Privilege (heterosexual and others)

I am writing this blog entry in response to all the comments I received on facebook when I updated my status to indicate that I was annoyed by heterosexual privilege. Frankly, the comments surprised me but I guess I should not have been. Inherently, when one is in receipt of a societal privilege they may not be aware of it. This appears to be the case. Rather than going into a long drawn out explanation of heterosexual privilege I will refer you to an excellent blog entry written by Teh Portly Dyke. She does an excellent job explaining this and its impact on homosexuals. She also issues a challenge in her entry I encourage you to try it to gain a better understanding of how insidious heterosexual privilege is in our society.

Privilege is everywhere in our society and depending on your class, race, economic status or gender expression you may or may not enjoy privilege. Being Caucasian in our society affords you a great deal of privilege. Our society is geared to make life easier for people who are white. All of our institutions are inherently racist and difficult for people of colour to navigate and receive fair treatment. If you don’t believe me ask a person of colour what their experience is at a bank or worse trying to get welfare or other government services. When I worked in a downtown eastside welfare office in Vancouver there was a great deal of racism dished out to people of colour and particularly aboriginal people.

Class is another area of privilege. I certainly noticed that as a homeowner I am treated very differently by service people than I was when i was a renter. The white woman in Kerrisdale is treated much differently than an Aboriginal woman from the downtown eastside. Many of our judgements about class are rooted in the Protestant work ethic and Protestantism in general. One of the foremost Protestant thinkers, John Calvin, believed that it was predetermined who was going to heaven and who was not. Those people who were successful in life were assumed to be going to heaven and therefore treated differently from those who were impoverished. It was also believed that if those who were not successful ‘just tried a little harder’ they too could be successful. The old adage of ‘pulling up their boot straps’ applied. We may not consciously think this way but these ideas inform our culture and the way we view the world and the people in it.

Gender expression is another area of privilege. Those who fit into society’s binary gender roles of male and female enjoy privilege. There is no question which bathroom to use and you are treated with respect. Those who are gender queer, gender ambiguous or trans have murky waters to navigate. A male to female transsexual for example may be harassed for using the woman’s bathroom. Gender expression seems to invoke violent responses from some people. Many trans people are routinely targeted for abuse by people in our society who are uncomfortable with their gender expression.

It is interesting to talk to people who are different from you and to learn how privilege or the lack thereof impacts their lives. As a white woman I know that I enjoy a fair amount of privilege in our society. I have privileges of class, race and gender. However, somethings work against me. As a fat lesbian woman I have been the target of discrimination and hate although not that often. The group with the most privilege in our society are straight, white men. It is interesting to determine what privilege you enjoy and why you have it. Deconstructing privilege helps us to understand how our society works and how we can work to be allies to those who do not enjoy the same privileges that we do. It takes a great deal of work to look inside and see what is really there - the racist and classist thoughts and to try and understand how they impact our interactions with other people. It is a life-long process and one that is very difficult. Realizing our own racist, classist and gender biases can be uncomfortable. Talking about them and challenging others racist, classist and gender biases is even more difficult. If, as an individual, you are committed to an egalitarian society it starts with you.

New Music

Deb and i were coming home from our many errands on Monday afternoon and heard this wonderful song on the CBC. The artists are Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson. If you like roots/country you will like this. Unfortunately the only place to get it is from Amazon right now. Here is their website where you can hear the title track ‘Rattlin’ Bones.’ Definitely worth a listen. I have ordered the disc from amazon and can’t wait for it to come. Kasey Chambers reminds me of Emmylou Harris.

Kasey and Shane

I have also been listening to a new Canadian artist named Jeremy Fisher. His stuff is quite interesting and different. Check him out on iTunes.

Bowling for blind dogs…

Piper has a new game. She spys Cliio down the hall and then runs into her full bore. In short, the pug is an asshole. Poor Clio is blind and can’t see her coming so it is really not fair. I am not sure why the pug is doing this to her except maybe jealousy. Of course, all that happens is Clio then gets more attention and Piper gets in trouble. She likes to harass Mabel too but at least Mabel has the ability to sort of see it coming (Mabel is a little blind and a little deaf). Piper leaves Mollie alone because I think she is not sure what Mollie will do to her. Mollie has this fierce shark attack routine she does where she jumps out of her bed and barks and growls like a demon. What the rest of them don’t know is that Mollie has no teeth. it is really kind of funny. They all think she is crazy and they give her a wide berth. Mollie’s favourite creature to shark attack is the cat. Mollie weighs 7 pounds and the cat about 27 pounds. It is really quite hysterical.

Life with 9 dogs can be very interesting. Sometimes, no most of the time, I feel like a slave. It is like this house is run for the sole convenience of the pets. It is not far from the truth. They go in and out as they would like, they eat when they demand it. Well, Mabel anyway. She barks and we have a Pavlovian response to go and look for chicken. I guess when you are 17 years old and you have a cancerous tumour on your leg you pretty much get what you want. Here is a great pic of Mabel doing her thing:

Mabel really enjoys going out on patrol in the yard. Even if she goes all the way to the back of the yard she seems to find her way back into the house. For a dog who was quite ill when she came here a year ago she is doing just great now. She is bright and alert and doing well on tramadol to manage her pain. She is still very engaged in life (when she is awake) and makes her needs known.

There is never a dull moment when you live with 9 dogs.

Plague of locusts??

As many of you know I have been dealing with major health issues since the end of November. It all started with loveley Dr. M…who took me off asacol and set this chain of events into motion. You see he decided that because of one symptom I had that I did not have colitis that I had irritable bowel syndrome. Apparently one can have both but he was positive that I had IBS rather than ulcerative colitis (UC). He was so sure he was the most condescending bastard doctor I have ever dealt with. I told him that I had seen 5 doctors and no one had ever suggested IBS that everyone said I had colitis. He scheduled the colonoscopy anyway. I also told him about difficulty I had taking asacol and that I was unable to take the full dose as it made me very sick. He told me I just needed to to go off of it and eat more fibre. Well, for someone with UC eating more fibre is a recipe for disaster. But I believed him and I followed his instructions.

On November 23, 2007 I had the colonoscopy and he says “oh, you have colitis” I said, sarcastically, “really??” I never would have guessed. So he hands me a prescription for double the amount of asacol I had been taking. I told him I could not take that amount. He said well eat more fibre and play around with the dose. I asked him about immunosuppressants as I had not gotten anywhere with my colitis for 2 years and he laughed and told me I would never get those drugs because they cause cancer. I asked when I would see him again and he said never, my gp could handle it. I was almost in tears. This colonoscopy and doctor were supposed to fix my problem and instead he left me feeling completely dismissed and helpless.

A couple of days later I developed what I thought was a boil under my right eye. So, off I go to the doctor who prescribes keflex. The week goes on, my eye gets worse so that I can barely close it. I go back to her on Friday and she sends me to the hospital to have it lanced and to get IV antibiotics. Well, let me tell you that was no fun. I am not sure what hurt more the needle to numb it or when she cut it open. Anyway, they immediately cultured the stuff that came out and started me on IV antibiotics. At first I only had to go once a day. Then I developed a lesion on my stomach and they changed the antibiotic and I had to go twice a day. Now, I have crappy veins and it takes a long time to get an IV in me. We did this for 10 days. I was not amused. Finally, when they could not get any more veins they let me take them orally and sent me to the home care nurses who realized that we were not dealing with an infection but with pyoderma gangrenosum. It is a wonder no one else figured it out because they kept culturing all my lesions and nothing grew. I kept asking what this meant and all they would say was that it was not helpful. I am so grateful to those nurses!! I went to see a dertmatologist and he put me on prednisone to try and calm it down. I still had to have daily dressing changes for about 2 months and could not shower for the longest time.

My colitis continued to act up all through december and january. By the end of january I was close to hemorrhaging. I had lost a lot of blood and could barely stay awake. Off to the hospital we went where I spent 12 days on huge doses of prednisone and morphine. Apparently so much morphine that I was hallucinating but I don’t really remember much about it. I spent the next couple of months weaning down from 290 mg of morphine twice a day and 80 mg of prednisone. I off the morphine but still have 5 weeks of prednisone to go.

So, just when things are starting to get better. I am out walking 3-4 times a week I get shingles. I had this weird pain in my back which I thought was just a knot and could not wait to see my massage therapist to get it worked out. It had been bothering me for about 6 weeks and was very sore. Then I get this rash. Deb says: “you have shingles“. I say no, couldn’t be. Saturday morning i checked the mayo clinic website and sure enough i have shingles. Off to the walk in clinic where I am told yes, you have shingles and how long have you had the rash and why did you not get this looked at 3 days ago. Sigh. Can’t win. So now I am on anti-virals, atarax for the itching, gabapentin for the nerve pain and amitrityline for the severe pain at night. Oh and morphine to take the edge off because I have it here.

So, not wanting to invite trouble but what could happen next?? At least I know now I don’t have breast cancer because the pain I was feeling in that area was the shingles. My ashtma is not acting up it was just hard to breath because I had a band of shingles around my lungs. So feel free to guess in the comments what could possible plague Chris next!!

The Stench!

Ok, I am now convinced that I live with a woman who has gone over the edge. Deb loves her dogs, we all know that. But the question is: How much does Deb love her dogs? She decided that they needed homemade, dehydrated liver treats. This involved boiling liver and then drying it in the oven all night. I got up this morning and was retching from the smell! I am not sure how Angelina slept all night through the stench. Even our most powerful incense has not been enough to kill the smell.

One might ask why Deb is making these treats. And somehow I get factored into the reasoning. She claims to be doing it so that Piper will stop fence-fighting with the new neighbours dogs. So, there it is now all my fault that the house smells so bad.

Crawling out from under…

Well, it has been a while. As many of you know I have been quite ill with a colitis attack from hell that landed me in the hospital for 12 days. Well, it would appear that was only the beginning. I have spent the last two months weaning myself off the various drugs they started me on in the hospital to try and get this under control. I have been making good progress. I am down from an all time high of 290 mg of slow acting morphine twice a day to 30 mg twice a day and the prednisone is down from 80 mg to 20. It has been very slow going. I am now at the point where I am able to get out and get some exercise and try to rebuild some strength after basically spending 2 months sleeping. The good news is that all colitis symptoms seem to be gone. I am sure this is a result of the imuran (which is an immuno-suppressant). It is thought that colitis is an auto-immune disease whereby the immune system attacks some part of the body (in this case the colon) and toning it down leads to a reduction in symptoms. The large doses of prednisone also do this but I was still having symptoms at 40mg so I am thinking it is the imuran. Let’s hope. I intend to write a whole lot more about this ordeal - most likely in an open letter to the doctor who set this course of action in motion but that is it for now.

Other updates. We have new neighbours who are more worried about us reporting on their barking dogs (and trust me they bark alot) than we are about them. They are also over the limit so we actually feel some security for a change. All the dogs are doing fairly well. Mabel has a cancerous tumour on her leg so we have to keep it covered and give her pain killers. She is now palliative. She has done really well especially given the fact that she was coming here to die a year ago as she was peeing blood and they thought she had bladder cancer. Madison is still struggling with her leg. She has a torn cruciate ligament and you can’t do surgery on a 14 year old dog for a torn cruciate so she is on meds and anti-inflammatory and a pain killer. Kirby is great. The punk (AKA Piper) lost her toilet training for a brief bit of time but that seems to be over now. Molly is great still doing her stretches. Clio still does not know she is a dog but that is ok. Keifer is a big pain in the ass. Mackenzie has been making Deb crazy getting her up in the middle of the night to pee and not coming in. Sienna has singlehandedly convinced 4 home care nurses that pitbulls are the best dogs in the whole world. She is a great breed ambassador. I sure hope I have not forgotten anyone!

This last several months have been rough for us. I have been sick since November. We also found out that Deb has MS. She may also have rheumatoid arthritis. It never fails to amaze me that no matter what confronts us we deal with it and come out stronger the other side. After almost 10 years together we have discovered cuddling. We cuddled before but not like now. It is a daily thing and we go to bed early just so we can cuddle and talk. It seems we fall more deeply in love with each other everyday. I feel very blessed.

‘Forced Sexual Activity’

Language and its use is very powerful. Take for example Cross-Country Checkup on CBC yesterday. They were talking about the Toronto District School Board Report released last week. Rex had Julian Falconer on who headed the commission that produced the report. I must say that I was very impressed with how Mr. Falconer grasped the issues. He was discussing the rate of sexual assault of young women in schools and the abysmal rates of reporting. His conclusion that for a young woman to report brought down the whole weight of the legal system, her parents etc was not working. After consulting with women experts in this matter he came to the conclusion that the issue should be handled like abortion. A young woman can make her decision about terminating her pregnancy without the involvement of parents. This way, he reasoned, young women are more likely to report the crimes committed against them school authorities and then the schools can take action against the perpetrators. To the parents who would complain that they would want to know if their daughters had been raped he basically let them know that under the current system they don’t know and at least if young women are reporting more then perpetrators are being dealt with and the parents may find out at some point. I was very impressed with Mr. Falconer’s clear and concise thinking around these issues. But I digress.

Back to the language issue. I hate it when people use euphemisms. Rex seemed to have a hard time with the word rape so he called it ‘forced sexual activity.’ What a way to diminish what is actually happening. Last time I checked ‘forced sexual activity’ is rape. Why can’t we call it what it is? Even sexual assault puts a softer touch on rape. We need to demand that violence, like rape, be labeled appropriately. If we do not then we risk a minimization of a huge crime committed mostly against women. You can bet that if it were the young men being raped it would not be called ‘forced sexual activity.’

Another one that is really pissing me off these days is the term ‘gender-based violence.’ I am not sure why we are calling violence against women ‘gender-based violence’ now. Again, it is throwing ambiguity at an all to real and serious issue. When that term is used people have to stop and think about what it could mean. Most people only see two genders (that is a whole other post) and so they have to stop and think about this applies to men. Well it doesn’t really. The bottom line is that in ‘gender-based violence,’ for the most part, men commit violence against women. Julian Falconer did not discuss violence perpetrated by females in schools. I am sure there is some. But for the most part it is young men who commit these crimes against their peers.

What are the solutions? I am not really sure. I do know that we have to call it like we see it. We need to expose violence against women and we need to call ‘forced sexual assault’ rape. As a society we need to address male privilege and how we keep passing it on to young men. Men need to take responsibility for their actions and women need to hold them accountable.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday to our SAINTS

Happy New Year everyone. Our SAINTS, Mabel and Mollie are now one year older - 16 and 18 respectively. Both are continuing to do very well. Mabel sleeps a lot but she wakes up whenever someone goes into the laundry room because they could be delivering a treat. She gets lots of treats delivered to her and she loves it. For some reason she prefers to lay in the laundry room. A couple of times a day she will troop out and lay on another bed. I think she likes the laundry room as it is quiet and out from underfoot of all the other dogs. And never doubt that an old dog can learn new tricks. Mabel has figured out that everytime she goes outside and comes back in she gets a treat. So sometimes she asks to go out, goes out on the deck and comes back in and looks up at you with her deep brown eyes and mouth wide open. Mabel tries so hard to be continent. She lets us know when she needs to go out by trotting around the kitchen quickly. We have to be fast because she doesn’t have much staying power but what more can you expect at 16!

Mollie is still a going concern. She is like the energizer bunny spinning around our house. Because of her strokes Mollie tends to go in circles and she kind of does everything to the right. She has enhanced her pilates moves with some yoga now. She regularly does downward dog and a new move I have called the frog as she sticks her back legs flat against the bed and twirls around on her front legs. If she thinks no one is paying attention to her she starts to do speed pilates which is absolutely hilarious. We are hoping to get it on video one of these days. Mollie has also learned that the best treats are given out in the living room at dinner time. This has meant that she has had to conquer her fear of our new laminate. She enjoyed salmon last night.

Welcoming Mabel and Mollie into our home has been a gift. Everyday they add something to our lives. If you have ever thought about giving a senior a home I encourage you to do it. They are different from younger dogs. They give so much in exchange for so little.

PS - it is also Kirby’s birthday today. Happy birthday brown puppy, we love you.

Missing Women Trial

The verdict is in and he has been found guilty of second degree murder in the deaths of Serena Abbotsway, Mona Wilson, Georgina Papin, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wilson and Marnie Frey. It is a great disappointment that he was not found guilty of first degree murder for at least one of the women. The difference between first and second degree murder is one of intent and planning, surely after 3 or 4 murders there must be intent and planning to continue killing.

I also seriously doubt that he acted alone. All of the stories that abound on the Downtown Eastside about “parties” at “piggies palace” indicate that others likely participated in the abuse and ultimately the murder of women who died on that lonely Port Coquitlam pig farm.

We are now five years since his arrest. There has been no improvement for women on the Downtown Eastside. Many still must work in the survival sex trade where they literally take their lives into their hands. Our women deserve better. If only the level of outrage at the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport. Where are the demands for a public inquiry or a coroner’s inquest for at least one of the missing women? What is it going to take for us, as a society, to not see women as throw away members of society. We must do better.

My only hope is that the second trial continues. The families of those women deserve to know the truth. Perhaps if the truth about the murder of a further 20 women is exposed things will change.

Breathtaking views

I love where we live. From our backyard we have an excellent view of the Golden Ears peaks. It constantly amazes me that mountains can look different everyday. This morning was a rare treat. It was clear, cold and crisp. There was a thin line of cloud below the peaks but the peaks themselves were completely unobstructed with fresh snow.

I love the mountains. Growing up in Calgary we lived within an hour of the mountains could frequently see them. We spent a great deal of time in the mountains as kids (hiking and cross-country skiing which I hated and would be a topic for another blog!!!). Deb loves the ocean like I love the mountains. This is really the perfect place for us to live as Deb can get to the ocean and I can see mountains.

So in spite of my 2-3 hour daily commute I would not choose to move from here. Coming home to the peace and quiet of the country and the beautiful view we have is soul satisfying.