See Antonia's column here : http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/555539 or below.
Antonia:
I've been so busy over the holidays battling some of your more famous sisters across the world I missed your December 19, article feminism is still an "f-word."
It is indeed and will be forever more unfortunately because the true feminist agenda of equality was hijacked a long time ago by radfems who want more than equality and more entitlements. The movement has been subverted in the same manner as radical Islamists have hijacked Islam into becoming the most reviled religion in the 21st century.
The hijackers of feminism have so many entitlements and so many advantages you can see the results in your own article about females starting to dominate in many areas.
You should note in your F-file that women like Clinton and Pallin are not, nor do they have to be "feminist" to understand they are equal. They know that without having to chirp constantly they belong to a group, that by and large, are now whiners going after more and more entitlements because they believe they are an underclass of victims. You whine and chirp about it constantly. The above women and many, many more are real women. They "do" they do not whine. They have legitimate complaints when they are gender selected for wearing too many pant suits or their hair is somehow not the same. Sarah Pallin came on the scene like an explosion from an Alaska rogue gas well and completely took a nation by storm. She did that not as a feminist but as a politician, albeit female, who stood up to be counted. I disagree with her religious views and many of her political views but I still admire her strength of character and ability to roll with the punches. She got a lot of the latter, metaphorically speaking. Your feminist sisters were appalled and ridiculed her – not because of her politics so much but because she was a real woman and they knew it. You refer to Ms. Pallin as mentally colonized, whatever that means. My, my such invective for a woman who stands heads above the whiners in the F-word movement.
You still whine about those of us who believe the 21st century feminists to be whiners and complainers instead of "doers" misogynistic. A misogynist, by definition is "a hatred of women, as a sexually defined group". I don't hate women, heck I don't even hate feminists but I do hate the misuse of statistics and the blatant misleading statements many of you make and I quote…" Stephen Harper's Conservatives tried to kill pay equity." They did no such thing. The government wants to transfer the process from a quasi-judicial process to a collective bargaining process. Since when is collective bargaining – a feminist cause by the way – not appropriate for determining as best is possible pay rates for both genders. Your good socialist comrade, Jack Layton, gets most of his money from Unions who do collective bargaining. Jack, by the way, is a feminist but I note you used the term socialist in a manner one might construe as derision. I would agree with you if that was your intent but most feminists are on the left of the political spectrum and dare I say many vote NDP.
You also mentioned reproductive concerns and are trying to deride those who believe in life as opposed to abortion with a term "pro-forced-pregnancy." Is that how someone who ostensibly promotes equality treats others with different moral view points? Did you know that since 1970 in Canada and the USA there have been over 50,000,000 children killed through abortion. Yes that is the number. Pretty striking isn't it. In 38 years 50,000,000 children have succumbed to the feminist wish to "control" their reproductive rights. Less than 5% of those deaths were because they represented a health danger or were from rape or incest. I don't have to tell you that is almost 40% more than the current population of our country. These are just North American figures. It is the leading cause of death from all sources in Spain today. Interesting too in that Spain is predominately a Roman Catholic country and we all know where the Pope stands on abortion.
So Antonia you have your control over reproduction and the missing children from this "right" are many. I look at my four daughters, and yes you too were a daughter, and I say to myself – what if one of these lovely creatures had been aborted by a feminist? What a loss to the world and my joy and happiness would that have been.
I am a pro-life person. I am an agnostic. My belief does not stem from religious dogma but from a moral imperative. I am also a firm believer in individual rights. I believe that any person, including feminists, have a right and a responsibility to choose their own destiny. We are all given free will and we must use it as individuals – not necessarily because a movement like feminism or a religious dogma says we must. Many of us give up our free will to a dogma or ideology whether it is religious or politics. I would rather the woman choose to let the child be born but I respect her right as an individual to make the decision on what should happen. I would try to dissuade that person from aborting a child if I could.
So please stop the pontificating about how hard done by you feminists are and get on with "doing". If you want equality apply for the top jobs. If you are not selected try again and again until you get it. That's what men and real women do. Train hard and build your strength to be a firefighter so you can carry two hundred pound people from fiery buildings. Join the political party of your choice and run for office – Jack Layton clearly wants you in his fold. If someone still thinks you are not suitable in a job simply because you are a woman and you are otherwise fully qualified, kick him in the family jewels – metaphorically speaking of course – and go over his head. He is a Luddite and an aging dinosaur. That is what most men do when they feel they have been unfairly overlooked. As a handicapped man I know what discrimination looks like and I adapted my focus and resolve to overcome the barriers I face without benefit of bogus statistics and false premises . In this day and age so can females.
By the way I still adore women and having been a stay-at-home dad for 10 years can display great nurturing, "sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate. " Having changed thousands of diapers in my day I can exchange stories with any woman on the planet about the trials and tribulations of parenting. Gosh we have so much in common but are so far apart. How can that be possible?
Yours in equality
Mike Murphy
Fathers Rights Advocate who seeks equality
Emailed to azerbisias@thestar.ca and simultaneously published on http://parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/ January, 7, 2008
In 2008, feminism is still an f-word
Dec 19, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (22)
Antonia Zerbisias
Exactly 40 years after the women's demonstrations that spawned the derisive label "bra-burners" – although no undergarments were set afire – we've come a long way, baby.
Trouble is, our shoes are higher-heeled than ever – and our feet are killing us.
Sure it's been an exciting political year, filled with promise. We witnessed two women, Hillary (sometimes Rodham) Clinton and Sarah Palin, come this close to the Oval Office. In the Great Pink North, the "socialists and the separatists" nearly took over because, among other things, Stephen Harper's Conservatives tried to kill pay equity.
Today, women have reproductive freedom. More women are independent, thanks to affirmative action hiring that gave them access to better-paying jobs. More women with more money helps them escape abusive relationships, as evidenced by the drop in reported femicides.
And the future looks bright.
Women outnumber men in most university faculties and, reports BusinessWeek, are better suited to the knowledge economy, "which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate. "
This while traditionally male jobs, in construction and manufacturing, are disappearing.
Could this explain the backlash women felt this year when, for example, media commentators resorted to misogyny when discussing Clinton and Palin? Are they and their legions of keep-the-little-woman-down fans actually afraid of girls gone wild with power?
Here in Canada, the year started off with feminists marking the 20th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision R. v. Morgentaler that gave women the right to choose. But, for the rest of the year, the pro-forced-pregnancy faction, which prefers to be called pro-life although it cares not about the life of the female baby incubator, fought against choice.
First they – most Conservatives and many Liberals – voted to pass Bill C-484, which, according to legal and medical experts, could have conferred legal personhood on zygotes. Then they protested the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada. Finally, after the Harper government backed down on its own bill because it did not want to "re-open the abortion debate," the party's convention put it right back on the agenda.
Things could be worse.
In the United States, it looks as if health-care workers at federally subsidized institutions – from physicians to pharmacists and even to the orderly mopping the hospital room floor – will get their "Conscience Rule," courtesy of lame duck President George W. Bush. This would give them the right to refuse to provide any procedure or medication based on their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.
This means emergency contraception could be denied to rape and incest victims if a druggist is pro-forced-pregnancy. It also means counsellors can withhold information about contraception. As well, it means that doctors can refuse to perform artificial insemination.
Anything to keep women hostages to biology, which is where God reportedly decreed they should be.
This would not be so annoying if it weren't for the mentally colonized women who have benefited from feminism while rejecting the label. (Sarah Palin had a love-hate thing with the word.) They say unbelievably stupid things such as – and I quote – "I believe in equality for everyone, not just women. Also, I believe in equal rights, not one group getting more than others."
Statements like that betray not only ignorance, but also the women who fought for our hard-won rights to speak out and make ignorant statements.
It wasn't so long ago that women, like children, were supposed to be seen and not heard.
So here we are, at the end of 2008, and "feminism" is still not only misunderstood and deliberately misinterpreted, it's still an f-word.
Count on me in 2009 to keep flipping the misogynists the bird.
Antonia Zerbisias is a Living section columnist. azerbisias@thestar.ca. She blogs at thestar.blogs.com.
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