Who hijacked Canadian feminism?

By Linda Lebrun
web posted December 17, 2001

Sunera Thobani's controversial post-9/11 comments at a
Vancouver women's conference have become notorious.
Thousands of Canadians and American were enraged at her
assertion that the murderous attack on American soil was simply
the U.S. reaping what they sowed for a "foreign policy soaked in
blood". The media noted that Thobani was the president of the
National Action Committee on the Status of Women from 1993
to 1996. The NAC generally toils out of the glare of public
scrutiny, and they were unprepared for the backlash the
comments provoked. But let's be fair to the NAC -- surely the
organization has matured in the five years since Thobani stepped
down?

In a word, no. This problematic feminist group has, if anything,
moved even more towards the extreme left as the years have
gone by. Canadian women may deserve a government lobby
group, but the NAC is emphatically not that group. Ludicrously
claiming to speak for Canadian women in general, they actually
speak only for an ideological hard-core of professional leftist
activists.

Canadian women are of diverse opinions and fall all over the
political spectrum, including many who would prefer a smaller
role for government. But the representation of conservative
women in the NAC is nil. Their left-wing slant is no secret -- the
33rd Central Convention of the Communist Party of Canada is
listed in the "year in review" section of NAC's website (no other
party get a mention).

The NAC and some of their fellow-travelers recently released a
document titled "The Women's Declaration Against War and
Racism For Peace and Justice", advocating accused terrorists
ought to be tried before an international criminal court, and
decrying a military-interventionist response to the vicious attacks
on U.S. soil. What arrogance, when real Canadian women's
view diverge so widely on the issue, to name this document "The
Women's Declaration". But there are no shades of gray in the
NAC agenda.

The organization writes in a recent press release: "The women's
movement that is made up of grandmothers, mothers, daughters,
and sisters will always uphold a just, peaceful solution because it
is women and children who are the largest victims in war." What
useful political agenda could be served by implying that men are
somehow lesser victims of war? Can't a man be wounded by a
bullet or step on a land mine? Perhaps so, but to the extreme left,
establishing one's own victimhood is of paramount importance.

Open hostility towards men is perhaps the most egregious game
played by members of the extreme feminist left. "War is a man's
game," former NAC president Judy Rebick opines in her recent
column on cbc.ca. "War is definitely a guy thing." Calling war "a
guy thing" is shorthand for saying it is objectionable and wrong.
Extreme left feminist groups are controlled by ideologues who
frame everything in terms of "gender-based analysis", wherein the
patriarchy, that now-dated abstraction, is to blame for all social
ills.

It's no wonder that most women under 30 prefer not to identify
themselves as "feminist". What modern young woman would
care to become a member of "The NAC Young Womyn
Network"? The lingo the NAC uses is a parody of 70's second-
wave feminism. Other NAC efforts include organizing the annual
Canadian Women's March, which regularly presents a litany of
demands for money, programs, and grants to the federal
government. This stream of dollars is necessary, they claim, to
chip away at the imaginary edifice of patriarchy.

Working women today compete on a playing field that is leveled
as at no previous time in Western history; we benefit from
technology and trade. But you'd never know this from the
NAC's promotion of income redistribution, anti-globalization
protests, and a grab-bag of other leftist causes.

Might the NAC be reformed to properly represent a cross-
section of Canadian women's views? Unlikely, since the
professional left-wing activists that control it now are unlikely to
relinquish control or welcome real political diversity. Canadian
taxpayers would never accept if a far-right lobby group were
granted hundreds of thousands of dollars in government funds
annually to further their fringe agenda. Why, then, is it acceptable
to do so for a far-left group? The government should cease
funding the NAC -- the hijacking of the women's movement
shouldn't be underwritten by Canadians.

This is Linda Lebrun's first contribution to Enter Stage Right.

Enter Stage Right - http://www.enterstageright.com