I shall, again, be responding to The Gods of Copybook heading. I just find them interesting enough that they warrant some attention. Also, my comment on this post has yet to have been approved, so I will be writing a revised and more eloquent addition of that comment here.
In order to truly understand this post, go read the original.
To begin, this whole post is thinly veiled misogyny. The whole post is a long attack on Elizabeth May, primarily from the fact she likes to give hugs and cares about what her co-workers think of her in Parliament. This, to the blogger is enough to draft a rant against her. This whole post takes utterly unimportant and superficial things, to further his sexist rage.
May is an utterly preposterous figure. Try imaging Lizzy running for elected office before 1968. You can’t. Parliament in those days was filled with serious minded men, and the odd serious minded woman like Ellen Fairclough, tackling the nation’s business. Right, Left or mushy middle the members of parliament then were adults. Would C.D. Howe have given people big hugs? Or given a damn about what anyone thought of him?
The blogger continuously invokes examples of preferable, erm, men.
Parliament in those days was filled with serious minded men, and the odd serious minded woman like Ellen Fairclough, tackling the nation’s business.
For all his many faults Pierre Trudeau was an alpha male.
Our fair dominion before and after Pearson, Trudeau and their fellow travellers got through with the place. C.D. Howe is a pretty good example at least when it comes to tone. In many ways Howe was a big government type, viewing the role of the state as arbiter and engineer of economic development. It was Howe who pushed Mackenzie King into setting up what became Air Canada. Yet he was a man’s man. He could look into the eyes of Canada’s corporate titans and make them blink.
All the major examples are of course, men. And in case you didn’t understand it that men are what do the tough governmental things, it was made crystal clear with the “man’s man” part.
It would take a near super human executive not to break out laughing faced with Lizzy May across the boardroom table. I wonder if she gives big hugs to forestry executives? Perhaps not. While business leaders might have to take the words of a politician like May seriously, that’s just because she has the weight of the government behind her. C.D. Howe was a successful private businessman and engineer. A tough minded sort who could get things done. This commanded respect on Bay and St James streets aside from his enormous political power.
Yes, quite a business man. Who lifted weights, stared at you in the eyes, refused to give you compliments, and hated everyone but himself. A real man’s man. Cahoonas.
This, simply put, is misogyny. The blogger prefers men, who did manly things, and characteristically masculine things. Elizabeth May, for one, is not a man, and has some characteristically feminine traits – hugging, caring and emotions. This, for the blogger, is enough reason to demise, mock and insult her.
The odd woman that was serious had to act like a man. If that woman acted like a woman, that woman was frivolous, and an “utterly preposterous figure”.
The good old days, back with Lester B. Pearson and C.D.Howe – men. The good days when women were discriminated against on a regular basis (moreso than now), when women were lucky to be represented in Parliament. The good days, when men dominated the government sector as well as the business sector (still like today). The good days when men in government dealt with men in business (that was just the way it had to be), now there’s women in Parliament and that’s utterly preposterous.
Like all women-haters, one of the usual complaints is that women talk to much. Observe:
There she sits, babbling on and on. Right in the middle of the road the rest of us are trying to get down. May is not dangerous for what she does, but for what she prevents the rest of us from doing.
So, we can infer, since he clearly doesn’t like a woman being “girly”, he would want this “woman to shut up” (paraphrasing). Perhaps she should “know her place” behind real men of the likes.
This entire desperate tirade against Elizabeth May, of course, utterly ignores any useful things she’s done in her tenure in Parliament, such as proposing numerous genuinely helpful amendments to various legislation, creating a quiz to help inform fellow Parliamentarians and citizens, and just showing up and offering criticism – things many other Parliamentarians just don’t do. One could say, the single Green MP has done an exceptional job – and I would take no issue with that. Her only problem, it seems, is being born a woman.
