In response to a number of "What's Happening in Canada?" inquiries, here is a summary and a link to the actual report.
Summary. Canada has a Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women Canada (SWC). She is Jean Augustine. SWC has produced a taxpayer-funded report recommending the monitoring of "masculinists" for potential hate speech against feminists, and therefore women. In Canada, speech alone--that is, speech without action--can be considered a hate crime, resulting in a jail/prison sentence.
Among the people cited as in need of monitoring are Robert Bly, Harvard's William Pollack, authors Susan Faludi, Warren Farrell and Herb Goldberg, and the Men's Health Association. The SWC report is called School Success by Gender: A Catalyst for the Masculinist Discourse, by Pierrette Bouchard, Isabelle Boily and Marie-Claude Proulx. The full report is at: http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/0662882857/200303_0662882857_1_e.html.
My Commentary:
The Perspective of Status of Women Canada (SWC). The SWC Report expresses concern that groups and individuals they call masculinists are using some of the new data on the plight of boys in school to promote their own agenda of attacking feminism. They feel that behind this attack on feminism is an attack on women and women's equality-and, implicitly, a desire to return to the old male-dominated society. Thus masculinists are anti-women and SWC should monitor their web sites to determine if their anti-woman rhetoric makes them guilty of a hate crime.
The Perspective of "Masculinists". Among the objections of "masculinists" to the SWC report are: their feeling that the SWC assumes that to be opposed to feminism is to be anti-women (which feels as inaccurate as saying that to be opposed to Conservatives is to be anti-American or Anti-Canadian); that the creation of an "enemy list" is a Mc Carthy-type tactic-that by discouraging employers from hiring men on the government's "enemy list" it intimidates virtually any man from opposing feminist ideology; that the SWC Report seems to feel women are entitled to all the money and attention gender receives and men's increased activity is threatening the status of feminism as the one party system of gender politics.
Many masculinists feel that feminist ideology hurts not just men, but also women and children-that, for example, feminist efforts to keep fathers from children hurt children, women and men. Masculinist groups are in favor of girls getting the special help they need in school, but feel that boys-who are doing worse in school in every academic and psychological measure except math and science-need attention in proportion to their problems.
Masculinists agree that they do have an agenda that is different from the feminist agenda. (E.g., see The Myth of Male Power at www.warrenfarrell.com). They feel that both should be aired. They do not favor using the taxpayer money of both sexes to fund a lobby group for one sex while criminalizing the speech of the other sex.
On a Personal Level. My speaking, consulting and expert witness work pays for the loss of income I endure from writing books. The institutions that hire me usually do a Google search. In the future, when my name comes up as listed by the Secretary of State of Canada as a suspect for a hate crime of being anti-woman, that is all any feminist needs to convince her employer to hire someone else. Hence, merely being listed has an effect on me similar to the effect on a father of a false accusation. That's why, when a government agency merely lists names it has the impact of McCarthyism.
Register your reaction with:
Research Branch
Status of Women Canada
123 Slater Street, 10th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 1H9
Telephone: (613) 995-7835
Fax: (613) 957-3359
TTY: (613) 996-1322
(Also keep Senator Anne Cools [coolsa@sen.parl.gc.ca], and David Shackleton, editor of Everyman [editor@everyman.org] informed of your efforts.)
