April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

domestic violence

The Terminator: California Governer Cuts Shelter Funding by 100%

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Apparently missing his acting career, Schwarzeneger has made good on his promise to come back and has done so in the cheapest way. In an effort to prove that governments can run without taxes he has eliminated funding for domestic violence shelters.

The shelter in Madera County has announced it will cease operations, while, in nearby Kings County, the future is precarious.

Cooper said the timing couldn’t be worse as rising unemployment and the recession have caused calls for assistance to nearly double at the Visalia facility, run by Family Services of Tulare County. She said counselors are most alarmed by increases in domestic violence, homicides and murder-suicides that illustrate the recession can truly be deadly for some trapped in a cycle of domestic abuse.

Normally referred to as battered women’s shelters, the programs provide 24-hour transportation, counseling and a safe haven for victims of domestic abuse ›both female and male ‘›who fear for their safety. Children outnumber adults at Tulare County’s facility by a ratio of 3-to-1.

The shelter even offers a school with a credentialed teacher for the time school-aged residents are at the facility, which can be as long as 60 days.

Source

Women in need of shelter will now instead receive these lovely T-shirts

Lovely parting gifts for those looking for shelter
Lovely parting gifts for those looking for shelter

“Well, you’re not going to solve the problem if you even refuse to say what it is.”

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War on WomenThe Star carried this article yesterday about The War on Women: Elly Armour, Jane Hursham, and Criminal Domestic Violence in Canadian Homes, by Brian Vallée.

Stephen Lewis wrote an impassioned foreword for the book, urging the creation of a fully funded United Nations international agency for women that would provide “a tremendous force for advocacy and intervention” and would “inevitably move toward the recognition that domestic violence is its own holocaust….We’re not just fighting for women’s human rights; we’re fighting for women’s lives.”

[Read more…] about “Well, you’re not going to solve the problem if you even refuse to say what it is.”

Define choice

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Scrolling through Facebook groups I came across one called End Abortion Now!!! Your Mom Made A Choice!

What an interesting thought. My birth mother didn’t in fact make a choice. I am sure at fifteen years of age in a time when “unwed mothers” were sent “away” she may well have made the choice to abort.

Does that make me weep and moan and gnash my teeth? No! I do regret for her sake that there were people who made the choice to deny her the right to choose motherhood or not. [Read more…] about Define choice

Freedom from Religion

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True story: man kills wife, stabbing her in the neck 19 times with a steak knife, is convicted of first-degree murder and appeals on basis that she was unfaithful and, as a devout Muslim, he was protecting family honour.

Nice try, and maybe elsewhere in the world Adi Abdul Humaid might have been acquitted. But the United Arab Emirates citizen made the mistake of murdering Aysar Abbas in Ottawa in 1999 and, ultimately, the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected his appeal.

Superior Court Justice J.A. Doherty said that had Humaid killed his wife for religious beliefs, that alone would have been “a motive for murder.” But it was a moot point because Doherty didn’t buy Humaid’s new religious devotion and, in his 2006 ruling, concluded the story lacked credibility.

Nevertheless, the judge was concerned enough about the nature of the defence argument to write: “The alleged beliefs are premised on the notion that women are inferior to men and that violence against women is in some circumstances accepted, if not encouraged. These beliefs are antithetical to fundamental Canadian values, including gender equality.”

[Read more…] about Freedom from Religion

International Women’s Day

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IWD

I struggled with what to write today. Which subject seemed to have the greatest importance.

In the end I felt there was no subject that had greater importance. They represented different cultures, different concerns, different areas (work, school, motherhood, reproductive rights) different focus (success stories and stories that show how much work is still required) and I realized that I couldn’t anymore choose a topic of greater importance than I could choose a woman of greater importance. [Read more…] about International Women’s Day

Problem Solved?

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I was thinking more of the interest lately some “progressives” have been showing in the disingenuous remarks made by Elizabeth May. The responses made to those who reject the notion that anyone has the right to take a “nuanced” approach to their reproductive rights has been interesting to say the least.

We have been accused of being Green bashers, dinosaurs, radical, reactionary, Stalinist, unable to see shades of grey ( I love that one. As if there are shades to human rights. )

These same defenders of Ms Mays’ right to call women frivolous, have no qualms about trying to shut down discussion when women — remember us guys? we’re the ones with the wombs — express their discomfort and displeasure with the fact that those so willing to score political points and street cred with their reputed support of feminism and feminists are unwilling to show actual support of so fundamental an idea as reproductive freedom.

This even as they claim that their voices are being silenced.

We are allowed to be feminists just as long as we are nice little feminists who listen when the boys tell us what feminism means, how feminists should act and what issues we should see as meaningful.

Our anger is being used against us in ways that must have even the nastiest of misogynists gaping.

As if anger is an inappropriate response when ones rights are seen as fodder for debate. As if anger is inappropriate when one is asked to repeat a tour of duty. As if anger is inappropriate when the speaker of the words cozies up to the friends of the people who do this.

Anger is neither inappropriate nor enough. It is not time for nuances nor debates.

It is time to choose up sides, you believe that women have the right to live as autonomous human beings or you do not. You believe our society is better served when all people are free and equal or you do not. You believe that women’s voices are important or you do not.

You believe the behaviour shown in the shirt above is an appropriate response to women defending what has been shown to be important not only to women’s health but also to society as a whole, or you do not.