Breaking News: Raising a Family Interferes with Pursuing a Career

Wow. I'm in shock.

The Québec government, just found out, from the conclusions of a totally groundbreaking study, that fathers who take this whole raising kids thing seriously and who are actually involved in the upbringing of their offspring do not ascend the workplace ladder as fast as their childless or deadbeat counterparts.

No shit. Really. Who knew?

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It's interesting to note how the media spun this news. For men, family is seen as interfering with paid work, i.e. a man's natural activity, whereas for women, it's paid work that is seen as interfering with childrearing, i.e. our natural purpose...

Call for Volunteers - Research Project on Radical Feminism

I received the announcement below in my mailbox today and thought it would be helpful to post it here, as it might interest some of you:

December 7th 2007

PLEASE CIRCULATE IN YOUR NETWORKS

Hello there! Are you a radical feminist? Did you first get involved in radical feministactivism in the mid-1990s in Quebec? Do you want to share your experience and analyses with other feminists, the population in general and with the academic milieu? If you answered “yes” to these questions, I would like to meet with you!

My name is Jacinthe and I work with the CRAC – a research group oncollective autonomy – that is affiliated with the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University (under the responsibility of Anna Kruzynski). The CRAC is an anti-authoritarian (pro)feminist affinity group that is working to document the diversity and complexity of our own movement. With the activists who choose to participate in our study, we are documenting anti-capitalist anti-authoritarian organizing that has emerged in Québec since the mid-1990s (see our repertoire that is underconstruction http://repertoire.crac-kebec.org/).

One part of this project aims to gain a better understanding of the workcarried out by anti-authoritarian activists specifically against the patriarchy or heteronormativity. We intend to document the three tendencies or cohorts identified so far: radical queer groups, women of colour feminism and radical materialist feminism. Three CRAC teams will work in parallel to carry out these tasks, which will lead, in 2010, to a week-end of reflection bringing together the three tendencies (and others should they emerge as the process unfolds).

I am working on case-study of the radical feminist cohort. In the next few months, I will be conducting individual interviews with radical feminists wanting to participate in our study. All women who self-identify as radical feminist – as defined in the call-out for the 2nd radical feminist meeting to be held in February 2008 (the definition is in appendix) – are encouraged to participate. We want to interview activists who first got involved in radical feminist organizing in Quebec sometime after 1995, be they active today or not and be they attached to anti-authoritarian, union, community, feminist, student or other movements.

If you want to participate, please let me know before January 31st 2008. If you have any questions or if you need more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

If you know of any other women who may be interested in this study, please forward the invitation to them.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Jacinthe Leblanc
For the Collectif de Recherche sur l’Autonomie Collective
jacinthe@crac-kebec.org
514-848-2424, extension 8709
Website: http://www.crak-kebec.org

What do we mean by radical feminism?

That aims to eradicate, at their roots, patriarchy, capitalism, hetero-centrism, racism and hierarchy.

The radical feminist movement is diverse and takes on many differentforms. Radical feminists, however, share a commitment to fight, on a dailybasis, for the elimination of patriarchy and all forms of domination without resorting to legislative or social changes that do not address the fundamental causes of patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist oppressions and all forms of authority and hierarchy. Moreover, radical feminists claimthat women have the right to organize autonomous women-only spaces. Below is a short definition of radical feminism. Of course, radical feminism emerges in many different spheres of life (love life, environment, fightagainst racism, maternity, struggle against hetero-centrism, etc.). One simple definition cannot do justice to the diversity of the movement, but it can act as a benchmark that can help us identify what unites us.

Radical: adj. Latin radicalis, from radix, root. The term radical refers to feminist organizing or analysis that goes to the root of women-specific oppression, patriarchy, and that seeks to eliminate it. Radical feminism posits that women are individually and collectively appropriated for the purpose of biological reproduction and economic production. This exploitation intersects with capitalism, racism, hetero-centrism and allother forms of hierarchy and domination.

Happy Sexual Harassment Season!

It's snowing outside and it can only mean one thing: the Holiday Season is coming, and along with it, the traditional office parties, where co-workers have fun and exchange mundane presents.




So, you ask, what's an appropriate present to give to a co-worker/your boss/a subordinate?


What about something sexy and fun? Like, for example, lingerie or lubricant?

I notice the ad below in today's Metro.

In this ad, Boutique Séduction, a Montréal sex shop, is suggesting upfront that its merchandize constitute appropriate gift ideas for office parties, and that such "sexy" gifts are just fun and playful.

You know, because somehow, being given lingerie by your boss or one of your coworkers is not sexual harassment around Christmas time, when everybody's drunk and happy.

The picture on the ad is pretty disgusting in and of itself. All the people picture look drunk, and all the men are either looking down someone's décolleté or grabbing a female coworker. The mere fact that it suggests that this sort of behaviour is acceptable in a work environment is unacceptable.

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If you want to complain to Boutique Séduction, please do so at the following number: (514) 593-1169, or by mail, at:

Boutique Séduction
5220, boulevard Métropolitain Est
Montréal (Québec)
H1S 1A4

Make sure to CC your letter to Metro... :

625 Avenue du Président-Kennedy
Suite 700
Montréal (Québec)
H3A 1K2
Phone: (514) 286-1066

... and to la Commission des normes du travail:

Commission des normes du travail
26e étage
500, boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest
Montréal (Québec)
H2Z 2A5

You can also write an opinion letter to Metro, at: opinions@metronouvelles.com.

***

A recent Canadian study, sarcastically called "The Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women", shows that women who don't conform to feminine stereotypes in the workplace are twice as much likely to be sexually harassed than their "traditional" counterparts.

As left-clicked, at F-email Fightback, explains:

"[S]exual harassment is motivated by a wish to punish women who blur gender distinctions. Women coming up through the ranks or entering a traditionally male work environment may threaten some men's sense of security and status. The dynamic is similar to harassment of minorities who threaten a majority group's dominant position in the workplace.

"Jennifer Berdahl, at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, found that women who behaved independently and assertively and spoke out were more likely to be sexually harassed than women who fit feminine ideals of deference, modesty and warmth. Ms. Berdahl noted this was especially true in male-dominated workplaces."

News Flash: Women Are Not Rodents!

I should stop reading the Globe and Mail. This paper constantly surprises me by reaching new lows of misogyny.

Today's paper featured an article, called "Sluts and Vermin", about the findings of Ms. Nafissa Ismail, a graduate student at Concordia University's Centre for Studies in Behavioural Neurobiology, who recently completed a research on the reproductive behaviour of rats. Her experiments namely involved allowing a male rat to have sexual access to two females, the first on an occasional basis, and the second, on a regular basis. She concluded that male rats, when in presence of both females, preferred the former female.

Now, I'm no rat expert, but I'd tend to say that rats are quite different from human beings. However, Globe reporter Siri Agrell, apparently figured that the conclusions of this study were significant for women (by which I mean, human, non-rodent females).

As a matter of fact, this is how she summarized the results of the experiment: “Girl lab rats know the rules: Play hard to get or your man won't respect you."

OK, I thought. That was a bit of a shocker. But are they really comparing the behaviour of rats (I repeat: rats) with that of mentally competent, presumably responsible, 21st century adult women?

Oh yes they are! *sing song voice*:

"Left in a room with both sexual partners, he found himself instantly drawn to the one who had been playing hard to get.
This story will not surprise most women, who have undoubtedly been told - either by peers or pop culture - not to put out too early in a relationship, lest the man lose interest.

Ms. Ismail added:

"I don't know if it will reinforce behaviours, but I think it should definitely give women something to think about on being too easy with men… Especially if it's one that they care about and want to develop a bond with." [emphasis added]

So just in case you were still scratching your head in total incomprehension, they are indeed implying that female who have "give in" too "easily" to sex, or who have multiple partners, are sluts, just like those nasty, promiscuous rodents.

But wait! The fun doesn't end there! Not only does this research on rats (how many times do I have to point it out?) entails that men have no respect whatsoever for women who choose not to entirely devote their sexuality to one of them, but it also explains why women are "wired" to despise "promiscuity":

"When the three animals were put in an enclosure together, [Ms. Ismail] said, the favoured or 'prudish' female rat displayed contemptuous behaviour toward her 'slutty' competitor."

Forget everything I've said so far. Despite the slut-bashing and the comparing women who *gasp* sleep with more than one partner with f***ing rats, there must be some truth in there. I mean, it's got to be a serious, well-researched article. I mean, otherwise, why would they be referring to Louann Brizendine's anachronistic masterpiece The Female Brain all over the place?

For those who haven't heard of it yet, Dr. Brizendine's book is about how hormonal and genetic differences between men and women condition us to behave in a feminine way(from childhood's girly games, to preferring to have children over pursuing a career and one's personal interests).

This book has been severely criticized, both in feminist and medical circles. For example:

"Yet, despite the author’s extensive academic credentials, The Female Brain disappointingly fails to meet even the most basic standards of scientific accuracy and balance. The book is riddled with scientific errors and is misleading about the processes of brain development, the neuroendocrine system, and the nature of sex differences in general. At the ‘big picture’ level, three errors stand out. First, human sex differences are elevated almost to the point of creating different species, yet virtually all differences in brain structure, and most differences in behaviour, are characterized by small average differences and a great deal of male– female overlap at the individual level. Second, data on structural and functional differences in the brain are routinely framed as if they must precede all sex differences in behaviour. Finally, the focus on hormone levels to the virtual exclusion of the systems that interpret them (and the mutual regulatory interactions between receptor and secretion systems) is especially lamentable, given the book’s clinical emphasis on hormone therapies. »

…

“The emphasis on myth-busting turns into a vehicle for dressing the myth up in new clothes — such as Simon Baron-Cohen’s recent hypothesis that the ‘male brain’ is hard-wired for ‘systematizing’, and the ‘female brain’ is hard-wired for ‘empathizing’ — there is no shortage of pseudo-scientific ways of saying ‘thinkers’ and ‘feelers’. The problem with such explanations of sex differences is not that they are overly biological, but that they are fundamentally non-biological and explain nothing.”

"Look at that slut... Did you see what she's wearing?"