Right-Wing Women and Their "Christian Values"

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

The new women's movement, operating within the neoconservative movement, is bizarre to say the least. They are vocal opponents of rights for women, and advocate for a patriarchal society.

And they do this through the broader Christian Right revolution that is influencing many governments, including ours; all done under the banner of "family values" and "Christian values".

So what's it all about?

Hypocrisy is a "Christian Value"?

The catalyst for REAL Women of Canada was Liberal cabinet minister, Judy Erola, who championed women's rights.

For Beverly LaHaye and her Concerned Women of America, it was
feminist leader Betty Friedan.

For Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum, it was power.

Schafly was one of the original anti-feminist voices, who launched a decades long campaign against the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). However, she stepped up her campaign when Ronald Reagan was elected, who himself stated, that he wanted it gone.

Reagan had run for the Republican leadership three times, but was rejected because he was considered to be too extreme, especially with his anti-communist stance.

The third time was the charm, but only because he allowed the Religious Right to handle his campaign, led by the late Paul Weyrich.

Once elected, he was forced to make good on his promises, and allow the "evangelicals" to take a leading role in policy making.

One of those evangelicals was Gary Bauer, who became Reagan's domestic policy advisor. Bauer gave Schlafly and her followers an "in".

Bauer's first order of business, after silencing his staff who were making outrageous statements to the press, was to "usurp the feminists".

Women belonged in the home, popping out babies and propping up papas. Career women were threatening the family, and children in daycare were being "brainwashed".

We get the message. But do they?

Bauer's wife was a career woman, and her children were put in daycare at the earliest possible moment. Carol Bauer claimed that she went back to work the day she came home from the hospital.

Beverly LaHaye once stated that she only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home.

Phyllis Schafly is a Harvard educated lawyer, the author of several books, and twice ran for Congress.

Gwen Landholt, President of REAL Women of Canada, is also a lawyer. I'm pretty sure that's considered to be a career.

In fact, the women involved in this anti-feminist movement, have made CAREERS out of their involvement in this anti-feminist movement. There is a circuit of conferences that they attend, enormous numbers of publications that have to be printed and distributed, websites that need to be maintained, and interviews on radio and television, where they must make an appearance.

And most receive a pay cheque, while preaching against the very thing that they are doing.

So we could then say that hypocrisy is now a "Christian value".

Self Loathing is a "Christian Value"?

Combing through the websites of these anti-feminist organizations, you really get the sense that these people hate women. They have become so focused on raising the males to the level of domestic gods, that they have forgotten the importance of protecting, not only women's rights, which they believe should not exist, but women themselves.

When Statistics Canada released its report on domestic violence, Gwen Landholt went ballistic, claiming that men were often the victims of domestic violence too.

Phyllis Schafly opposes any money going to protect women from domestic abuse, or even raise awareness to the problem.

Feminist ideology about the goal of gender-neutrality and the absence of innate differences between males and females goes out the window when it comes to the subject of domestic violence. Feminist dogma is that the law should assume men are batterers and women are victims.

What nonsense.

Does passing laws against drunk drivers mean that we assume that every driver is intoxicated. It's about protection against those who are.

These right-wing women's movements fear that if we raise too much awareness, it will threaten their idea of the "family". It could lead to too many divorces, if battered women seek a way out.

They blame the woman for everything.

They believe that "single mothers" are a scourge, but what of the men who made them single mothers? The boyfriends who didn't want the responsibility of raising a child? Men who thought they'd found better or simply didn't want to be married anymore?

Their counterparts, like the Promise Keepers take care of that I guess, encouraging men to take responsibility, and not worry if they knock the little woman around now and then. The misogynist females will take care of that by attacking laws that could risk jail time.

They are the man. They are the god. Grunt, grunt!

What a horrible philosophy. You would think that if they really cared about "family values" they would not want to see children raised in an abusive home. But they don't care, just so long as that home includes both a mother and a father.

I shudder to think what some "conservative" women must endure, simply because they fear what would happen if they decided to opt out. Not only fear from the abusive husband, but fear of the wrath of people like Landholt and Schaffly.

So we could then say that "self loathing" in the form of female misogyny is now a "Christian value".

Love of money is a "Christian Value"?

In his new book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, Michael Lindsay reminds us that evangelism is entrepreneurial.

It's big business, and every big business needs a steady cash flow, if the business is to survive.

Lindsay tells us that in order to keep funds flowing, many of these groups need "a devil". Something they can demonize. And the only way they can effectively stave off this "devil" is with your money.

Gwen Landholt, president of REAL Women, stated that Paul Martin did them a huge favour with his same-sex marriage bill, suggesting that they owed him a debt of gratitude. Their membership swelled and the donations soared "for the first time since the abortion debate". (Armegeddon Factor, p. 74)

The Religious Right/Christian Right/Moral Majority is run like a huge multinational corporation, and many people are becoming enormously wealthy because of it. And remember that as "religious" organizations, they pay NO TAXES. They contribute nothing to the public purse, but want to dictate how it is spent.

And the money flows.

Anti-feminism, abortion, the "homosexual agenda". All money in the bank. Doesn't matter what their own personal views may be, it's what they can sell.

I'm reminded of a story told by former evangelical crusader, Charles Templeton, about Billy Graham. Both men did the circuit together, but Templeton was becoming disillusioned with what they were selling, especially the story of creation.

So he went to Graham, and asked him how he could accept creationism as 'fact' when there was irrefutable evidence that the world had evolved over millions of years. Graham, an intelligent man, told him "I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as the word of God, my preaching has power." (Farewell to God, p. 7-8)

He didn't have to believe it, he only had to market it.

I have no real problem with Billy Graham, and respect the fact that he was the first modern day "crusader" to remove the ropes that separated black followers at these events. But that does say a lot about the movement.

So we could then say that the quest for money is now a "Christian value".

Racism is a "Christian Value"?

The newest fundraising campaigns for many of these organizations, is the "devil" of Islam, and the fear that Muslims will out breed the white race. Not unlike Harper's National Citizens Coalition, that ran a lucrative campaign in the early 1980s, when they raised the alarm that the Asians would soon out breed white Canadians. They had it all worked out.

Link Byfield, now a member of the Wildrose Party in Alberta, spoke at a REAL Women's conference, where he sounded the alarm over a new set of "breeders".

Mr. Byfield's talk was originally to have been on "The Effect of Feminism on the Media", but he declared that the topic was simply too depressing. He spoke, instead, on his view of "Three Futures for Mankind," two of which are quite dark, while one is bright. Which will become our eventual fate?

Scene I. If Islam Prevails

An invasion by Islam will not be by force of arms, as they do not have the technology for that. The power of Islam is in its birth rate. Islam cannot be removed or replaced, and it grows by way of its large families. In Britain, there are entire Muslim communities, with mosques going up everywhere. Although Muslims share the Christian notion of family, Islam also demands submission. Democracy is a Christian philosophy and, therefore, does not exist or, at best, is only a peripheral force in most Muslim countries.

Link's father, Ted Byfield, was one of the founders of both the Reform Party and the Civitas Society, the policy arm of the Harper government. About as "fundamentalist" as you can get, he once stated that the only thing that government should legislate was morality.

Link Byfield was also one of the founders of the Northern Foundation, which became an umbrella group for Canada's far right.

"... the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." (Of Passionate Intensity, p. 121)

Harper would later say that he was kicked out of the Northern Foundation because he wasn't right-wing enough. (Hard-Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, p.430)

However, I find that hard to believe, since their views are in line with his policies.

When it was learned that neo-Nazis had infiltrated the Reform Party, Harper and his boss Preston Manning claimed not to know. But one, Rob Overfield, insisted that he told the Reform Party leadership, and was assured that they had no problem with it. (Report to the Solicitor General of Canada Security Intelligence Review Committee December 9, 1994)

"The expulsion enraged the Heritage Front, which saw the Reform Party's policies as very similar to, if not indistinguishable from, its own. How could a party that went on record opposing immigration policies that "radically alter" Canada's ethnic make-up, turn around and shun a group like the Heritage Front, [Wolfgang] Droege asked, when the Heritage Front supports the very same approach? Privately, spokesmen for B'nai Brith and the Canadian Jewish Congress admitted that Droege had a good point." (Web of Hate p. 243-44))

How is Byfield's claim that Muslims will out breed us any different from the Heritage Front or the English Defense league?

Hatred has just gone legit.

Isn't it ironic though, that throughout the 1990s, we could refer to Stephen Harper as being from the extreme right, and his party as neoconservatives. Yet today, just linking him to the Chicago School, will get you fired.

However, I guess we could say that racism is now a "Christian value".

Why Can't Feminists be Christians?

"The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things." Stephen Harper speech to Council for National Policy

Why do these Religious Right groups assume that feminists are Godless? According to John Baldock, who wrote a wonderful book, Women in the Bible:

Apart from a few women such as Eve, Mary (the mother of Jesus) and Mary Magdalene, the women in the Bible are generally eclipsed by their male counterparts.

This state of affairs not only mirrors the status assigned to women in Western society over the last 2,000 years, it also reflects the patriarchal nature of both the Jewish and Christian religions. And yet a closer study of the Bible reveals that women were once regarded as the equals of men rather than subject to them. We read of women who were priestesses in the ancient religions of the Near East, who served as judges and prophets to the early Israelites, and who saved the Jewish people on more than one occasion from extinction at the hands of their enemies. Even Wisdom, which is described in the Book of Proverbs as the 'fountain of life', was personified as a woman. (Introduction)

Religious scholar, Rita Gross, has also written extensively on feminism and religion.

They can be at odds but don't have to be.

So why has feminism become such a catalyst for the right-wing evangelical movement?

It's because if women want equality and careers, they won't be home making babies. It's that simple. It's why they have convinced the Harper government to write tax laws favouring single wage earner, heterosexual, married couples.

Now that across Europe they are raising the alarm about the return of fascism, we should be able to have an adult conversation about it. When I was in my 20s, I became interested in the Nazi movement in Germany, not because I sympathized, but because I was curious how an uneducated gutter rat, was able to become one of the most powerful men in the world.

It did not happen overnight.

If you remove the shadow of the Holocaust, not by denying that it happened, because it very much did and was horrendous, but simply by studying the success of the movement; you can learn a lot.

At the time, people in Germany never thought of Hitler as a dictator. When his party came to power in 1933, most adopted a wait and see attitude, not sure that he could deliver on his many promises.

They grew to like his nationalist stand and his promotion of the military. And they liked the fact that he was trying to create a true German identity. Something they could be proud of.

In Hitler's Beneficiaries, Götz Aly writes that "From its earliest days the Hitler regime favoured families over single people and childless couples." They introduced "joint tax returns for couples" and graduated income tax.

None of these things are wrong, and the promotion of family is not a bad thing, so long as you include all families. Hitler supported a nuclear Aryan-German family. The Religious Right supports a nuclear Judeo-Christian family.

Aly also points out the Nazi love of polls and their use of think tanks to sell their message.

The Holocaust was the result of nationalism run amok.

In Europe, many are seeing a return of fascism, and anti-fascist protest groups are emerging. If Canadians can't see that this new right-wing movement, is a form of fascism, then I'll just call this my "European edition".

Sadly, most Christians in Canada don't share the beliefs of the movement, but the noisy Christian Right, are the only voices being heard.

REAL Women, Promise Keepers and the Promotion of Violence

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

It is a massive masculine shadow,
in a hall or crowded room,
lifting something indistinct up into the resonating night.
ROBERT BLY, "FIFTY MALES SITTING TOGETHER"

Robert Bly is an American author and poet who became the inspiration for the Mytho-poetic men's movement.

Fearing that the women's movement was turning men into "yogurt-eaters", Bly was determined to instead create a cabal of "wild men", who would seek traditional roles for the male species, many based on, believe it or not, Grimm's Fairy Tales.

The tales that portray the powerful king, the handsome prince, the beautiful maiden, and of course the witch determined to destroy them all. (He must have some mother issues)

No "round shouldered" men need apply.

Author Susan Faludi attended one of his few retreats that were open to women and asked why everyone was told in advance to bring a large stone. Bly's spokesperson explained that they were to build a monument to Hermes, but didn't want to go into too much detail, with women present.

An Olympic god. Of course. Patron of shepherds and cowherds. In fact, the spokesman, Walter Bliss, had legally changed his name to Shepherd Bliss, and his profession from army officer to psychologist.

Bly made his appearance to the sound of conga drums, and with the stance of a Viking, reminded those in the audience that he is Norse.

We no longer have images of "real men," Bly says, as the men continue the drum beat. Stereotypical sissies have replaced macho men. "Woody Allen is just as bad—a negative John Wayne," he says, raising his voice to a nasal squeak in imitation. "Men used to make models for what a man is from the Iliad and the Odyssey and places like that."

On the all-male weekend, he promises, he will bring back these role models for male edification: "One of the things we do is go back to the very old stories, five thousand years ago, where the view of a man, what a man is, is more healthy."(1)

A former peace activist, and strong opponent to the Vietnam war, Bly needed a new cause and found it in male bonding.

By the early '80s, he was, he confessed, starting to feel less than manly. "I began to feel diminished," Bly writes, "by my lack of embodiment of the fruitful male—or the moist male." It wasn't his loss of early prominence, however, that he identified as the problem. It was his "missing contact with men" and his overexposure to strong and angry women, including his own mother. (told 'ya)

He feared that he and men like him had allied them­selves too closely with such women, and consequently taken "a female view" of their fathers and their own masculinity. He de­cided he'd made a mistake with his earlier recommendation: "If someone says to me now, 'There is something missing on your feminine side,' I say, `No, what is missing is the masculine,' " Bly told Whole Earth magazine in 1988. He worried that he was only "superficially" manly. Men had awakened their feminine princi­ple only to be consumed by it. They had gone "soft." (1)

So he began running all-male workshops to reintroduce men to "the deep masculine."

This led to wilderness weekend retreats where men dressed in tribal masks and wild-animal costumes, beat drums and rediscov­ered "the beast within." His success inspired scores of imitators, creating a "cottage industry" for the men's movement.

And one of those "imitators" was the Promise Keepers. A New Age Journal article noted that Promise Keepers combined the secular men’s movement (founded by New Age poet Robert Bly) with the political evangelicalism of Pat Robertson. And the Atlanta Journal-Constitution stated that: "Promise Keepers combines the Jesus Saves preaching of Billy Graham with the male-bonding message of Robert Bly.

Promise Keepers was brought to Canada by Conservative MP David Sweet. In 2004, when he ran, he posted on his website, the fact that he had been instrumental in creating the Northern chapter.

Women read that, reminded us of what PK stood for, and he lost the election.

In 2006, he got smarter, and removed all mention of the "wildmen" club, only saying that he ran a non-profit organization. He continues to represent Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough- Westdale.

Bly's teachings also fit well with the anti-feminist groups, like REAL Women of Canada, who promoted so-called "family values". Bly attacked not only domineering women, but single mothers.

In short, the Great Mother's authority has become too great. "Men's societies are disappearing, partly under pressure from women with hurt feelings," he writes. Too many women are "raising boys with no man in the house." The single mother's son has become "a nice boy who now not only pleases his mother but also the young woman he is living with."

To restore the nice boy's male identity, Bly proposes, he must quit taking cues from mother and "go down into the psyche and accept what's dark down there." As a key guide to the journey, Bly offers "The Story of Iron John," borrowed from a Grimm's Brothers' fairy tale. In the story, a hairy "wild man" is locked up in an iron cage near the royal castle; the key to the cage is under the queen's pillow. One day the young prince loses his prized "golden ball" when it rolls into an abandoned pond, and he can only relieve it by stealing the key from mother and freeing the wild man. The young man, in the words of Bly's sidekick Keith Thompson, has to take back the power he has given to his mother and get away from the force field of her bed. He must direct his energies away from pleasing Mommy." (1)

At Bly's all-male weekends, the "wildmen" build lairs with plastic chairs, grunting and groaning, and whatever other male sounds they can muster.

Journalist Jon Tevlin, attended a weekend of frolic and fun, run by Bly, at a Bible camp in Mound, Minnesota. On the first night, Tevlin reports that Shepherd Bliss, dropped to his knees.

"Some of you may want to temporarily leave the world of the two-leggeds, and 'Join me in the world of the four-leggeds," he said. One by one, we slid from our orange Naugahyde chairs onto an orange shag carpet ripped straight out of the 1960s. "You may find yourself behaving like these four-leggeds; you may be scratching the earth, getting in contact with the dirt and the world around you."

As he spoke, people began pawing at the ground. . . . "You may find yourself behaving like the most masculine of all animals—the ram," Shepherd said in a coaxing voice. . . . "You may find unfamiliar noises emerging from your throats!" . . . There were gurgles and bleats, a few wolf calls. . .. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shepherd coming toward me, head down, tufts of white hair ringing a bald spot. . . . Meanwhile, I felt a slight presence at my rear, and turned to see a man beginning to sniff my buttocks. "Woof!" he said. (1)

"Woof" indeed!

How to Handle Your Women

As men are given instruction on how to find their "beast within", they are also told how to treat their women, and "wrest the power from their hands".

Inspiration came from objects they were asked to bring from home, including a .380-caliber automatic pistol. A rather odd trophy for what was called a "battle on the domestic front".

And what if women are not so enthused with their new butt sniffing menfolk?

Promise Keeper's Tony Evans says “I am not suggesting that you ask for your role back, I am urging you to take it back. There can be no compromise here.” .

Robert Bly is not so subtle.

At one seminar, with more than a thousand men in attendance, a man in the audience told Bly, "Robert, when we tell women our desires, they tell us we're wrong." To which Bly responded: "So, then you bust them in the mouth." (1)

People are not taking this movement seriously enough. Stephen Harper is tearing down the Status for Women, and reversing gains made over the past decades.

But the media look at all the women in his caucus, and determine that he is not a misogynist.

If we had to select one photo that would define this period in our history, the following would definitely be in the running.

A frightened Diane Finlay making an announcement, with Pierre Poilievre in a Gestapo style stance, watching on. Women in Harper's party are mere window dressing. They have no power.

When Jason Kenney rewrote the citizenship guide, he all but excluded any contributions made by women.

Historian Margaret Conrad said of the new guide, that it “represents a new kind of Canada, one that is less sympathetic with my personal sense of a progressive, forward-looking nation, but the new slant is no doubt in keeping with the sentiments of the current administration in Ottawa ... It's kind of like a throwback to the 1950s, ... It's a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men."

We are being written out, reduced to the "witches" in Grimms Fairy Tales.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 304-312

From Forlorn to Forbearing: Feminism Never Stood a Chance

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

We all remember the scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Meg Ryan shows Billy Crystal how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm, and another patron declares "I'll have what she's having".

It was probably the funniest scene in the movie, but not everyone was laughing.

Two years before the movie's release, in November of 1987, Shere Hite published the last installment of her national survey on sexuality and relationships, Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress, and the reaction from the male population was immediate.

The media, unable to dispute the findings, since they were testimonials from flesh and blood women, instead attacked Hite personally, as a man hating flake.

I doubt many read all 922 pages, representing the views of 4,500 women, so instead thumbed through the summaries, questioning the numbers.

They also accused Hite of only distributing her questionnaires through women's rights groups, but that was not the case. Hite sent her surveys through a wide range of women's groups, including church societies, social clubs, and senior citizens' centers. And while their views were dismissed as "man-bashing diatribes", they sounded more forlorn than vengeful.

So why the uproar?

Says Susan Faludi, in her book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women: "the overheated denunciations of Hite's book suggest an emotion closer to fear than fury."

Hite revealed that women were more likely to experience orgasm through masturbation than intercourse, and panic set in. Test-tube babies were already a reality, so the fear for some men would be that they might be deemed to be obsolete.

A ridiculous assumption, but one shared by many just the same. Canadian neoconservative Link Byfield, spoke at a REAL Women of Canada conference, relating his fears"

To populate the nation, society has implemented the ideas set out in Aldous Huxley's book, "Brave New World." For example, we are increasingly playing with providing babies in nurseries without mothers and fathers and families, just as predicted by Mr. Huxley ...

Fortunately, most men don't really feel that way, enjoying more intimacy in an equal partnership, but it helps to reveal some of the fears, neocon males have of "radical feminists".

If women can support themselves, pleasure themselves, have and raise children themselves, where do they fit in? Will they have to audition for a place in society that they were once guaranteed, simply because of their maleness?

The Strange Case of Srully Blotnick

Eventually Shere Hite was forced to leave the United States and become a German citizen, she was so vilified.

And yet another expert on women, who was releasing the results of his survey, was glorified by the media. Srully Blotnick, a columnist for Forbes Magazine.

Blotnick asserted that his twenty-five-year study of 3,466 women proved that achieving career women are likely to end up without love, and their spinsterly misery would eventually undermine their careers as well. "In fact," he wrote, "we found that the anxiety, which steadily grows, is the single greatest underlying cause of firing for women in the age range of thirty-five to fifty-five." He took some swipes at the women's movement, too, which he called a "smoke screen behind which most of those who were afraid of being labeled egomaniacally grasping and ambitious hid."

Dr. Blotnick appeared everywhere and was quoted often. And his testimonials were not deemed to be female-bashing diatribes, but legitimate views of working women.

And Forbes magazine paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce still more studies about these "anxiety-ridden careerists". But there was a problem.

First off, if Blotnick had really been compiling his data for 25 years, using interviews with women, as he claimed; it would have meant that he had began when he was only 17. How many women are going to open up to a 17-year-old boy, about their anxieties over working outside the home, while still being expected to perform 80% of the domestic duties.

Or about their sexuality?

The biggest problem, however, was that Dr. Blotnick was not a doctor at all. His degree had been acquired through a correspondence course, and was not recognized anywhere. When the news broke, Forbes had him remove the "Dr." from his byline, but continued to print his columns.

And the media continued to quote him everywhere.

Why Was Forbes so Interested?

Eventually Forbes magazine did fire Blotnick, after a criminal investigation for practicing psychology in New York, without a license.

But why was a business rag so concerned with women's rights, that they poured so much money into this man's "research"? Keeping him on even after learning that he had lied about his credentials?

To understand the motivation of Forbes magazine is to understand it's editor-in-chief, Steve Forbes, a card carrying member of the Neoconservative movement.

Grandson of the magazine's founder, Forbes used the publication to endorse Ronald Reagan, and when Reagan became president, he brought Forbes into his administration as head of the Board of International Broadcasting.

Steve Forbes took a run at the presidency on his own, but failed. However, he continued to work behind the scenes, in many think tanks and AstroTurf groups, the most famous being the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy

Alykhan Velshi, Jason Kenney's former puppet master, was plucked from there to help put words into Kenney's mouth, and keep the boys in the backroom "election ready". However, now that Harper has a majority, Velshi has left, his work here apparently done.

AEI also helped to draft the "Clash of Civilizations" foreign policy, which according to Lawrence Martin in his book Harperland, is something that Stephen Harper has embraced.

The American Right has been the driving force behind Canada's movement for decades.

In fact, Steve Forbes was key adviser to Christie Todd Whitman's 1993 run for New Jersey governor, transforming her from "plain old Christie Whitman to a Christian Coalition Republican" (CNN Crossfire, January 20, 2000).

He brought on board some Republican heavyweights, including strategist Mike Murphy, who drafted a "common sense" revolution, with the promise of a 30 percent cut in New Jersey's income tax. As a result she beat out the incumbent Governor James Florio.

So successful was the campaign that the Neocons decided to replicate it, transforming plain old Mike Harris into "a *Christian Coalition Republican".

Whitman defeated a popular Democratic incumbent, Jim Florio, primarily on the basis of a Murphy-inspired campaign using a "common sense" slogan and pledging a 30 per cent tax cut. Since her victory, the activities of her government in implementing this plan had been carefully charted by Harris aide Bill King. In March 1994, Harris actually travelled to New Jersey to meet Whitman and discuss strategy. Two months later, the "Common Sense Revolution" with its 30 per cent tax cut was unveiled. (Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2 4, Pg. 166)

The Undeclared War Against American Women, is now the well documented War Against Canadian Women.

And the American neoconservative movement has expanded it's mandate, making Canada Chapter Twenty-two of The Shock Doctrine.

They didn't need a bloody coup to achieve their goals, only a willing partner, and no one was more willing than Stephen Harper.

When is our media going to wake up? The evidence is so overwhelming, that it is hitting them between the eyes, knocking them on the head and kicking them in the groin. Yet they still choose to ignore it, preferring instead to believe that Harper was sprinkled with happy powder and instantly turned into a "Tory".

A miracle only rivalled by those witnessed at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.

Another man behind REAL Women of Canada was the late Ted Byfield. When Harper cancelled the Court Challenges program, Byfield wrote under the headline: Canadian Tories pull rug from feminist-gay revolution (World News Net, September 30, 2006)

Whether the challenges program is gone for good is, of course, still in doubt. It survived its last demise under Mulroney, [Lorne] Gunter recalls, by kicking up such a squawk that even the Tories themselves promised to revive it if returned to office. But the Conservatives of those days were the so-called "Red Tories," a species to which Harper & Co. do not belong.

Moreover, the conservative lobby groups are now considerably better organized. The SOW had barely got started in its mass-mailing campaign against the Harper axe when Gwen Landolt of the conservative REAL Women organization, pounced on them for using government funds to influence government policy. Her swift response was typical. It has been REAL Women, totally self-financed by thousands of members, which more than any other group finally put the boots to these detestable agencies. May they stay dead.

There is no argument that we've "had the boots put to us", but the question is: When are we going to start kicking back?

Footnotes:

*Later brought to Canada by Jason Kenney and company. Kenney would also use his Canadian Taxpayers Federation to endorse Mike Harris.

Harper's War on Women Was Launched in the USA

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"The woman who is truly Spirit-filled will want to be totally submissive to her husband . . . This is a truly liberated woman. Submission is God's design for women."BEVERLY LAHAYE, The Spirit-Controlled Woman

One evening in 1978 Beverly LaHaye was watching television with her husband. On the tube Barbara Walters was interviewing the feminist leader Betty Friedan, who suggested that she represented many women in America.

According to the story that LaHaye has repeated countless times, she immediately sprang to her feet and declared, "Betty Friedan doesn't speak for me and I bet she doesn't speak for the majority of women in this country."

From that day on, or so the story goes, she vowed to rally other "submissive" women who believed, like her, that "the women's liberation movement is destroying the family and threatening the survival of our nation." (1)

Betty LaHaye's husband is Religious Right leader, Tim LaHaye, co-author of the successful Apocalyptic Left Behind book series. He is also a founder of the Council for National Policy, where Harper gave his 1997 speech, where he vilified Canadians and our socialist ways.

Betty LaHaye's "submissive awakening" was in direct contrast to what she had been preaching several years before. Then as a pastor's wife, raising four children, she felt unfulfilled and hated the drudgery of her day to day existence.

One very well-meaning lady said to me in the early days of our ministry, "Mrs. LaHaye, our last pastor's wife was an author; what do you do?" That was a heavy question for a fearful twenty-seven-year-old woman to cope with. And I began to wonder, "What did I do?" Oh yes, I was a good mother to my four children, I could keep house reasonably well, my husband adored me, but what could I do that would be eternally effective in the lives of other women? The answer seemed to come back to me. "Very little!" There was something missing in my life.

In my case it was not the major problems that succeeded in wearing me down; it was the smoldering resentment caused from the endless little tasks that had to be repeated over and over again and seemed so futile. Day after day I would perform the same routine procedures: picking up dirty socks, hanging up wet towels, closing closet doors, turning off lights that had been left on, creating a path through the clutter of toys. (1)

So despite the fact that her children were still young, she returned to work full-time, as a teletype operator for Merrill Lynch. This job she claimed helped her to "gain confidence" and fulfilment.

By 1978 her children were grown and forgetting her life before Merrill Lynch, she decided that she would be the voice of submissive women everywhere.

Lahaye helped to form the group 'Concerned Women for America', drafting women's policy for the Neoconservative/Religious Right movement. CWA also sparked similar organisations in other countries, including our own version 'Real Women of Canada', who have worked in Harper's various parties from the beginning of Reform.

A branch group of Real Women, Alberta Federation of Women United for Families, helped to get Conservative MP Rob Anders elected.

Members of Concerned Women, regularly speak at Real Women conventions, and Canadian members return the favour.

In fact several Conservative MPs have also made the trek to Betty LaHaye's anti-feminist kingdom, including Vic Toews and Stockwell Day.

Given this kind of support for anti-feminism, should we really be surprised that the Republicans are attacking any funding to vulnerable women? That Harper's tax policies ignore single mothers, and pander only to high income households with one wage earner? Or that the Neoconservative government of David Cameron in the UK, is also targeting women in their "austerity" budgets?

This all began when stocking footed Betty LaHaye stood up and vowed to offer an alternative voice for women, who could find happiness if they would just totally submit to their menfolk.

So kick off those shoes ladies and get back in the kitchen where you belong.

As for me, I'm experiencing a case of the vapours. Could just be that my corset's too tight.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 247-249

The Suspension of Women's Rights. Are We Really Prepared for This?

In 2007, Donna L. Lillian, Assistant Professor of Discourse and Linguistics in the Department of English at East Carolina University, wrote a paper entitled: A thorn by any other name: sexist discourse as hate speech, which centered around the Reform Party, our neoconservative movement, and William D. Gairdner.

The relationship between Stephen Harper and Gairdner is long and deep.

Both are founding Reform Party members and also instrumental in the creation of The Northern Foundation: "... established in 1989, originally as a pro-South Africa group . . . [n favour of continued Apartheid]. Since its establishment, however, the foundation has developed into a broad coalition of right-wing groups and individuals across the country’ lists among the founding members of the Foundation both William Gairdner and Stephen Harper. (1)

Gairdner is also former chair of the National Citizens’ Coalition, where Stephen Harper spent three decades, eventually acting as both VP and President; and founding president of the Civitas Society, one of the policy arms of the Harper government.

And Gairdner gave the keynote address at the Reform Party's 1991 General Assembly: ‘delegates to the 1991 Saskatoon convention gave William Gairdner enormous applause, even more than Manning later received, for his vitriolic speech denouncing feminists, bilingualism, and multiculturalism, among other things’(1)

Murray Dobbin who was at the event noted "the frequent and extended applause and the cheers that greeted Gairdner’s denunciation of women and women’s rights." Gairdner has been identified as one the most influential core members of Reform and as their party mentor (1), and his book The Trouble with Canada, functioned as ‘the de facto manifesto for Preston Manning’s Reform Party’ (2).

The premise of Lillian's thesis was to analyze "Canadian neoconservative discourse as racist, sexist, and homophobic."

In arguing that at least some sexist discourse should be considered hate speech, I first demonstrate that the popular discourse of Canadian neoconservative author William D. Gairdner is sexist.... Sexism, the ideology and practice of relegating women to a lower rung on the social hierarchy than men simply by virtue of their femaleness, is an integral component of neoconservative thinking, and one way that such sexism is produced and reproduced is through language"

For example, women who choose roles other than that of full-time stay-at-home wife and mother and especially those who actively seek to create conditions in which women who choose other roles are not discriminated against are the women dubbed ‘radical feminists’ by Gairdner and they are purported to be the instruments of the breakdown of so-called traditional values in Canadian society.

Gairdner classifies as feminist a wide range of women including those who advocate publicly funded day care for children, abortion rights, ready access to contraceptives, sex education in schools, affirmative action for women, equal pay for work of equal value, marriage and adoption rights for gay and lesbian couples, as well as those who resist patriarchy in any other way. The only women whom he does not label feminists are women who support his patriarchal vision in which a woman marries young, bears and raises several children, and occupies herself doing unpaid domestic and volunteer work. Of course, if such a woman were to use her time volunteering for a group promoting any of the causes he disagrees with, then she, too, might be labeled a feminist according to Gairdner’s use of the term.

Now we might say that the Reform Party was established more than 20 years ago, so the party [now called The Conservative Party of Canada] may not hold the same views today. However, in the five years that Stephen Harper has held power, the evidence is overwhelming, that he is carrying out the mandate of Gairdner, Reform, the NCC and the NF, when it comes to women's rights and their intended role in society.

In March of 2009:

Representatives of women’s groups and labour unions gathered at the United Nations yesterday, to announce that they will be filing a complaint against the Harper government with the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The complaint condemns the Canadian government for rushing controversial pay equity legislation through Parliament, which will make it extremely difficult for women in the federal public sector to demand equal pay for work of equal value. —Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), “Women launch complaint against Harper government for destroying the right to pay equity,” news release, March 6, 2009 (3)

Can you imagine, after all of our strides, though still with a long way to go, Canadian women were forced to lobby the United Nations for the return of rights we had already fought so hard to acquire?

In June of 2010, Gerald Caplan asked:

"Are you old-fashioned? Do you still believe in gender equality? Do you intend to promote gender equality? Do you believe a woman should be able to have an abortion if she chooses to?"

And in his discussion he reminds us that the attack on these fundamental things is no idle threat.

It's already happened to a large number of groups supporting women's equality. International Planned Parenthood has heard nothing for a year about renewed funding. Match International, the only international development organization devoted specifically to women's equality, has been cut off. CIDA has cut funds to projects in Pakistan and Kenya that were explicitly dedicated to gender equality. In fact, hard as it is it believe, CIDA staff have told NGOs to remove the words "gender equality" from their proposal if they want a chance at funding.

And more recently, Harper's Family tax plan excludes single parents.

In his book, Rogue in Power, Christian Nadeau also discusses the erosion of womens rights under Harper.

Back in September 2006, the government announced major reforms in the operation of Status of Women Canada. This federal body's budget was cut by about 40 per cent, and nearly all its regional offices were closed, supposedly as a rationalization measure. At the same time, Bev Oda, the minister in charge, made drastic cuts in the financial assistance provided for researching women's social struggles. Thus, many human rights organizations were left bereft of financial means.

Women's groups continue to be among the primary targets of budgetary restraints imposed by the government on civil society organizations. Some examples of groups that have experienced recent cuts include the New Brunswick coalition for pay equity, Quebec's Conseil d'intervention pour Faeces des femmes au travail (a council that advocates on behalf of women in the workplace), the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation, Action travail des femmes du Quebec (a nonprofit group that works to help women access jobs), the Reseau des tables regionales de groupes de femmes du Quebec (a network of regional roundtables made up of Quebec women's groups), and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. All these organizations expressed indignation at these unjustified cuts, but their statements were scarcely acknowledged by Rona Ambrose, the new Minister of State for the Status of Women, who seemed to have other fish to fry.

In the area of pay equity, the Harper government has also shown what it is capable of, especially in relation to public service employees. In 2009, the House of Commons gave third reading to the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, contained in Bill C-10, the Budget Implementation Act. The text of the law, a door-stopper more than five hundred pages long, obstructs women's right to demand wage equality with men for work of equal value. It takes away the right to submit pay equity complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Finance Minister Flaherty stated that he wanted to end a system of "double pay equity" and said the collective bargaining framework was adequate for dealing with this issue. In other words, employers were relieved of a responsibility ... Briefly stated, without declaring that it is openly antifeminist, the Harper government has done plenty to block the movement for equality in relations between men and women. Without institutional' guarantees for this social struggle, it is easy for Harper to state his commitment towards women while contradicting it on a daily basis in his policies. (4)

Are we as citizens ready to reverse the movement by about 50 years? Will we have to march again?

And remember that under Harper, protesters are not welcome, as those at the G-20 and Save the Prison Farms campaign, learned. Riot police appear to be on constant standby. In Kingston those abused and arrested ranged from a 14-year-old girl to an 88-year-old woman. The message is clear. If you go against this government you will be dealt with.

Are we really prepared for this?

Sources:

1. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7 4

2. Of Passionate Intensity: Right-Wing Populism and the Reform Party of Canada, By Trevor Harrison, University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN: 0-8020-7204-6

3. HARPER PLANS TO WIN MAJORITY USING WOMEN VOTERS: A Brief Chronological Account of the Erosion of Women’s Rights Under the Tories, By Rolf Auer, March 28, 2011

4. Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is remaking Canada by Stealth, By Christian Nadeau, Lorimer Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-1-55277-730-5

Why are we Surprised That Harper Has Turned Back the Clock on Women's Rights?

Laura Wood has an interesting op-ed piece on Rabble: Chipping away at gender equality: Harper's five-year round up.

She discusses his turning back the clock on women's rights, citing many of the measures taken to again subordinate our gender.

There are no arguments with her piece. However, as a nation we should not be at all surprised by this, if we had been following politics back in the Reform Party days.

Part of their policy was to put women back in the kitchen, where it was deemed they belonged. And they made no secret of it. In fact many men were drawn to the Reform movement because of it.

One of their founders, was William Gairdner and his book The Trouble with Canada, according to author and journalist Murray Dobbin, "functioned as ‘the de facto manifesto for the Reform Party’". He sold copies at Reform Party assemblies.

In 2007, Donna L. Lillian, then Assistant Professor of Discourse and Linguistics in the Department of English at East Carolina University, wrote her dissertation on sexist discourse as hate speech, and it was centred around William D. Gairdner. She writes:

In arguing that at least some sexist discourse should be considered hate speech, I first demonstrate that the popular discourse of Canadian neoconservative author William D. Gairdner is sexist.... Sexism, the ideology and practice of relegating women to a lower rung on the social hierarchy than men simply by virtue of their femaleness, is an integral component of neoconservative thinking, and one way that such sexism is produced and reproduced is through language.

To international readers, Canadian author William D. Gairdner may seem like an obscure and unlikely subject for an argument about hate speech. After all, there are many well-known commentators and public figures, particularly in the USA, whose writings might be considered sexist and whose names might be more recognizable internationally than Gairdner’s. In preparing this article, I have, in fact, read dozens of conservative books, articles, blogs, and websites, including some by prominent Americans admired and cited by Gairdner himself (e.g. George Gilder, Richard Viguerie, Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly, inter alia). Gairdner shares many views with these commentators; however, his discourse style differs markedly from theirs. Whereas they temper their style, largely avoiding obviously inflammatory modes of expression, Gairdner revels in what he describes as his ‘tell it like it is’ style of writing. (1)

He never held back. I read The Trouble With Canada, and the way he speaks about women, or as he likes to refer to us, "radical feminists", made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was frightening.

And he was one of Stephen Harper's mentors.

Laura Wood in her Rabble piece also mentions the influence of the anti-women group, oddly named REAL Women of Canada. They were involved in the movement from the early days, and now brag about how often they are invited to Parliament Hill for their input.

Their president, Gwen Landholt, spoke of the "...takeover, by feminist ideology, of the judicial system in Canada, as well as its takeover of the UN. During the 60s, 70s and 80s, the radical feminist ideology was gradually instilled into the cultures of education, work, government and societal life."

"Feminist ideology"? Interesting. I remember a headline when I was in high school, announcing that women who were employed in banks, could now wear pants to work. However, they had to be pantsuits. Our school soon followed, allowing us to also wear slacks, but there were guidelines that were strictly enforced. No jeans, nothing too tight, etc.

We soon broke every rule. It was the late '60s. It's what we did.

But do we really want to go back to a time when we had to fight just to wear pants? For Stephen Harper and his neoconservatives, women's rights are seen as a threat to their masculinity. It is fundamental that they chip away at them, until they all come crashing down.

It took decades to accomplish what we have, and could take decades more just to go back to where we were five years ago. Canadian women have to stand up to this man, and we do that by exercising our hard fought for right to vote.

Sources:

1. A thorn by any other name: sexist discourse as hate speech, By Donna L. Lillian, Assistant Professor of Discourse and Linguistics East Carolina University, 2007

Some Hate Groups Now Working Through the Pro-Life Movement

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

When I first thought about writing a book, it was after reading several on Canada's hate groups.

At the same time, the Religious Right in Canada was gaining prominence and what I found was that the language used by both was almost identical, especially when it came to immigrants, abortion and homosexuality.

I thought I might find some links that would suggest that many of the old hate groups are now hiding behind religion, which gives them far more freedom to say what they want.

But what I found interesting, when researching both, was that they had so many links to the Reform movement, whether they were operating as the Reform Party, the Alliance, the Conservatives or even their original Social Credit identity.

And I am still convinced that many of the old extreme right have found safe haven in both the Religious Right and the Conservative Party of Canada, in part through groups like the Civitas Society and REAL Women of Canada.

The group Stop Racism and Hate Collective have also found some alarming links and posted them under their Myths About Hate Groups. And using the abortion issue as an example:

.... hate groups do not just target people of colour, or Jews, but actively support the most extreme elements of anti-choice groups. A number of former members of the Ku Klux Klan, for example, have direct ties to anti-choice groups. The leader of the Northern Foundation, Anne Hartmann, plays an important role in Realwomen. Barry Wray and Ernie Britskie have picketed the Everywoman's Health Centre in Vancouver. Wray's brother, Dan, was the Grand Titan of the BC KKK in the 1980s and he now is associated with the Pro-Life Association based in Melville, Saskatchewan. Dan also contributes to The Interim - the Campaign Life Coalition's newsletter. Barry Wray, Al Hooper (another long time member of the BC KKK) and Tony McAleer, a former skinhead recruiter, proprietor of the racist Canadian Liberty Net and manager of the racist rock band, Odin's Law, were charged with assault in 1990 an incident in which a passerby objected to them handing out Aryan Nations propaganda. Realwoman BC President Peggy Steachy has also spoken at events with Dan Wray. One meeting was held at the Croatian Cultural Centre and sponsored by the La Rouche organization and Life Gazette. Steachy is the editor of a pro-life newsletter based in Surrey, BC. (1)

1. Anne Hartmann

Rita Anne Hartmann headed up the Ottawa branch of the Northern Foundation and was a founding member, along with Stephen Harper. Many others in the Northern Foundation now belong to the Civitas Society (the non-Neo-Nazi members, only far-right). Anne's husband Paul, who died mysteriously in 1986, was the leader of the Toronto KKK and a confirmed Odonist.

2. Dan and Barry Wray

There is no evidence that Barry Wray was ever involved in the KKK but his brother Dan most definitely was. When Ann Farmer was named leader, not wanting to work under a woman, he created his own group:

Another smaller splinter group was created in B.C., when a provincial organizer named Dan Wray set up a survivalist-oriented Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in rural Aldergrove. (2)

3. Ernie Britskie

In November 1992, Ernie Britskie, long-time associate the Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Resistance Movement and Lyndon LaRouche, allegedly told Kinsella he had given Mr [David] Irving support in Vancouver. (3)

4. Al Hooper

Was prominent in the KKK when Ann Farmer was running the show. He was involved in an attempt to join forces with the Nationalist Party of Canada created and still being led by Don Andrews.

The Stone Mountain unity rally also inspired the Canadian Klan to seek its own alliances with other white supremacist forces. Five days after the Georgia meeting, Farmer and Hooper met with Don Andrews, leader of the Nationalist Party of Canada, to discuss ways of working together. Andrews still scorned the Klan's composition and tactics: "The future belongs to white nationalists of a more intellectual order. We're not interested in flash-in-the-pan media publicity stuff," he said. Still, he was prepared to work with Farmer and Hooper, suggesting "joint statements, tactical alliances, but no union." Farmer talked about "co-operation and dialogue amongst white nationalists ... not an amalgamation of the various groups into a single unit."

From his Toronto jail cell, former Klan leader McQuirter also promoted common action. "I've been writing a lot of letters, proposing and pushing unity," said McQuirter. He still clung to his plans to enter the mainstream political arena: "I'm looking for a political party as a vehicle." * He said a federal political party of the extreme right could find protection under the law. "We can be exempt from the hate law if we're proposing certain political positions. No one could stop a formal political party." Wolfgang Droege shared McQuirter's desire for unity and political action. Before he returned to British Columbia, Droege wrote from prison that there was "a cohesive bond and a potential unity" on the extreme right in Canada and pledged "to co-operate with both the Klan and the Nationalist Party." Droege also talked of building "an effective political force through the normal, legal political process." (4)

5. Tony McAleer

McAleer belonged to the Aryan Resistance Movement, whose logo was a sword-bearing eagle superimposed on a large swastika.

Inside the crudely typed bulletin,Graham and his members ranted about "non-white vermin," the"Jewsmedia," and a well-known Canadian doctor who performs abortions ... The Aryan Resistance Movement was formed by Scott Graham and Tony McAleer, or, as he then called himself, Tony McLean, in 1987. Back then, it had about a dozen skinhead members in and around Mission, with about an equal number in Vancouver. (5)

Now I'm not suggesting that all pro-lifers once belonged to a hate group. The majority did not. However, we can't ignore the evidence that there are a number of hate group members who have found a safe haven within the Religious Right movement. REAL Women of Canada are now directing Harper's policy on the status of women, which pretty much means that Canadian women no longer have any status, and Jason Kenney's assault on the gay community has resulted in an increase in violent attacks on gays.

This government has legitimized hatred and we have to start paying attention.

Sources:

1. MYTHS ABOUT HATE GROUPS, Stop Racism and Hate Collective

2. White Hoods, By Julian Sher, New Star Books, 1983, ISBN 0-919573-13-4, Pg. 183

3. Statement in libel case against Deborah Lipstadt by David Irving, for mentioning him in her book Denying the Holocaust

4. Sher, 1983, Pg. 187

5. Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network, By Warren Kinsella, 1994, Harper Collins, pg. 54

Pro-Sex Feminists and a Feminized Curriculum are to Blame for Everything

We learned this week that Canada has slipped to 25th place in terms of gender equality,
most of that decline during the four years that the Harper government has been in power.

Much of that can be blamed on the anti-women movement REAL Women of Canada, and other faith based organizations, now driving the Conservative machine.

David Sweet, Reform-Conservative MP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, is the founder of the Canadian branch of Promise Keepers, an organization that promotes male dominated households.

The National Organization for Women, an American feminist group has suggested that the Promise Keepers are a threat to women's rights:

The group encourages inequality within marriages and teaches a doctrine of male superiority. According to Amy Schindler, "the discourse of masculinity found within conservative religious movements, such as the Promise Keepers and the Victorian era movement 'muscular Christianity,' is inherently political. Any masculinity project aimed at restoring or reclaiming a 'traditional' male role for privileged white, heterosexual males has a political impact within the tapestry of class, race, and gender power."

This organization was founded by former football coach Bill McCartney, and according to the Canadian Encyclopedia:

A coalition of liberal clergy called Equal Partners in Faith condemns it as "divisive and potentially dangerous." And a New York City-based group called the Center for Democracy Studies warns that Promise Keepers is nothing less than the "third wave" of the religious right - after Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition. Alfred Ross, the centre’s executive director, points to close ties between Promise Keepers and such luminaries of the American religious right as Robertson and James Dobson of Focus on the Family as proof that McCartney’s movement is no spontaneous eruption.

James Dobson is one of the founders of the Council for National Policy, where Stephen Harper delivered his 'I really Canadians' speech in 1997, and was integral in the election of Harper in 2006, by buying radio ads against same-sex marriage; one of the hot button issues of the campaign.

Reformers Rob Anders, Maurice Vellacott and David Sweet are also members of Focus on Family, along with a large number of their colleagues.

One of the things that PK preaches is purity in men, much like the group that Stephen Woodworth promotes; Parliamentary Friends of Falun Gong. Both Jason Kenney and Rob Anders claim to be virgins, though I'm not really sure that's by choice.

Any of us who have been following politics at all, since the Reform movement first began in Canada, are not really surprised by the results of the study. This party has always been very patriarchal, pro-Anglo and Christian fundamentalist.

One of their mentors and co-founder with Stephen Harper of a right-wing extremist group, the Northern Foundation, William Gairdner; always had some very disturbing views on women.

In fact, in 2007, Donna L. Lillian, Assistant Professor of Discourse and Linguistics in the Department of English at East Carolina University, wrote a paper entitled: A thorn by any other name: sexist discourse as hate speech, which centered around Gairdner: "...analyzing Canadian neoconservative discourse as racist, sexist, and homophobic." According to author and journalist Murray Dobbin, Mr. Gairdner's The Trouble with Canada functioned as ‘the de facto manifesto for Preston Manning’s Reform Party’ (Dobbin, 1992: 134).

Another co-founder of the Northern Foundation was Link Byfield, who has spoken at REAL Women conferences. In a 2002 lecture he stated: "Women, men and families must be defended against those forces that enslave us as we speak. That's why it is necessary for REAL Women to exist and to persist in its work on behalf of the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage and family life."

At that same conference, Jeffrey Asher, former Professor at Dawson College in Montreal, opened by saying:

The so-called New Male is a creation of classroom radical feminism, media hype and politically correct governments. For more than thirty years, our culture has rigorously censored information which shows that males and females choose and need sex-specific roles in life. Every parent knows that girls and boys behave differently. Boys choose to play noisy, competitive games that test one against the other, while girls prefer co-operative fantasies that develop emotional skills.

Co-operative fantasies that develop emotional skills? Wow. But wait, he's just getting started:

Men and women respond very differently to stimuli. The male alarm system is more protected from fear and panic. The male brain needs more stimulation than those of females ... Girls show more success in artistic, emotional, verbal and communicative subjects ... Men have superior vision compared to women. Almost all mechanical, chemical, electronic and cybernetic inventions were made by men ... .However, the lives of women have been transformed by independent work and income and the pill, allowing them freedom to choose motherhood and financial independence from fathers or husbands ... [and] can also lead to an increase in divorce, an epidemic of single-mother families, and rising unemployment for men. (Men define their lives by their ability to earn money through work to support a family.)

And he taught this crap at Dawson College, while claiming that by 1980, the women's movement was increasingly co-opted by the lunatic fringe.

The President of REAL Women, Gwen Landolt, also spoke in 2002, where she:

"... highlighted the takeover, by feminist ideology, of the judicial system in Canada, as well as its takeover of the UN. During the 60s, 70s and 80s, the radical feminist ideology was gradually instilled into the cultures of education, work, government and societal life.

Gwen traced the growth of feminism in Canada back to the Royal Commission Report on the Status of Women, which was tabled in the House of Commons in February 1970. It called for both federal and provincial governments to establish and fund Status of Women Councils to work for the "equality of women." This recommendation led to millions of dollars of tax monies being used to establish networks of women's groups across the country. These groups became paid "agents of change" to promulgate feminist orthodoxy.

So do you see what we're up against?

IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA?

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 ....

Jason Kenney and the Conservatives Remove Women From Canadian History

Jason Kenney's new handbook for immigrants was released yesterday, and not that we should really be surprised, but it almost completely removed the notion that women made any contributions to this country.

Historian Margaret Conrad said of the new guide, that it “represents a new kind of Canada, one that is less sympathetic with my personal sense of a progressive, forward-looking nation, but the new slant is no doubt in keeping with the sentiments of the current administration in Ottawa.”

She said she was surprised that the environment, given two pages in the previous guide, disappeared in the new document. The emphasis on the Queen and the Canadian Forces also struck her as unusual. “It's kind of like a throwback to the 1950s,” she said. “It's a tough, manly country with military and sports heroes that are all men. “It's a tougher Canada than the one the Liberals depicted.”

In its photos and illustrations, the new guide paints a picture of a multicultural country, but it offers very little discussion of the accomplishments of Canadian women, Prof. Conrad said. None of the great Canadian thinkers highlighted is a woman, and the only female athlete mentioned is Paralympic medal winner Chantal Petitclerc.

One of the reader comments at the end of the Globe and Mail piece was also disturbing. I suspect other macho types will feel validated with this booklet and I would imagine comments like this will be more common now. I'm used to hearing them, growing up in the '60's. I just hadn't heard them in awhile:

"Maybe Margaret Conrad needs to realize that it was men who built this country, and are still building it. Are you reading this, Maggie? You haven't contributed nearly enough. Shut yer trap."

Shut our traps? The new slogan for the Status of Women now that the word 'equality' was removed from their mandate. Left-Wing fringe groups. That's what we are now. Women have been marginalized with this new government. We weren't important in Canadian history and we aren't important now. REAL Women of Canada have won. The Promise Keepers have won. William Gairdner has won. And we let them because we have given up the fight.

Helena Guergis who's in charge of the Status for Women recently cited "the hypersexualization of girls as a root cause of dating violence." We shrugged. Welcome to the new Canada.

Maybe this generation of young women, after getting a taste of what it was like for us, will finally understand. Or not. It doesn't matter.

When Michael Ignatieff unveiled the Liberals Party's 3rd volume of the pink book, the media scoffed. Diane Francis wrote a scathing column, which I didn't have the stomach to read.

Ms Francis of course won the National Citizens Coalition Colin Brown medal of freedom. Now bear in mind freedom means freedom from government, or to be more specific; freedom from anything with 'Canadian' or 'public' in it's title. Ms Francis is the head of the Reform Conservatives PR firm, the National Post.

Do you see what we're up against?

There were three letters to the editor after this story was printed:

Those Mad Men of Ottawa, the Harper Conservatives, would like to take us back to the 1950s when men were tough, the Maple Leafs won games and everyone loved the Queen. I was a boy back then and do not recall anyone suggesting that a career in the army would be a fine choice.

Despite our new military vigour, it is hard to imagine that immigrants will flock to Canada to become soldiers in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Given the general indifference to the recent royal tour, there is little chance there will be a renaissance of affection for the monarchy, as immigrants replace births as the main source of our population growth.

King Canute, who died on Nov. 12, 1035, was famous for proving to his fawning supporters that he was not all-powerful by showing that he could not turn back the tide. Centuries later, people in power still have not learned this lesson.

Jim Reynolds, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
............
Since when does any particular political party get to decide what is Canadian? Can we now expect our national culture to change every time a new party is elected? This would mean that, with every new election, those who supported the losing parties and their values would become un-Canadian.

A nation’s culture is the result of a decision made by the people. The Tories’ belief that they have the ability to determine the “real” Canada shows a profound lack of humility.

Sascha Maicher, Ottawa
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Now that I’m nearing retirement age, I’m glad to learn it’s no longer necessary for new Canadians to understand the need to protect Canada’s environment. Has my life’s work paid off?

John Bennett, executive director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, Ottawa

Michael Ignatieff Puts Women Back on Track for Pay Equity. Yeah!!!

Some very good news today from Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. He is presenting a bill that will put Canadian women back on track to receive pay equity. In the past four years the Reform Conservatives have pushed the women's movement back four decades. We need to reclaim our place so that we can move forward. If we have to constantly back pedal, we'll be going nowhere.

We are not a left-wing fringe group Mr. Harper.

Mr. Ignatieff has already made a commitment to childcare and the Liberals third pink book is hot off the press. Finally some hope. Now if he can just get them to put 'equality' back into the Status of Women mandate and 'gender equality' into our foreign policy, we'll be closer to getting back the ground we lost four years ago. Yeah! ... I think.

One of the best things about this is that it will get REAL Women of Canada's corsets in a bunch and Charles McVety will probably wet himself. Hee hee hee.

Michael Ignatieff commits to pay equity
October 29, 2009

OTTAWA – Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff today tabled a private member’s bill that calls on the Harper government to repeal the flawed pay equity measures included in the 2009 budget implementation act, and to enact a truly proactive system.

“This bill recognizes what should never have been in doubt: a human right to equal pay for work of equal value,” said Mr. Ignatieff upon tabling the bill.

Earlier this year, the government hid behind the stimulus measures in Budget 2009 to attack the rights of Canadian women, undermining pay equity.

“It was wrong, it must be reversed, and with the passage of this bill, it will be,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “This bill repeals the measures in the budget that put pay equity on the bargaining table –because no human right should ever, ever be subject to negotiation.”

Mr. Ignatieff said that under the Harper government, the gender gap in Canada is growing. In an annual global survey that looks at the participation of women in the economic and political life, Canada is ranked only 25th in the world, and is playing catch-up to other countries that have worked to ensure full participation in all levels of society.

“We should be doing better, not worse,” he said. “Unfortunately, we have a prime minister who thinks women are a ‘left-wing fringe group.’ This is wrong on so many levels. All Canadians, regardless of gender, deserve the full protection of their government. All Canadians deserve equality in the workplace.”

A Liberal government would act swiftly to implement the full recommendations of the 2004 Pay Equity Task Force which, as a whole, represents a blueprint for how to properly reform this system.

Mr. Ignatieff committed to firm timelines for the implementation of a new pay equity regime “because Canadian workers have already waited far too long for these changes.

“I am confident that this bill will be met with the support of the House as we act on our shared commitment to protect the human rights of all Canadians,” he said.