More Than Meh

     I was recently called out by someone I respect. This is a person of some celebrity who has a large group of keen listeners, readers, and online followers. He writes a column for a city publication and, without naming me directly, took exception to something I said in the column and via social media. This a person I respect, understand, though we do not agree on too many things the same outside of a love for beer and football teams.
     The dispute stemmed from his sharing on Facebook the comments of someone whose ideologies rarely align with my own. The commentator was being intentionally provocative about the Quebec student protests (from his comfortable spot in Alberta, where a bash against Quebec is always a safe bet). He then went on to belittle those who replied to his comments.
     I commented on the thread, and my esteemed friend, who had reposted the thread in the first place, asked me to justify my feelings that it is an Albertan cliche to attack protesters, be they Quebec students, members of the Occupy Movement, striking CP employees or, god help us, teachers or nurses. I got into one of those "I respect you but don't know you" Facebook debates with a person who also has a completely different political, ideological and possibly ethical leaning than myself. Those aren't always much use.
     My friend, the one person of the three I actually know, commented in his column that I was glomming him into the masses, those who belittle all forms of protest, those who feel that their own opinions of why a protest is happening justify telling protesters to shut up from the safety of their own couch. Perhaps I did, though that was not my intent.
     The single stopping point, that is, the point where we do not agree, is on the judgement of the student protesters in Quebec. I don't know how it's being reported in the rest of the country, but in Alberta what we're hearing on most media is how low tuition has been in Quebec, and the opining has leaned towards calling the protesters spoiled babies who are making the Charest government into villains for doing their jobs. The Charest government are doing that well enough on their own, introducing a despicable anti-assembly law in the same vein as the feds' back-to-work legislation.
     When I was in university, if I would have seen a drastic hike in my tuition, you can be damn sure I would've taken to the streets as well. I would not have looked to my East or my West and said, "Shucks, I'm doing better than those guys." I would have gone after a government that has traditionally done a terrible job of funding post-secondary education and called them out for their lack of creativity, for saddling the cost on the people least-equipped to bear the load. This is the sort of thing that can turn the wary away from an education, and the idea frightens me.
     My education has created an arrogance in me that I must be cautious of. However, since long before I had finished my degrees, in the days where Canada Student Loans annually found some giant roadblock to throw in front of me (such as counting my father's farm machinery as liquid assets), I have been afraid of people accepting that they won't go to university because of costs, and instead taking the fast track to easy money. "I'll take my Grade 12, work in the oil patch, exploit, consume, and die having accomplished . . . what?"
     My umbrage stemmed from the comments regarding these students that echoed so many I have heard regarding protest of late.
     "Accept. Relent."
     "It could be worse."
     Is this what we've resorted to, saying that life's good enough, don't complain? Don't seek to make it better? Don't point out injustice when you see it? And to pointing fault in the deeds of anyone who does not feel they should do the same?
     I welcome protest in all forms, because protest is dialogue. Do I agree with religious crackpots bashing gay marriage on the front steps of the White House? No. But I allow that they should have the right to express themselves so that I may weigh their arguments and decide where I stand.
     Complacency has been the Western Canadian operating word for a decade or more. Apathy and lethargy are the greatest threats to freedom of speech.

Women Second

WR Leader Danielle Smith and Premier Alison Redford

                I can disclaim away, citing my revulsion for male chauvinism, the long line of influential females in my life, my cheerleading of women’s rights, but it won’t matter, someone will take exception to my message or my tone—because I’m a man writing about women.

                And that’s sort of my point, see.

                For my readers outside the confines of Alberta, you may have noted that my dear adoptive province recently had itself an election. It was quite a heated thing, and also one of the more fascinating we’ve seen in this province in years. Don’t let the result (yet another Progressive Conservative majority, preserving a forty-one year old dynasty) belie the drama—it was something to see. The upstart, ultra-conservative Wild Rose Party under Danielle Smith putting pressure on the incumbent just plain conservative PC party under new “red Tory” Premier Alison Redford; as well, the also ran Liberals, NDP, Alberta Party, and (in my riding alone!) Alberta Separatist Party trying their darndest to show that this province isn’t completely mired in conservatism. Ineffectively, it seems, especially because so many of those of us who ideologically lean to the left strategically voted, that is, held our noses, apologized to our gods, and voted PC for fear of the predications of a Wild Rose majority entrenching us in such backwards backwoods philosophies that they would make Stephen Harper giddy with Reformer glee.

                Instead, the PCs landed yet another majority and the Wild Rose were limited to a mere 17 seats, making them the Official Opposition, but hardly with a vice-like grip on the throat of Redford’s party. The dust has settled, we look to the future, some of us wondering just how Ms. Redford will balance her centralist leanings and left support with the traditional conservatives in her party and in her support base. It remains to be seen.

                That’s all back-story. The point of fact is that we have our first female premier elected in Alberta with the first female leader of the official opposition. Rah, womanhood!

                However, this seems to cause some to feel that to criticize their politics is to criticize their gender, in effect implying that because these are female politicians, this should make them immune to criticism, just as if someone were to be a politician whose policies we disagree with, but were Muslim or Native or a person with a disability, they should receive special exception to any criticisms of said policy (he said, staring at the well-greased slope atop which he was perched).

                Although I am delighted to have a female premier and a female head of the double O, I see them as politicians first, women second. Smith has expressed positions on education, health care, and the environment that I find so disturbing she may be the only politician I hold in the same elite company of yucky as our current prime minister. Redford, whom I respect much more than her predecessors, and most of those who she defeated in the PC leadership race, still holds up the tarsands as the solution to the American energy crisis, still supports the building of questionable pipelines—she’s still a capitalist conservative, and I ain’t. I am bothered that my questioning any policies leads in turn to me being questioned for judging them based on which way they face when they pee.

                Analogy: I like Chris Rock, I think he’s a very funny guy. However, so much of his schtick is “black people.” His humour involves pointing out that he is black, comparing white people to blacks, and often the self-deprecation of black people or the send-up of the starched white. I get tired of that. I like Chris Rock the comedian, and yet it is required to always provide the qualifier that he is Chris Rock, the black comedian.

                So it is apparently going with feminism. Here we are, a half century after the Women’s Liberation Movement began, and how much ground have we covered when a man talking critically about a woman’s ideas (that is, not the fact that she is a woman with ideas) is called a chauvinist? I mean, what sort of equality have we created when we put them in special bubbles—does equality not come with the bad as well as the good? In constantly pointing out that this is a woman premier and a woman leader of the opposition, are we not, devaluing them? Are we not enabling those who would see difference as a disability, rather than vive-ing it?

                Analogy: I love hockey, and this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs are proving to be one of the most boring set of goonfests in recent memory. I like finsesse hockey, hockey where capable speedsters weave their way down the ice in a manner that is almost artistic. I prefer a beautifully-calculated play over a bone-crushing hit. I enjoy elite women’s hockey, I have a friend who has represented us on the Women’s Olympic Hockey Team since the sport was picked up for Nagano. And yet, their game must always be qualified with “women’s style hockey,” as if it’s something of a lesser sport because there’s finesse, athleticism, and a much lesser amount of physical play (though not none). It seems we’re spending as much time providing exceptions as celebrating difference here.

                Because I am a man, I may be questioned and criticized for exercising my right to question and criticize. Men commenting on women’s issues are on shaky ground indeed, but perhaps that itself is part of the issue, that we still keep so much of that territory segregated by gender (or race, religion, or what have you). I have always attested that I am a man raised by women, that the female figures in my life are powerful people who have shaped my thinking and led me to possess temperaments I don’t see paralleled by some of my male peers. Yet, criticism of my right to comment persists.

                I am interested and a little worried to see what our new premier does—as premier. Not as a woman. I’m concerned that our opposition leader will gain support and present ideas to Albertans that I find threatening—because they’re threatening policies, not because it’s a woman presenting them. I hope to tune out any commentary on gender influencing policy, and to simply look at policy alone.

                But what do I know? I’m only a man. (And white, and middle-class, middle-aged . . .)