Ontario Feminist Blogs

HELP NEEDED!!!

Women Occupy the Status of Women Office in St. John's

Both Petrina Beals, the Coordinator of the Women's Centre and Janet
O'Donnell,
Treasurer and long-time member of the Mokami Status of Women Council, are
involved in the occupation. They need your help!

Although Minister Oda claims they are putting the savings from the cuts back
into services for women, the closure of the regional office in our province
hurts us. Centralization of decision-making about women's issues is bad for
Labrador. It means that decisions about funding for women's services or
programmes will be made in New Brunswick. That doesn't make sense to us.

The current conservative government has also opened the door for private
companies to apply for funding from the Status of Women Canada. That
doesn't
make sense to us either.

The Minister didn't consult with women to make these decisions. She says
women
are already equal and the struggle for women's equality is over. We don't
think
so.

Please call or email the Minister for the Status of Women, Beverly Oda, to
tell
her you support the women in Labrador who are occupying the Status of Women
office in St. John's. Her email address is: Oda.B@parl.gc.ca

Thanks for your support,
Claudia Mann,
Mokami Status of Women Council
claudiajmann@yahoo.ca

Wimbledon will pay men and women tennis players the same prize money this year, bringing the tournament in line with the three other Grand Slams...
The Australian and U.S. Opens pay the sexes the same. The French Open last year paid its champions equal prize money while retaining a differential during earlier rounds. Wimbledon men's champion Roger Federer won 655,000 pounds ($1.2 million) last year, 30,000 pounds more than women's counterpart Amelie Mauresmo. Prize money for 2007 has yet to be set.Bloomberg

It's sad, but I'm not even surprised that there was a difference (though I was unaware of the discrepency before this story).

Remember the big poo-bah about a woman playing golf with the men a couple of years ago?

And women's sports rarely get the coverage or viewership that men's do.

So why be surprised that women are paid less in tennis?

Positive move though.

The case of a tiny baby born at just 22 weeks has made the news, and looking at the picture, I can see why. That baby's feet are translucent!

Disturbing, though, is how pro-lifers have jumped on the survival of the baby as a reason to ban abortions.

Meanwhile, although it doesn't often happen, the Abortion Act allows terminations to be carried out until 24 weeks in Britain; any time after that there must be incontrovertible medical evidence that it would be dangerous to continue. The law in the US is predictably fraught and unclear, and in any case varies from state to state. Roe v Wade bans it after the foetus is viable, which, as Amillia has shown, is something of a contestable point.Guardian Unlimited

So, perhaps if women don't want to carry their baby to term, they can just have it removed and pro-lifers can try to rescue them all. It's really the only solution I can see.

I've been following the trial of Robert Pickton in the deaths of six women from Vancouver with frustration and, at many times in many ways, in horror.

The case involves lots of material to sensationalize: remains of the women Pickton is accused of killing were found all around his pig farm in B.C.

This case brings up many, many issues.

One of those is the way the media is dealing with the graphic details they are learning. Since I get the Toronto Star at home, my knowledge of these deaths has mostly been filtered through columnist Rosie DiManno. I'm not sure why the Star insists on putting a controversial columnist on a serious, important case, but that's beside the point.

After I read her account of the first day, I swore I would read no more by her on this subject. She recalled everything. Every little detail.

I was sickened.

What is the purpose of such description of the violation of women. It seems to be amazingly disrespectful of those who had died: of their bodies, their experiences and their deaths.

Now, of course, at this point DiManno really had no way of avoiding these descriptions. The rest of the media is reporting it and if she doesn't, the Star loses some readership.

But maybe that's the way it should go. Maybe one media outlet needs to make a stand.

I will continue to follow the trial, but not from DiManno. I can't handle it.