Offside

I like to think I have a pretty broad sense of humour. I am confident I can line up a number of friends and family who would all readily testify to my ability to take a joke well.

And so when I first heard the CBC had partnered with While the Men Watch blog to provide alternate commentary on the Stanley Cup playoffs I assumed it was a joke. Well, you know what they say about the word 'assume'.

The concept behind the WTMW blog is to make sports accessible to us girls. You know, give us a way to support the men-folk while they are engaged in their sporting thing. They even feature a "Boyfriend of the Game" - a hottie you can focus on when the game is too complicated or boring for you.

That sound you hear? It's my head. Bashing against a wall.

What the CBC and more offensively, these bloggers have done is reduce my sports fandom and appreciation to my gender, and only my gender. They have jointly decided that as a female sports like hockey are a little beyond me and so they generously want to give me some eye candy to focus on to help me through the hard parts.

The CBC and some of their announcers have suggested this may be a way to engage a new group of fans in the game. To that I say: bullshit. (Oh, was that unladylike? Too bad.)

Assuming your audience is stupid is not a good engagement strategy.

Furthermore in a day and age when we need to continue to push boundaries, this little experiment by the CBC and the bloggers hardens them.

And how about female sportswriters? What does this attempt at entertainment do the likes of Shannon Proudfoot (btw, are you following her on Twitter? You should be) or Christine Brennan or Christine Simpson? Those women and many others have had to fight for their place and credibility in a still male dominated profession. They are professionals who report sports as they are meant to be reported rather than in some alternate, candy-flavoured soundbite.

The Boyfriend of the Game fiasco in an insult to those women who watch seriously and to the players. Professional athletes spend years training, pushing and working to play at the highest level. Careers are short, injuries are plentiful and to reduce these players to nothing more than a pin up is a grave injustice to their athletic skill. If that sounds familiar it's because women have decried similar treatment for decades. It's not cute, it's not endearing - it's insulting and patronizing.

It's not that I'm immune to the good looks of some of the players. My crushes on Eric Lindros and Patrick Roy, formed several years ago, are still intact. But I didn't watch hockey because they were hot. I watched hockey because to see Patrick Roy stand on his head was a thing of wonder. To see him play against in overtime after overtime against the Nordiques and make stops that seemed to almost magical was a treat. Watching Eric Lindros as part of the Legion of Doom with Renberg and Leclair clear his way up the ice, seemingly throwing off opposing players like the Hulk throws off cars, was awesome. That is why I watch.

You know, I can explain the offside rule in both hockey and soccer. I can describe Zidane's penalty shots in Euro 2004 and in the World Cup. I can tell you that I dream of seeing Messi play live at Camp Nau in Barcelona. I can tell you all the reasons the Senators didn't advance further in the playoffs and all the reasons why LA is likely to take the Cup. I don't need women pretending to be cute bubbleheads to explain it to me like I'm stupid.

Why is it, exactly, that women think we are better off playing dumb and cute rather than being smart and strong?

I won't apologize for being intelligent. I won't apologize for being engaged whether it's in politics or sports or the arts. I don't want to watch sports as some kind of service to the men in my life, I want to and do watch sports with the men in my life because sports has some magic to it. Sports can transport you to somewhere else, they can give you a moment or a memory that stays with you for life, it can unify a country or a community and it can provide a common language when nothing else will.

What the WTMW and the CBC are doing is an insult to women, men, sports fans, sports reporters and athletes alike.

Someone blow the whistle - they are offside.

****
I had the chance to speak to the Canadian Press today on this subject, the article can be found here 

Vindication and Validation

I think it's fair to say over the course of a lifetime that many of us spend a significant portion of our time in search of both vindication and validation. It speaks to our human nature to want to know we were right all along and that we are good at what we do.

Some are more vocal or more overt in their need for either or both. I like to think that I'm more subtle about my need for either but as with all things, self-perception can masque itself as self-deception.

In the last week I was served generous helpings of vindication and validation. And I was reminded that one - validation - is far more positive than the other - vindication.

Over the last few years, with the support of good friends, I have been working on a project. The details aren't important other than to say it was a leap of creative faith. My friends have been very kind in their feedback and reassurances. But last weekend I was on the receiving end of objective, professional feedback that mirrored very much what my friends have been saying all along.

It isn't that I doubt my friends - honestly, I trust their judgement implicitly. But to have it confirmed - validated - was a really big rush. I am more committed than ever.

Now as for vindication....

I have long believed in taking the high road. I don't always do it but it is an instinct nestled in my core and one I tap in to more often that not.

However, I have this small affliction. When I am right - when I know I am right, I want it to be recognized. I want it to be acknowledged.

In my previous job there was a situation that I continued to raise to people. I had outlined concerns, the necessary steps that needed to be taken to resolve it and I had warned of potential fall out if action wasn't taken. I was repeatedly told that it wasn't that important, I was overestimating the impact and I just needed to trust things were in hand.

I was not reassured but at the same time I had done what I could and it was now in other people's hands.

This week, I was proven right. I had more than one person phone or email and say, "you told them. You warned them this would happen."

And it was true - I had.

I was vindicated.

The problem with being vindicated, with sitting smugly on a giant pile of 'I told you so' is that the joyous feeling is fleeting, if it is ever there at all.

I didn't feel better. I wasn't overjoyed. If anything, I was sad. All being right had done was create a lot of work for a lot of people now as opposed to earlier. And in the end I am reminded vindication is a statement of fact, not of feeling. And really, if I knew I was right back then, having it confirmed this week changed nothing.

The high road isn't always as immediately satisfying but it is a nicer, more comfortable place to be. 

Thinking vs. Feeling

Last summer I had another opportunity to see U2 in concert; they have always been magic for me and remain very much so.

On the drive up to Montreal, Theo asked each of us what song we would be okay not hearing during the concert. I ran through all my favourites in my head - Bad, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride, 40, Running to Stand Still, With or Without You, One etc, etc. I boldly announced that I would be okay not hearing Beautiful Day.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Theo nearly drove off the road. He definitely gave me a disbelieving stink eye in the rearview mirror.

But I was okay with not hearing the song. I had thought about it, rationalized it and determined on balance, there were other songs I wanted to hear more. Logic ruled the day and I was set.

And then this thing happened.

They played the song. And like all things with U2, they drove home the beauty and power of their music with strong visuals and a terrific performance. To say I was swept away would be an understatement. The song took hold of me, held me tight and I got lost in every note, every lyric, every single beat.

At the end of the show, through our long, wet slog back to the Metro and then the car all I could think was how could I have been okay not hearing that? How could I have been okay not experiencing that? 


Logic, analysis and dissection are all valuable and important skills. They are critical to good decision making. But it is possible to over-think a situation. It is possible to beat the feelings into submission with logic. And while that may be appropriate some times, if we do it too often we run the risk of missing the joy.

Not everything is meant to make sense, some times you just need feel it rather than think it. That space where thoughts give away to feelings is where the magic happens.

(Stop) Polishing Your Armour

You've seen the pictures. The malnourished African child crying as flies swarm around their face. Or you've read the stories, the ones about the HIV orphans in Kenya, Tanzania or South Africa. Or you've received a request to fund a school or supply sanitary supplies for teenage girls.

And then that feeling happens. That stirring that tells you - nay, commands you - to do something. DO. SOMETHING. Your inner saviour is yelling at you to get up off the couch and do something. Save these children, these girls, these people. You can rescue them from the squalor of their poverty and misfortune. After all, you've got so much you simply must give some to have so little.

Those are good instincts. Compassion is always a good thing. But when you take your compassion and throw a cape on it and tape a giant S to its chest, you've crossed in to a territory where selfishness is costumed as charity. You are now a White in Shining Armour.

The concept of wanting to rescue those disproportionately affected by poverty is understandable. How can you not be moved by it? And once moved by it, you take action and once you take action, you want to see the results of your action. I mean, after all, you are entitled, are you not? It is the most romantic of all notions, the idea that you personally can lift another person from poverty. Like that starfish story that is a favourite of raconteurs like Nick Kristof; it tells us we may not be able to save all the starfish but we can save at least one.

And as a result, a whole new tourist industry has sprung up, bringing the benevolent saviours in country where they can visit projects, schools and orphanages and interact with the poor like it is some kind of macabre zoo.

Books are sent, TOMS shoes are bought, NFL clothes of the losing SuperBowl team are dumped and people feel better. At least we have done something. And, in the face of extreme poverty something is better than nothing. Right?

But what if something is not better than nothing? What if, before you boarded that plane to Tanzania to visit the school or the orphanage who have been the recipients of your cheques, you took a breath and asked yourself what is it exactly that you've done. Have your actions, however well intended, resulted in dignity for those on the receiving end? Have you demonstrated a respect for culture?

Or have you embarked on the newest form of proselytizing? Rather than bringing the Good Word, you are bringing yourself, your values and your need for recognition and trading goods for your own self-fulfillment?

Did you hold a fundraiser to bring books to the orphanage? Did you bother to check whether the books were appropriate to the children you were bringing them to? Did the books reflect their culture? Their history? Or just like the Kony video, did you opt for storytelling that suited your personal narrative rather than the reality of those you are trying to help?

What citizens of developing countries need is a hand up, not a hand out. They need investment in skills not boxes of books and shoes shipped to them. There are certainly dire situations where significant investments in aid is required but there are many more where countries would directly benefit from moving beyond aid into trade and investment.

Are there infrastructure problems in Africa and Asia? Yes. But your two week "voluntourism' vacation in the orphanage doesn't change that. It does give you some lovely photos to show your friends when you get home. It gives you some great tweets to send out while there. What it does do is perpetuate the myth that Africans or Asians cannot care for themselves without our help.

I want people to want to make a difference. I really do. I want people to use their voices to draw attention to situations that matter to them and to pressure their elected officials to respond as appropriate. But I also want people to be informed, truly informed, as to the consequences of their actions. Twitter is a powerful medium but 140 characters is not information, it's a headline. We all need to dig deeper, learn more and recognize that there are professionals who are dedicated to building capacity on the ground with the people.

The most important thing any one person can give to another is dignity. You may not get the recognition of your photo in a newsletter or being nominated for a CNN Heroes award, but the impact of encouraging dignity will far outstrip anything else.

Tomorrow, April 16th, is A Day Without Dignity. Click the link, get informed and then ask some more questions. 

Syria

My mind drifts frequently to Syria.

Reports of new atrocities, handwringing over international intervention or not and ineffective sanctions being levied make it hard not to think of Syria.

In 2010, I spent an interesting, curious and some times magical ten days in the country. When I travel - which is often - I frequently fall in love with the cities I visit. It is rare for me to find a place I would not return to, to dig deeper, to experience more or to create amazing memories, though it does happen (hello Dubai, I'm looking at you)

Syria was not a place I fell in love with and yet at the same time, I very much would like to return. Where Lebanon is loud and brash and Dubai is gilded plastic, Syria possess an old world authenticity. It has seen so much history - Paul's conversion along the road to Damascus, as an away place en route to the Crusades and now, now as the latest spot in the world where rebellion and protest is met with bloodshed.

When I see the pictures in the paper and on the television I think of how different the country seemed whenI was there.

I arrived on a weekend, with a colleague, and we met another colleague on holidays from Beirut for dinner. We ate at Naranj, located in the Old City in Damascus. It was a warm, spring night and we scored a table on the rooftop. As we dined for hours on Arabic mezze and I took a puff of shisha we enjoyed an unbeatable view. The cacophony of sounds from the old sooks billowed up to us, enveloping us in a sound reminding me that I was indeed very far from home and how exciting that was!

After dinner we walked through the sooks. The spice sook was perhaps the most fragrant, warm and inviting outdoor market I had ever seen.

Until we found a candy sook. Yes. An entire market devoted to candy.

As we walked along the streets both in the Old City and in the newer, more modern parts of Damascus, pictures of Bashir Al-Assad were everywhere. When I told my colleagues - jokingly - that he was kind of handsome - I was teased for my dictator fetish. Throughout our entire 10 days in country, every time we saw a picture of Assad, we joked that he was my boyfriend.

That joke seems heartbreakingly unfunny now.

We visited the Umayyad Mosque. 

I love visiting houses of worship in other countries, especially of other faiths because I believe faith - in each other, in God or gods, in nature, the universe or whatever people believe - is what binds us, grounds us and helps us dream big.

It was only when we got outside of Damascus that I had a real taste of Syria. We stopped at Krak des Chevaliers, a crusader castle deep in the heart of Syria. While we were there a movie, set in the time of Cleopatra was being filmed. No one seemed concerned about the historical inaccuracy of using a Crusades-era castle for good old Cleo - just like Hollywood - proving our differences are in fact smaller than our similarities.

The route to Palmyra was truly exciting. We danced close enough to Iraq to see highway signs directing us to Baghdad and even got to stop for the best mint tea I've ever had at the Baghdad cafe. Like a bedouin  outpost, it was warm and welcoming.



And then there was Palmyra. An ancient city, an oasis from antiquity. Now ruins are nothing new to me - I've seen my share in many countries - but this was different. Similar to my reaction in Greece, I stared at what was left, trying to appreciate just how old it really was and finding my frame of reference to be fleeting at best.




While we were looking at the ruins, I met some of the most adorable school children ever. There is this thing that happens when you have blonde hair and pink skin (and blue eyes help too) - people in places where that is not common, stare. In the Canary Islands, I had an older gentleman spend an entire bus ride touching my then waist length blonde hair. Being Canadian, I was too afraid of offending to tell the gentleman he was kind of creeping me out.

The children were quite taken with my pinkness and after three young boys worked up the nerve to say hello and I said hello back - I was suddenly surrounded by children. They wanted photos, they wanted hugs and they wanted to touch my hair. They wanted to know where I was from - and admitted they had only a vague understanding of Canada and where it was and they wanted to share their snacks with me. They were heartwarming in their curiosity. And very much like children their age the world over.

When I hear the reports of children being caught in the crossfire, of children being summarily executed with their families as they try to escape and when I hear of children crying in agony as doctors try to tend to their wounds, I think of these children. I think of their ready smiles, their innate curiosity and their easy laughter.

And I hope they are safe. And I hope they are untouched by all the violence that surrounds their country.

My mind very much drifts to Syria these days.

Slut.

God, how I hate that word.

I hate how it is an easily reached for weapon in an arsenal of put downs and insults specifically for women.

I hate the implication of it; for it suggests there are only two kinds of women - good girls and bad girls. And if you're a bad girl then you get everything you deserve.

I also hate how the word is no big deal to many.

Earlier this week Rush Limbaugh, that shining beacon of American conservatism, called a university student a slut. Sandra Fluke was testifying on Capitol Hill about public funding for contraception. She was expressing her views and opinions - something Rush does on a regular basis on his radio show.

For her troubles, for engaging in the public discourse, this man took to his radio show and called her a slut. But he didn't stop there. He blithely carried on and went on to smear women further: 

"So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal," he said. "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

Just take a moment and re-read that quote because it is rich in showing what Limbaugh and many others think of women.

1. If you stand up for women, you are not just a feminist (a slur in some people's minds) but you are a feminazi. You - you believer in gender equality - are right in line with Nazis. The irony here is that Nazism believed that women should not participate in anything outside of children, the church and the kitchen.

2. Having contraceptives - a prescription medication - paid for means that a) you are a sexual being b) it's a license to have sex c) you are a slut d) you owe a debt to the men

3. If you are a woman on contraceptives, you are should film your sexual encounters and post them online  in a bid of public humiliation because it's clear you are nothing more than a vagina. And as a vagina, rather than a woman with brains, a heart, a soul and rights, you should entertain Limbaugh.

I am pleased to report that several advertisers on Limbaugh's show have dropped him. But it's not enough. He should be publicly shamed.

A quick search of how his fellow conservatives reacted is disheartening. Ron Paul called him crude. Mitt Romney said it was not the language he would have used and John Boehner said he was inappropriate. Rick Santorum at least showed a little outrage and called Limbaugh absurd.

But as responses go they were all pretty tepid.

The problem with what Limbaugh said was not his choice of words, though those are offensive enough; the problem with Limbaugh is his beliefs. And he is not alone. And that is truly scary.

This issue is not about contraception - publicly funded or otherwise.

This issue is about the value of women and sadly, for many like Limbaugh, women are worth nothing.

Winter is Coming

If you have read or watched Game of Thrones, you know the phrase 'winter is coming' is a threat of dark times, bleakness and difficulty.

I am more and more convinced that winter is indeed coming for women.

Over the last week I've been contemplating blog posts related to Chris Brown performing at the Grammys, the tweets from women suggesting Brown could beat them anytime, the horrific response of some to these women, threatening to rape them and then there is Ron Paul's comments about 'honest rape'  and finally the state sanctioned rape by trans-vaginal ultrasound happening in the state of Virginia.

Each time I started to write on any of those topics, I was stymied; it seemed like something was just out of reach. And then it hit me, there is a thread joining this all together. These things - these slow and methodical erosions of the gains women have made over decades - are linked. Events, like the ones we are seeing now, rarely happen in isolation. There is always a spark of some kind or a first domino that tips over and sends the rest racing to collapse.

We have been and continue to change the way we value women. For years, decades even, we have turned a partially blind eye to the inequality of women in developing countries. They - those poor unfortunate souls - were not really our problem; we all had bigger fish to fry. The Taliban were executing women and confining them to horrible, brutal lives for years before the U.S led an invasion in to Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden. I would argue that absent the events of September 11th, the Taliban would still be in power and women would be without rights.

In Zimbabwe, women were raped to punish them for trying to exercise their democratic franchise by voting and campaigning for someone other than Mugabe. In South Africa, 'corrective' rape is a regular occurrence; it's a method used by some men to 'correct' lesbians and make them straight. Even in Bosnia, where women were held in camps and raped repeatedly, the world did intervene but no soon enough. Not nearly soon enough.

And then there is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ground zero in the use of rape as a weapon of war. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, mutilated and killed by militia and military alike.

Over and over again the aggressors, the perpetrators continue on with impunity. The existing laws are weak and there is no interest in strengthening them. Or, there is just simply no desire to apply the law at all. After all, it's just women. And if we raise a stink about the women we may not have access to whatever natural resources the country in question has and well, really, it's just women. They are a cost of doing business.

Now you may be asking about the link between the women of the DRC and Chris Brown performing on the Grammys but it's there.

Chris Brown has sold millions of albums and had his songs spend quite a bit of time at the top of the Billboard charts. He is, by all musical accounts, a success. However, there's that inconvenient conviction for felony assault against his girlfriend.

Felony assault fails as an adjective to describe what he dead. He beat his girlfriend until her eye was black and blue and her lips bleeding. He strangled her and tried to push her out of a moving vehicle.

In other words, he behaved like any other abuser.

This may be where you argue that he fulfilled the conditions of his sentence and it is behind him. And it is, largely. Part of the justice system is to allow for redemption. But there is a difference between redemption and celebration and what happened at the Grammys was a celebration. He was welcomed to the inner echelon of the music industry with open arms. What he did was not just between him and Rihanna. As with any crime society is also injured and bears the long term scars of those injuries. By celebrating him, by holding him up as someone to be admired, we are saying that his artistic talent is worth more than his transgressions. We are saying that his music - much like the natural resources of the countries where we allow women to be denigrated and abused without intervention -  is worth more, is of more value than what he did to his girlfriend.

Which brings me to the state of Virginia. I'm not going to get in to a debate on abortion in this blog. Also, the bill in Virginia is not about abortion. It's about the value of women. It is specifically about how the state values women. The intent of the bill is to ensure any woman considering an abortion has the full picture of what her decision entails. The belief is if the woman hears the fetal heartbeat or sees an ultrasound image she may change her mind.

The notion that any woman considering an abortion does not know what she is doing is insulting and ridiculous.

But what the state of Virginia is proposing is so much worse than insulting. It's assault. The new law will stipulate that any woman wanting an abortion must have an ultrasound that allows for the image of the baby to be shown and for the heartbeat to be heard. How is that done? Through a trans-vaginal ultrasound.

Not familiar with trans-vaginal ultrasound? It involves an ultrasound wand being inserted in to your vagina.

A woman in Virginia wanting an abortion must - by law - have this ultrasound if she wishes to proceed. In other words, she has no choice and must allow the state to physically violate her.

I cannot think of a single other medical procedure for men or for women that requires - requires - the patient to agree to a violation of this nature in order to be treated.

The bill will become law. If you ask why you will hear a number of different answers all related to the speaker's stance on abortion. But the real answer is that women are valued differently than men. Women, in the view of the state of Virginia, cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, they cannot be trusted to know their own mind and they cannot be allowed to make such a life-altering decision without some kind of punishment.

Women are worth less.

Winter is coming.

And for some women it is already a long, cold winter.