If There's Nothing Women Can't do, Why Aren't we Doing It?

I often come down pretty hard on the women in the Harper government. But it's because they have an opportunity to make a difference, and instead allow themselves to be manipulated by the boys in the party, instead of trying to leave their mark.

Whenever there is something controversial that Harper wants to promote, he uses them as a front. Scrap the gun registry, use Candice Hoeppner. Cut funding to the Status of Women. Bring out Bev Oda. New Censorship laws; Josee Verner. Want to blame young girls for date rape because they are hypersexual, Helena Guergis.

There is a piece in the Toronto Star that suggests that despite the strides we've made, we are gradually being pulled back down. Then there is a rebuttal in the Globe and Mail written by Margaret Wenthe, who I believe is a woman, though I have my doubts. It was horrible.

Twenty years on, little has changed
Toronto Star
December 6, 2009

On this night 20 years ago, a small group of heartsick Toronto women gathered at city hall to hold the first vigil for the 14 young women slaughtered that day at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal by a gunman screaming about "feminists." Every year since, women have marked Dec. 6 with memorials, vigils, reflections and vows never to let it happen again.

On the second anniversary, a vanguard of prominent men stood in solidarity with them, wearing white ribbons to show their determination to end violence against women. The chief organizer was Jack Layton, then a Toronto mayoral candidate. Each year, the numbers grew....

Montreal massacre death cult
Margaret Wente
Globe and Mail
December 08, 2009

It won't have escaped you that Sunday was the 20th anniversary of the Montreal massacre – that horrific day when a man walked into the city's l'École Polytechnique, separated out the female students, screamed “You are all a bunch of feminists!” and shot them with a semi-automatic rifle, leaving 14 dead. As always, the day was marked by memorials and candlelight vigils across the country, affecting interviews with families and survivors – and a large helping of overheated nonsense.

“Twenty years on, little has changed,” opined the Toronto Star, which cited the fact that women continue to be killed “in their homes, on the streets, on university campuses and on lonely stretches of highway.” It blamed the government, for cutting aid to violence-fighting groups and for voting to scrap the long-gun registry. “But the government is not solely to blame,” it said. So who else is? “We all are.” Why? Because we tolerate a viciously misogynist society ....