Or Maybe They Recognize That “Human Rights” Is A Franchise Racket

CNW – Harper Government Steps Up Attacks against Women’s Human Rights

In recent weeks, the following organizations have been denied funding by Status of Women Canada (SWC): the New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity, le Conseil d’intervention pour l’accès des femmes au travail (CIAFT), the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW), Réseau des tables régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec, the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation, Action travail des femmes.

Several other key organizations have been denied SWC funding in the last few years, such as the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, Womenspace, the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, the Alberta Network of Immigration Women, Centre de documentation sur l’éducation des adultes et la condition feminine, Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale (AFEAS.)

Canadian Senator A Little Less Cordial Than Abortion Money Beggars Would Like

Health Zone – Aid experts alarmed by Canada’s new anti-abortion stand in foreign policy have received some raw political advice from a Conservative senator: “shut the f— up” or it could get worse.

“We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the f— up on this issue,” Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth told a group of international-development advocates who gathered on Parliament Hill on Monday to sound the alarm about Canada’s hard-right stand against abortion in foreign aid.

United Nations Confirms Joke Status

National Post – “Iran wins a seat on UN Commission on the Status of Women.”

But this is no laughing matter. The country that sees women as second-class citizens and stones adulteresses to death has won a place by default on the world body’s commission charged with improving the lot of women around the world.

Human Rights Chick: Hey, Where’s All The Free Money?

Globe and Mail – What issues are you going to be raising?

We’re thrilled the Canadian government has decided to focus on maternal and child health for the G8. But the fact is that they’ve been backsliding. This is a government that hasn’t taken gender equality and women’s rights issues very seriously in terms of our foreign aid. The Canadian government used to give a lot of funding directly to women’s organizations, but we’ve been shrinking that funding over the years.

More From The “No Dick, No Problem” File

Ottawa Citizen – What a difference a week makes. Just days after that final ruling, the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA), which oversees high school sports, was forced to stand down on the same issue. OFSAA was advised it was about to lose a challenge before the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal on its written policy denying girls the right to try out for boys’ teams if a girls’ team exists in the school.

Now, girls can play on a boys’ team in Ontario’s 860-plus high schools if they successfully try out. The switch is now sparking heated discussions about how to manage school sports everywhere.

Lawyer Lets Air Out Of The Fun Balloon: Hey, Don’t Forget The Right-To-Vote Dame Was A Eugenics Fan

Globe and Mail – In a match that pits a modern-day human-rights crusader against a historical women’s-rights pioneer, a prominent Winnipeg lawyer is questioning whether Nellie McClung should be venerated on the grounds where she first fought for her right to vote nearly a century ago.

Earlier this year, the Nellie McClung Society unveiled plans to erect a larger-than-life statue of their namesake on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature…

Like other suffragettes, Ms. McClung was an open advocate of forced sterilization, a blemish on her record that troubles modern-day rights advocates.

American Kids Apparently Still #1 In Math And Science

NJ.com – As a project for Women’s History Month, a teacher at the Maude Wilkins School in Maple Shade planned to have her students wear outfits showing how women’s clothing styles have evolved through history. Boys could wear pants or jeans and explain how those have been common for women at various times. In a letter to parents, the teacher explained that boys would “not have to wear a dress or skirt.”…

Celebrate Victimhood

Florida Times-Union – Victims’ Rights Week Resource Fair and Awards Luncheon, 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Main Library with Judge Susan Carbon, director of the Office on Violence Against Women; Catherine Pierce, deputy director of the Office of Violence Against Women; and Connie Sponsler, Battered Women’s Justice Project. Awards will be presented for: Courageous Victim, Outstanding Victim Advocate, Judicial Victim Advocate and Law Enforcement Victim Advocate. Lunch is $10 per person, which includes the seminar.

Blogger Looking For Canadian Politicos’ Balls

Blue Like You – Yes indeed. Let’s abort those female fetuses so they don’t have to worry about making the same decision themselves in the future, and spare them the ethics of those nasty ‘men’. There’s a step forward. (And of course there are no female doctors in Canada.)

Good grief, Canada. Is this where we’re at when our politicians don’t have the gonads to take a stand?

She Obviously Sucks At It If There’s Still Such A Problem

So Feminine – If one person from the EU Commission has made an impact, it’s Viviane Reding… ”This thing with me and gender equality goes way back,” she says. As a student feminist, as one of the youngest members of Parliament, then as rapporteur for women’s rights, and as president of the Christian Social Women’s Group, she was closely involved in the preparations for the World Conference on Women in Beijing. “So I know my stuff,” she says.

Interesting Choice Of Words: “Cannot Survive, Hacksaw, Chipping Away”

Medical News Today – Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) on Tuesday signed a first-of-its kind bill (LB 1103) that bans abortion beginning at 20 weeks based on supporters’ claims that fetuses can feel pain at that point, the New York Times reports….

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that the law is “flatly unconstitutional” and “absolutely cannot survive a challenge without a change to three decades of court rulings.” She added, “Courts have been chipping away at abortion rights, [and] this would be like taking a huge hacksaw to the rights” (Jenkins, AP/Yahoo! News, 4/13).

How To Solve Violence Against Women In 8 Hours Flat

Cincinnati.com – The conference, which will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Seton High School, 3901 Glenway Ave., will include sessions about the role of education in the fight for social justice for women. A dozen seminars on topics such as cyber bullying, human trafficking, women and homelessness, and violence and immigrant women (a bi-lingual presentation by Alliance For Immigrant Women) will encourage participants to discuss, evaluate and understand how to cope with, prevent and stop domestic violence.

If You Put Enough “Human Rights” Tags Behind Your Name, You Get A Ribbon

IAWN – Elizabeth Loweth, Canadian Provincial Link for the International Anglican Women’s Network (IAWN) is one of five laity who have been honoured with the Anglican Award of Merit…

She has been the Human Rights staff for the national United Church of Canada and chaired the Human Rights Committee of the Canadian Council of Churches as well as their national Human Rights conference.

If These Clowns Just Called It “Abortion,” We’d Show Them Some Respect

Bold ours.

Toronto Star – “We now know that doubling current spending on women’s health—on family planning and pregnancy related care together—from the current $12-billion to $24 billion annually would reduce maternal deaths by 70 per cent, cut newborn deaths by nearly half and increase productivity and economic growth,” Obaid said.

Bummer

Heather MacLean, St. Mary’s University, The Journal – Love Your Labia, And Other Parting Words…Over the year, I have tried to show that feminism is not only relevant, but vital…It was a busy year: Fem Fest, an international conference on reproductive justice, The Vagina Monologues, and Capoeira, to name a few projects…I want to talk a bit about vaginas…

This is my final column…

Damn Liberals Won’t Pay For Other Countries’ Birth Control And Abortions

Canada Views – Yesterday, the Ignatieff Liberals embarrassed themselves by abstaining, voting against, or absenting themselves from a Liberal motion to guarantee Canadian funding for a broad range of family planning programs, including contraception and abortion, to improve maternal health outcomes in developing countries.

Tribune Writer Sniffs Glue, Starts Typing

Columbia Daily Tribune – Anti-abortion zealots armed with a sonogram will look right through a pregnant woman and desperately seek a sacred fertilized egg, perhaps hoping to find it twirling rosary beads, as the pregnant woman — a person — fades into the background, disappearing and forgotten.

Damnit, When Are We Going To Start Paying For Other Countries’ Birth Control Pills?

RH – After a firestorm of negative publicity following the Canada government’s  announcement that it would not fund family planning programs as part of its global contribution toward reducing maternal death and illness, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared to backtrack on the inclusion of contraception as part of his G8 initiative on maternal health reports theGlobe and Mail…

Harper’s “no contraception” stance was–and his inability to state proactively that contraception is an important part of maternal health programs is– unequivocally ideological, ignoring a vast body of public health evidence about one of the most effective, least costly prevention interventions in existence.

Poor Lawyer Still Doesn’t Understand The Human Rights Hierarchy

Vic News – “We’re preparing an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court in Ottawa,” said lawyer from his Broughton-Street firm.

It’s discriminatory, he said, to offer free mammograms to women in their 40s while denying men of that age free prostate cancer screening tests, called PSA tests.

In 2006, Armstrong took his complaint against the Ministry of Health to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

The tribunal, however, found no evidence of discrimination between the genders.

Trying to Offload A Crummy Apartment Can Get You A Free Bigot Label

UPI - The federal suit filed Friday by the center, a local non-profit group dedicated to fair housing, comes after The Connor Group posted a Craiglist advertisement for “a great bachelor pad for any single man looking to hook up.”

The center said in the suit the April 2009 posting “appeared to state a preference for a single male, discriminating on the basis of sex and familial status.”

Jim, Meet Mary. Jim, You’re Fired.

Economist – IF YOU are a youngish man who sits on a European corporate board, you should worry: the chances are that your chairman wants to give your seat to a woman. In January the lower house of France’s parliament approved a new law which would force companies to lift the proportion of women on their boards to 40% by 2016. The law would oblige France’s 40 biggest listed firms to put women into 169 seats currently occupied by men. Spain has also introduced a quota at 40%, to be reached by 2015. Italy and the Netherlands are contemplating similar measures. This week Britain’s government threatened to make companies report formally on their recruitment of female directors.

Warriors. Come Out To Pla-eee-ay!

West Kelowna News – A former employee of the Westside Warriors hockey club has filed a complaint of sexual harassment with the B.C. Human Rights Commission.

Marie Carrothers lodged the complaint against the hockey club, its parent company Vision Sports Group LLP and Brent Fournier, a volunteer with the hockey club.

Carrothers claims she was sexually harassed by Fournier on two separate occasions in 2008 and 2009.

The allegations came to light two days after she was fired by the Warriors on January 19, 2009.

Found: Lamest Accolade for International Women’s Day

Deutsche Welle - 2008: Hillary Clinton launches campaign for the US presidency. Had she been elected she would have been the first woman president.

But Hey, At Least You’ve Got Orgasms on Demand

Guardian – Do We Need International Women’s Day?…

Yet a day to think about what women have gained (or lost) is a good idea. So, I reflect. It is far better being a woman in 2010 than it would have been in 1909 when American socialists celebrated the first such day. By the time the United Nations adopted the idea in 1975, western women were able to terrify men with dungarees and orgasm on demand. But the pay gap in the United Kingdom remains huge (women earn about 77% of male earnings), and women’s pensions are more than a third less than men’s. But, perhaps the worst imbalance of all, women still only hold 20% of the seats in parliament.

Human Rights Is Big Bucks #9

CBC: A payday loan company has been ordered to pay one of its former employees $30,000 for failing to take her complaints about sexual harassment seriously.

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal issued the ruling last week, saying Money Mart refused to properly investigate complaints about a manager at one of its Toronto stores.

The claim was filed by Marjorie Harriott, a Toronto woman who worked as a customer service representative at a Toronto Money Mart store from April 2007 until she was fired in June 2008.

Harriott told the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal she was sexually harassed by her manager while she worked at a Money Mart store on Danforth Avenue, in the city’s east end.