I stopped by Mark Steyn's site for my weekly roll through the Canadian political BS. I'm amazed he's still interested in the Canadian human rights stuff. Maybe it's his therapy to get away from US politics and demography rants.
Steyn linked to a paper that had a note from Cheri DiNovo. She's an Ontario MPP and was one of the people tossing questions at him last week. Here's her statement to Eye Weekly: "You see I am absolutely in favour of right-wing bigots having freedom of speech. Their opponents deserve the same rights."
No mention of left-wing bigots. They don't exist. There's only right-wing bigots and the people protecting us from their evil ways.
I decided to look up her webpage and found a blog. On it, there's a transcript from a speech she gave on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
I think it's fair to say that Ms. DiNovo has a fairly heavy political agenda, and a massive axe to grind against anyone and anything that isn't far left. Here's the first part of the speech. Sorry it goes on for a bit, but I want you to see the logic at work here:
The statistics are awe-inspiring. They’re horrendous. They’re absolutely an assault on the senses. These are the statistics: 51% of our population are abused or assaulted; one in every two women in Ontario experiences abuse or assault. What does that mean? That means, for those viewing at home and watching this discussion, when they look at their daughters, if they have two daughters, that one of those little girls is going to be abused or assaulted in her lifetime. That means that, if you look at your mother and your grandmother, one of those women is going to be abused or assaulted in her lifetime. That means, as you look around this assembly, that 50% of the members of provincial Parliament who are women have been abused or assaulted at some point in their lifetime. So the question is, are we doing enough? The answer is always, absolutely not.How are we failing women in this province? That is the question before us, because we are failing women in this province. How are we failing them? Let me list the ways. First and foremost, there isn’t any daycare. Only one in 10 families can find daycare. Now you ask, how does that contribute to violence against women? Well, it’s very simple: If a woman can’t find adequate daycare, she can’t escape an abusive relationship. If she can’t find an adequate place to stay-transition housing, a shelter; and there are not enough beds in shelters and there’s not enough transition housing for women escaping abuse-then she can’t escape abuse. Then this province condemns her to that abuse.
We can look at the Congo, we can look at Darfur, we can look at the horrors of the world; here, it’s more guerrilla warfare; here it’s one man against one woman in the quiet of their own home where no one else can see it, away from prying eyes...
It goes on in the same vein for the rest of the speech, wrapping up with a statement about how there's nothing to celebrate in Ontario because "51% of the population [I'm guessing she means the population of women] will be abused or assaulted."
I could never be in politics. How do you keep your mouth shut while someone declares that half of the households in Ontario are as bad as Darfur?
Besides, do those numbers sound right? I'm up late and don't feel like looking them up, but those numbers seem pretty steep. If your mother isn't beaten, your grandma surely was? Can she be right that half of the women in the province have been abused? Damn. I just opened the door, didn't I? "It depends what you mean by abuse. Lack of daycare is abuse. Unequal pay is abuse. Sexist language is abuse..." I can hear it already.
I've got a funny feeling that no matter what Steyn said at that hearing, he wasn't going to change this politician's mind about anything. As for his sweating about the logic of the "fire in a crowded theatre" stuff, he needn't bother. It's pretty plain that logic has nothing to do with it.
If DiNovo is an example of the politicians that the free speech crowd will have to go through to get the human rights commission brought to heel, I wish them luck. They're gonna need it.
Update: I had a cup of coffee and called Statistics Canada this morning. For a closer look at the numbers, go here.
4 comments:
I was once on a town council. We would receive 'studies' by various interest groups. The executive summary would have provocative statements such as 1 out of 2 woman have been abused. If you read the actual study then you would find that 'abuse' might include being offended at a joke or statement at work. The definitions used by these studies never makes the news, only the conclusion.
"I could never be in politics. How do you keep your mouth shut while someone declares that half of the households in Ontario are as bad as Darfur?"
I don't think she says that at all. Your misreading is cynical and dishonest. I believe it's clear what she's saying is that the Congo and Darfur are egregious and flagrant examples of obvious horrific wars against women, whereas in Canada the abuse and mistreatment of women is more like guerilla warfare, less overtly horrific and more subtle. The analogy is between a war and a skirmish. The message seems to me is: Darfur is the obvious reference point for open horrific violence against women. But let's not ignore that in our own back yard behind closed doors women are confronted with less sensational violence and abuse that also needs to be acknowledged.
A simple google research on violence against women in Canada would have yielded the following from the revered Stats Canada. I'm not sure where she got her stats and possibly she was selective, but no less than you. Why do you limit violence against women to currently experiencing spousal assault? DiNovo's contention was that "51% of women experience abuse or assault". According to Stats Canada, in 2004, 23% of women reported that the most serious form of violence they had experienced was being beaten, choked, or threatened by having a gun or a knife used against them. 62 women were killed by their spouses. 58000 sought refuge in shelters for abused women.
If DiNovo manages to slightly overestimate the actual percentage of women who have experienced abuse (if 23% report experience obviously assault, 62 couldn't participate in the self-reporting because they were, you know, dead, is it completely unreasonable to think that nearly half of women have experienced or will experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse?) how much worse is your deliberate distortion? Somehow you contort DiNovo's statements as claiming that 51% of women are currently experiencing spousal abuse. Perhaps that's only to do with your zeal to reach to the least incriminating number of 7%. But have it your way, DiNovo actually said that 51% of men are "violent retards". You guys are increasingly little but a laughing stock.
Sorry to wake you, go back to sleep, nothing to see here. Violence and abuse against women is not noteworthy. Everything's fine. Poor men, especially white, educated, middle class men. It's so hard and unfair for them. We all know that the violence against women is not only sensationally overstated, but in fact we also know it's those damn lesbians perpetrating the violence against women and implicating innocent, sober, sensitive Conservative men just trying to watch Saturday Night hockey in peace.
Derrida: sorry, I thought you were some hot-under-the-collar lady, so I was going to ask you to have dinner and drinks. Alas, your pic is of some dude, so you're probably a regular comment blowhard. I rarely publish comments at all, let alone ones that go on forever. But yours was hilarious. Carry on. See you at the hockey game.
By DiNovos logic, if a man were to get married four times, one of those wives would kill him (2007 females in the relationship were 4 times as likely). A polygamist with 4 wives would beat 2 two of them. I am an educated middle class while man, and I've been abused, if you were to grill men on these same defenitions of abuse I bet they'd have the similar rates, but we'll never know.
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