Lauren Strapagiel2013-06-19T18:12:06-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=lauren-strapagielCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Lauren StrapagielGood old fashioned elbow grease.Men's Rights Movement Sees Resurgence Among Millennial Malestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-04-15T06:51:31-04:002013-04-15T19:20:21-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
“No hate speech on campus.. No hate speech on campus!”
Protesters heckle and shout down students who attempt to enter a lecture hall where a professor is speaking. Police try to keep the path clear.
“You should be fucking ashamed of yourself. You’re fucking scum,” a woman shouts at a man waiting to get into the hall.
Inside, guest speaker Warren Farrell, author of The Myth of Male Power, waits. According to posters promoting the event, he’s here to talk about the “boys’ crisis,” about how “our sons are about a quarter century behind our daughters — dropping out of school, preoccupied with video games, committing suicide and demonstrating a ‘failure to launch.’ ”
Farrell’s work aims to debunk the idea of male privilege. He disputes statistics about the pay gap and domestic violence. He refutes the commonly-accepted theory of patriarchy, asking how men could really hold all the power when society treats them as the most “disposable” sex.
He was invited to U of T by the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE), an organization involved with six “men’s issues” groups at universities in Ontario and Quebec. At this campus, CAFE worked with the U of T Men’s Issues Awareness Society.
Needless to say, Farrell’s views are not popular among many feminists, some who accuse him of being a misogynist and rape apologist. Farrell isn’t overly fond of feminists either. In another book, Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men, he praises feminism for giving women new opportunities but suggests the movement has demonized men and distorted data.
Most feminists would refute this, saying that their fight against patriarchy has helped men, too.
After the event, videos of the protesters make it on to social media and men’s rights websites, with titles like “this is feminism” – more evidence, the sites contend, that feminism is “a broken ideology with nothing of value to add but vitriol, nastiness, blatant lies, and psychotic claims with absolutely no basis in reality.”
Names and faces of the protesters will later end up on a “registry” website of female “offenders” alongside other images of women charged with crimes such as murder, false rape accusations, sexual assault and child molestation.
It would be easy to dismiss the campus event and protest as a small, noisy slice of gender activism, but what happened at U of T is illustrative of a growing men’s rights movement driven by some male members of Generation Y (adults born after 1980, also known as Millennials) who are questioning their place in society and whether their rights are being violated. While their views on feminism and the extent of male oppression vary, all agree that we need to talk more openly about issues that affect boys and men.
WHAT IS MEN’S RIGHTS?
Iain Dwyer, 28, remembers a poster in his high school that proclaimed: “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them.” He went to high school in the 1990s when messages about girl power were everywhere and gender equality was a given, said Dwyer, a spokesman for CAFE and one of the organizers of the Farrell lecture.
He says that as Millennial men like himself grew up, they realized that the world was not as equitable as they had been led to believe. Men and boys, they would find out, were suffering too.
Dwyer said CAFE uses the label “men’s issues” rather than “men’s rights” because the latter “implies legal changes are necessary. It implies that there are rights exclusive to men, which we don’t believe is true.”
The men’s rights movement has existed, in some form, since women started rallying for voting rights. The modern movement, however, emerged as feminism entered its second wave in the 1970s. Some men’s rights activists at the time agreed with and supported feminism; they believed that the liberation of women would in turn bring the liberation of men, allowing them to grow into domestic roles more traditionally filled by females.
Other men’s rights activists were stridently anti-feminist, fearful the goal of the feminist movement was to elevate women above men, stripping them of rights and privileges.
Now the movement is making rumbles again as young men watch their female peers outpace them in educational achievement, as a stagnant economy crushes traditional male career paths, and as the definition of manhood is picked apart. Some Milliennial men have picked up the men’s rights torch and, given a louder voice and greater ability to find one another online, are making their presence known. There are women among the movement and older men are acting as guides, but Millennial men seem to be feeling the brunt of the struggle.
The controversy over Farrell’s talk, as well as subsequent activities by CAFE on campuses, has helped make Toronto the de facto centre of this renewed movement.
CAFE has set up men’s issues groups on six campuses, mostly in southern Ontario, with more to come. Dwyer said that students appear to be more open to social justice causes and they’ve been attracting many curious young men to their lectures.
Key issues for Dwyer and other activists are fatherhood and paternity rights, men’s health and the education of boys.
“I think that when they (young men) hear about these sort of things, about boys not doing well in school or children not having equal access to both parents, I think that speaks to their equality mindedness,” Dwyer said.
Fatherhood and paternity issues are one of the most established tenets of men’s issues activists, who focus on the question of equal parenting and the benefits of being raised by a father figure. At issue is the fact that women are more likely to get custody of children in a divorce, depriving children of a steady paternal role, while denying fathers access to their kids.
More from Asking Y, HuffPost Canada's special project on the Millennial Generation:
Men’s health issues entail everything from awareness and research for prostate cancer and other diseases that affect only men to workplace deaths, the vast majority of which involve men. Mental health is another focus, especially given that men, especially young men, are more likely to die from suicide than their female peers.
The boys’ crisis, a term that has been used outside the men’s rights context for decades, asks why boys are falling behind in school and why young men are enrolling in and graduating from post-secondary education at increasingly lower rates compared with women.
EDUCATION
Perhaps it is not surprising that the renewed interest in men’s rights has taken root among a diminished population of male post-secondary students.
Janice Fiamengo, an English professor at University of Ottawa, said she sees this gender discrepancy in her own classrooms, with her humanities course students being about 80 per cent female and only 20 per cent male at a campus where 60 per cent of 2012’s undergraduate students are female.
She spoke at another CAFE lecture at U of T about this topic. That event was also met with protest.
According to Statistics Canada, about 58 per cent of post-secondary graduates were female in 2011. Women make up at least a slight majority of most university programs, although males still greatly outnumber women in fields such as engineering, computer sciences and math. Eighty-three per cent of architecture, engineering and related technologies graduates in 2011 were male, only a slight drop from 85 per cent in 1993.
Women have maintained a strong lead in humanities graduation, and Fiamengo said this may have something to do with how gender issues are taught in universities.
“My sense is that to be a young man in university today is to be told over and over again that you’re part of the half of the human race that has always had it really good, and that it’s your turn to step back and turn power over to your sisters,” Fiamengo said.
She said that young men are being asked to apologize for privilege they no longer have.
“Many men are, if not consciously, then unconsciously, demonstrating an awareness of that fact by dropping out of university.”
WHAT IS MANHOOD?
Fiamengo and Dwyer agree that universities are a place for debate and discussion of social justice issues such as gender inequality and that CAFE is attractive to men who are questioning gender roles and, ultimately, what it even means to be a man after decades of feminist influence in humanities studies.
Dwyer said that feminism has done a good job of redefining what it means to be a woman, expanding opportunities and choices beyond the home. He says, however, that it’s time to do that for men, to take them beyond the role of aggressor and breadwinner.
“I felt that there really wasn’t any message about what it meant to be a man except for the occasional, frankly misandric, message that you would see,” Dwyer said.
“The message was just that you’re not wanted, not needed. I think that is the message a lot of Millennial men are getting.”
Blye Frank, dean of education at the University of British Columbia, has been studying boys, men and masculinity for 25 some years. While interviewing young men about what it means to be a man, there’s one answer that stuck with him: “Sports, looks, women.”
“Lots of young men don't feel they measure up to a gender regime, a gender code around what constitutes being an appropriate boy, around the practice of masculinity,” Frank said.
He said that many problems specific to young men, such as suicide, bullying and risky behaviour leading to injury and health issues, can be traced back to the pressure on boys to act appropriately masculine. Boys enforce this pressure by harassing their peers who behave effeminately.
“In some way there is a boys crisis, but the crisis is around measuring up to dominant codes of masculinity,” he said.
Even as this traditional prototype of masculinity endures, the realities of being a man have shifted, York University professor Miriam Smith said. There was once a clear transition for men from education to a breadwinner career, but with the economic downturn and the rise of women in post-secondary education, that path has faded.
“If you were a C student way back in the day, and you were a white male, you just kind of cruised into a good job. And now, you can't do that anymore,” Smith said.
She said that this struggle to get ahead could be part of what is getting Millennial men interested in men’s rights activism. These young men are watching their female peers get ahead of them as their own economic power declines. Smith said that higher depression and suicide rates could be a reaction to that.
There is a vocal subset of men’s rights activists that put some of the blame for men’s ills on the movement that liberated women – feminism.
“Patriarchy is a system of male privilege, so the transformation of patriarchy means that men lose their privileges. And in that sense, the men's rights movements is a backlash against the loss of traditional privilege,” Smith said.
BACKLASH
Edward Sullivan thinks you should oppose mainstream feminism. He believes modern feminism flat-out oppresses men and actively blocks their voices.
You could say the 21-year-old software engineering management student at McMaster University is one of those men’s rights activists engaged in feminist backlash.
His route into men’s rights activism started with “correcting” statistics commonly used to support women’s rights initiatives.
He runs a Tumblr blog where he argues against statistics about the gender wage gap and systemic gendered violence. More controversially, he also writes about his disbelief in rape culture (cultural norms the implicitly tolerate rape and shame victims), asserts that drunk sex is not necessarily rape and defends what many would call victim blaming. He also rejects the traditional notions of patriarchy and male privilege.
Sullivan says that the core set of principles that feminist work from — patriarchy, male privilege and the systemic oppression of women — are just plain wrong. He says that feminists have incorrectly based their actions of the premise “that society was somehow organized by a shadowy cabal of men to oppress women.”
“It's not true. It's simplistic, it's easy to understand, but when we look at a more nuanced version, we see that in fact there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides of the past.”
He asserts that although men traditionally held responsibility, women benefited from being protected and sheltered from, for example, having to fight in wars.
Sullivan maintains that he is not anti-feminist, but it’s clear that he takes issue with modern forms of the movement.
“At its core, the premise of feminism is the idea (that) we should have gender equality. That is a really good idea,” he said. “The problem is that large portions of modern feminism – and I'd say the portions of modern feminism that are getting listened to the most – are not really doing a very good job of that.”
In a blog post bashing “misandry” among feminists, he writes, “In my experience, the majority of women treat the majority of men like shit.”
These sort of statements have many feminists like Heather Jarvis worried about the men’s rights movement.
Jarvis is the co-founder of SlutWalk, one of the most visible, widespread feminist movements going. It all started after a Toronto police officer told a group of students that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” Rallies filled with men and women decrying victim-blaming have spread from Canada to as far as India, Brazil, Australia and Israel.
Jarvis is concerned about the anti-feminist and misogynistic tone within the men’s rights movement.
“They’re frustrated and angry at feminism, which is predominantly involving women and women’s struggles. Therefore it turns into this misogynistic zen thing about women, about how awful women are, how awful feminism is and how women have not done enough for men,” Jarvis said.
She has seen self-identified men’s rights activists engage in victim-blaming, misogyny and sometimes much worse, she said.
“At the extreme end, there is absolutely laughing at and encouraging the rape of women and men that they see as inferior,” she said.
Jarvis worries that even those with good intentions, who aim only to support struggling men, may inadvertently contribute to the silencing of women, the derailing of conversation and the spread of false ideas about feminism.
“Just because your gender is male does not mean you're not going to face challenges or not face oppression. And feminism recognizes that,” she said.
FATHERHOOD
Jeff Perera, 36, spends a lot of time talking to boys and men about healthy masculinity in his role as the community and youth engagement manager for the White Ribbon Campaign, which fights violence against women. He, too, is skeptical of men's rights activists.
"It’s an impossible standard to be this perfect, tanned superhero guy .. and it’s important to acknowledge that. Men are struggling in everyday issues, in everyday reality, but we are not being oppressed," Perera said.
In his work with young men, Perera talks about the pressure on males to “man up” – to be that aggressive, unflinching pillar of strength and manliness and to bottle up any emotions that pop up along the way. Perera attributes these problems to the patriarchy, the same system that feminists have been fighting since the beginning. He worries that men’s rights activists are playing the “oppression Olympics” and ignoring how gender issues are inherently linked.
“The argument is that we’re looking specifically at men, at men’s issues, and I appreciate it, absolutely,” he said.
But, he adds, “when you have the conversation about the reality for men and boys, it’s impossible to leave women and girls out of it. The problem is that the conversation for men ends there.”
Perera wants boys and men to be liberated from the confines of traditional gender roles too, but he said men’s rights activists need to acknowledge root causes – namely patriarchy – and work toward healing, rather that simply blame women or feminism.
Although they aren’t the loudest contingent of men’s rights activists, there are many men who identify with the movement who believe feminism and the men’s rights movement need not be at odds.
Zach Rosenberg, 33, is a blogger who writes about men’s and father’s issues. A father of a four-year-old boy, he co-founded 8-Bit Dad, a blog about modern fatherhood culture, and he contributes to The Good Men Project, a web magazine that asks, “What does it mean to be a good man?”
“I think that at its core, feminism is a movement that was designed to fight for women, to get them back to a place where they could feel equal in treatment. I think that men’s rights does the same thing,” he said.
There’s no need to knock women down a peg for men to move up one, Rosenberg added.
“There’s a way for all of us to win without any of us having to lose.”
Rosenberg’s main focus is on fatherhood. When Millennial men become dads, they’re going to notice that media portrayals of fatherhood have not kept up with the times and will ask where their role models are.
You probably know the portrayals he’s talking about – the bumbling, childlike father who can’t figure out how laundry works, let alone how to be a caregiver.
In his writing, Rosenberg looks to tear down this tired image and support fellow dads in navigating modern fatherhood.
“Now that the men are home, they’re looking at their image in the media now and saying, ‘I don’t like what I’m seeing, I’m still seeing this old image of manhood when obviously it’s changing,” Rosenberg said.
Another significant adjustment in family gender roles is the increasing likelihood that women are the family’s primary breadwinner as more fathers are staying home to raise children than ever before.
In 2011, 12 per cent of fathers from two-parent families with children under 16 were stay-at-home dads, according to Statistics Canada. In 1976, such men were only one per cent of fathers. Sixty-eight per cent of two-parent households in 2011 were also dual-income, compared with 36 per cent in 1976. Single fathers also made up 20 per cent of lone-parent households in 2006.
Rosenberg lives in California and sees these trends in the United States as well. His own observations about the changing roles of fathers got him into men’s issues, and he suspects that other young fathers are experiencing the same thoughts.
Rosenberg would consider himself a “moderate” when it comes to men’s issues activism, but he knows that it’s the more radical contingent who are grabbing headlines for now.
“The loudest voices are the ones that get heard, and the loudest voices generally are the ones with an axe to grind.”
Back at the University of Toronto, CAFE held a third lecture on April 4, this one titled “From Misogyny and Misandry to Intersexual Dialogue.”
Again, the event drew protesters and a fire alarm was pulled. Again, videos of the feminist protesters went online with commentary deriding them as the face of feminism.
Dwyer said that the back-and-forth attacks on both sides serve only to distract from the real struggles that men face.
“We wanted the coverage to be about boys and the content of the [Farrell] talk, but it ended up being about what one group of activists did and then what another group of activists did to them,” he said.
He would rather the protesters be left the to police while the rest of us get back to talking about the struggles of boys and men – and that they be taken seriously.
“‘Boys will be boys’ isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
INFOGRAPHIC: Expand ]]>Canada's Top Premiers: Poll Rates Provincial Leaderstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-04-08T20:41:29-04:002013-04-08T20:54:21-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
An Angus Reid Public Opinion poll that asked responants whether or not they approved of their premier's performance found that Saskatchewan Party leader Brad Wall was the only premier to get a majority approval on the online poll at 64 per cent.
Every other premier's approval rating fell below 50 per cent, with B.C.'s Christy Clark and Newfoundland's Kathy Dunderdale tying for last place with only 25 per cent approval rating.
Alberta premier Alison Redford had the biggest drop in approval — 18 points since last August.
Respondents seemed to be more lenient with opposition parties. In every province except Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, other party leaders had higher rankings than the sitting premier.
In B.C., almost half of the respondents (49 per cent) approved of B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix. The highest-ranked opposition leader was Alberta Wildrose leader Danielle Smith at 53 per cent.
The online poll asked 7,091 Canadian adults about their own province's premier and opposition leaders. P.E.I. was not included. Click here to see the full results.
See where all the premiers ranked in the slideshow below: ]]>Patrick Brazeau To Resign, According To Tweetstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-04-01T20:51:09-04:002013-04-02T11:21:03-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/UPDATE: Brazeau has confirmed his tweets were an April Fools' joke and that he "played the media."
Senator Patrick Brazeau will resign from his position, according to tweets sent from his account @TheBrazman.
The controversial independent senator tweeted "I will step down from my position!" adding that there will be an official announcement at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
There is skepticism that the tweets from Brazeau's account may have been an April Fools' prank. However if it was an April Fools prank, his timing is off as April 1 shenanigans traditionally end at noon and Brazeau's tweets came at 6:37 and 7:45 p.m.
Brazeau also did not specify which position he will step down from.
See the skepticism and more reaction in the gallery below.
]]>April Fools' Day 2013: The Best Pranks From Canada And Beyondtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-04-01T18:55:08-04:002013-04-01T19:14:11-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
April 1 used to be that day when you put a whoopie cushion on your teacher's chair or send your coworker a cute cat video, only to have it be a Rick Roll.
But now it seems it's also become a competition to see who can make the funniest viral prank. Google's been doing it for years, but this year everyone from the city of Belleville, Ont. to the U.S. government to IKEA are joining in. Even Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield couldn't resist pulling a prank.
We've rounded up the best April Fools' pranks from around the 'net today. Did we miss something hilarious? Tell us in the comments.
]]>Elizabeth May Compares Canada To North Korea Over Drought Convention Withdrawal (TWEETS)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-28T20:47:48-04:002013-03-29T09:17:25-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/has withdrawn from a United Nations convention that fights drought.
“The treaties he views as of no importance are those designed to protect the environment. What message does it send to African nations that in the same week we eliminate CIDA, we withdraw from a treaty to stop the advance of deserts?” said May in a media release.
But the B.C. MP's most pointed criticism came on Twitter, where on Thursday, May tweeted that Canada's withdrawal from the convention was making us the "North Korea of environmental law:"
Federal Heritage Minister James Moore responded to May with a curt "classy."
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification works to battle the effects of drought around the globe, with emphasis on African nations. The withdrawal makes Canada the only UN member country not taking part in the convention, which Ottawa ratified in 1995.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said the convention was just a "talkfest." Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the program was overly bureaucratic and only one-fifth of the $350,000 Canada contributes to the convention goes to programming.
Some Twitter users seemed to share May's dismay, although others were critical of the comparison to North Korea. Read reaction to both below:
"Canada continues to be a country that pushes other countries to do less. Our role is not just an embarrassment, it's reckless and brings our once good national reputation into disrepute," May said last November as nations met to negotiate a new agreement.
She also said that Canada had decided to "sabotage global agreements" and that we'd done "far more damage to the global climate through obstructing negotiations, through twisting arms to try to keep India from taking on targets, to try to stop global progress, than we have ever done through the volume of our emissions."
May was hardly the only politician to lament Canada's withdrawal from the drought convention. More from the Canadian Press:
Robert Fowler, a former Canadian ambassador to the UN, said Canada's abandonment of the convention amounted to a "departure from global citizenship."
"It has taken climate-change denial, the abandonment of collective efforts to manage global crises and disregard of the pain and suffering of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa (among many others) to quite a different level," Fowler said in an email.
Fowler ridiculed Baird's common refrain on foreign policy that Canada isn't interested in "going along to get along."
"No, by jingo, we're not going to go along to get along! Such vainglorious nose-thumbing at the international community's efforts to tame a very present threat to hundreds of millions of the world's most poorest and most desperate people is nothing short of incomprehensible."
Barlow said the Harper government is "anti-environment" and is more interested in exploiting Canada's mineral and energy wealth as an "energy superpower."
"That's why they're shutting down all evidence and all research and any international institutions that can provide more information on what this is about."
Former Liberal environment minister Stephane Dion said the government can't take any meaningful steps to combat the encroachment of deserts when it is outside an international process that includes every other country on the planet.
"How can you improve something when all the countries that are working on it together are around the table except you?" said Dion.
"It's affecting Canada as well, in the Prairies. Climate change will make it even worse. It would exist without man-made climate change."
With files from the Canadian Press]]>Game Of Thrones NHL Banners: Fan Combines 2 Lovestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-26T19:19:21-04:002013-03-26T20:11:48-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
The third season of HBO's acclaimed adaptation of the 'A Song of fire and Ice' series will (finally) air this Sunday. Meanwhile, NHL teams are battling it out to see who will go to next month's playoffs.
What's a fan to do? Turn NHL teams into Game of Thrones house sigils, apparently.
Check out his banners below and tell us in the comments: What are you more excited for, the playoffs or the new Game of Thrones season?
]]>Nishiyuu Walkers Meet With Justin Trudeau, Bernard Valcourt (PHOTO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-26T18:27:05-04:002013-03-26T18:56:01-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
Last night, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt met with some of the young people who completed the trek for just over half an hour.
"He expressed a desire to engage youth in the key issues facing communities across the country. He also accepted an invite to their community this summer," the minister's spokesperson told the Canadian Press.
He added that the minister acknowledged the "determination and commitment" of the youth.
Today, the group met with MP and Liberal leadership contender Justin Trudeau, who tweeted he was "proud" to chat with the trekkers:
"The Journey of Nishiyuu" started with Cree teen David Kawapit Jr. and six other youth from Whapmagoostui in Quebec, all determined to hike and snowshoe to Parliament Hill. They set off in mid-January for their trek in support of Idle No More and the Quebec Cree Nation.
The group, along with 250-plus people who joined along the way, finally made it to the Peace Tower on Monday to huge crowd of well-wishers. The celebration stretched into the evening with speakers and a massive round dance in front of Parliament.
Notably absent was Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was greeting the arrival of two pandas in Toronto. You can read the reaction to his missed presence in the slideshow below.]]>Amanda Todd Video Channelled In 'I Shared A Photo' Anti-Sexting PSA (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-26T15:56:03-04:002013-03-26T17:39:42-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/ last video posted by Amanda Todd, the Canadian teen whose story ignited a worldwide bullying debate.
In the public service announcement from B.C. group Children of the Street Society (watch above), a young girl sits on her bed showing a series of placards. As we read the cards, we find out that she sent a photo online to someone she trusted, only to have the image shared thousands of times.
At the end, a message reads, "There's no such thing as 'just one photo.' Protect yourself from sexual exploitation. Be safe online."
We're guessing it's not an accident that the story and video mirror those of 15-year-old Todd, who took her life in her B.C. home last October after relentless bullying both at school and online.
In a video posted the month before her death, Todd also held a series of cards and shared how she had flashed someone in an online chat. That person took screenshots and threatened Todd, saying he'd circulate the photos if she didn't "put on a show."
Later, the man created a Facebook page featuring explicit photos of Todd. The B.C. teen experienced panic attacks, anxiety, and depression before later committing suicide.
The PSA is meant to show that "just one photo" is never just one photo when it gets passed around the Internet thousands of times.
Stephanie Owen, program manager at Children of the Street Society, said that perhaps the PSA was inspired by Todd's story, "But we know that this has been happening long before this tragedy."
The organization has been working against the sexual exploitation of children since the '90s, but Owen said they've since seen the issues move from the street to online.
"There’s a piece missing where we forget to educate our kids about strangers on the Internet," said Todd last week.
She said her daughter sought friendships online, but that once she was betrayed by a contact, there was little action available. "Once it’s out there, it leaves a digital footprint and you can never get it off," she said.
The difference, according to a recent Slate article, is what happens to these images. Young men are almost twice as likely to distribute private photos from other people and much more likely to receive second-hand sexts.
Owen says that Children of the Street Society recognizes both girls and boys can fall victim to online sexual exploitation, and they also work with young men to stop the spread of images.
"We talk to young boys about not perpetuating sexual exploitation. We build empathy and social responsibility among young students," Owen told The Huffington Post Canada on Tuesday.
Owen hopes that what young people take away from the PSA is that one mistake, one photo, opens them to continued exploitation: "We want young people to think about the permanency of what they’re putting out there, that you can’t get it back when it’s out there."]]>Nishiyuu Journey By Cree Youth Ends As Harper Greets Pandas (TWEETS, VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-25T16:34:31-04:002013-03-26T06:24:03-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
They were met with cheers, chants and waving flags as the group stepped onto Parliament Hill. Some attendees tweeted that an eagle circled overhead soon after the trekkers arrived.
"The Journey of Nishiyuu" started with 17-year-old David Kawapit Jr. and six other youth from Whapmagoostui in Northern Quebec, all determined to hike and snowshoe to Parliament Hill. Since leaving on their journey south in mid-January, their group swelled as members of First Nation communities along the way joined their trek.
By the time the group arrived at the Peace Tower today, their number had grown to 270. The first of the group arrived at Ottawa's Victoria Island around noon, where they were greeted by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, CBC News reports, before completing the final stretch to the Hill.
"It says a lot that Stephen Harper isn't here, that he's greeting the pandas,'' Elizabeth May told the Canadian Press. "It says a lot that we need to move heaven and earth to meet First Nations on a nation-to-nation basis with respect.''
]]>Elliot Lake Mall Collapse Video Shows How Disaster Struck At Algo Centretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-21T18:26:26-04:002013-03-21T18:28:36-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/Elliot Lake Inquiry reveals how tragedy struck last June at the Algo Centre mall.
The part-computer animated, part-real security footage video explains, based on forensic engineering, how years of water and road salt had seeped into the mall and worn down its steel structure, leading to the roof collapse that killed two women. A support beam that did not properly connect is also being blamed.
The inquiry has been ongoing since earlier this month. Lawyers have argued that the mall had a lengthly list of structural and leakage problems, and there was ample opportunity to prevent the disaster if only someone had acted.
The inquiry will also examine whether the emergency response to the disaster was adequate. Questions were raised soon after the incident asking whether the emergency operation worked too slowly.
Lucie Aylwin and Doloris Perizzolo died in the collapse on June 23, 2012, and about 20 others were hurt.
]]>'One Photo A Day' Serbian Domestic Abuse Video Goes Viraltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-20T19:22:28-04:002013-03-23T23:10:14-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/after being posted on reddit.
The video's Serbian title translates to "One photo a day in the worst year of my life" and is a shocking twist on the popular one-photo-per-day video style we've seen before.
This one however is less art project and more public service message about the realities of domestic abuse.
The photo series starts with a smiling woman, colourfully dressed and in a variety of locations. Soon her smile fades, bruises and blood cover her face and choke lines appear on her neck.
The final slide shows her holding a sign that translates to "Help me, I do not know if I can wait for tomorrow," according to one translation. HuffPost Canada commenter markinthedark says that in Serbian, the translation is "I don't know if I will get to see tomorrow" — implying that the woman may not live to see another day.
The video's origins are still unclear and it's unknown if the injuries depicted are real or illustrative. However, It definitely looks to be some sort of public service announcement based on the sign at the end and the video's quality, but no one seems to be taking responsibility for it yet. It's the only video posted by YouTube user fero061982.
Domestic violence is a "persistent and serious problem" in Serbia according to Canada's refugee and immigration board. Last December, the country ratified the Council of Europe's Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence which obligates them to track incidents of violence, the Southeast European Times reports.]]>Luna The Polar Bear Cub Plays In The Snow At Buffalo Zoo (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-19T22:16:27-04:002013-03-20T03:19:09-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/squee!"
A little ball of white fluff named Luna got her chance to play in the snow at the Buffalo Zoo. The baby polar bear, born just a few months ago, is too young to be in an outdoor habitat full-time, but old enough now for an outdoors romp with her keepers nearby.
Although the roly-poly cub seems a bit more interested in pats and attention from her humans, we're sure its only a matter of time before her snow-loving polar bear instincts kick in.
You can watch Luna's adorable outdoor debut above. The video lacks audio, so we recommend the below track for optimal viewing.
Yakety Sax - Benny Hill Tim Hortons Wedding: Charlie And Natalie Aalders Wed In Nova Scotia Timmies (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-19T16:51:03-04:002013-03-19T21:13:38-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/Roll Up The Rim marriage proposal was the epitome of Canadiana romance, this story might change your mind.
Last weekend, Charlie and Natalie Aalders got married at a Tim Hortons in New Minas, Nova Scotia.
“I’d say 95 per cent of the people thought it was an amazing idea. It’s different, original, fun,” Charlie told CBC News.
With the blessing of the location's owner, Charlie and Natalie said their "I do's" on March 16, surrounded by friends, family and unsuspecting customers. You can see the final moments of the ceremony in the video above.
Clearly not people who feel bound by tradition, the bride nixed a white gown for a springy floral dress, hot pink cardigan and matching sky-high heels with a netted blusher veil.
Now settling into married life, the couple has no regrets about their unconventional wedding.
“It’s something people will talk about,” Natalie told Kings Country News. “We can always come back here and have our coffee and remember it.”
We also bet that their bank accounts don't regret anything either. According to a recent survey, the average bride spent $28,427 on their wedding in 2012. ]]>Ezra Levant Apologizes For Roma Comments (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-18T19:42:38-04:002013-03-18T21:23:15-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/apologized for comments he made about the Roma.
Ezra Levant took to the air to say he's sorry for comments made during an episode of his Sun News Network show The Source from last September, in which he attacked the Roma people and broadly categorized them as criminals and refugee system cheats.
The segment was about a crime ring of recent Romanian immigrants busted by Durham Regional Police, but Levant's report turned into a rant against Romanian immigrants in general and made liberal use of the the word "gyspy," a term considered derogatory.
“These are gypsies, a culture synonymous with swindlers. The phrase gypsy and cheater have been so interchangeable historically that the word has entered the English language as a verb: he gypped me. Well the gypsies have gypped us," Levant said in the broadcast titled "The Jew vs. the Gypsies."
Numerous complaints were sent to both Sun News and the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission and a hate crime investigation was launched by Toronto Police at the behest of the The Roma Community Centre, reports J-Source.
Levant acknowledged that backlash today in his apology:
"There were some criticisms after that show, but I dismissed them as coming from the usual soft-on-crime liberals and grievance groups. But when I look at some of the words I used in that show — like "the gypsies have gypped us" — I must admit that I did more than just attack a crime or immigration fraud problem," said Levant.
"I attacked a particular group, and painted them all with the same brush. And to those I hurt, I'm sorry."
Sun News apologized for the segment last year and removed the clip from their website. Levant didn't mention why he chose to apologize now for the seven-month old comments, but Sun News Network is currently trying to woo the CRTC into granting them status as a mandatory carriage TV station.
Levant touched upon that allegation as well in the apology.
"There's nothing wrong with going after a criminal gang," he said. "But it's wrong to brand an entire community with a broad brush - I wouldn't like it as a Jew, and the whole point of my crusade against the Indian Act is to free ordinary Indians from the corrupt chiefs who rule them. I am an anti-racism activist."
Levant makes it clear, however, that he's not about to make a habit of apologizing for his controversial views.
"I'm not the kind of fellow who says sorry too often, you don't want to be too apologetic if you're in the tough political business on TV, but every once in awhile you make a mistake."
You can read a transcript of the full apology on the Sun News website.]]>Zelda Starring Zelda: Hack Makes Princess, Not Link, The Hero In 'Legend Of Zelda' Video Game (VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//2013-03-18T16:53:08-04:002013-03-18T18:07:09-04:00Lauren Strapagielhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-strapagiel/
Your pointy-eared, tunic-wearing protagonist spends most of his time in the game getting the bad guys and saving the day while Zelda is mostly busy getting kidnapped, confined and otherwise in need of Link's rescue.
As Feminist's Frequency's Anita Sarkeesian points out, even when Princess Zelda gets the chance to help Link in his quest or even join his as a capable, butt-kicking sidekick, she resumes her role as damsel in distress as soon as she's back in her tiara.
It was Feminist Frequency's examination of the tired trope that helped inspire one gamer to turn the tables on gender in video games.
Blogger and hobbyist animator Kenna W. hacked the original "Legend of Zelda" and to make Princess Zelda the hero and Link the imprisoned damsel. You can watch a play-through of the modded game above.
For Kenna, hacking Zelda was like fulfilling a childhood wish.
"The game was fun [as a child], but I was bummed out that I never got to play as Zelda. But like I said, I'm an adult now. There's no one to stop me from eating candy before bed and there's nothing standing in the way of me creating the games I want to play," Kenna writes on her blog.
It took her a few days of coding and using a sprite editor to hack the game. For more details on how she did it and to download your own patch to play as Zelda, Kenna has it all on her blog.
Link does appear in the game, except this time, in the game's final scene (warning: 27-year-old game spoiler) he's the one who inexplicably is unable to leave a room. For Kenna's boyfriend, a professional video game programmer himself, that moment really showed our perceptions about gender in video games:
When I got to the end of the game, I took a screen capture and sent it to Simon. He was strangely quiet. "My first thought" he told me later, "was 'Link, why are you standing there? Just jump over the flames.' But I guess that's the point isn't it? The gender in games thing."
Hacking gender in classic video games has been a bit of a trend lately. Father Mile Hoye edited Zelda: Windwaker's dialogue for his daughter so that Link is referred to as a "her" throughout the game. Another tech-savvy dad hacked "Donkey Kong" so that his daughter could play as female character Pauline.
For female gamers who have for too long almost always played as a male hero saving the day and the girl, watching Zelda be proclaimed the Hero of Hyrule is a satisfying win.
"It feels really good to play as Zelda. I feel like I connect with her character better and it makes me feel like a big damn hero. It's so nice to be swinging around a sword as Zelda. I can't describe it. You really should try it for yourself," writes Kenna.
]]>
]]>