Days of importance to Canadian women. Oh, and breastfeeding is "lowerclass".
September 25: Canadian government cuts 40% (5 million dollars) of Status of Women Canada's administrative budget
October: Women's History Month
October 3: The word "equality" is removed from the Status of Women mandate
October 18: Persons Day
November 25: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
November 29: Conservatives close 12 out of 16 Status of Women regional offices
December 6: National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women
December 10: International Human Rights Day
Well, it really sucks if you live in the North, a rural area, or anywhere except the 4 cities which will still have regional Status of Women offices after April 1st: Ottawa, Edmonton, Montreal and Moncton. It's not an April Fool's Day joke, unfortunately, just a grim reality.
Offices closed, millions in funding cut, "equality" removed from the SWC's mandate... I hear the government saying that it wants to create programs that treat men and women equally, without preferential treatment for women, but the reality is that no matter how much we'd like to think things are equal, there are still a lot of barriers and prejudice towards women. Less in some areas of the country, more in others, but when Canadian women are on average making only about 71 cents on the (male) dollar, there's surely something wrong, and I don't think that this government is taking the issues seriously. It's not terribly surprising though, considering the way some MPs speak out about their female colleagues. When well-educated, highly paid women are publicly maligned by government officials, what hope is there for single mothers, female immigrants, or women trying to break through the (still existent) glass ceiling?
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On an even more progressive note, yesterday Saskboy wrote about about a charming commenter one of his previous blog posts who has declared that breastfeeding in public is "shameful" and "lowerclass".
Posted in: baby, body image, feminism, kids, politics on November 30, 2006
To be fairer to Sean, he said he meant it was lowerclass only if the breastfeeding took place in a public space. I don't see much difference though, since he seems unaware of the fact that lactating women don't exactly control if they have a "lowerclass wet blouse" or not in public.
Ah, my mistake. Reading back over his comments, I see that he clarified his early remarks as applying to breastfeeding in public. So he only thinks it's indecent, disgraceful, tacky, shameful, trashy, unsanitary, slutty, a dirty bad habit, and lower class when done in public.
*sigh*