TBTN Photos: You Saw Them Here First

Oh blog, I’ve missed you! Let’s catch up! As you might have guessed by my last post, I’ve spent the last few months helping to organize Take Back the Night here in Calgary, and then the following weeks trying to recover and also move apartments. Phew!

But I’m happy to report the event went well- it was a lower attendance than the last few years, but considering it was pulled together by a grassroots group with no organizational backing what-so-ever, not too shabby! I thought I’d share some photographic evidence of the event.

On the next page: a rare glimpse of Jane Doe in real life, interacting with her habitat.

 

Take Back the Night in Calgary!

Take note:

TAKE BACK THE NIGHT is an annual march and rally to protest violence against women and to mourn the victims involved in these terrible gender-biased crimes. Due to a new by-law making the annual march difficult, this year community organizers have planned a candle-light vigil in place of a march. The vigil will be held at Tomkins Park on 17th Avenue and 8th Street SW on Tuesday, September 22nd at 8pm. Come speak out, read poems, sing, cry, yell or be quietly mindful of the ever-important issue of ending violence against women and girls across the world. Contact Juliet at 403-667-4770 or check out the Facebook event group for more details.

Hope to see some of you there!

 

Naming the Nameless

Calgary doesn’t get too many Law and Order type homicides- typically murders in Calgary are straight-forward gang or drug related. Then there are the murders we don’t hear about, the nameless prostitutes or homeless women whose killers are often never found. Sex worker victims are more likely to be killed by someone who is related to their profession. Half of female victims in other professions are killed by “someone with whom they had had an intimate relationship”, namely boyfriends or husbands.*

For me, and likely for most of you, this statistics are horrifying and instill a visceral sort of fear. These nameless women who are killed by the people they trusted most are on the front lines of the battle against patriarchy and the way our culture treats their murders speaks volumes about the misogyny feminists are often told doesn’t exist.

I started thinking about this subject again with the death of Jasmine Fiore whose accused killer is minor Calgarian celebrity. Not familiar with her name? That’s because we only know her as “model”.

From CBC:
“Fugitive Calgarian charged in model’s killing”

The Globe and Mail:
“Search for model killer suspect shifts to Canada”

The National Post:
“Reality-TV star charged with U.S. model’s murder armed and in Canada: police”

Jasmine was married to her killer for a short period of time. Aside from that and the brutal details of her murder we don’t know much about her. Only after some digging did I find an article on the Examiner.com mentioning she was a singer in a band called “Machines of Joy.” Her Wikipedia entry briefly indicates she was making plans to open her own gym.

Did she have family? What was she passionate about? I suspect we’ll never know, because hearing from the mother of murder victim is not sexy or entertaining. However, judging by the Google results that come up under her name, digging out her old Playboy photos is. And if you’re too embarrassed to log on to playboy.com, the Ottawa Sun has helpfully put up a slide-show.

RIP Jasmine.

*Homicide stats from Statistics Canada

 

Another Rapist Goes Free

This story is horrific:

Having sex with a drunken 14-year-old he had plied with alcohol was not a criminal offense by former Calgary man, a judge ruled yesterday.

Justice Peter McIntyre said there was insufficient evidence the girl didn’t consent to having sex with Trevor Byron Niebergall.

But McIntyre did find Niebergall guilty of sexual assault for placing his genitals on the girl’s face after she passed out — an act the offender captured on his cellphone camera and showed to co-workers.

McIntyre said the fact the teenage complainant didn’t remember her sexual encounter with Niebergall at a December 2005 New Year’s Eve party did not mean she hadn’t consented.

There are so many rape myths working against this poor girl the whole thing is a disaster. This man committed the very definition of rape however will go unprosecuted because the judge found it more important to shame the victim than prosecute her assaulter. This girl was victim of an intentional crime: Niebergall got her drunk, had sex with her, took pictures, and then sexually assaulted her further. And yet the word rape is not used once in this article. As soon as I find out how to contact this asshole judge I’ll be informing him of a few things:

1. A 14 year-old is a child. While she is at the age of consent, she is not likely to be able to defend herself from this kind of attack.

2. No one can give consent when they’re drunk. Not young girls, slutty girls, good Catholic girls, or men. No one. It’s in this document called the Criminal Code of Canada you might want to check out.

3. Having sex with someone when they cannot consent is rape. It’s not a fucking misunderstanding.

What makes this whole case even worse is that the judge seems to think because the victim was drinking she deserved what happened to her:

The complainant was not forced to consume alcohol — she drank … beer willingly and then switched to alcohol. It is not at all clear why she drank so heavily.

What, no comment about how short her skirt was? She drank heavily because she’s a teenager at a party. Should all young girls be put in lockdown on New Years Eve lest they have too much fun and invite rapists to take advantage of them? What happened here is no one’s fault but the perpetrator and to imply otherwise is misogynist and setting a dangerous precedent.

 

City Council votes against changing Alderman to Councillor, wants female coworkers to bake them some cookies

I’ve been following this issue for a while, (the Alderman name change issue- I made the other one up) because, well, it’s been going on for a while. Since before I was born, according to CBC. The conclusion to this debate yesterday was rather ridiculous- Bronconnier basically admitted he didn’t care, several female Councillors (and I plan on calling them that) put forth that they found the term sexist, as did several influential members of Calgarian politics (if such a term isn’t any oxy-moron). And yet, here we are, back to 1977. What a bizarre choice for Council to make- and interestingly enough those who voted against the title chance certainly aren’t making their names known. Clearly it’s embarrassing to be the only city in Canada that still uses such an outdated term, yet for some reason we can’t let it go.

Well perusing various discussion boards I’ve noticed the most common argument against changing the job title to Councillor is that it simply doesn’t matter. People are starving, getting murdered and really cold in this city and those are the issues that need focusing on. I find this argument confusing and completely invalid for a few reasons.

Firstly, to state the obvious, if it doesn’t matter why did you vote against it? Logically if some members of a group you belong to want to change the name of the group and you don’t care either way, you would just let them change it. Why draw it out 30 years and have proponents collect petitions and throw rallies if you have no opinion about the issue? I call bullshit.

And secondly, it does matter. Language matters in ways that are complex and important. Let’s make an imaginary scenario: For some reason I am decades behind the rest of the world and decide to call all Black people the n-word. When people from that group protest and politely ask I change the term I’m using, I claim to not care but continue using the word anyway.* Continuing to use the word would be highly racist of me, because the word has a oppressive history. I believe the term alderman specifically came from the title of the leader of a tribe, or a patriarch if you will.** It has always been an androcentric word, in that it has applied to men exclusively. In addition, the practice of professional titles ending in “–man” has long been recognized as discouraging women from entering the work force and the public world in general. There’s a reason we don’t refer to stay-at-home parents as housewives or police officers as policemen. Gender roles have changed and the language to accompany those roles has evolved with it.

Nothing feels more discouraging than living in a country where the Prime Minister tells women that they’re equal now and therefore don’t need funding for women’s groups, yet people in governmental positions actively decide that women Councillors should have a sexist term as their job title. Certain individuals have some answering to do.

*I would like to clarify that I’m using the n-word here as an illustrator of the importance of language, not comparing it to the use of “alderman” in degree or kind.

**And if anyone out there has access to the OED I would be really interested in knowing what it says about the etymology of the word.

And, because I promised to find something I was happy about- a great website to do some xmas shopping- Mushy Cat.com It’s feminist, environmentally friendly, and has products with Eddie Izzard jokes and anthropomorphized tofu. Just go look.