SlutSlurs
Margaret Wente (Embrace Your Inner Slut? Um, Maybe Not – May 12) cites the statistic that “no fewer than 62 per cent of female students say they’ve been sexually harassed at university,” a figure she argues “is credible only if you include every incident of being groped by some 20-year-old drunk.”
Rather than address her disturbing inference that non-consensual touching is somehow okay when the aggressor is drunk, or only 20, I’d like to point to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, which states: “Half of Canadian women (51 per cent) have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16.”
Do SlutWalks constitute an effective intervention in the complex issue of sexual violence? That remains up for debate.
But its participants shouldn’t be criticized for at least attempting to bring the dynamics of sexual violence, which affects thousands of women around the country, to national attention.
Melissa Bota, Sudbury, Ont.
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Drunken students groping a fellow student is not only sexual harassment, it is sexual assault. To suggest otherwise does harm to both the women who are groped and the young men who end up in court not understanding their behaviour has criminal consequences.
Robert Brews, Toronto
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Margaret Wente says police take sexual assaults more seriously than they did 40 years ago. Perhaps, but there’s still work to be done. The fact that in 2011 a police officer would still suggest women “avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” proves this.
She goes on to relegate violence against women “as a very large problem” to a number of South Asian and aboriginal communities when, in reality, it remains an issue that transcends ethnic, racial and economic boundaries.
SlutWalk sought to increase dialogue on victim blaming and combat discrimination. Ms. Wente’s article illustrates the need for this to a tee.
Karen Gilmore, Ottawa
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Finally empowered, women show the unique ability to be just like men and miss the point by fighting for their right to exercise completely questionable judgment. Men should show their solidarity and start a “ShinyCarWalk” and fight for their right to not be harassed by women seeking dates every time they drive up in a sports car.
Todd Blackburn, Ottawa
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Caged
In the 1940s I worked on a farm (in England) that was one of the first to install the battery-cage system (Well-being Of Poultry To Be Studied – May 12). I looked after some 300 birds in 2x2 cages. Lights were left on until late at night to encourage laying. The worst side effect was boredom (chickens have feelings!), resulting in feather picking and, worse, cannibalism.
Joan Wright, Toronto
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Tipping point
While Bell Canada’s generous donation to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is a sterling example of corporate leadership to combat stigma and improve mental-health services, it is no substitute for years of government failure to adequately invest in mental-health care (Bell’s $10-Million Gift A ‘Tipping Point’ For CAMH – May 12). The Bell donation should be a call to governments and corporations that leadership and substantial investments are required so that we can better serve the two out of three Canadians living with mental illness who get no services at all.
Steve Lurie, executive director, Canadian Mental Health Association, Toronto Branch
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Speak out
Timothy Garton Ash correctly contends that the answer to xenophobes is opposition by mainstream politicians and leaders, not trials and jail time (Keep It In The Court Of Public Opinion – May 12).
Given that Dutch politician Geert Wilders called the “Muslim presence” in Canada a threat to democracy and for Muslims to “voluntarily repatriate” from the West, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations recently urged federal political leaders to stand for Canadian values of equality and mutual understanding and denounce Mr. Wilders’s fierce anti-Muslim views.
