This post originally appeared November 4, 2012, in the Toronto Sun

Ontario’s high school and elementary teachers’ unions are providing the public with a fantastic lesson in self-destruction.

While both continue to instruct teachers to cut down on supposed discretional duties, union heads appear blissfully unaware of the alienating effect on Ontario parents. Nevermind the growing fatigue among private-sector workers.

The latest directive comes from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), which has ordered teachers not to participate in standardized testing or after-hours parent interaction. Ken Coran, OSSTF president, also added that teachers are not to attend staff meetings as of November 7.

Because that’ll get parents on their side, of course.

Just two weeks ago, the Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario (ETFO) was barking orders to its members, recommending teachers do the bare minimum in terms of filling out fall report cards. The union suggested teachers limit written comments to just one sentence—a proposal so clearly adverse to student interest that Education Minister Laurel Broten issued a statement urging teachers ignore the union’s advice.

Now, obviously the teachers’ actions are not without cause. But union leaders seem not to recognize—or else, simply not care—that such measures are to the direct detriment of students while barely causing a ripple at the provincial level, their intended target. The fight is over Bill 115; a relatively new piece of legislation that freezes teachers’ wages, limits sick days, and allows government intervention in case of a strike.

Naturally, educators across the province haven’t taken favourably to the bill, some already opting out of extracurricular instruction and other “voluntary” activities. And if the recent union recommendations are to be put into practice too, teachers won’t be prepping Grade 10 students for the EQAO test they need graduate, nor will they communicate with parents via e-mail after school hours.

Unfortunately for teachers, I can’t think of a more persuasive way to push parents’ allegiances to the other corner. By complicating parent-teacher interaction and leaving students to fend for themselves for standardized tests, teachers have rendered parents and students pawns in a battle that essentially has nothing to do with them.

It’s not as though teachers are petitioning for classroom grants or smaller class sizes—issues that might hold more relevance in parents’ minds. But this is a fight about money and benefits, including unreasonable wage demands during a time when Ontario is trying to cut spending, and a sick day cash-out struggle that seems downright absurd to the average private sector worker.

For those reasons, I doubt mom and dad will retain much sympathy when their evening emails go unanswered, or if they have to step in for EQAO prep.

The now-prorogued Ontario government, on the flip side, will not assemble the legislature to repeal Bill 115 because little Johnny’s mom in Mississauga is upset about his teacher’s deliberately belated emails. That’s the union’s call, not the government, so little Johnny’s mom should take it up with them. And rightfully so.

In any case, labour and union leaders have already launched a legal challenge against Bill 115, and while a resolution is likely a ways away, a courtroom decision will do much more for teachers than dropping EQAO prep ever would. And, more importantly, it won’t inconvenience or exasperate parents or students. Because by cutting after-hours e-mails and limiting EQAO instruction, combined with already-dropped extracurriculars and abandoned preparatory activities, teachers are simply laying their blows on the wrong guy.

This post originally appeared on September 26, 2012, in the National Post

York University has, remarkably, experienced its sixth reported sexual assault in less than one month. According to police, the latest attack occurred at a bus stop at Ian MacDonald Blvd. and The Chimneystack Rd. last Thursday, just one day after another incident was reported of a sexual assa

ult inside a student residence.

The York student union has, in response, revived its vain lobby for its pet “preventative” solution; that of a mandatory equity or women’s studies class for all undergraduate students at York University.
Because, clearly, would-be assailants simply don’t understand the ingrained systemic forces at play. If they took the time to consider how unconscious assumptions about the roles and men and women in society informed their actions, they would surely reconsider that violent sexual attack.  Same goes for the flocks of robberies that seem to incessantly plague York’s Keele campus:The push for a women’s studies course as a condition for graduation is not new for the York Federation of Students (YFS), which has been long been lobbying York administration to enforce its logistically-complicated adoption. Most recently in an interview with York newspaper Excalibur, Safiyah Husein, the VP equity for YFS, maintained that such a course would serve as a “preventative measure to get to the root causes and stop [sexual assaults and violence] before that happens.”

“Hey buddy, is that the new iPhone 5? Hand it over. Actually, wait a minute, do I really want to do this? Or I am just acting out in response to an upbringing of socioeconomic discrimination and hardship? Yes, that’s it. Good thing I was forced to take that class two semesters ago. Pardon me, sir. My mistake. Here’s your phone back. I’m just discontented by your apparent privilege, and frustrated by a society that puts precedence on consumerism over social equity. Carry on.”

Even if we were to grant that making such a course mandatory would actually reduce violence — a whopper of assumption, but let’s grant it for the sake of argument — it seems few of the assaults on York property are actually committed by York students. The suspect in this most recent attack is alleged to be in his 30s or 40s—most likely not a York University undergraduate student. And the arrest following a string of assaults in July saw three counts of sexual assault (and others) brought against a 20-year-old Toronto man — also not a York University student. In those cases and many more, a mandatory course forced on York’s 45,000 undergraduate students would have absolutely zero effect.

At most, the idea of an equity course as a practical means to quell violence seems a nice thought experiment. But debating it now is, arguably, counterproductive. It distracts attention from the real issue at York — the appalling state of security on the campus. York covers a huge geographic area, with campus facilities spread across all of it. There are plenty of dark fields and blind corners, and not nearly enough patrols and security cameras. York is always pledging to do better here, and no doubt after the latest string of assaults, will promise to do better still. But it’s not working. The campus is not a safe place, and that needs addressing. Now.

If approved, the implementation of the course would be at least two years away, and only if the proposal wasn’t met with mass revolt by the student population. Most kinesiology or engineering students wouldn’t cheerfully hand over an additional $600 for a compulsory class, especially if that class has nothing to do with their degree. This is especially true since, by explicitly linking their desire for the course to the need to reduce sexual violence, YFS has made it entirely fair for those being forced to take it to wonder why they’re being treated as a rapist-in-waiting. And such a course would remain futile if a good proportion of campus crimes continue to be committed by people outside of the York community.

The need to clamp down on sexual violence at York University is obvious. But forcing a new equity course on every student will do nothing to make the campus safer, and would serve only to encourage students uninterested from funding someone else’s thought experiment to take their tuition dollars elsewhere.

The student union at Simon Fraser University in B.C. has made the apparently contentious decision to finance the creation of a Men’s Centre on campus.

Motivated, surely, by deep-seated patriarchal values, the union approved a budget of $30,000 to launch the project — the exact same amount conferred on the university’s Women’s Centre, which was established back in 1974. The idea for the Men’s Centre was proposed by fifth-year accounting student Keenan Midgley, who told SFU’s student newspaper that he believes men, too, are entitled to safe space on campus.

Unsurprisingly, however, not everyone at SFU is thrilled with the decision. The Women’s Centre, for one, coolly brushed off the idea of a stand-alone Men’s Centre on its website, simply stating that, “the men’s centre is everywhere else.” They did say they would welcome a men’s centre that focused on “challenging popular conceptions about masculinity, confronting homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, and ability issues.” In contrast, they would oppose a men’s centre that “focussed on maintaining the old boys club … that promotes the status quo, encourages sexual assault, or fosters an atmosphere of competition and violence.” Oh. OK, then. Good to know.

Several other students have taken a more direct approach, compiling their objections to the Men’s Centre in widely-circulated five-minute YouTube video. Deeming the project “not financially responsible,” students take turns expressing their grievances. One woman with seemingly impeccable foresight declares that, “The Men’s Centre will end up being a place to celebrate hegemonic masculinity.” She later attacks the credibility of the Centre’s proponents, scoffing that they have, “no experience being in a gender-studies class.”

Men, too, join in the criticism of the proposed Centre, one curiously warning that it may “become a highly masculinized space.” Another cautions that the project risks creating a “heteronormative space,” while yet another critical male dismisses the Men’s Centre as simply, “a room with a PS3 and a bunch of douchebags playing games.”

Bravo, students. In your attempt to decry the proposed Men’s Centre on all of its supposed merits, you have effectively demonstrated why such a space is so very necessary.  At present, there is only one other Canadian campus with an official support centre for men — the Men’s Resource Centre at the University of Manitoba. Judging by the crass sociology catch phrases in the aforementioned video, the consensus is that young men don’t need community resources or support. That is a myth.

While statistics show that comparatively, far fewer university-aged men are diagnosed with depression than women, the rate of suicide among men is four times as great. It’s not hard to connect the dots: men are suffering in silence. And it’s not hard, either, to see why. If the assumption on campus is that men have no use for a resource centre other than meeting up with new PlayStation buddies, it becomes that much more difficult for them to break down the barrier of bravado.

Men, like women, struggle with issues of victimization, anxiety, and depression, but they must battle in addition with a societal expectation of stoicism. In short — it’s not manly to talk about your feelings. And it’s precisely for that reason that a Men’s Centre on campus is such a necessary initiative.

If brought to fruition, the Men’s Centre at SFU might also come with additional boons; namely, the latent effect of debunking some of the prejudicial, discriminatory, and misandrous views (see kids? I can play too) so blatantly expressed in the YouTube video.

Of course, I don’t have a gender studies degree, so consider it mere speculation.

Photo by Jiang Long on Flickr

Jenna Talackova has been served no injustice by being disqualified from this year’s Miss Universe Canada pageant.

The 23-year-old beauty-queen-hopeful may have lost her shot at the crown, but the worldwide attention currently being lavished upon her undoubtedly outshines any notoriety she would have enjoyed as the next Miss Universe Canada.

Talackova claims she was unfairly dismissed from the pageant after organizers discovered that she was originally born male. And perhaps that is so. But we need not cast our pity over in her direction; I suspect she’ll do just fine. While the debacle may have exposed Talackova as “unfit” to compete against “natural” women, it has, to a far greater effect, uncovered the contradictions and backward thinking that riddles the contemporary Miss Universe industry.

Read the rest at nationalpost.com

A New-York based lobby group has released a report arguing that unless Saudi Arabia includes women on its team, the country should not be invited to the London Olympic Games. By that condition, though, I suppose they should leave it at, “Saudi Arabia should not be invited to the 2012 London Olympic Games,” because I can’t fathom how a country where women are whipped for driving would allow them to suddenly compete on an international stage. While the stipulation of female participation indeed represents a worthy effort, Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women alone should be enough to disqualify it from opening ceremonies.

Human Rights Watch has rightfully been putting pressure on the International Olympic Committee to enact the female athlete ultimatum, though, as of yet, the IOC has committed only to “dialogue.” Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei, are the only three countries that haven’t yet nominated women to compete in the Games, though the latter two have sent female athletes to participate in regional and other international competitions.

The structural barriers to women in sport in Saudi Arabia are obvious; girls are not taught sports in school, women members are not permitted at sports facilities, licenses for women’s gyms are banned, and women are disallowed to participate, even as spectators, in all public sporting events. The inequity is there—blatant and clear—though it seems the IOC has yet to take notice, despite its official position on discrimination.

According to the IOC’s charter on the Principles of Olympism, “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.” But incompatibility, it seems, it not a deal breaker for the IOC.

The Committee has banned countries from participating on human rights grounds before, which makes its reluctance in the case of Saudi Arabia all the more disgraceful. South Africa was effectively prohibited from sending its athletes to the Games between the years of 1964 and 1993 because of its apartheid policies, and so too was Afghanistan in 1999 for the Taliban’s discriminatory policies against women (isn’t that something!).

But for whatever reason, the Saudis seem to have escaped formal international ire in this case, as they have with in a few other, truly remarkable formal occasions. The most notable of which, of course, is their election a position on the UN women’s rights panel in 2010, which is quite a feat for a country where a woman of any age is said to require a male guardian. While the case of the IOC is slightly more curious, it would be less so if it weren’t for Saudi Prince Nawaf Faisal Fahd Abdulaziz’s position on the IOC.

Senior IOC officials responded to Human Rights Watch’s appeal by declaring that they are not reviewing Saudi Arabia’s participation. “The selection of the [Olympic] team is the right of the NOC [National Olympic Committee],” IOC Director of International Cooperation and Development, Tommy Sithole, said in an interview with the group. “The IOC will not ask Saudi Arabia to send a woman—we will not make Saudi Arabia’s participation conditional on that.”

How about, then, making Saudi Arabia’s participation conditional on equal access to schooling, free mobility, and full integration of Saudi women? Or, at the very least least, a reluctance to lash victims for the crime of being raped? If Saudi Arabia’s poor show of female athletes doesn’t merit disqualification, surely its despicable record of the treatment of its women, alone, does.

A venture into the deceptively shiny abyss

This post originally appeared February 9, 2011, on BlogTO.com

Most of us just ignore Toronto’s cash for gold stores. Sure, Oliver pops up every now and again, hijacking our television screens as he fans himself with money and poorly emulates the Kool-Aid Man’s signature “Oh yeaaahh!” And then there’s Harold the Jewellery Buyer, who promises “courteous, professional service,” but whose business was embroiled in controversy when it was discovered that one of his employees had contracted a hit man to murder Jack Berkovits, owner of the competitor Omni Jewelcrafters, which is located just a few doors away from Harold’s shop.

Despite the drama, however, for the majority of us these businesses carry on unobtrusively. But what about those who are down on their luck and forced to sell some jewelry to make a quick buck? Or the sudden recipient of some inherited gold? Or, of course, the possessors of once-meaningful jewelry, now junk jewels after a bad break-up? Can the “Cash Man” really do something great for them? I visited three cash for gold stores in Toronto to find out.

My first stop was Harold the Jewelry Buyer, who has settled in his new location further north on Bathurst (close to Lawrence) after a suspicious fire broke out at his old store. I toted along a 10k white gold ring that I got as a birthday present several years ago. As one of the few pieces of jewelry I own worth more than the $0.25 I typically put in the dispenser to receive them, I had no intention of actually selling it. But I prepared my poker face anyway and went on my way.

As I approached Harold’s bar-clad front door, I passed what would be the saddest sight of the day: some poor guy wearing a sandwich board plastered with Harold’s face and directions to the store. I immediately felt ashamed for once labeling my job as a camp counselor where I had to clean up three-year-olds’ vomit as “The Worst Job Ever.” I approached the door and pushed furiously. Being a total newb, I hadn’t realized I needed to wait to be buzzed in. And that poker face immediately melted into a sheepish, red-faced smile. Two buzzers later, I was inside.

To my surprise, the waiting area was rather crowded. There were about seven people in the white-walled room, which was decorated with lots of iron bars and a pair of two-way mirrors. It had a real “homey” feel, in other words. I approached the woman behind the gate and told her I wanted to sell my ring.

“How much do you want for it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I just want to see what I can get.”

“You’re not sure?” she said, raising an eyebrow. Had I just shown her my cards? “OK, take a seat.” And, for some reason, she slipped my ring onto her pinky finger.

I plopped myself in a chair and stared at my shoes. The room was eerily silent, save for the buzzer ringing every two minutes, making me jump and testing my bladder each time. Sandwiched between two burly men, and overhearing the impassioned bargaining going on behind the mirror, I began praying that I may never develop a gambling problem.

Then it was my turn, and Harold appeared to let me through the gate. As we passed the woman informed him that, “She doesn’t know what she wants for it.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants?” he replied with a little too much dramatic mirth. Obviously, this news was somewhere in the realm of “There’s this video of me online…” because it was just too good not be shared. We entered Harold’s lair and he sat down behind the desk. A quick look, a weigh, and then:

“Meh, I don’t know, I can give you…$20.”

I tried to catch my reflection on the back of Harold’s computer to see if the word “moron” was actually inscribed across my forehead. Purchased close to 10 years ago, the ring was probably about $200 or $250 retail then. And even I know the price of gold has gone up since then.

“No,” I said, trying to maintain my composure. “I don’t think I can sell it for that.”

“What? You want $25?” Harold clicked on his computer, his eyes on the screen, as he tossed out offers. “Tell you what, I’ll give you $50.”

And with that, he reached inside his jacket, pulled out an enormous wad of bills, and lifted a fifty off the top.

“Here,” he said, tossing it nonchalantly on the desk. “Take it.”

“No,” I began, “I don’t think I can do $50 either…”

“What? It’s money!” he replied. “You don’t want $50? It’s a lot of money!” Of course, my next thought was that I probably should have combed my hair before coming.

“Yes, it is a lot of money,” I said getting up, “but I don’t think I can sell that ring for that.”

Now he turned away from his computer. “Why, how much do you want? If I gave you $75 right now would you take it? What about $80.”

As I exited through the gate, Harold told me to think about it, perhaps realizing he didn’t have a complete sucker on his hands. “I can give you between $80 and $110.” I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Next, I headed a few doors north to Easy Cash for Gold. Still trying to make sense of what had just happened, I stood outside the door like an idiot waiting to be buzzed in. Of course, at this store, you could just go right in.

I entered the empty shop and approached a glass booth while a middle-aged man appeared on the other side. He took my ring, and, to my relief, didn’t put it on his pinky finger. After inspecting and weighing it, he put it down on the counter.

“I can give you $90.”

“OK, and how would that work?” I asked.

“I’d just give you the cash. That’s it.”

Needless to say, this experience was a little more enjoyable.

My last stop was Oliver Jewellery at Eglinton and Avenue Road. Having seen the famed “Loan Arranger” on TV for years, I was curiously excited to finally be face to face. The first door was unlocked, so I let myself in. Little did I know, I was entering a bona fide house of horrors as I found myself stuck between a pair of doors as two different “Cash Man” commercials played over each other, blasting through the speakers. If hell has cheap cowboy hats and wads of cash, this would be it.

Luckily, I soon heard a faint voice call to me from the distance. “Are you selling gold?” it said, somehow audible through the terrible cash man jingle. Was it the great and powerful Oz? I didn’t care; I needed to get out of there. “Yes,” I replied, and my freedom was granted.

To my dismay, Oliver wasn’t there, so a man who looked just a few years older than me approached the counter. Same deal; he looked at the ring, weighed it, and tossed out, “Eh, I could give you $50 to $80.”

“Can you be more precise? I asked. My confidence was building.

“I don’t know, maybe $75.”

I told him I’d think about it.

“If I offered you $100 would you take it?” he asked. I still wanted to think about it. “$120?”

I left with the prospect of getting $130.

My experience left me fairly dismayed, a little shaken, but feeling a lot more confident about understanding the cash for gold world. If I ever were to sell my gold for real, I’d go in with a plan, perhaps some ear plugs, and an unwavering attitude with regards to what I want to get. But do I think I could ultimately make it worth my while? Oh yeaaahh!

Photo by  Metrix X on Flickr

Typically associated with life’s joys such as butterflies, fruity candies, pots of gold and storm cessations. The rainbow was Noah’s indication that post-divine retribution life on Earth would be floodwater free, and signaled to the ancient Greeks that goddess Iris was on the move. And ever since the 1970s, rainbows have also been associated with gay pride.

These days, the rainbow may be just too politically charged for one Ontario Catholic school, where a student organizer was told not to use the colourful symbol in public decorations for a social justice event recently.

Read the rest in the National Post

On this week’s cover of NOW Magazine, a Toronto alternative weekly, a ballooning Rob Ford stands gleefully in nothing but a pair of printed boxer shorts. The Toronto mayor’s head has been photoshopped onto a fuzzy, overweight body, complete with protruding stomach, hanging package, supple bosoms, and the slightest hint of a farmer s tan. Why? Well the coverline brings it all together, gallantly proclaiming: The Naked Truth About Rob Ford. Har, har. It s no surprise an alternative weekly would go for something so bold, especially one where columnists describe Ford as a “nasty mofo.”

But why the magazine has deemed it acceptable, and indeed funny, to exploit and objectify the Mayor based solely on appearance is harder to understand. After all, Ford’s drawers have nothing to do with the content of the article, which decries Ford’s role in a supposed neo-con revival. Yet if the top guy at City Hall was instead a top gal, stripped down to her undies with cellulite and rolls aplenty, would we find the cover image just as hilariously funny? (Then again, given NOW’s backpage source of advertising, it’s questionable whether or not a barely dressed lady would draw much notice at all.)

Some male politicians, and indeed this one in particular, are no stranger to attention based on physical appearance. Back in October, the Globe and Mail printed a story in its Saturday city section titled, “Rob Ford’s not popular despite being fat. He’s popular because of it.” Freelance Globe contributor Stephen Marche described how “The mounds of fat that encircle Rob Ford’s body [. . .] are truly unprecedented in Canadian politics,” going on to explain how “Ford’s angry fat is perfectly our time.” Though the online edition was disappeared from the Globe site not more than a day later, cached versions continued to circulate as Ford naysayers lapped up the beefy piece.

Of course, the attention is not always negative. When then president-elect Barack Obama was snapped strolling shirtless in Hawaii back in 2008, for example, he made the front cover of the New York Post, which cheekily captioned the photo “Fit For Office: Buff Bam is Hawaii hunk.” Female politicians, too, occasionally garner attention based on their physical appearance, but in those cases we’re quicker to call it out as unacceptable.

Take the comments that circulated when Belinda Stronach defected to the Liberal Party from the Conservatives in 2005. Speaking with Toronto s CFRB Radio, former Ontario cabinet minister Bob Runciman called Stronach a dipstick, adding, “An attractive one, but still a dipstick, with what she’s done here today.” Alberta Tory Tony Abbott also said that she “whored herself out for power.” The comments immediately elicited a response from the Liberal Women’s Caucus, who demanded an apology based on the “sexist remarks.”

Then of course, there’s Sarah Palin, whose looks have been a consistent hot topic since her nomination in 2008. While her branding as a “Caribou Barbie” and a “Bush with lipstick” have been less than droll, they have by no means been ignored, even prompting a study about the relationship between objectification and the perception of competence, published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2009.

A more recent example involves the Toronto Sun’s coverage of the Helena Guergis affair. An April 2010 cover ran with a photo of the former Conservative MP alongside a picture of a black dog and the coverline “TWO DOGS.” Readers and pundits across Canada were quick to call out the cover as unacceptable, and rightfully so. But why aren’t we as valiant when it comes to demanding a male politician’s public image remain separate from his physical appearance?

Instead of defending his right to be free from physical objectification, as would likely be the response if Ford were a woman, the consensus, at least from NOW, seems to be “Aw, buddy you can’t take a joke?” “The only thing that is offensive is the way Rob and Doug Ford are running this city,” NOW editor/publisher Michael Hollett remarked. “The mayor refers to himself as 300 pounds of fun, well, he’s 300 pounds but he s sure no fun.”

Still, something tells me 300 pounds in the form of a female politician, plastered nearly naked on the front cover of NOW, would be perceived as a little less jovial.