Self Restraint?

Is that all it is, an inability to reign in one's inner beast? As though it is of no great moment. The occasional lapse in judgement. The surrender to one's instantaneous, baser instincts. A moment of madness. Lust that must be appeased. Sexual gratification at all costs. It has been said that powerful men who reach the heights of public acclaim for their prowess in many areas of accomplishment have a greater sexual appetite than other, more modestly endowed men.

Call it arrogance, a sense of entitlement that society owes them the kind of gratitude that will excuse moral lapses because of their reputations as great thinkers, military men, writers, poets, politicians, philanthropists - and economists. There is that about males who hail from countries where the Romance languages are common; they think of themselves as great lovers. They consider women as blatant objects of desire.

And they practise a societally-approved pursuit of women and girls. They are not considered lechers or predators, but rather celebrated as successful at seducing women. Frenchwomen have always been seen by other women elsewhere in the world as worldly, sophisticated, in control, mistresses of their own culture, inclusive of the boudoir. And the aristocratic, polished Frenchmen the very vision of courtesy.

These cosmopolitan, smoothly distinguished individuals, from the highest echelon of public affairs to the social elite are frank and free about sex. Unlike the prudish North Americans, for example. And what IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was able to get away with in France he could not do in the United States. Both countries are egalitarian in nature presumably, but where sexual violence is accepted in one, it is not in the other.

Position, fame and celebrity equal respect. And this Mr. Strauss-Kahn had in abundance. His prowess with women was well known and celebrated as well. Women who had been abused of their innocence in his presence did not pursue their grievance but were encouraged to put their experience with his passion-entitlements in the past and give him wide berth in the future. In France the man was able to behave as disgracefully as he wished; all was forgiven.

In North America violent sexual assault is not so readily overlooked. No one is entitled, irrespective of his other admirable qualities, to abuse and violate women at will because he will make no effort to discipline himself as a civil human being.

The Vulnerability of Pakistani Women

A Pakistani woman whom village elders in southern Punjab ordered gang-raped as punishment has, since that event 9 years ago, become a passionate and assertive spokesperson on the plight of women in Pakistan. She wrote her autobiography, and European readers made it a bestseller. She took it upon herself to open schools for Pakistani boys and girls in her home village of Meerwala, and initiated a shelter for battered women in her village.

From the desolation of personal suffering inflicted upon a young woman was born the desire for courage to enable her to do what few other Pakistani women might, after having been horribly assaulted. The village council, on the orders of their wise and elderly studying the precepts of the Koran, determined that Mukhtar Mai, who was 30 years old at the time, be punished because of her young brother's alleged liaison with a woman from a wealthy family.

The social infliction of a grievously ruinous retaliatory sexual assault in that society is tantamount to social death. Many such victims who have been subjected to the scorn and derision and isolation that results from such an occurrence prefer to take their lives rather than live them out in their villages thereafter. They are viewed as 'unclean' and unfit for civil company.

The stigma is such that it never leaves them. They are considered ineligible for marriage, for no self-respecting Muslim man would love, let alone take under his wing and into his home to be the mother of his children, any woman who had been raped. She is persona non grata anywhere she goes.

But Mukhtar Mai decided this would not be her fate. And when she publicly revealed what had occurred to her the world's attention was turned on Pakistan for its atrocious treatment of women. Notoriously, in Pakistan few men accused of rape or domestic violence are ever convicted of their crimes.

There were no fewer than fourteen men involved in Ms. Mai's rape, six of whom were charged and convicted and sentenced to death, while the remaining eight were acquitted. In 2005, the high court in Lahore acquitted five of the convicted men, then commuted the death sentence of the remaining man to life imprisonment, citing lack of evidence.

Now, Pakistan's Supreme Court has freed the five men, and a shocked Ms. Mai calls the ruling "a sad day for Pakistani women". "I wasn't expecting this. I've been struggling for nine years for women's rights and was expecting the Supreme Court to give me justice. And it hasn't." She has new concerns, now. Fearing her safety and that of her family.

The freed accused, she feels may yet exact vengeance against her for daring to make public the gang rape she suffered, and inflicting a prison term on her rapists, while looking for justice for herself and by extension other women in Pakistan. "Absolutely, I feel threatened, and my family feels threatened. The government of Pakistan and the Supreme Court will be responsible for any kind of violence that occurs against me or my family."

One has the impression that they couldn't care less. One can only wonder why the village elders were not also held responsible. And why the death penalty is seen as a just sentence for rape. And whether the country ever considers the potential good to society of educating its males against institutionalized violence.

"The Notion of Justice"

The absurd conceit that there is a special absolution for thespians and artists who engage in hugely destructive acts of violence against others is nonsensical.

If a celebrity figure behaves in a socially egregious manner, let alone a violently aggressive one, that person is as guilty of criminal transgression as any other member of society. Their artistic talent does not in any way, shape or form exclude them from being judged under the law as any one else might be.

An artistic genius who surrenders to the incredible impulse to murder someone is still a murderer. A trial has just recently concluded where a film producer in Western Canada entrapped a stranger by enticing him to a meeting at a remote and isolated place where he could be murdered.

It would appear that the experience of having killed someone was undertaken to satisfy curiosity, artistic curiosity. So that the murderer could satisfy his theatrical muse by writing about the experience with the full benefit of first-hand knowledge of the emotions, the struggle, the passion, and the evil deed done.

In the case of the French musical rock star Bertrand Cantat who beat his French girlfriend actress to death, the Lebanese-Canadian playwright, Wajdi Mouawad, Cantat's friend, argues extenuation through artistic genius. French film star Marie Trintignant was ferociously beaten around the head in a Lithuanian hotel, dying later of swelling of the brain.

A Lithuanian court had sentenced Cantat to an eight-year prison term for murder, and he had served half that time due to "good behaviour". All now must be forgiven; he has paid his due to society, as the famous phrase and sentiment goes. And, having done so, he should be admitted to Canada through a special Minister's permit to grace a Canadian stage in a theatrical performance.

Decency decrees otherwise, however, considering it an outrage that someone who murdered can be so cavalierly excused and re-assume his former role as a popular entertainer. The absurdity of the man being engaged to compose music for a series of plays based on Greek tragedy on the brutalization of women, and to act in the play as well, to emphasize the dichotomy of one who kills and who later repents, is in itself rather unpalatably theatrical.

Unfortunately, it appears to be a prevailing condition among the arts-and-theatrical set that one so talented should be excused any excesses. Much like the French director Roman Polanski, having raped a young underage girl being excused on the basis of his artistic directing genius from legal prosecution for his crime.

The artists involved at the NAC in the theatrical production of Des Femmes are prepared to stage a "unified show of support" for Cantat as "one of their own". A display of arrogant entitlement to special considerations not reflected in the public's opinion of celebrating and elevating a man who surrendered to the impulse to beat a woman to death.

But this is theatre, cutting edge and forgivingly avant garde as exemplified by the highly respected and wonderfully talented National Arts Centre's French artistic director Wajdi Mouawad. Who finds it most inconvenient that women's groups have raised a protest over his friend's involvement in the production of Des Femmes.

When all is said and done, Mr. Mouawad denies the logic of the protests, defends his friend's artistic talent and his "right to climb on stage", for he is not a criminal, since he has paid his due through his prison sentence. He is a murderer, yes, but his artistry surmounts and overshadows his status as one who had taken the life of another.

And he feels confident that the controversy will serve to clear peoples' minds, that it will be the pivot around which an important social discussion on "the notion of justice" and "what an artist is".

Traditions and Courtesies

Woman fined for wearing full-face veil

Image Credit: Reuters
France stood fast to its principles, and for its efforts has been both congratulated and condemned. Needless to say, burqa-clad women - or possibly they're men by the hirsute looks of the hands holding up the signage that reads "Nicolas Sarkozy go to Hellfire" in one publicized photo - are not too fond of the French President for ensuring that the niqab ban passed into law.

It could be argued that France, the country that is proud to proclaim itself an exemplar of freedom, equality and brotherhood is also invested in its national values, priorities and customs. Many of which began to slowly exit the scene as immigration proceeded apace, leaving the country with an estimated five to ten million Muslims. From a religious heritage and customs that run counter to those of France.

Of that great number of Muslims, many of whom sequester themselves in ghettos called banlieues where they become a law unto themselves, both in recognition of Sharia and a hostile lawlessness demonstrating its presence in police taunting and the mass nighttime torching of cars, a relative handful of women, estimated no greater than one thousand wear full face and body coverings.

The women, whether through customary choice or through demands not of their own volition in a patriarchal society, may now face fines for wearing a niqab in public, and if their menfolk are suspected and found guilty of forcing the women to garb themselves in linen tombs, their fines will be astronomical.

It is, essentially, the spectacle of a woman made invisible that so infuriates those who don't subscribe to the wearing of burqas. It is a socially hostile act when it is performed in a country and within a society whose normative cultural behaviours find such apparel insulting to women. And it's a really tough call to make, since by so doing the law impinges on a woman's right to wear whatever she will.

On the other hand, there's a security factor involved, not only one of social interaction or lack of it. A full burqa represents a disguise, an identity shield, that anyone can wear in public incognito. The stranger has no idea who they are looking at. While being acutely aware that the wearer has no wish to reveal themselves to an onlooker. Something that, in a Western culture becomes an affront.

We are denied cues; whether the person has friendly or hostile intentions toward us. It has not been unknown for terrorists, and ordinary thugs to clad themselves in female full body-and-face covering for their own nefarious means. Most of all, however, in a free and equal society the symbol of a woman being maintained in a social purdah is an affront to our concepts of liberty and respect for the individual.

So, do we need to enact a similar law in Canada? How many women in Canada wear burqas? Depends, one supposes, where you live, whether there is a large and growing Muslim population. And, increasingly in Canada the Muslim population is large enough right now to be noticeable, and growing as well. While the incidence is relatively rare, it does surprise one now and again when it occurs.

And leaves a taste of alienation in the eyes of the beholder. The world is a seething mass of human migration, people moving through refugee camps into receiving countries, and immigrants looking for a better way of life for themselves and their children. There are certain standards of behaviour and customary expectations that should remain inviolable. This issue may not be one of the more important ones, but it does represent a start.

Come to this country, and accept the normatives of social intermingling and respect for others. It is clearly a sign of disrespect for women in general to insist they move about silently and without an identifiable face; expressions cannot be determined. It is equally a signal of disrespect for the welcoming society that distrust is such that women must be held to a standard repulsive to that society.

At risk of seeming like a social bully, and unfair to other cultures, there are times when traditions clash, and in instances such as this, one must submit to the other; not necessarily the welcoming tradition, courteously accepting the incoming one.

There are times when respect for indigenous norms and cultures must be maintained and those who enter as guests should be put on notice.

Excessive Judgement

It is, without doubt, a transgression of a high moral order that represents what Denise (Dee) Harvey of Florida did to complicate her life and that of the 16-year-old boy whom she had sexual relations with. Herself a mother of a boy the same age who was a friend of the boy she had sex with on a number of occasions, this woman exercised extremely poor judgement.

That her marriage and her relationship with her son, let alone that with her husband, was not completely destroyed is a testament to their forgiveness of her absurdly unforgivable folly. Why on Earth would the mother of a 16-year-old boy succumb to the temptation (itself inexplicable) to have sex with a friend of her son, to begin with?

Obviously what we might consider to be normal inhibitions, a repugnance toward the very thought of something so morally wrong, did not constrain this woman. There can be little doubt that the people living in the community of Vero Beach, Florida, would not have thought very highly of this woman.

She was convicted by a Florida court in 2008 of the offence of having sex repeatedly with a minor. A personal shame and a public disgrace. Difficult for both families involved to live with. Her sentence was an egregious over-reaction, however. She was given the maximum penalty for the offence; 30 years in prison.

She chose to flee the sentence, as who might not? Compounding her original social offence. She and her family fled to a small town in Saskatchewan, and a cross-border hunt was mounted for the convicted sex offender. In the interim, the family lived for a year in Pike Lake, Saskatchewan. Where they seemed like any other compact little family.

It is not a crime in Canada for a 45-year-old woman to sleep with a 16-year-old boy, unless she was abusing a position of trust. This woman lived with her family in a bungalow next to the local Anglican Church, where she was a volunteer. People liked her, as a friendly neighbour. And, when she was arrested by the RCMP last week, they rallied to her support.

Her bizarre sentence was an over-reaction, the punishment did not fit the crime. A similar case that occurred in West Virgina where the age of consent is 16 and the boy involved was 15, ended with the woman who was the sexual predator being given a 30-day sentence. Quite a difference between a 30-day prison sentence, and a 30-year sentence.

In either case, the women involved were guilty of high stupidity and of disgracing themselves through offending the social compact, let alone the moral turpitude of older women preying on young boys for sexual adventures. When men do such things they are considered to be completely debauched, threats to society, detested pedophiles.

But the sentence handed out to this woman in this particular case offends reason and the equability of justice.

Judging The Judge

There is that about politics and elections and candidates; the leaders never quite know when an individual chosen by a riding association and often given the blessing of the party's head office, will issue a moronic statement that tends to smear the party in greasy embarrassment. Some statements can be overlooked as not being terribly damaging in a social-political context, and others simply cannot, because they reveal unacceptable social biases, even bigotry.

In Wild Rose, Alberta, former judge and Liberal candidate John Reilly stated his opinion based on his decades of experience as a judge that not all sexual offences fall into the same category and need not be treated the same; that minor sex offences did not necessarily warrant mandatory minimum prison sentences.

He may have understood where he was coming from, but to those who heard his statement it sounded as though sex offenders might have had a friend in this judge.

There have been several quite notable instances of late where judges have ruled that forced sex cases, cases of rape, revealed mitigating circumstances in that they claimed the women involved issued unspoken but fairly clear messages leading the rapists to believe the women invited assault. So, rape in these instances was to be considered the result of a simple misunderstanding, and you can't, after all, blame a fellow for thinking he had an all-clear, even while hearing the woman strenuously objecting.

This is a man, eager to become a Member of Parliament under the Liberal banner, whose website explains "He's so disgusted by the proposed Conservative Justice Initiatives that he has resigned his judicial appointment in order to take his concerns to Ottawa and better represent our riding." A conversion, in other words, from one who administers justice under set guidelines allowing a judge certain latitudes, to one who goes beyond the simple administration of the law to proposing changes in the law.

From provincial court judge to Parliament as a newly-minted lawmaker.

So what's the quality of this man's judgement? Well, he took it upon himself to take the Chief Judge of Alberta to court because he refused then-Judge Reilly's expense claim to a conference in Switzerland. The Chief Justice, in refusing Reilly's request explained that the proposed trip did not meet requirements for professional development, but he could go along if he paid for the trip himself, rather than do it on the public purse.

That response didn't suit John Reilly and he asked for a judicial review, lost, took his umbrage to the Alberta Court of Appeal, where the court ruled against him, and when he approached the Supreme Court, it decided against hearing his case. So, because this man felt he wanted to go to Switzerland in his capacity as a provincial court judge, and public payment was denied him, he tied up a layer of succeeding courts at huge public cost.

Are these the actions of a reasonable man capable of exercising sound judgemental capabilities?

The Universal Sisterhood

It is truly difficult to understand why feminists have not organized a protest over the state of women's rights in the Islamic world. Of course there is the fact that feminism and leftist-orientation seem to feed off one another and the liberal-left seems inordinately devoted to non-judgemental treatment of other cultures. But cultural neutrality has its place. There are some values which are not amenable to prevarication.

Human rights and equality between the genders are not expendable in the interests of cultural sensitivity. If a heritage has evolved where women's gender rights are felt to be non-existent, where women are institutionally thought of as chattel, there is something inherently, seriously wrong with that evolution in social values. There are some social verities that cannot logically or emotionally or legally be exempted.

Equality under the law is not only a needful reality recognized in civilized countries, it is one that should be recognized as just and required as a basic commitment to human rights in all countries, in all cultures and all religions. Cultural relativism is an absurd concept, one that requires us to suspend intelligent judgement for the lesser good of not passing judgement on other societies' value choices.

But it is also a total abdication of responsibility toward other human beings, as well as their societies and cultures which consider it moral, feasible and reflective of intelligent judgement to treat one-half of the human race as inferior and undeserving of equal rights. Women who have fought hard for the recognition of their social, political and legal equality rights appear to have overlooked the universality of the imperative.

What is just and of urgent need for women from Western cultures is just as urgent to achieve for women and girls coming out of other cultures which have traditionally victimized and maltreated women simply because they are female and not male in traditional patriarchal-based societies. Whose cultures view women as completely subservient to men who 'own' their female relatives.

From the separation of men and women in society, and the demand that women become invisible in public, to child-brides, female genital mutilation, polygamy, arranged marriages, and honour killings, societies and cultures who practise this cruel and traditional treatments of women are clearly societally inferior. These practices are brought as honoured traditions when migration occurs to other countries, and re-established there.

In Islam in particular, the penalties meted out under Sharia law, and through time-honoured cultural practices holding women responsible for violence and rape they suffer as victims, are intolerable. Public stonings, hanging of women and children, beheadings, the jail, torture and rape of females who defy family traditions and demands are unforgivable assaults on justice.

Women who defy the universal Islamic edict to wear full-body garments, veils, to isolate themselves from men, to covert to other religions, to speak blasphemously, are considered to have committed grave offences for which capital punishment may be applied. Women who are incarcerated in Iran for purported affronts to the state or Islam will be gang-raped before execution to ensure they may not enter Paradise.

Where is the concerted effort on the part of privileged and intelligent and educated women of the West - who have been liberated from the relatively mild-by-comparison indignities of not being able to vote, having to take a man's surname on marriage, not being able to purchase property nor open a bank account without the consent of a male relative - advocating on behalf of their sisters?

Abusive societal mores and values seen in Islam most extensively but not exclusively, since purdah, arranged marriages, honour killings, female genital mutilation and other offensive practices are also recognized in Hindi, Sikh and African communities. All of these dreadful abuses against girls and women should be addressed; why are they not?

An egregious, disturbing instance of competing politics.

Egyptian Gender Equality

At women's march in Egypt, men prove women's point by scolding, shoving, beating, groping them, and telling them to "go home where they belong"

"Men scolded protesters and said their concerns were not urgent in the aftermath of the uprising."

Women and non-Muslims have heard that before. Just be patient. Now is not a good time to rock the boat -- not when "reforms" are coming, however slowly. And we've heard that sort of claim answered before:

"Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation ... This 'wait" has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied'." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Of course, that's exactly the idea here. "Wait" means "never," for the rights of women and unbelievers in a society suffused with the attitudes of Islamic supremacism. "Egyptian women's rights protest marred by hecklers," from the Associated Press, March 8:

CAIRO (AP) — A protest by hundreds of Egyptian women demanding equal rights and an end to sexual harassment turned violent Tuesday when crowds of men heckled and shoved the demonstrators, telling them to go home where they belong.

The women — some in headscarves and flowing robes, others in jeans — had marched to Cairo's central Tahrir Square to celebrate International Women's Day. But crowds of men soon outnumbered them and chased them out.

"They said that our role was to stay home and raise presidents, not to run for president," said Farida Helmy, a 24-year old journalist.

Sexual harassment remains widespread in Egypt, where women often are afraid to report sexual assault or harassment for fear they and their families will be stigmatized. A 2008 survey by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights found that 83 percent of Egyptian women and 98 percent of foreign women in Cairo said they had been harassed — while 62 percent of men admitted to harassing.

Groping may be a front-runner for a national pastime.

Tahrir Square was the epicenter of the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak last month after nearly 30 years in power. Women in Egypt had reported that Tahrir had been free of the groping and leering endemic in the country, but on Feb. 11, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and beaten on the final night of the 18-day revolt. The Associated Press does not name victims of sexual assault unless they agree to be identified.

At Tuesday's march, men scolded protesters and said their concerns were not urgent in the aftermath of the uprising. When the women argued back, some were verbally abused or groped. Others were beaten and had to be ripped away from the groups of men.

Mostafa Hussein, 30, said many protesters had to flee the area and hide in a park nearby.

"They were running for their lives and the army had to fire a shot in the air to break up the mob chasing them," Hussein said.

Passant Rabie, 23, said she was surprised that the women were abused after the role they played in the uprising. Women were central to the protests, leading chants, spending cold nights in the square and even fighting during the battle of Black Wednesday, when pro-government henchmen attacked the protesters.

"I thought we were going to be celebrated as women of the revolution because we were present during the days of Tahrir," Rabie said. "Unless women are included now, we are going to be oppressed."

For many of your former co-revolutionaries, that's the idea. Only, they will call it "liberating," "elevating," and "respecting" women by affording them their proper place according to Islamic law.

On the occasion of the International Women's Day, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said on Tuesday that the transitions from autocracy in Egypt and Tunisia would be incomplete as long as half of society remained blocked from participating in governance.

"The United States will stand firmly for the proposition that women must be included in whatever process goes forward," she said.

Posted by Marisol on March 8, 2011 3:10 PM | Published online at Jihad Watch

Women, You Say?

They talk about a woman's sphere,
As though it had a limit.
There's not a place in earth or heaven,
There's not a task to mankind given ...
Without a woman in it. Kate Field

In Democratic Republic of Congo, in Sudan and Somalia women and girls are gang-raped as an act of war.

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful,or intelligent but because they are themselves. Amiel

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been named to the UN Commission on the Status of women.

A compliment for a woman in love is like a sudden warmth falling around her - it is intoxication - it is like strong wine, one grows drunk with it. Henry Bernstein

In Iran women can be charged with threatening "national security", "propaganda against the state", and "membership" in human rights organizations and that is a seriously punishable offence. Those women can be incarcerated for a very long time. In prison they can be tortured and raped. They will be denied access to a lawyer. They will be unable to talk with family members even on a telephone. Their voices will be silenced.

Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment him. Juvenal

In Iran women can be beaten for not wearing a hijab.

Women hate revolutions and revolutionists. They like men who are docile, and well-regarded at the bank, and never late at meals. H.L. Mencken

Iranian women like Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani are sentenced to death by stoning for allegedly committing adultery.

Whether they give or refuse, it delights women to have been asked. Ovid

A Dutch-Iranian woman, Zahra Bahrami, was arrested for taking part in post-election demonstrations in 2009. Authorities hanged Zahra without warning, despite appeals from Dutch authorities and the European Union.

Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sun puff'd up with winds
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire? William Shakespeare

Women now outnumber men on university campuses, they have lower high-school dropout rates. Last year women with similar degrees were earning 68.3% of what their male counterparts earned: Statistics Canada.

When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her love,
And wring his bosom, is - to die. Goldsmith

In China, with its one-child policy, and in India, with its traditional customary dowry system, girls babies are not as highly regarded as boy babies. Abortion and infanticide are commonly used to balance the equation in favour of boys.

The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts. Oscar Wilde

In many Islamic societies women and girls are murdered in family "honour killing" if they are suspected of having brought shame to the family or the clan or the tribe by consorting with an unrelated male in public, or become the victim of a rape.

I hate a woman who is forever poring over the Grammar of Palaemon, who observes all the rules and laws of language, who quotes from ancient poets that I never heard of, and corrects her unlettered friends for slips of speech that no man need trouble about: let husbands at least be permitted to make slips in grammar! Juvenal

If a Muslim girl or woman is raped she must find male witnesses to the event, to testify on her behalf, otherwise she is considered to have been at fault in tempting the man beyond his capacity to resist.

For a woman glory can only be a splendid mourning for lost happiness. Madame de Stael

Today, in 67 of 120 nations around the world, women earn more degrees than men. Women still earn less money than men; unmarried women without children out-earn their male counterparts in 147 of the largest 150 American cities.

Love and grief and motherhood,
Fame and mirth and scorn -
These are all shall befall
Any woman born. Margaret Widdemer

Women in Western societies who work outside the home still perform far more hours of unpaid domestic work than do their husbands and partners.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The only nourishment I get. Elinor Wylie

In a recent rape case in Canada the presiding judge claimed that "sex was in the air", because the woman who was raped was wearing brief and revealing clothing, thus inviting her own rape.

In the beginning, said a Persian poet - Allah took a rose, a lily, a dove, a serpent, a little honey, a Dead Sea apple, and a handful of clay. When he looked at the amalgam - it was a woman. William Sharp

In most societies a large segment of the poor are comprised of single mothers and their children.

The life of woman is full of woe,
Toiling on and on and on,
With breaking heart, and tearful eyes,
And silent lips, and in the soul
The secret longings that arise,
Which this world never satisfies!
Some more, some less, but of the whole
Not one quite happy, no, not one! Longfellow

Young women on college and university campuses report inappropriate touching, suggestion, physical violence and rape at an alarming rate.

In every marriage two things are allowed,
A wife in wedding-sheets and in a shroud;
How can a marriage state then be accurst,
Since the last day's as happy as the first? Unknown

In North-East Africa, the Near East and Southeast Asia girls are routinely subjected to female genital mutilation (female circumcision; female genital mutilation; clitoridectomy, labiaplasty, vaginoplasty).

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild...
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four ....
I saw pale kings, and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cried - "La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!" Keats

The glass ceiling has long been shattered; women are now represented as CEOs, as heads of state, an active and valuable part of many countries' legislative bodies.

The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love's unselfishness...
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The virgin fancies of the heart. Whittier

Women physicians and surgeons are now increasingly offering their professional services, and do so charging less on average than their male counterparts.

Women may be whole oceans deeper than we are, but they are also a whole paradise better.
She may have got us out of Eden, but as a compensation she makes the earth very pleasant. John Oliver Hobbes

If it was woman who put man out of Paradise, it is still woman, and woman only, who can lead him back. Elbert Hubbard

WOMAN

A woman is but an animal, and an animal not of the highest order. Edmund Burke

O woman, woman, when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler field. Homer

Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity, are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome. Lord Chesterfield

What is woman? only one of Nature's agreeable blunders. Hannah Cowley

Woman are door-mats and have been, -
The years those mats applaud, -
They keep their men from going on
With muddy feet to God. Mary Carolyn Davies

A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally. Lilian Day

Mark her majestic fabric; she's a temple
Sacred by birth and built by hands divine;
Her soil's the deity that lodges there:
Nor is the pile unworthy of the god. John Dryden

Women are silver dishes into which we put golden apples. Goethe

A woman is a foreign land,
Of which, though there he settles young
A man will ne'er quite understand
The customs, politics, and tongue. Coventry Patmore

Here's to woman! Would that we could fall into her arms without falling into her hands. Ambrose Bierce

"Petticoat influence" is a great reproach ....
I for one venerate a petticoat -
A garment of a mystical sublimity.
No matter whether russet, silk or dimity. Lord Byron

The man who strikes his wife or child lays violent hands upon the holiest of holy things. Marcus Cato (Plutarch)

As the faculty of writing has been chiefly a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has been always thrown upon the women. Samuel Johnson

Women are not altogether in the wrong when they refuse the rules of life prescribed in the world, forsomuch as only men have established them without their consent. Montaigne

Regard the society of women as a necessary unpleasantness of social life, and avoid it as much as possible. Leo Tolstoy

Women, like princes, find few real friends;
All who approach them their own ends pursue;
Lovers and ministers are seldom true. George Lyttelton

Iago: She was a wight, if ever such wight were, -
Desdemona: To do what!
Iago: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
Desdemona: O most lame and impotent conclusion! William Shakespeare

Iranian Women's Human Rights

Iranian Human Rights Abuses Against Women Spotlighted Near UN
by Fern Sidman, INN NY Correspondent





Graphic depictions of the most egregious forms of human rights abuses against women in Iran took center stage at a special seminar in New York City on March 3rd. Sponsored by Iran180, which spotlights the litany of human rights abuses that take place on a daily basis in Iran, the seminar was entitled, "Securing Gender Equality: Iran and the CSW."

Held at 777 UN Plaza, a building directly across the street from the United Nations, objectives of the gathering included raising awareness of Iran's violations of women's rights and the staging of symbolic protests against the welcoming of the Islamic Republic of Iran as the newest member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women at its 56th session.

Quoting findings of exiled Iranian lawyer, Zohreh Arshadi, Mr. David Kilgour, co-chair of the Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran said, "The Iranian penal system is a principal means of sustaining inequality of genders. Its ludicrous premise is that women are deficient in abilities." Kilgour added Arshadi stresses that Iranian women, "have managed to achieve equality in one field only: equal right to imprisonment, exile, torture, being killed and now being slaughtered..."

Speaking of the many Iranian women who are unjustly imprisoned, tortured and often sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit, Mr. Kilgour relayed the narrative of Sakineh Ashtiani, a mother from the frequently targeted Turkic minority, who did not speak Farsi or understand the charge of alleged adultery leveled at her. "She was incarcerated and beaten, then humiliated in front of her family by a public lashing. Her plight and narrow escape from death by stoning became a successful test case for the global community's response to the regime's misogyny," he said.

Mr. Kilgour quoted Irwin Cotler, Canadian MP and chair of the International Responsibility to Protect Coalition, who recently warned Iran is on an "execution binge", and making a "wholesale assault on the rights of its own people." He added, "In 2011 alone, the Iranian regime has already executed at least 120 people. It now leads the world in per capita executions, many of which are in secret, taking place after arrests, detentions, beatings, torture, kidnappings, disappearances, and brief trials in which no evidence is presented."

Echoing previous calls for the disqualification Iran as a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Mr. Kilgour suggested the CSW convene a special session to discuss women's rights in Iran and act to stop the repression of women. "It is our responsibility to act in robust solidarity with the struggle for women's rights everywhere across Iran," he concluded.

The Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran's (ADAPP) Fakhteh Zamani said, "In Iran, as throughout the world, women are victims of violence on a daily basis but Iran's justice system provides little or no remedy to the obstacles and violence facing women and girls."

Zamani noted women are not encouraged to bring complaints against their attackers for fear of bringing, "dishonor" on the family as well as reprisals from the attacker and relatives.

Quoting the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Ms. Zamani said, "discriminatory law in both the civil and penal codes in Iran play a major role in empowering men and aggravating women's vulnerability to violence. In particular, discriminatory provisions in the civil code relating to the areas of marriage, child custody, freedom of movement and inheritance may lead to, perpetuate or legitimize violence against women perpetrated by private actors."

On the trafficking in girls and women, Ms. Zamani said that the UN Special Rapporteur reported that, "most of the trafficking is said to occur in the eastern provinces, which are mainly Baluchi areas, where women are kidnapped, bought or entered into temporary marriage in order to be sold into sexual slavery in other countries." Concluding with an oft quoted phrase used by Iran's women human rights defenders, she said, "We are both women and minorities; so, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we are doubly accused."

"I am absolutely opposed to the imposition of Sharia law," declared Shabnam Assadollahi, producer and host of the Canadian based Hamseda Persian radio program. "Sharia law tells us that female hair has evil energy and those women's rights activists in Iran who refused to wear head coverings were beaten and tortured while their children watched," she said. She detailed gruesome accounts of torture of women in Iran saying, "young girls and virgins were raped prior to being executed and after execution their bodies were burned and electrocuted."

Ms. Assadollahi said, "There is no place for Iran on this commission. Just think about the arrogance of this regime to judge others concerning gender equality and human rights."

Speaking in her native Farsi with an interpreter, Iranian rights activist Fariba Davoodi, told of her incarceration in Iran and the barbaric tortures that were inflicted upon her by her captors. "It is the common aspiration of all Iranian women to be free", she said. "When the regime came to arrest me for my activism on behalf of women's rights, they beat me up in front of my children and brought me to their notorious prison where I was kept in solitary confinement in a tiny cell where I was interrogated for long periods of time; where tey kept the lights on all the time and forced me to shower in front of them."

"The fear that women's rights advocates in Iran have is not only from the repressive government but from male family members including husbands, fathers and brothers," she said. Remaining optimistic about the future of women's rights in Iran is a daunting challenge for women such as Ms. Davoodi, "We hope that very soon we will live in a free and democratic Iran, but so long as the regime stays in power, our hopes will not be realized."

As published online at Arutz Sheva, 3 March 2011

Life is so Unfair

"As I am satisfied that extradition is compatible with the defendant's (European) Convention rights, I must order that Mr. Assange be extradited to Sweden." British Judge Howard Riddle

Julian Assange has a mission in life, a sacred one, to use whatever means are open to him, including the unauthorized receipt of stolen documents from government sources, to ensure that the world at large is given all the information that he personally feels should be in the public sphere.

Those governments whose purloined documents have been the subject of WikiLeaks' arranged publications revealing state secrets they would prefer to keep out of the public eye have a problem with his mission. None have yet, however, taken serious measures to silence him.

For truth is, although the revelations may be diplomatically awkward, none of them truly represent any truths or realities that have hitherto been unknown to members of the news media and those of the public who have an interest in knowing about them. Their publication as new revelations have had the impact of affirmation, confirming what was suspected or previously leaked in more modest proportions.

But Mr. Assange views himself rather pompously as a hero, and he has an adulating public who view him likewise. And as a hero, reviled by politicians for his revelatory escapades, he feels himself embattled, certain that sinister forces plan to demolish his illicit news-gathering and -distribution empire, and to visit physical harm upon his illustrious self.

To that end, Sweden has obviously made an evil pact with the United States to discredit him and ultimately to spirit him away to America. Their dastardly plan is to take possession of his poor body to control his brilliant mind.

To bring a halt to his exploitation of the public's hunger to know all the unnerving and revelatory details of how their governments manipulate their positions on the world stage. Including the cover-ups of unforgivingly unfortunate situations they may have blundered into on their way to fashioning a world order of co-operative calm. Visiting misfortune upon some, sparing others.

Breach of his human rights! claims Mr. Assange, stage-managing one public announcement after another, bravely struggling to maintain his equilibrium and his courage under fire. "It is a result of the European Arrest Warrant system run amok. There was no consideration during this entire process as to the merits of the allegations against me", he plaintively mewled to throngs of journalists.

International journalists eager to make copy relating the details known to them and complemented by the hero's own testimony against the unfairness of it all. Could the irony of the situation be lost on many? Documents meant for no eyes but those of the court, somehow leaked to the press - foul, we say foul!!!

The master manipulator of illicitly-gained documents, the super-journalist scooping all those hacks, playing to their sympathies.

The two women whom he is accused of having violated were WikiLeaks volunteers who thought an evening with the Maestro would just put the froth on their cappuccino treats. The man, however, is rather sexually brutish, not the merest bit of a courtly lover whatever, taking unfair advantage of unaware partners.

Under the circumstances, more of a dodgy troglodyte than a rapist.

He most certainly did sexually molest the women who consented initially then did not. After which it was a case of taking illicit liberties, and Mr. Assange is known for taking illicit liberties; that is his shtick, after all. Under Swedish law protecting women from predatory men he committed a crime. The punishment for which he prefers to evade.

Has anyone heard him express a modicum of regret for his swinish behaviour?

He will fight to the last breath in his body... All the way to the Supreme Court, if need be. And he very much resents bail set for the bank account of a tycoon. He is not yet there. It is an evil conspiracy to silence Assange and WikiLeaks. Worse, governments and the corporate interests behind them are interested in severing Mr. Assange's most intimate ties with life.

There are plans afoot to spirit him to America and from there to Guantanamo Bay. Where a truly unfortunate accident will take place, claiming the poor man's life. Rail, rail against the dark night of misfortune!

Back to the dismal life swanning around a mansion.

The "Clumsy Don Juan"

Queen's Bench Justice Robert Dewar of Manitoba revealed his antediluvian biases more than adequately in the thought processes behind his judgement that no jail time was warranted for a rapist because, according to the judge's reckoning, Kenneth Rhodes who received signals that the woman whom he decided to violate gave off signals that she "wanted to party".

Those signals more than adequately demonstrated in their speech, their enthusiasm, their manner of dress. The raped woman and her accompanying girlfriend were wearing tube tops with no bra, high heels and makeup. Tube tops are made to be worn without bras. Women mostly wear high heels when they're out for the night - or at any other time. Most women also wear makeup.

These mark the currently prevailing dress code of most young women who live in a free society. One that has laws to protect the innocent from criminal acts directed against them. And which has long ago abandoned the old myths that served for far too long to victimize women. In contrast to many male-dominated cultures that blame women for irresistibly luring men to violate them.

The judge felt the the women's makeup was excessive, their bra-less tube tops signalling they were prepared to indulge in intimate relations, their high heels provocative. And of course, men being men they are helpless, hapless creatures, nastily manipulated by women who have the devil in them. Making those women undeserving of respect, and ripe for rape.

Too bad about Kenneth Rhodes, the judge moaned, empathy obvious for his dilemma; the clear incapacity to control his virile energies that obviously escalated into undeniable priapic urgency thanks to the provocations of the 26-year-old woman he had paired with for the evening. A getting-to-know-you evening, where two young women met two young men on a night out.

"They made their intention publicly known that they wanted to party", the judge concluded. 'Party' obviously denoting that they were signalling they were prepared to have sex with the men. That was obvious because of the manner of their dress, their social exuberance, their chattering of swimming in a nearby lake that night "notwithstanding the fact neither of them had a bathing suit".

Damn, damn, damning!

They left the bar parking lot and made their way into a wooded area, after meeting outside a bar in "inviting circumstances". Invitation to abuse was written all over these women's faces, their gestures, their open friendliness. Hostility to the young men's interest in them would have represented a far more socially acceptable device, according to the judge's way of thinking.

"This is a different case than one where there is no perceived invitation", claimed the judge. "This is a case of misunderstood signals and inconsiderate behaviour." Rape is a criminal offence, it does not quality as "inconsiderate behaviour" to excuse its violent contempt of a woman's right to retain ownership of her body.

The defence lawyer brought in another mitigating circumstance, that alcohol was involved, obviously impacting on the judgement of both the rapist and his unwilling victim. His client did not threaten the woman, had no weapon, was simply "insensitive to the fact (she) was not a willing participant." Adducing mere lack of civility in this matter is ludicrous.

"Protection of society is not advanced one iota by putting Mr. Rhodes in jail", explained Judge Dewar in his great good wisdom.

How he arrives at that comfortable conclusion is beyond the understanding of most men and women who understand quite well that predatory men who claim that they have been provoked beyond endurance, and that their act of rape was not deliberate, and find their claims of innocence well received, with the penalty helpfully eased, will encourage other such events and claims.

This is the kind of inexcusable, obnoxious precedent-setting finding in law that sets back decades of acknowledgement that rape is a violent and vicious tool of sociopaths, social deviants and misogynists. The blame is placed squarely on the victim, extenuating reasons are found for the aggressor.

Yes, punishment for his crime was handed down in the form of a year-long curfew, the man's name placed on the national sex-offender registry. He will be ordered to write a letter of apology to his victim. She will doubtless have learned a life-lesson.

It's doubtful that her rapist will have.

Reporting World News

It is shocking, seen from the perspective of a Western sensibility. It is shaming for the public face of Egypt, with the news of a CBS news correspondent, a vibrant young woman intent on pursuing her reporting from the scene of a world-shattering event, having been attacked by a ravening mob of psychopathic men intent on demonstrating their misogynistic contempt for her, a Western woman.

On the other hand, it might be seen as gender politics as usual in Egypt, where Egyptian women, even those garbed carefully head-to-foot in a traditional black, form-concealing burqa, can have their clothing torn away and be sexually assaulted. It is not unusual for groups of men to prowl the streets to seek out and victimize women.

In crowded streets where throngs of people may gather women have found themselves savagely molested in a society which believes implicitly that women's wiles are responsible for men's inability to discipline their libidos, their urges to reach out and take what they feel is theirs by advantageous proximity.

This is a Neanderthal mentality, a primitive, instinctual, uncivilized sense of male entitlement. And it is one encouraged by a religion and social custom that holds women to be inferior to men, and as such chattels. As objects of physical desire, women's intelligence is held in dispute, their right to sovereign ownership of their bodies, non-existent.

They are themselves to blame if they come to harm at the hands of desiring men if they flaunt their bodies by dressing conspicuously. But if they dress 'modestly', with full body coverings there is no guarantee even then that they will be respected as autonomous beings, free from male persecution, their right to safety and security inviolable.

In Tahrir Square, reporting for "60 Minutes" at a time of great jubilation for the throngs gathered there, after the news of the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, Lara Logan and her crew found themselves "surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration". A mob of 200 people circling them. She became separated and subjected to a sustained sexual assault and beating.

It was somehow understandable that she would finally be rescued from her unspeakable ordeal by a group of women. Women rescuing women from the predations of a mob of brutal men intent on humiliating and destroying women in the process of satisfying their appetite for physical domination, for shaming women, for destroying their confidence in themselves and the world surrounding them.

In the process of beating and assaulting her, perhaps to further justify in their minds that it was their right and obligation to mercilessly destroy this woman's soul, the words "Jew, Jew!" were repeatedly shouted, inflaming the crowd attacking her all the more. Who could be held in greater contempt by Egyptians than lowly Jews? And identifying this woman as a Jew validated her being brutalized by the sex-crazed thugs.

She had earlier described having been detained by Egyptian police the night before the attack. "We were all blindfolded. They blindfolded me, but they said if I didn't take it off they wouldn't tie my hands. They kept us in stress positions. They made me put my head down. It was all through the night. We were pretty exhausted." She is not a Jew. But she now knows of a certainty what a Jewish woman might feel under those circumstances.

"We were accused of everything", she said. The Egyptian police accused her and her crew of being "Israeli spies", or agents. This is a reflection of the society into which she and her colleagues and other reporters found themselves. They had the relative freedom to report what they saw and heard, but they were also aware of the element of danger involved. A week earlier many reporters had been detained and beaten.

There were other women journalists who complained about being harassed and singled out by crowds in and around Tahrir Square and various other locations. None of them has as yet claimed to have been treated to the kind of attention that Ms. Logan was agonizingly subjected to. They were being treated to an Egyptian specialty.

Where packs of young men go out on occasion to track down young women to grab at their bodies. Even those wearing the khaliji abaya, long black voluminous body-covering gowns. The women have their clothing pulled off along with their veils, and they are savagely groped. And gang-raped.

Women in Egypt have protested but government agencies always denied any such happenings.

So security was never invoked to ensure that the message was sent that it was not all right for mobs of men to prowl about looking for female victims. Whose lives in a Muslim society would be destroyed by such attacks. Since it is the woman's morals, not those of the men who attack them, that are held to be responsible for what happens to women.

The authorities have always denied that these attacks occur. If they did, they insisted, they were rare occurrences, certainly not indicative of anything amiss in society. Accounts of sexual attacks on women were held to be complete fabrications, people making an issue where none existed. Human rights groups understand quite well the paucity of official reports by women who suffer such attacks.

They are held to be responsible, not those who attack them. Filing police reports has been an exercise in frustrating futility. There have been instances when police have stood back and witnessed thugs sexually assaulting women who took part in public protests. The dignity of the women is destroyed, and in the process the honour of her family, and she is held to be responsible.

In this instance, there is no hiding reality; a Western reporter was the victim and there were many witnesses. It may or may not be revealed whether there have been any others who shared her horrendous experience. But it does reveal a deeply disturbing and well-established social malaise in Egyptian society.

Agitation for Attention

This is where sympathy for the sensitivities and sensibilities of the alternative-gendered wears thin. When two mature men, joined in a blissful union of the flesh whose relationship has been formalized under the Province of Quebec's civil union law - with a history of pursuing lawsuits against people whom they purport have insulted their orientation - have gone out of their way to foment trouble under clearly false pretexts.

On a previous such adventure, seeking to avenge what they claim to be homophobic attitudes in non-gay people they complained of harassment from a neighbour, laying criminal charges against him in 2001. But not before they managed to mount a 4,000-person-strong neighbourhood anti-homophobia march through the neighbourhood they shared with the man they accused of harassing them.

A year and a half later, the neighbour was acquitted for the charge that Roger Thibault and Theo Wouters lodged against him. The judge hearing the case evidently was of the opinion that the gay men's credibility was in question. Eventually the men sent a letter of apology to the accused neighbour, admitting the complains that they laid against him had been 'baseless'.

In 2007 the Quebec Human Rights Commission recommended damages to the tune of $10,000 be awarded in compensation of a neighbourhood teen insulting them by festooning their trees with toilet paper, then seting off a firecracker and making violent threats against them.

(One wonders why they were so detested by their neighbours, since they had lived on the property for several decades without problems surfacing.)

But then the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal was involved again when the pair lodged a complaint against another neighbour whom they decided would have to pay "moral and punitive" damages after having been accused by Messrs. Wouters and Thibault of calling them "faggots" during an altercation that took place in 2006.

Gordon Lusk, the neighbour ruled against by the Commission, had already been acquitted of those same charges in a court of law, five years earlier. "It makes no sense that Mr. Lusk could be acquitted in a Quebec court and then found liable for moral and punitive damages in front of a human rights tribunal", the lawyer for Mr. Lusk stated.

It doesn't make any logical sense, does it? Mr. Lusk had approached Mr. Thibault to discuss with him neighbourhood concerns with his behaviour. Mr. Thibault appeared to be in the habit of driving much too fast and carelessly - even running stop signs - on the street. Neighbours with young children who played road hockey were alarmed at the potential danger to their children.

That Mr. Thibault habitually drove recklessly down the street where they live while the safety and welfare of neighbours' children appeared to be of no concern to him whatever was a topic of resentment among the neighbours. Evidently their resentment and fears for their children's safety was no match for the resentment the gay pair felt upon the infringement of their liberty to disport themselves as they would.

They accused Mr. Lusk of bad manners, showing up at their home shouting, and then accusing the gay partner who hadn't been the one driving their vehicle of dangerous driving, and endangerment of the lives of his children. They accused him also of calling Mr. Wouters a "f---ing faggot", claiming that he uttered the threat, "I will kill you. I will kill you both here."

Mr. Lusk absolutely denied any such claims. Although criminal charges were laid, he was subsequently acquitted. But the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal knew better than the legal justice system. And Mr. Lusk, who continued to deny the accusations made against him must now pay to the plaintiffs $12,000 for "homophobic comments".

Must be a whole lot of people living there hoping and praying that the estimable gay couple pick up and leave for other pastures where they can begin to search for other likely 'homophobic' prospects they can bring to the attention of the Commission to increase their earnings potential.

Talk about giving the gay community a bad name...

Gay Pride, "Sex Parade"?

Well, isn't it? Is that not precisely what the Gay Pride Parade indulges in? Very obvious sexual cavorting; more than innuendo, more than innocent posturing, but in-your-face, blatant sex. Amusing to many no doubt, but equally without doubt, rather offensive to many more. An extravaganza of excess, with rude gesturing and ruder implications.

Those who find it objectionable have the option of absenting themselves from the gayness of it all.

Those who delight in a colourful show of delinquent morals and the public vision of what should be kept decently private, seeing in it a celebration of alter-lifestyles have the option of attending and revelling in the freedom of it all. So be it. As long as the public in general accepts that this display of vulgarity is also an expression of freedom to confront life as a socially indulged alt-gendered adolescent with behavioural issues, that's that.

Well, that isn't quite that for some; for strait-laced and judgemental evangelicals for whom the entire event represents an assault on their sensibilities, their values and social-religious imperatives. They too have the right, however, to speak their minds. To a degree. That degree was over-extended, evidently, by Christian broadcaster Crossroads Television System. And they have been summarily disciplined, found in violation of broadcasting codes.

Evangelical minister and broadcaster Charles McVety, it would appear, implied a "malevolent, insidious and conspiratorial purpose" within the gay community. That implication is of course questionable, and also veers toward hate-mongering. Little surprising, since it's clear that Mr. McVety does hate everything revolving around the Gay Revolution and the very public exhibitionism that it has engendered.

But that's his opinion and he has a right to it, in a free and democratic society. It is offensive, actually, when displays that go against the grain of perceived normalcy are flaunted. After all, normative sexual behaviour is kept nicely behind closed doors, why should gay activities be seen as public displays so many conceive as distasteful? But Rev. McVety is said to have violated the clause that calls for "full, fair and proper representation" in broadcasting.

In his view, obviously, his incendiary remarks do indeed reveal "full, fair and proper representation", as he sees them. The broadcasting council, however, felt that in describing Gay Pride as a "sex parade", Rev. McVety was indulging in a "disparaging tone". Gulp. No! He wouldn't? And, on top of that, it was evident he felt skeptical about the parade's popularity. He also wasn't quite thrilled with the City of Toronto's tourism slogan.

"As gay as it gets" is kind of cute isn't it? But when, added to that there is this: "On any given day, hot boys and hot girls fill Church Street with energy, passion and opportunity", you've got a recipe for a kind of disgusting suggestibility. Representing as fairly repugnant to many, in fact. Obviously including Rev. McVety, but most certainly not exclusively. That kind of stupid messaging would offend many within the greater community.

But Charles McVety most certainly did require his knuckles to be rapped. When he stated: "We send little Johnny and little Jane to school, not to learn to be homosexuals and lesbians. We send them there to learn reading, writing and arithmetic and history and all these wonderful things, but unfortunately there is an activist group that is afoot that wants to change our curriculum. Why? Because unfortunately they have an insatiable appetite for sex, especially with young people. And there are not enough of them, so they want to proselytize your children and mine, our grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals", he crossed the red line.

Looks like there's an atmosphere redolent of stupidity all around, actually, fairly well balanced on both sides; the outrageously public gay community and the outraged public evangelical community.

Fundamentalist Predators

"Women in polygamous marriages suffer increased psychological, physical and sexual reproductive health harms. They also face material harms including economic and educational deprivation... women in polygamous unions suffer increased family stress, depression, jealousy, low self-esteem, feelings of disempowerment and an increased risk of physical and mental abuse.

"Children of polygamous marriages, meanwhile, "experience lower levels of socio-economic status, reduced academic achievement, and psychological problems... Early marriage and pregnancy have a number of negative, serious, long-term consequences on girls..." Attorney General of Canada

Canada does not have an indigenous culture, nor laws that recognize polygamy as other than an unlawful and societally unacceptable tradition of serial marriages. There are countries in the world that accept polygamy as a man's right to have as many wives as he wishes. And some religions condone, even encourage it, with the proviso that the man have the wherewithal to support many wives and the resulting children.

The country has for far too long turned a blind eye to the situation in British Columbia where in areas like Bountiful, a fundamentalist Mormon community, men take multiple wives. Even the Mormon Church no longer gives its blessing to polygamy. But the federal and provincial governments have maintained an attitude of non-interference. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms religious rights are guaranteed.

But is it representative of a religious rite of passage, or is it a relic of a tradition common to tribal patriarchies? It is illegal in Canada to practise female genital mutilation, and it is illegal to force female children into marriage. Both are covertly practised in Canada, along with polygamy. In some cultures and religions like Islam all three are considered normative.

A challenge to Canada's 120-year-old polygamy ban is set to get underway through a hearing officiated by Chief Justice Robert Bauman, with the Attorneys General of Canada and of B.C. presenting for the government and the challengers weighing in by an Amicus Curiae to argue Section 293 is not consistent with Canada's Charter.

A monogamous relationship between a man and a woman through a marriage contract has always represented the norm within Canada and within most Judeo-Christian-heritage democracies. Overturned only when same-sex marriage became lawful.

The social mores of the country are being challenged in support of a harmful practise that benefits men and victimizes women and children.

There are times when the prevailing social culture has the benefit of sound and accepted experience, and the intruding culture presents as a clear disadvantage to society. And the conjunction is where the latter should be stopped in its tracks.

Spurned Spite

Wrath hath no fury like a woman whose entitled stance built on gender and colour denied, elicits. And the imbroglio of Professor Emily Carasco at the University of Windsor is certainly a case in point. This is not the kind of woman anyone should want to cross. She is not the type of woman who will stand humbly by and allow herself to be crossed. And she has become dreadfully cross, in the process.

It almost stands to reason that Professor Carasco was once a candidate for the NDP. She somehow fits the mold. This is entitlement run amok, but then that also reflects what has become of the NDP, once a party to be respected, now just another political party but more sanctimonious and grasping than most. And while that's another story altogether, there is still that connection...in the persona and the demands of Professor Carasco.

Who rants and raves against the unfair and societally-assumed entitlements "of white males", through a "culture of privilege which white men expect to have continue, and will defend with impunity". Bet you thought that was yesterday's feminist political ideology. Well clearly, for Professor Carasco, it remains today's. Affirmative action will never go out of style for her. And, fact is, it was even utilized on her behalf.

That happened when the University of Windsor, looking for a new dean of law had selected two final candidates of whom Ms. Carasco was one. As a woman of colour she was granted "extra points due to her gender and self-identification as a visible minority", in scores allotted her, as opposed to another short-list candidate, a white male. Neither he nor she was able to raise a sufficient score to qualify for the position, although his was slightly elevated in comparison to hers.

As a result the search for a winning candidate for the position of dean of law was meant to continue and the two failed candidates set aside. There was also some question about Professor Carasco's ethics with respect to taking ownership of work performed by someone else; plagiarism. Aside from which other members of the faculty were not thrilled at the prospect of her winning the post in question.

She was considered generally to be a disruptive, querulous personality, whose elevation to dean of law would have the effect of condemning the law school to "years of acrimony, division and dysfunction". She begged to differ, and became so enraged over the matter that she asked the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to halt the ongoing search for a new dean, appoint her to the position and award compensation for "injury to dignity" of $60,000.

The university held that were the HRTO to have acceded to Professor Carasco's demands,it would represent "inappropriate interference with the university's autonomy", as an affront to academic freedom. The kicker here is that the search committee was comprised of six women "four persons of racialized origins"; one with a disability; a female Superior Court Judge; and an African-Canadian assessor.

Moreover the chairwoman of the committee was a scholar of 19th Century female emancipation, who just happened also to be the founder of the university's women's studies program. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario determined under the circumstances to withhold its judgement, and the search for a new dean is ongoing.

It has not been subsequently reported whether Professor Carasco's bile has poisoned her mortally.

Reflections On the United Nations

The maniacs are now in control of the lunatic asylum. Well, so what? It's not as though we haven't had ample opportunity to become accustomed to it, after all. It's business as usual, actually. Anyone who might be surprised just hasn't been paying attention. Doublespeak lives and black can be white, in case anyone questions this new reality. Veracity and principle have nothing whatever to do with this, for they have surrendered themselves too, to the new reality.

After all, if people repeat any absurdity to themselves often enough they tend to believe it. The arrogance of self-confidence can be very persuasive. And within the United Nations a great confidence game plays itself out. Whereby the most trenchant and pernicious governments can portray themselves as concerned with human rights and freedoms while practising the most obviously anti-human rights, racist, belligerent and morally corrupt methods of administration.

There is strength in numbers. Simple as that. And when there are sufficient numbers of non-functional, dysfunctional, dystopian states - those whom even international criminal courts condemn for their criminality and genocidal abuse of their own people to support one another - the audacious contempt for their principled counterparts that they convey manages to somehow bring them support denied the legitimate, just states.

The United Nations is vastly over-represented by flailing states. Those that haven't yet reached the nadir of failure, but getting there, with plenty of like-minded, similarly-failed governments to give support to one another. They buttress those states whose disregard for the rule of law, for the rights of their own oppressed populations, and whose governments threaten the balance of world order, in a kind of evil cabal of the majority.

Why the free, democratic states submit to this state of affairs, allowing themselves to be cowed by the blame of historic colonialism to keep them in check through a misplaced sense of guilt over what cannot be now altered and which should be consigned to the dustheap of history, is debatable. But there it is, the miserable human-rights-offending states of the world control the chambers and offshoots of the United Nations, and the democracies tremble in dismay.

Libya, where arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, torture and abysmal prison conditions are the order of the day, reflecting fairly accurately what passes for justice in other Arab and Muslim states, is elevated to serve on the UN Human Rights Council. Where it, along with countries like Iran and Turkey and Syria and Venezuela feel free in the strength of numbers to assail the human rights records of countries like Canada and the United States.

Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabist Islam wields a strict sharia unwilling to permit women any notion of equality under the law and where religions other than Islam are not tolerated, and where the news is strictly controlled, and where freedoms are necessarily truncated to the will and whims of the ruling royalty, is elevated to the board of the new UN Women agency. Iran's ascension was just narrowly defeated, oddly enough.

Burma sees fit to praise Libya's human rights record, and China smiles broadly and fondly on its charges. Algeria enthusiastically praising Libya for its "incessant effort to protect human rights", which more than adequately turns reality on his head and spins the Globe in a counter-direction threatening to toss human life into the chaos of complete confusion; bleak and without hope.

States are free, under this amazing new reality to fund and encourage international terrorism, to threaten their neighbours with annihilation, to foster an aura of nuclear invincibility through determined acquisition of a dire weapon the world sought to isolate from the clutches of pathologically sick minds, and to no avail.

And there is the United States' ambassador, sucking in his gut, and absorbing the thrusts of knife-sharp accusations that it stands alone at the zenith of destructive policies that wreak havoc on the vulnerable world that has struggled far too long under the restrictive leash of American control. The times they are a-changing.

There simply is no accounting for the provocative insanity of the United Nations' membership, values and creatively destructive pathologies of disdain, hatred and revenge. So much for building a fairer, more just and accountable world order.

Gendered Armed Forces

Not that the Canadian forces stand out differently, more dangerous to its female recruits than those of other countries of the world. It is highly doubtful that proximity between males and females in the Canadian Armed Forces results in a higher rate of sexual impropriety and unwanted attention among Canadians enlisted than elsewhere in the world. There are horrific stories that have come out of the United States regarding ranking officers, let alone ordinary recruits exploiting and abusing the females in their presence.

But one could also say that however relatively few sexual assaults and harassment occurs in the Forces, they are completely unacceptable. Their occurrences extend beyond merely 'unacceptable'; they are odiously offensive. The very thought that male recruits in the Armed Forces view their female counterparts as fair game for predation is atrocious. Both genders in a national army that prides itself on its professionalism are meant to be respectful of one another, as an extension of a professional code of conduct.

On the other hand, all societies have their share of sociopaths and there is no reason to imagine that the Armed Forces of any country hasn't its component of maladjusted males who feel it is appropriate to their personal needs and imperatives to assault women in uniform. They are present, and presumably available, and are seen as a convenient target. A situation horrible even to contemplate and which everyone deplores, but seemingly unavoidable.

There are rules and regulations that stipulate senior officers may not engage in personal intimate relations with any of their staff. And those rules are taken seriously, even when the relationship that might emerge would be consensual. Other rules insist that even married couples may not share accommodation while on active duty. Obviously it is well enough recognized by the Armed Forces community that sex and duty do not mesh.

So when individuals take it upon themselves to flaunt the rules under the impression that they apply to others, and mount aggressive and sometimes violent attacks on women in uniform whatever discipline that can be applied cannot be too harsh. Captain Nichola Goddard, in writing to her husband of the sexual innuendos and pursuits she and others endured while on duty, a case in point.

That she became a symbol of Canada's commitment to aiding Afghanistan in combatting fanatical Islamists and died as a result, of a Taliban-emplaced IED, only increases the wretchedness of her experience, exponentially. When a high-ranking officer is peremptorily returned to headquarters when news of a dalliance surfaces, this is one unfortunate by-product of mingling men and women in situations of remote postings.

And when a ranking officer who has gained the trust of his superiors and who has the well-being and supervision of thousands of personnel at his command while he engages in the pursuit of fulfilling his violent fantasies of controlling, raping and murdering women, the depths of moral depravity have been plumbed.