Tag Archives: gender equity

I Have Never

I am a straight, white, elderly, married man.  In all my years, I have never had a friend who is anti-Semitic.  I have never had a friend who is racist or homophobic.  Nor have I ever had a friend who is misogynistic or xenophobic.

In all my life, I have never had a friend who is regressive or punitive.  I have never had a friend who is a bully or cruel.  Nor have I ever had a friend who is narcissistic or egomaniacal.

From time to time, I’ve encountered people who exhibit some of these attributes, of course, but I’ve always and quickly exiled myself from their presence.  Except when I’ve had no recourse, I have steadfastly abjured their company.

Throughout my life, I have had friends who are religious—and from several faiths—or atheist, even agnostic.  I have had friends who espouse differing political sentiments than I, but never aggressively so.  I have had friends with points of view different from mine on such issues as pro-life/pro-choice, gender equity, capitalism/socialism, green energy, global warming, pandemic mitigations, famine, warfare/diplomacy, the likelihood of life eternal after death, and more besides.

I have even had friends who disagree with me about my lifelong support of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, for goodness sake!

But never have such disagreements interfered with our friendship because those I consider friends have at no time lowered themselves to crude, ignorant, or abusive rhetoric and behaviour in our discussions and encounters.  Nor have they ever resorted to violence to advance their views.

Rather, they have relied on logic, facts, and persuasion to win the day—as I have always tried (sometimes unsuccessfully) to do.

That’s less easy today, though, because of a problem we face with our global society—the unprecedented proliferation of supposed facts presented across the wide range of media outlets available to us.  Some of these deliberately masquerade as the truth, which promotes confusion and conflict—forcing us to question what is information, what is misinformation, what is disinformation—and as a result, to begin to query our own values and principles.  Critical thinking skills have never been more crucial, it seems to me—and in many quarters, alas, more lacking.

Healthy skepticism has always been a positive thing, I think, a part of those very critical thinking skills.  But noxious skepticism, knowingly force-fed to a naïve public by pernicious purveyors of media in pursuit of their own, oft-malign agendas, has the effect of reducing the level of societal discourse to the lowest common denominator.  Loud, vituperative, violent acts against each other and our governing bodies are increasingly the result.

In any free society founded on the people’s faith that their government will act in the public interest, such discord cannot be good.  Because when the public loses faith in our civil institutions, those institutions will crumble from within.  And they will take down with them the very foundations upon which they have been built and thrived—citizens’ rights and responsibilities, the rule of law, equality of opportunity for all.

There is little doubt that, as a collective, we could do a better job of acknowledging our responsibilities (rather than just demanding our rights), and of ensuring equality of opportunity for the dispossessed and marginalized among us.  But lacklustre performance aside, the bedrock values are legitimate.

In recent times, unfortunately, I have seen people elected to public office— ostensibly to serve the citizenry—speak and behave in ways that are definitely anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, regressive, punitive, cruel, and narcissistic.  I have witnessed their acolytes and followers, to no one’s surprise, then ape them.  And they are all doing so—increasingly, it seems—in more extreme language and deed. 

Disturbingly, I no longer believe I can respectfully disagree with those folks about their points of view, as should be the norm in any democracy; instead, I fear I would be shouted down, verbally abused, perhaps physically attacked.

Such people are not my friends.  Nor, in my opinion, should they be yours.  We should be electing and supporting the very best from among us, not the opportunists, grifters, and self-seekers.  But to do that, we must bestir ourselves and, at the very least, engage in the process and cast our votes on election days.

Plato wrote, The heaviest penalty for refusing to engage…is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

I have never wanted that.

The Disappointment in Her Eyes

The tortured republic to the south of us is currently in the throes of an ugly struggle to confirm the next appointee to the Supreme Court of the United States.  In the bitterly-partisan bog in which the country finds itself mired, the approval or denial of the conservative candidate nominated by the incumbent president has become a political war unto the death.

As part of the effort to block his appointment, earnest liberal voices have claimed that the man, while drunk to the point of blacking out, sexually assaulted women during his high school and university years.  As of this writing, three women have come forth to tell their stories.

The nominee and his supporters have vehemently and emotionally denied all charges.

blasey-ford-kavanaugh-11

The great unwashed masses—at least, those of them who care a whit—have no way of knowing what really happened those many years ago, so they make common side with whichever political party they already favour.

And the quest for truth takes a back seat.

The accusations could be investigated, of course, thoroughly and without bias, in order to bring more clarity.  Both the man and his accusers could then speak to the facts and evidence such an investigation might unearth.  But, anything other than a cursory look would take time, which would delay the appointment until, perhaps, after the impending mid-term election, when the opposing political party might seize control of the confirmation process.  Politically speaking, it is in the interests of the current majority party in the US Senate to move forward with all due haste, to swing the balance of the nine-member court to the conservative side while still they can.

So, the search for justice is set aside.

kavanaugh-cartoon

I, as you might imagine, have no idea where the truth lies in the matter.  The women, to me, sound credible; the man comes across as defensive and dismissive of their claims.  But, that is only my opinion, and differing opinions are in vast supply.

Sadly, facts and evidence are, so far, virtually non-existent.

There seem to be two fulcrums around which the question might be decided.  The first is an examination of the man’s judicial record over the past thirty years—the one preferred by his backers, who believe the record to be impeccable.

The second is an exposé of the moral character of a man who might have committed such vile acts, even as a youth—the favoured option of his opponents, who believe he is deeply flawed.

Is the one more important than the other in making such a crucial decision?  Given the majority of his supporters in the Senate, it is the first, not the second, that is likely to win the day.

More than sixty years ago, as a boy of eleven, I and my classmates took to chasing the girls in our neighbourhood.  When we caught them, we held them until we could force a kiss upon them.  They struggled and squealed, naturally enough, but we thought they probably enjoyed the sport as much as we did.  We didn’t ask them, of course; we simply made that assumption.

A boy and a girl playing chase.

Looking back, I think I knew it was wrong at the time, but I set that aside because it was fun.  It never occurred to me that pursuing, forcibly restraining, and imposing unwanted attentions of that sort upon someone could be defined as sexual assault—not at my age, and not in the mid-1950’s.  We ragamuffin boys would have had no idea of what that term even meant; none of us was yet embarked upon puberty with all the changes it would bring.

I do remember my mother’s reaction, however, after receiving a phone call from the mother of one of the girls.  Corporal punishment (administered sparingly and in measured doses when necessary) was a part of her parenting repertoire, and she left no doubt in my mind (and on my buttocks) as to how she felt about my behaviour.  More than the pain from the narrow leather strop, though, I remember the anger in her voice.

strap

And I have never forgotten the disappointment in her eyes.

Why is this relevant to the US Supreme Court nomination, you might well ask; why do I even bring up such long-ago events?  Well, perhaps they aren’t particularly germane to the deliberations of the tall foreheads who will make their decision very soon, for better or worse.

But, I wonder what trouble I might have got into in high school and university if I had not been brought up short by a caring parent at the first sign of potentially-abusive behaviour—even if no harm was ever intended.  It is the effect upon the victim, after all, that matters most in such circumstances, not the intention of the perpetrator.

And I wonder if the nominee for this lifetime position on the US Supreme Court would ever have engaged in the sort of behaviour that might subsequently lead to accusations of sexual misconduct if he had learned those lessons at an earlier age.  Did his parents turn a blind eye to his sense of entitlement, I wonder?

As a society, we need to do more to ensure that young boys learn that respectful behaviour towards everyone, regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, is what is expected of them.

gender-equality

It’s time.