Stephen Harper’s House Party

It's the Canada Day weekend and the underage boys slouched outside my local liquor store can hardly contain themselves.

I find it impossible to enjoy the way we celebrate this national holiday. My strong dislike of Canada Day celebrations is not mere venom toward intoxicated teenagers. On July 1, Ottawa enters a strangely exceptional state of debauchery and consumption in the name of worshipping our nation. Let’s pause for a moment: didn’t most of us spend the better part of last year recoiling from the actions of the government of the day? At the very least, our sudden turn to state exaltation is silly. At most, it begs all kinds of ethical and political questions.

It’s socially unacceptable to speak out against national pride, and difficult to get a critical piece published at this time of year. Collectively, we don’t appreciate critiques of our “homeland.” To dishonour the nation, it seems, is to insult its citizens. But what’s lost in this defensive posture is how a criticism of Canada Day celebrations is not necessarily a rant against the land or its inhabitants. Instead, it might be read as strongly dedicated to this land, in the hope of making it more sustainable and just.

This year, I'm piqued less by how the evidence of rowdiness (vomit, broken glass, scraps of clothing) will litter my downtown community on the morning of 2 July, and more by how we are encouraged to consume this holiday. What comes before the neighbourhood malaise and what is its function? What does blind patriotism negate?

There were three flyers in my mailbox on Friday morning, all intending to capitalize on the holiday craze. The corner pizza shop is offering a special Canadian pizza (topped with bacon, not a sliced Canadian passport). The local chain grocer is offering sales on Coke, beef tenderloin steak, smoked sausage, and hotdog buns: evidence that this is a weekend to celebrate with consumption of animals, not a weekend for vegetables. A major hotel in the city is offering “Canada Day rooms” at reduced rates (picture: stuffed beaver and miniature canoe decor).

Symbols of Canadian pride are ubiquitous in the lead-up to this weekend. On a recent trip to Toronto, I emerged from the subway to an advertisement by Ottawa tourism, urging Torontonians to come party on the Hill once the boring bureaucrats go home! On Facebook, profiles are being changed to invoke a weekend of boozing and sunburn. Even my running group, a typically quirky gang, is planning to wear red and white on a Sunday morning jaunt.

These practices aren’t inherently problematic in themselves, but they are strange in the context of what I perceive to be an atmosphere of rising dissent in Canadian culture. For over a year now, my social media pages and pub conversations have hosted a laundry list of the terrible things Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are doing to the integrity of our country and the mobility of our citizenry. The passing of the Budget Bill C38 not two weeks ago, that effectively gutted 30 years of progression in environmental law, is fresh in our hearts. Lest we forget, Harper has muzzled government scientists, reduced protections on fish habitats, eliminated the long-gun registry, and officially withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol. He has called us names and excluded us from events and doesn't return our phone calls. Call me old fashioned, but when I don’t like someone, I’m not inclined to go to their house party.

It is clear that a significant bunch of us like to exercise our vocabulary of negative adjectives in describing this government’s behaviour: despicable, reprehensible, contemptible. But what are we doing about it? If we truly love our country, and hope for its future, might not July 1 be an ideal moment to gather in collective resistance against a government that repeatedly shows disrespect for our democracy? If there exists such widespread discontent with Ottawa today, isn’t Canada Day on Parliament Hill precisely the time and place to act on it?

This Sunday, Wellington Street will be packed with folks from miles around, wearing face paint, buying street meat, and not-so-fashionably displaying red bra straps under white tank tops (I digress...). As some of us comply with the recent federal splurge on 1812 commemoration by happily donning our flag socks, packing the cooler, and guiding the stroller onto the lawn of Parliament Hill, let us pause for moral reflection on this party. What are we doing at this party? What public work might be done here instead if the thousands of us waved signs for a better Canada, and a better world?

This weekend, may we open the dialogue to resist blind celebration, and urge our government to make Canada more enjoyable for more people, all year round.

Mommy wars, are we mom enough, sex museums in Ottawa, and intensive misogyny

From my position in bed with a head cold from heck (Montreal), it seems Ottawa news media is hyper-sexed this week. Every time I stretch across the pillow pile for Kleenex and my connection to the outside world (Blackberry with Twitterfeed), it's the sex museum (or something), James Moore on sex (gross!), or reactions to Time on moms' boobs, which, let's face it, relate, albeit peripherally and certainly controversially, to sex (which you can learn about at the sex museum).

I chose to be driven crazy by Time (which, for the record, is a terrible magazine...bought my first and last copy this week) because it had the balls (gross!) to ask "Are you mom enough?" to a group of the most guilty humans on the planet. The audacity! I'm not even a mom and it makes me grumble.

Working moms (who are women) are getting shit on this year. Questioning economic inequity gets construed as an insult to "housewifery," and triggers a US presidential candidate to hop on a soapbox to defend the choice to stay home and bake (I joke). If you talk about mothers experiencing stress at work, tongue-clucking ensues. "Why'd you go and find a career, you bad life chooser?"

In my comprehensive exam reading, I wrestled with the idea of whether or not the "Mommy wars" (which are likened to a giant cat fight, which really makes me want to scratch someone's eyeballs out and lick myself) are a real raging thing (oh god, the militarism... today someone called for a "cease-fire"). Sociologists are divided on if working moms envy stay-at-home moms, and vice versa, or if this battleground has been staked out by the media. Cover stories like "Are you mom enough?" and the explosion of polarized responses from all over the political spectrum suggest, at least, that both are happening. Moms are stressed out by their constrained choices, and the media has a field day fanning the flames. And making sexist metaphors out of them.

This mom war, superficial or not, tells us a lot about the cultural climate these days. Basically we hate women as much as ever, especially when they have control over stuff (other than baking, 'cause who doesn't like fresh bread? and it takes so long!), so it's best to keep them busy with childbearing (which, by the way, I consider a full-time job). But beyond a gender analysis, we need to move to a feminist analysis of what else is being represented by soldiers of the mommy wars. A couple of days ago, I did a mini-class analysis of this swing toward "intensive mothering" for the Citizen, but there remains a lot to say about whiteness, thinness, sexuality, colonialism, and celebrity. What would we be saying about an image of a black woman who went on social assistance to breastfeed for four years? I'll die before "Floridian welfare moms do it right" makes the cover of Time.

writer's block is writers lying

This past week, I did a lot of research, but I couldn't bring myself to add pages to my latest paper. It caused major stress. I was reminded of why I am afraid of career writing. The stress got worse. I felt dumb for being stressed. The stress got even...worse. And so, cookie dough on spoon, third coffee on nightstand, I looked up the origins of writer's block.

Fittingly(?), "writer's block" is one of the least informative wikipedia pages I have read. Upon further digging, my general understanding of what is and what causes writer's block was confirmed. Coined by a psychoanalyst in the 40s, it is an issue of feeling uncreative, anxious, or unskilled, for any number of reasons, including no reason at all, that causes writing to stop.

Days later, I agree with applying causation to anxiety, and, at least in my case, the anxiety is related to trying to write something I don't believe or know (or think I know). Never has the writing gone slowly if the thoughts are confident and true. Just this week, I was struggling through a project proposal when I realized I was proposing a project I didn't think was useful. This idea was affirmed on Friday when I was having water with a girlfriend and heard myself struggle to discuss a personal topic. Eventually I blurted out a shocking phrase. I acknowledged its ring of truth only upon hearing it escape my mouth, and then the words poured out.

I'm now noticing how prevalent is this communication block in personal life. Relationships only cause me stress if I'm lying. Only if I'm lying (usually to myself) is it difficult to find the words to say, or does anxiety feel like torment. This week, when I made serious eye contact with a friend and allowed the truth to be exchanged between us, I first understood the issue at hand. Upon figuring out the core of my message, the words (and tears) fell.

I've decided writer's block isn't a thing. Self-deception is a thing. It is difficult to write when judging or deceiving myself, and it's impossible to write when judging myself for judging or deceiving. I had this belief reflected back at me this week when on a run with my friend, Randy. We talked about Sheryl Sandberg's talk on how women get in their own way, and as much as I'd like to add a hefty dose of materialism to Sandberg's "numbers tell the story" approach, the practice of women's negative self-talk is surely contributing to writing slowing to a halt.

Now that the block is sorted, it's BACK TO THE PAPER, reciting affirmations to tell it like it is, sans dough.

why having issues is good for business

These years, I read about things that are "problematic." For examples, "The representation of queerness in Gaga's Born This Way video is so problematic," or, "The way the Because I Am A Girl Movement needs to use hyperfeminine tropes to gain political clout for gender equity is so problematic." We grad students seem to like, as my friend Heather calls it, to do paranoid reading (that is, to read skeptically). We get good at it too. Everything is problematic, even eating chocolate ice cream. If you eavesdropped on our hangouts, you'd think we get off on discovering that things are, say, racist, or poorly conceived in general. Mostly we like pointing out how ironic is everything over beverages. That is what grad students do. Last one to point out the problematic thing is a rotten soybean!

Well, based on the above, it's a terrific thing, since I am a part of my cohort of study, that I'm so darn problematic. As some background for my dissertation, I'm currently looking to theories on social scripts, social roles, and fantasy. I've been tripping out to literature on daydreams since this weekend, and now that I've analyzed my own day fantasies more rigorously, I'm feeling like a huge hypocrite. And I'm feeling like my thesis argument is stronger than ever because of it.

Why I am so problematic:

Since I have formed some critical thoughts on the literature on women’s role conflict, I am surprised by the often-competitive thoughts flowing through me while pursuing this degree project. Like most doctoral students, I have had my share of motivational ups and downs throughout, but the most surprising to me is how, even in the midst of examining the way social scripts function to oppress personal and professional roles based on gender, I continue to follow these. I am explicitly glued (in my own mind) to particular scripts.

Illustrative of my investments in performing according to certain scripts, my life stresses, generally speaking, can be attributed to straying from them. My imagined roles may alter slightly from more traditional norms, but I think they reflect archetypes typical among my cohort. I frequently daydream about simultaneously embodying the ideal neoliberal subject and the ideal mother, down to the minute details of wardrobe and staging. I literally have visions of pureeing organic root vegetables for my gleaming toddler while pausing to receive a phone call from my highly reputable book publisher that my latest revisions have been accepted. The phone call is usually interrupted by a kiss on the cheek from my brilliant, handsome, chiseled, loyal, feminist husband who adores me and joyfully performs more than half of our domestic labour so that I may travel for my career. In this dream, I am also agelessly fit and healthy, and so is my dog, which does not bark.

This “secret” daydream – the one that exists among knowing what there is to know about competing devotions as well as how certain fantasies are imbricated in neo-colonial and imperialist projects and yet still promotes “having it all” – does not cease to shock me. Today I was dreaming it while on a morning run (in this morning's version, I was being greeted by my family at the finish line of a marathon. Following the race, we returned home to consume kitchen sink muffins, baked freshly that morning by moi. Then my partner and I worked on the feminist project we were co-authoring). The denial is palpable. I now understand that this seriously reinforces my major argument.

For now, back to the literature. Share your problematics, people.

In the beginning, was the Word Doc.

Today, as Catholics prepare for rebirth this Easter weekend, I start writing my dissertation. I can hear my mother's voice: "What does that mean, exactly?" I've been in the degree program for two years. It's a fair question.

I opened a word doc, saved it as "d-word_04-05-12," and wrote 6 single-spaced pages straight: what do I have to say, why do I have to say it, why I am the best one to say it. Afterward, I had to remove my contact lenses. I mustn't have blinked enough.

The writing surge was inspired by the first page of "The Girls Who Went Away," by Ann Fessler. I merely opened the book, read the first paragraph, put the book down, and raced to my computer. If-I-don't-get-this-out-now-it-is-lost-forever.....

This is just to note... here goes. One day, when a manuscript is submitted to the printer for binding, I'll look back on this sunny spring afternoon and think, "hmph."

Help with The Help

Last night the Feminist Film Night, hosted by our student association with a terribly long acronym, screened and discussed The Help. We chose the film because of its popularity, both at the Box Office and with the Academy, and because it generated such a surge of self-proclaimed anti-racist activism from many positions on the social justice advocacy spectrum. Activists fighting activists? Couldn't wait to sink my teeth in.


The production itself was, true to Disney, big-budget and expertly crafted. Nice lighting, pretty costumes, flawless sets, etc. Suspending of disbelief... check. But the film was horrendous. I went in with low expectations and they were met.


To summarize for any under-rock-dwellers who haven't seen or read this thing, the story is set in Jackson, Mississippi at the dawn of civil rights murmurings. It loosely tells of segregation by following a young white woman, who is outcast from her group of socialite wives because she has an education and career ambition, and her taboo encounters with "the help:" poor black women forced into the domestic work of white families. I won't spoil the finale, but suffice it, this is a Disney tale to the end.


Conversations following the film's release can be grossly simplified thusly:


"The Help is so great because it depicts how racist was the South and how far we've come with civil rights and how being nice to each other is good. We should keep being nice to each other."


vs. 


"The Help is a horribly racist misrepresentation of the violence of the segregated South that individualizes and masks systemic racism and sexual violence and serves only to make nice white people feel good about themselves for no longer segregating blacks as overtly."


...or something like that. Bias, explicated.


Our post-viewing debate was similarly polarized last night, though complicated a bit by our similar training in feminist critique and disparate training in theories of representation and art. One interesting question came from a literature student, who asked if the work of fiction has the responsibility to be historically accurate or ethical. Hmm. Upon hearing the film problematized by others in a compelling way, I asked if there is anything to be salvaged from the obviously flawed production. What do we do with works of fiction like this? Are they useful at all?


While utility and art slide into terrain unfamiliar to me, I ask this in the context of Hollywood films being produced for a particular kind of consumption. My question grew out of a creepy feeling that this film is going to be played in hundreds of high school classrooms across this continent. It's feel-good, not violent, loosely historical, and moral. Perfect for stimulating some conversation among students while not upsetting the parents.


I can hear some of my friends' voices now: "Stop being so critical, Amanda. It's a nice film about racism is bad." As one club attendee spoke up, maybe simply getting people talking about how racism is bad is good enough. Arguing against this view, other students urged that if the film is so clearly inaccurate, it does far more harm than good. I tend to side with the latter, since most of us have been exposed to "racism is bad" our whole lives, and instead require a better understanding of how systemic is the problem.


I guess the answer is reorienting humans to low budget films about real issues, created by and with the voices of folks who experience the impacts of issues. Sounds simple enough.

Happy International Women's Day

March 8 is my favourite day of the year. I treat it like a holiday. This morning, I relished in a long shower, picked out a magnificent blouse, baked myself a single cookie, and took a rainy stroll to my familiar cafe for an Americano, which I now savour. 

International Women's Day is one of those exceptional events that is marked by humans all over the globe. Spawned out of socialist movements in the US and Western Europe, it spread quickly to Russia and the UN and is now a recognized holiday in places of which we Canadians may have a narrow perception: Afghanistan, Cambodia, China, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Russia, Uganda, and several others.

But like any rip in time, the "celebration," as March 8 is touted, is a charged one. For me, it is for reflexivity, celebration and mourning. While I swirl in the luxuries of my privileged class and race position, I take up the emotionality that fuels my work and relationships. For one day, my unique power and disenfranchisement are of central focus.

During our celebrations here in Canada, I'm cautious of the slippery slope of universalizing language, and frightened by the potential for turning inward to eclipse the unliveability of many women's lives. It is a peculiar sensation to be all of joyful, grateful, enraged, and sad, while women and girls will lose their lives today because of their gender.

Strange as well is the way I feel contrastingly about my position as a Canadian woman under Harper's majority government. C10, C30, the baiting of citizens as enemies of the state (foreign radicals, child pornographers), the robo-call scandal, and a particular set of budget cuts suggest a new regime under which women's rights stand to be undermined. Our rights have been won and can be lost, and many of "us" over here on this putative liberated continent would like to see women's rights kicked back a notch (see Sandra Fluke is a slut).

The release of the Kony 2012 video at the beginning of this week is remarkably apropos for reflecting on our relation to our own and "Other" issues. There is much to say on both the video and its reception, but for now I treat it as an opportunity for us to be critical of our own sense of universal ethics. To recognize the video as a progressive tribute to human rights is to be normal and safe. To be critical of the Kony 2012 campaign, we dare for our thoughts of moral behaviour to be far away from our familiar sense of ethics. At the risk of sounding critical for the sake of critical thought, what is endangered by international campaigns like Kony 2012 and IWD?

Moral philosophers (Adorno, Butler) point that our collective ethos is invariably conservative, and only once an idealization (a sense of nationalism, for example) loses its credibility can we stimulate conversations about nonviolent behaviour. Flipping this idea around, universal ethics are violent in that they only become known as enforced as "universal" when they are challenged. We can think about burgeoning resistance to our government of the day in this light: we moved along without climate justice in our frontal lobes until someone called us radicals, and now moral behaviour and what is "Canadian" is called into question. Adorno's account is useful for today's commemoration, as we consider how in our focus on "women" as a category, we are both solidifying and dissolving problematic narratives, as well as experimenting with moral behaviour.

And now I'm putting Adorno in one pocket and pop music and butterflies in the other, to stay alive in critical thought and full of determination. Happy International Women's Day!