Tag Archives: International Women’s Day

Not celebrating International Women’s Day


Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

I just can’t. I am too close to rage about the state of women’s rights in the world today. It’s all cheery to say “Yay, Women!”, but hey, why are we still not being paid the correct rate? Why do republican candidates in the US think it’s okay to play Stepford Wives and talk in mealy-mouthed voices and fight reproductive choice? Why do women and men both seem to feel that women belong in the kitchen, preferably pregnant and docile? Why is the Christ I learned about being touted as someone who wanted women to bow and scrape to men? (I don’t remember that lesson). Why are we still overwhelmingly likely to suffer violence, even from those who purport to love us?

It’s enraging, as someone who grew up in the long long fight of trying to be treated as an equal.

And year by year, month by month, day by day, I am seeing women’s rights being eroded everywhere. Even here in my beloved Canada, things are slipping. Not that we’ve ever been allowed to be equals, no. But at least the effort used to be there.

I’ve led a fairly quiet life, and yet I have had to suffer multiple instances of sexual assault, had to endure being paid much less than someone doing my exact job, had to fight to be seen despite accruing qualifications and expertise. It’s annoying, and dangerous. And I’m living in a “democracy”, as vs. a place where I would be required not to be seen at all.

There are many many places like that. I’m grateful not to live in any of those places, but on the other hand, I’ve been raised to believe in equality of opportunity. It feels bad to lose it. And I worry about our kids and grandkids who have to try to push their way forward. It feels so redundant to fight for rights again, to fight for women and the2SLGBTQ+ community, to worry about anyone who isn’t a white male being the object of hatred. And I worry about the white males, too. It must be terrifying to lose privilege. Perhaps they could use this understanding and apply it to the treatment of everyone else? And don’t they wish they could have a broader definition of their roles than the standard one?

So that’s why I don’t celebrate International Women’s Day. It feels like wearing a pink t-shirt against bullying. Pretty but ultimately meaningless.

In my recent book, Spit & Polish, I write about a time where women had very limited opportunities. The war was over, and the men coming back took back all the jobs that women did so well while they were off fighting. Women were back to being nurses, secretaries, teachers — if they were allowed out of the house at all. Ruth Maclean, my main character, is part of a new change in nursing. Nurses were working to become less of a drudge, more of an educated professional, and being fought all the way.

It’s a process that still continues. Even with the professional nursing corps, male nurses are often paid more than female ones. Why? And nurses, particularly female ones, are victims of assault way too often. It needs to stop. We need to take women seriously, stop squashing them, stop trying to shove them back into the kitchen unless they want to be there. Stop killing them.

Then we can truly celebrate International Women’s Day.

Spit & Polish is now available on book sites in ebook and paperback format, and through your local bookstore. It also can be ordered through Somewhat Grumpy Press directly. Why not also check out the other books published through Somewhat Grumpy Press? Lots of good reading to be found…

International Women’s Day, or here we go again with the platitudes…


I’m all for a celebration of women. As a gender, I think we’re pretty cool. And hard done by, in general. Just look at the housework balance, the pay disparities, the parenting gaps. The complete erasure of women’s accomplishments in so many spheres. So the idea of celebrating women’s accomplishments seems like a good one.

BUT. I can’t help but feel a day just isn’t enough. I’m with the folks at Black History Month who want to extend the celebrations to more than just the minimum. I mean, isn’t it a bit…urgh…to give Black History the very shortest month in the calendar? Whose bright idea was that? Was it a bit of a dig? 

Or the pink shirt anti-bullying day. Ugh. Kids are bullied if they don’t wear pink to school that day. I can’t help but feel this is a bit counterproductive.

‘I wonder if I can reschedule the grocery delivery for Thursday instead of Tuesday?’

Besides, shouldn’t recognition of bullying, women, black history, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and plain old white cis men go on all the time? Of course it tends to run to the latter in this list, so I understand completely the need for emphasis on the other groups, but it is beginning to seem to me that there are so many different ’cause’ days that the serious problems are getting lost in the shuffle.

Like the ongoing, paralyzing racism present throughout the world. Like capitalism’s driving of starvation and grinding poverty. 

Or the bad behaviour by so many men towards so many women. I heard this AM on the radio of a city councillor in Ottawa who has been sexually aggressive to his female staff to an unbelievable level, who is still being paid with the taxpayers dime and has not received any serious repercussions. He is still the representative for the women he abused. Gawd. 

Story after story of men being jerks scroll across my timeline (and trust me, I’m not looking for them – I find them triggering as I have experienced my full share of jerkish experiences) I DO know there are good men, I know they can act humanely and kindly and do good things. I also know women can be jerks. No need to differ with me on that score. But the balance seems to still be off. 

And I simply don’t believe waving an “International Women’s Day” heart on one’s sleeve will do anything to stop honour killings, rape, aggressiveness against women, even forced intimacies of the minor kind. I don’t think men fully understand the feelings of danger we feel when alone with them. 

Even friends can’t be trusted. An old (married) friend of mine once took the opportunity of us being alone in my apartment to press himself on me. I was shocked beyond the ability to respond. It’s damaged our friendship beyond saving, in my mind anyway. I doubt very much he even considered it out of line. I remain baffled as to why he thought he COULD do such things.

But I’ll just bet he celebrates Women’s Day. 

You good men and true, I salute you. You, too, deserve recognition. Maybe having a “Decent Men’s Day” would help rebalance behaviour. We could celebrate it on February 28th? (Just teasing…)

I’ve written a book about a woman who was massaged like Coca-Cola into a merchandiser’s dream. It’s called Recycled Virgin, and it’s an alternate history of Mary and her role in the Christian story. It puts her where I think she should have been, somewhat more in the centre of things.

While I was writing it, I was taking a course on Mariology at the excellent Atlantic School of Theology, under the patient guidance of David Dean. I remember knocking him off his heels by suggesting that all the difficulties with Mary (her ever virginity despite giving birth, her pure blood line, her lack of sin, her assumption into heaven in her full body – all things created well after the fact by clumps of men trying to persuade people to join the church) could be completely explained by making her the god part of the god-human connection, as vs just the receptacle. Those of you who read Catholic doctrine for pleasure (I realize there may be few) might look at the stories through that lens and see how they think they might fit. I found it fascinating to contemplate.

So, in honour of International Women’s Day, such that it is, I’ve put my book on discount for March 10-17. The ebook only, as this is all the mighty Amazon allows at present. Why not take a look and see if you can challenge that prevailing belief that Mary didn’t really matter, but was just a womb on sanctified legs. It’s alternative history. It’s fiction, but then, aren’t most of the stories we tell ourselves?

Check out my book here. If you like it, or hate it, or anything in-between, please take the time to write a review. 

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Being an orphan


tumblr_m0kvlehwjS1r09zijo1_500I was thinking about International Women’s Day today and about the strong women I’ve had in my life and how damnably awful it is that so many of left life so soon.
There’s my mum, a ferocious lawyer woman with a witty twist of the tongue and the ability to argue paint off a wall. I used to schedule arguments with her when I’d come home just to get them over with. She’d best me and we could be friends til the next time. It was like a momma bear cuffing her cubs to remind them she was still the boss.
She passed away 21 years ago from cancer, just about. She was only 60. I’ve been a motherless child for so long.
Then there was my mother-in-law. She was a survivor, the type of woman who could take a bit of fluff, some salt and a twig and make a house and a full dinner out of it. She cared and laughed in equal measure. I loved that there was no task she wouldn’t take on, from biking to volunteer to help the old folks at a local pool (in her 70’s) to concreting patches on the garage floor. She just up and did things. She passed away a few years ago with ALS, leaving a huge hole in my heart.
Then there’s my Aunt Mary. Mary was a nun for a while, bringing spirit and fun to even those cloistered halls. She could laugh with her whole body and with the joy in life shining through every chuckle. She left the convent and worked extensively with death and dying issues until she eventually found love and then died, too soon. I never spent enough time with her, I know. She was strong and vibrant and alive and full of hope.

I was so fortunate – I had many aunts and other women in my life that were strong examples of femininity.
They were all completely different. Yet each offered a different vision of what a woman could be.

International Women's Day rally, Melbourne1_11410104_tcm11-17964

Now they are all gone.

 

il_fullxfull.393422852_n9twSometimes, I need an aunt. Or a mother. Or a mother-in-law. Someone like the Dowager. Someone who knows where the iron bar rests under human behaviour and can line my toes up with it and set me to fly from there.

Today, it’s time to take a breath and honour all those women we know – aunts, mothers, friends, cousins, sisters – and look at what we can do, what we have accomplished.
Then we have to shake our heads and say, no, it’s not enough. We need to grab the reins from those women who led us and step forward, make things better for those who can’t. Use that sharp tongue, that persistence, that hope, that strength to change the world.
We could.

If we ever tried.
Yes, we could.
Maybe we should start with the Stephen Lewis Foundation. I love that guy. He, amazingly, fights for women’s rights.  Endlessly.
Listen to this and be moved…http://music.cbc.ca/#/concerts/Hope-Rising-2012-2012-11-07