Quebec City Is the Best Place for Women. Also, Please Stop Thinking You Know How To “Save” Black Girls

A recent study has rated the beautiful cities of Canada on a scale of how friendly they are for women to live in—and, congratulations Quebec, three of your cities ranked at the top, with Quebec City taking home the top prize. Edmonton is dead last. Try harder, Oilers fans.

In other news, I discovered a new intellectual crush this week in Erica Williams Simon, who tells us to stop assuming black girls all face exactly the same struggles with self esteem, and that they can only be saved by the amorous attentions of dudes. She is this week’s Queen of the Internet, in my books.

So without further ado:

Screenshot via Ebony.

Ghetto vs. Creative: Challenging Predominant Colour Narratives

Erica Williams Simon wrote one of the most important pieces I’ve read in some time this week. The article, “5 Things You Need To Know About Colorism,” addresses the harm in subscribing to one particular, harmful narrative about women of colour, which, she says, goes like this:

“Black America has a problem: Dark girls have low self esteem because boys don’t find them attractive. To end colorism, men need to tell them that they’re beautiful. The end.

That story is not my story. It is also intellectually lazy, sexist, and racist.”

She lists corrections and provides an explainer of why this idea, though it’s often coming from a well-meaning place, only serves to silence and typify people, ignoring their true stories.

Here’s an example she provides of one way we can challenge our thinking: “Ask why, in your mind, a white woman with tattoos is edgy, a light woman with pink hair is creative, but a darker woman with either is ghetto.”

Williams Simon also suggests real ways to make a difference, and she does all of this despite experiencing immense frustration in participating in public discussions on complexion and colourism.

Williams Simon overcame that frustration to write this explainer, and in doing so, she did us all a favour. Return it and

read the piece. Game of Thrones creator, George RR Martin, at Comic. Photo via WikiMedia Commons.jpg).

Game of Thrones Fails People Everywhere

This week on Game of Thrones, the most problematic part of a sex scene wasn’t its incestuous nature, or even the presence of a dead body in the room at the time. It was rape. Jaime raped Cersei, and it was a rape that did not happen in the book. HBO writers Dan Weiss and David Benioff just figured it was an appropriate and necessary thing to invent.

Director Alex Graves claimed that, while it may have started out as rape, it “ended up being consensual by the end.”

No. Sex ceases to be sex and becomes rape if:

1.)  One party says no

2.)  One party does not say yes

3.)  One party struggles and clearly does not want to engage in the act

Etc.

Graves’s explainer is as damaging as the scene itself. Clearly, there’s no grasp of what rape even is and is not, let alone acknowledgement of why it might be counterproductive—if not hateful—to invent rape scenes in which the rape eventually becomes “okay.” And on a show so widely watched by impressionable, gooey-brained young people, no less.

The persistent sexualization of rape in media needs to end. Rape is not about sex, as Graves implies. It is about power and control, and that mode of asserting power cannot continue to be glorified.

The one ray of hope here is the relative care and attention that mainstream media outlets have given to critiquing the scene.

Time, the National Post, The Atlantic, and even some tabloids have all written about it, and the continuation of that kind of media criticism will hopefully contribute toward some semblance of a difference in the portrayal of rape and sexual assault on TV.

Screenshot via. Love Thy Sexual Harassers, And Thy Life Shall Flourish

“…smart women don't file formal complaints against ordinary harassment. They either ignore it or handle it on their own.”

Ordinary harassment. At the end of the day yesterday, I was lounging around my apartment and about to pour a whiskey when I came across this article posted by The Belle Jar on Facebook. I immediately became possessed with rage and needed a cigarette and wondered was there a way to remove this propaganda from the Internet? Penelope Trunk wrote “Why You Shouldn’t Report Sexual Harassment” for CBS News. I will quote it widely to spare you the pain of a full read:

“Another thing is that it's very easy for the company to fire a woman who complains,” she continues, adding that therefore, reporting the harassment would be a preposterous idea.

Is this a fucking joke?

Things just stay the same, so uphold the status quo? Willingly permit some balding, slobbering old fuck drool over your tits all day so that you don’t get in trouble?

“The bottom line for a woman, though, is that if you want to have a career of increasing power, you are going to have to keep quiet about the harassment.”

Well, that clears it up. She continues on to say that in some countries, France, for example, harassment is widely tolerated, and women “will have to put it up with it as a form of cultural diversity.If you want to be good at working with a wide range of people, you need to be good at brushing off harassment.” Uh, how about men need to be good at just… not harassing? Why does that idea seem so far-fetched?

This argument that men are crazed beasts who are led around by their dicks just kills me. Trunk’s argument is insulting to everyone—what, women should have career aspirations, but in order to do so, must always act like slutty secretaries and never serious businesspeople who assert themselves?

Men, because they have all the power now, should be allowed to keep it by overtly objectifying whomever they please; because they’re truly just stupid creatures who require continual female indulgence lest they, understandably, fly into a rapey rage?

This train of thought is so pervasive, and it’s only an attempt to further indoctrinate complete cultural misogyny, traditional female obedience, and servitude. Just say no when you hear this shit. If we continually allow ourselves to be harassed and maltreated at work, nothing will change. If we all stand up and say “fuck you,” we will all leave and start a giant humanist compound where capitalism goes to rot and freedom of the soul reigns supreme, okay?

Let’s Start A Feminist Compound in Quebec

And in case you were wondering “What’s the best place to live if you’re a woman in Canada?” Try Quebec. Three of its cities rank as some of the best cities in Canada for women according to a new study, with Quebec City at the top. Montreal and Sherbrooke were also in the top ten.

You might want to avoid Edmonton, however, as it comes in dead last, according to The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The findings weren’t too shocking. Across the country, women are more successful in school than men, but there’s still a glass ceiling. Women are also more likely to be sexually assaulted. Plus, only one in four seats in both provincial and federal politics is occupied by women.

While the work of looking at which cities are most woman-friendly is important, there are issues with the methodology of this study. The use of the word “women” doesn’t apply to all women—it doesn’t examine gaps between women with disabilities and women without. It doesn’t include women who are here on work or school permits, or refugees. And I’d also be curious as to where the trans* experience fits into the picture.

This disparity is through no fault of author Kate McInturff, but rather a lack of municipal data. I’m happy to see McInturff is picking up the slack Harper dribbled all over the floor, but ideally she would have data at her fingertips that recognized the doubly marginalized women in society for further examination.

One study at a time, I guess.

@sarratch