“The answer to stopping this statue is clear: someone needs to write a blog about why it perpetuates rape culture, and then they need to tweet about it. Project canceled, and home in time for supper.”
Challenge accepted, my dudebro friend!
The above gauntlet is from a commenter in Tim Bousquet’s Halifax Examiner, which takes on the giant Mother Canada war memorial being proposed in a pristine national park in Nova Scotia. You can read more here and here.
OK – how is this statue like pornstitution and rape culture? 3 minutes. GO!
1. Large object shoved on us against our will.
2. Money being thrown around does not equal consent.
3. Entitled male fantasy that we “really want it so bad.”
4. Requires destruction of what’s natural.
5. Stereotype of waiting women who don’t get in the way of “patriotism” or “red blooded males”, just mop up afterwards.
What should a real “Mother Canada” that actually reflects Canadian reality look like?
Well, maybe it could be a statue looking desperately for the billions of dollars of child support owed to mothers in Canada. Or it could be an Atlantic Canadian mother looking toward Europe for the children who were conscripted and press ganged for centuries into fighting Britain’s wars in all corners of “the Empire.” Or reaching out to those women raped and abused in southern parts of the world who were refused immigration to Canada. Or it could be the Atlantic Canadian mother looking for children who were abused and prostituted and transported and criminalized and lost, to homegrown violence and death.
OK, mother canada, and rape culture – done and done!
photo by being myself
Thanks so much for taking the time to scuttle the Mother Canada statue by showing how it perpetuates rape culture. I was worried the darn thing might go ahead. I’d forgotten that incredible weapon, the mention of rape culture, which changes everything. OK, off to remind Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips of this. I think he forgot. I may mention to him, while I’m at it, that Dalhousie has just been told (by Constance Backhouse) to form a committee to look at their rape culture. So he can see the power of the mention of rape culture. I don’t know how they are going to manage that, mind you. Committees are hard.
🙂