covered. Patients have to move to another province and qualify for coverage there in order to get assistance. In Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, patients have to travel to the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health in Toronto in order to be assessed prior to having approval for surgery. Even where procedures are covered, often after years of assessments and waiting, provinces often don't reimburse travel costs or costs of related medical supplies. And late last year the Conservative government instructed the Correctional Service of Canada to stop providing SRS for federally-incarcerated inmates.
Avery's win, in addition to being a huge step for her, could also help bring awareness of issues with SRS access issues. Because trans people in Canada shouldn't have to go on the radio in front of tens of thousands of people to beg for money for surgery the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and federal courts have agreed is an essential medical treatment.
]]>Is There a Wrong Way to Get Women Into Politics?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8880092011-07-02T06:30:42-04:002011-09-01T05:12:01-04:00Jarrah Hodgehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge/column on one of my pet issues: women in politics.
It's no secret that I'm a New Democrat, but as a feminist I have a certain amount of respect for Bennett. She's brought forward some important but less-than-popular issues like concerns about toxic chemicals in sex toys and she's one of the leading figures in her party working on increased women's representation.
Both Bennett and I agree we need to do better on women's representation in our legislatures: it's sad that only 25 per cent of our Parliament is female, even if it is the highest number we've turned out yet. But where I take issue with Bennett's argument is why we need more women. In "Why Politics Is Too Important to Leave to the Men," Bennett contends women are innately suited to a peaceful, consensus-based, egalitarian style of governing.
Bennett uses her background as a medical doctor to argue that men and women think and behave differently due to their biology :"What is discussed changes; more time on health, child care, and environmental concerns. How issues are discussed also changes. More consensus-driven win-win approaches replace the 'gotcha,' 'winners and losers,' testosterone-driven triumphalism of politics as usual," she states.
Bennett also quotes The Female Brain author Louann Brizendine (whose research has been challenged on the left and right), who states: "Outstanding verbal ability, the ability to connect deeply in friendship, a near psychic capacity to read faces and tone of voice for emotions and states of mind. The ability to defuse conflict. All this is hardwired into the brains of women."
There are a few issues with Brizendine's argument. First, it's extremely difficult for biological research to control for social constructions of gender. Biologists like Anne Fausto-Sterling have found that many studies purporting to explain gender differences in terms of biology are in fact mistaking socialized traits for genetic ones. Further, trans, intersex, and non-gender-conforming cis people challenge the idea that there is a biological binary that assigns traits like aggression, nurturing instinct, and cooperativeness by sex.
If being a woman means you're going to advance women's issues in government, how do you explain the women politicians who seem to want to turn back the clock on women's equality? For example, on a number of occasions, Conservative backbenchers have introduced private members bills that would restrict abortion rights.
Although none of these bills passed under a minority government, they were supported by various Conservative women, including Rona Ambrose and Diane Ablonczy ("Unborn Victims of Crime Act"), and Lynne Yelich ("Act to Prevent Coercion of Pregnant Women to Abort"). The argument that women politicians will advance women's issues doesn't account for these women, or the Michele Bachmanns of the world.
Second, the very argument that women are innately good at nurturing is anti-feminist. It's actually the same argument that's been used to keep women out of politics, making sure that when mothers run for office they get questioned about how they're making sure their children are taken care of. It's the argument that pressures and shames women who don't want to have children. Ironically, it's the argument that keeps women who do get into politics in the "girl ministries" of health care, education, and social programs.
These are important issues and there's nothing wrong with being a woman (or person of any gender) who is nurturing. But feminists have spent decades fighting for more choices for women, and the argument that women would be better at governing because they're more maternal only turns back the clock and takes away credibility from the push for equal representation.
Bennett also argues that women enter politics for different reasons and that they're more likely to stay in touch with the plight of average Canadians.
"These successful women determined to make a difference stand in stark contrast to those (unfortunately mostly men) who were all too eager to suit up in their team jersey and run with no other purpose than to repeat their party's talking points verbatim," Bennett states.
Again, I would argue this is mainly due to gender socialization that trains women to cultivate empathy and avoid bragging and appearing too ambitious.
We can fight for equality without being forced to promote outdated biological arguments. We can argue for equality in our parliaments because 52 per cent of the population has just as much to offer as the other 48 per cent. We can challenge unequal representation on the grounds that concentrating political power in the hands of (mostly) straight, white men is the result of systemic discrimination and is patently unfair.
We can say that the wider variety of backgrounds and perspectives included in policy-making, the better.
But, unfortunately the only mention of structural barriers Bennett makes in her post is: "Structural barriers remain to getting more women elected."
So much of the gap is due to structural barriers: women's lower earnings potential, political parties' "old boy's club" informal mentoring systems, and plain old discrimination. At least Bennett touches on internalized sexism that convinces women they aren't up to the job and its confrontational elements.
Politics is a patriarchal system, and women aren't going to change that simply by being women: we need politicians of all genders who are feminists to make a real difference. I believe all parties need to work internally and take strong action to ensure they run gender-balanced slates. I'd like to see a world where I can choose between women of all political stripes, but for now when it comes down to it on election day, I would rather vote for anyone who believes in same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and trans legal protections than a woman who wants to take away basic women's rights.
I want the same thing as Carolyn Bennett: more women in politics. I think we can fight for equality because it's our right. But let's stop arguing along the lines of that old saying: "If women ruled the world, there would be no more war." It just doesn't hold water.
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Unfortunately, by the time Taylor's cancer was discovered, the inoperable kiwifruit-sized tumour required aggressive treatment. They initially hoped to avoid treatment that would allow Taylor to still have children but things progressed from bad to worse.