05 June 2016

The Feminist Double-Standard on Display in Ottawa

Recently there was a big stink in the news about Canadian PM Trudeau 'elbowing' a fellow MP who was part of a group trying to physically block a vote.

Of course if you're physically trying to block someone you're already using violence. You're threatening to restrict their movements with your body and thus if you receive the same you can hardly call foul.*

I don't think this would have even made the news except for the fact that the 'elbowed' MP was a woman. There's quite a double-standard here.

She wants to be in with the boys, and be respected and yet when it comes to this sort of thing, she wants special treatment. She jumped in there and used her body to block others but then got upset that in the subsequent melee she got elbowed in the chest.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

If she wants to be treated as an equal then she can't pull the woman card and expect male MP's to exercise chivalry. If chivalry is the order of the day, then she shouldn't be there to begin with.

If she was a man and got elbowed no one would have cared and in fact a man making noise about it would have been laughed at as a wimp.

When women want to act like men, they shouldn't be surprised to be treated as the same. The whole episode was absurd but I think the silliest part (in the end) was Trudeau having to publically eat crow and apologise over and over again.

*It's a separate issue but a lot of so-called pacifists have also missed this point. They are pacifists to a point but in another sense they're using violence, albeit in a different manner. It's rooted in shaming but is still a form of political aggression. Christian Pacifism if we want to call it that, is or ought to be somewhat different.

2 comments:

  1. AP, please comment. I wrote this a day or so after if happened but didn't get around to publishing it. Any opinions or knowledge you have on this point would be appreciated.

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  2. To be honest, I've paid little attention to this whole "Elbowgate" affair, as it's been called. The whole thing is ridiculous. It undermines the principle that national governance is a serious responsibility and that legislation has far-reaching consequence.

    If there had been any serious injury, then perhaps this incident would have warranted the attention it's been given but there hadn't. At best one could say that it was inappropriate behavior for someone in Trudeau's position. Be that as it may, he's apologized more than enough.

    Fundamentally, this is the NDP and, to a lesser extent, the Conservatives, exploiting this in an attempt to undermine Trudeau's credibility. While the latter is currently scrambling to "redefine" themselves so as to remain relevant after Harper's departure, the former is currently led by an opportunist named Thomas Mulcair (who's spearheaded this whole thing) who's rightward policy shift has practically split the party.

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