Same Old

The main thing is - the countdown to the Olympics. A year to go. It's a bit like waiting for Christmas, only the wait has been six years and when it's over there will be one helluva communal hangover.

This could get so much more tedious before it gets better.

I was reading a post on my friend Raymond's blog about an incident where a bloke got on a bus and complained about 'Chinkos taking over'.
Meanwhile, Gail noticed that Tonka toys' pamphlet shows only boys in its illustration and assures us that there's a toy for every boy. I remember their TV advertising, it used to say, 'Real life toys for real live boys,' or some such old tosh. This bugs me too.

I don't concern myself so much with racism as with misogyny, I guess you could argue that I'm not really affected too much by the former, but I like to think that it's more because racism is pretty well covered. I would certainly challenge it, and do, if it ever comes within my radar.
But misogyny doesn't get challenged in the same way and by everyone.

And yet, everyone has women in their lives, and I mean a great many people have both men and women in their households, we live side-by-side, men and then the second sex.

This is reflected in the law of this country.
On the radio last week, I heard a man talking about how people can be prosecuted for inciting racial hatred or homophobia, as hate crimes, and well they should, but, and this was his point, misogyny did not qualify under the law as a hate crime.
So games, TV programmes and general anti-female behaviour cannot be challenged per se unless there is actual discrimination.

Today, my friend Anne sent me an article from one of the poorly written Canadian rags, about the gender pay gap. The article was suggesting that one reason this happens is that women choose to marry rich men.
Michelle Obama, it seems, was earning $274K as a hospital doctor - do I detect a raised eyebrow? And a further 50K by sitting on various corporate boards.
So you can see how this works. No? No, me neither. I would imagine that had she not been married to the future President of the United States, she may well have continued to earn a high salary.
In any case, she was already earning less than him, and pardon me for pointing out that this is because there are fewer women in politics and even fewer who make it to President.
None, in fact.
Women have no choice, no choice at all, precisely because of the gender pay gap.

Furthermore, as I mentioned not too long ago, men who support equality between the genders, are also financially disadvantaged over misogynistic men.
And so the beat goes on.