October 6, 2006

We are women. We are half the human race. Are we considered equals of the other half? Don't get too smug.

The past two weeks have been disastrous for women. They began with the murder of Safia Amajan, the women's rights minister in Afghanistan. She was shot to death by the Taliban, not that this seems to have greatly distressed President Hamid Karzai or indeed U.S. President George W. Bush.

Then Canada's Stephen Harper did his own Bush copycatting and cut funding to the Status of Women Canada secretariat and to the Court Challenges program that funded citizens and groups fighting laws they believe violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Now only the rich will have their day in court.

But the overall reaction was muted. We may never know if this encouraged the prime minister to take the next step. This week, the Tories killed all funding for women's groups that do advocacy, lobbying or research, essentially telling disobedient types to shut up.

Harper even removed the word "equality" from Status of Women Canada's mandate. Are we still "persons"? Not equal ones. The goal now is to "facilitate women's participation in Canadian society." I think he means the feds will shovel ladies' sidewalks, but who knows? Right-wing jargon is just as blinding as left-wing stuff.

If Harper waited a week or so after his initial cuts to see what the reaction would be, feminists were wasting precious time that could have been spent alerting Canadian women. No wonder Harper managed to slip this through. Feminists have had far lesser things to worry about. For instance, I spent that week being attacked online by feminists for bad language.

The academics and activists on this particular bulletin board-debate website weren't discussing the Taliban or women on welfare. Someone posted a passionate essay on how women stomp on other women once they get into power. She paraphrased Erasmus: "In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is Queen."

Another woman responded that she was offended by the implication that the disabled should worship less disabled people. Using the word "blind" is wrong, she wrote. She herself was a person of "low vision" ("I have the distinction of being a womyn with a disAbility, low vision and albinism" was how she put it) and decried phrases like "turn a blind eye."

My first thought was that this was a hoax from a Don Cherry fan. But I sent a message in which I strongly objected to anyone telling me I couldn't refer to someone as "blind" or indeed imply that blindness was a bad thing. I know two people with macular degeneration, an irreversible slide into blindness. They're stoic, but I can't say they're happy about it.

For this, I was chastised by the board's moderator (a sensation I associate with Jimmy Swaggart for some reason). Another of my sister feminists gently warned me that others had gotten in similar trouble with "guy," "boycott," and "blacklist."

To my sorrow, she sent me a style guide on "preferred language." It said writers should avoid equating bad, depressing things with blackness. Don't say "black mood, blackball, blackmail, black magic, black sheep, black day or black market." Oh, and pots shouldn't call kettles black.

My heart didn't sink, it clanked down to my ankles. I was in that cast of mood, having that shade of day, and with this column, I will be on that colour of list. Fine. I can take that. But if you find the word "black" pejorative, you might as well burn your Shakespeare. He was very big on things black and how to cope with them. Didn't he say, "Then will I swear beauty herself is b----"

Sorry. Damn that impossible man.

'Look, I am a feminist'

Look, I am a feminist. I use the unfashionable word because I hate bullying and women are bullied more than anyone on the planet. But I won't be told to shy away from vivid, evocative words and I don't like seeing English literature betrayed. Surely something has to describe the sky at night. And no, "dark" isn't good enough. This kind of rigidity matches that of the evangelical woman in Georgia who wants Harry Potter books banned because they glorify wiccans.

For the first time I understood why some women don't want to call themselves feminists. They see feminism as a kind of humourless GroupThink that excludes them. But the women slamming me for my English are extremists, the kind of people always to be avoided wherever they stand politically. Feminism is about equality. I thought doctrinaire feminism like this had died out after Naomi Wolf wrote Fire with Fire in 1993.

On the weekend I flew to Ottawa for a conference where I gave a speech urging feminists to work with other feminists around the world to fight brutes and bullies. We had to ignore what I call "tiny sorry-ass First World problems" (see above) and concentrate on the essentials.

The conference itself was marvellous. A Canadian woman doctor who works at a Canadian clinic in Lesotho described the horror of fighting HIV-AIDS in a country where grandmothers are left to raise orphaned children. A Colombian woman told of fighting for health and safety in a country where more trade unionists are murdered than in the rest of the world put together. Her own husband had been killed.

These women have raw courage. They get things done. It was a painful yet heartening reminder of why feminism is the most important humanist battle of our times. The story of male triumphalism plods on, as it always has.

So listen hard, women. The religious right is taking its place in our government, as Marci McDonald writes in this month's Walrus magazine. Be afraid. Abortion rights are next. Can we spend less time arguing about minutiae and more time fighting for the welfare of our daughters, please?