Big box buying spree adds urgency to national child care debate

With the Campbell Liberals refusing to stop the spread of big box child care across British Columbia, parents and child care activists are looking for action. Australian multinational child care corporation ABC Learning is seeking to expand into Canada by purchasing child care centres, starting in BritishColumbia, Ontario and Alberta. CUPE President Paul Moist and NDP child care critic Olivia Chow will hold a news conference calling on the federal and provincial governments to stop moving down this dangerous path and support a national not-for-profit child care program.

The Belleville Intelligencer wants us to believe that there is nothing to fear? Oh yes there is.....a looming presence on the horizon in Canada is a corporate day-are centres called 123 Busy Beavers that has a plan to buy existing commercial day care providers and, using its company model and resources, operate them as a chain across Canada. It has sent more than shudders through the ranks of proponents of government-run, non-profit day care as they see the emergence of 123 Busy Beavers as a threat. The operator of a local Belleville non-profit centre told The Intelligencer she is extremely concerned about having a large conglomerate taking over the child care sector in a community. "Having a large chain, you get a

Olivia's Adventures in The Land Of Pay Equity

The NB Coalition for Pay Equity has a popular new fairytale PowerPoint show being emailed around ("If you break the chain, you’ll be upholding injustice!”), Olivia’s Adventures In the Land of Pay Inequity. Olivia came to a far away land called New Brunswick to find work. She meets Suzanne, a childcare educator, and learns that Suzanne earns $8.20/hr. Olivia is stunned, especially when she also learns that a store clerk for NB Liquor earns $16.24. When she is told the only thing for these women to do is to find better paying jobs, she wisely replies, “But who’s going to take care of the children if all the educators quit?” Olivia returned to her country shortly after.

”As published in NB Women’s News”

LINK: View PowerPoint

What happens when you stop trying? Gender Equality drops a few notches......

Since last year, Canada has slipped 4 spots to 18th place in the world in providing gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum annual study ranking 128 countries. Sweden topped the list (though Swedish women still earn 36% less than men doing similar work), then Norway, Finland, Iceland and New Zealand. “While no country has yet achieved gender equality, Sweden, Norway and Finland have all closed over 80% of the gender gap.”

The U.S. was 31st, down 8 places because the pay gap widened and the percentage of legislators, senior officials etc fell. Pakistan, Chad and Yemen were at the bottom. In all but 2 countries (Slovak Republic and Poland) there was a net improvement in scores since 2000 (since the first such annual study). 7 countries closed their gaps by over 10% of the values in 2000: Belgium, Costa Rica, Ireland, Korea, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden.

Perfect equality was a score of 1.0. Canada achieved 0.72, with almost perfect marks in education, health and survival, but 0.74 on economic participation /opportunity (labour force participation, wage equality between women and men for similar work, estimated female earned income over male value, female legislators, senior officials, manager, professional and technical workers) and 0.159 on political empowerment (women are 21% of MPs). Canadian women earn 28% less than men doing similar work.

”As published in NB Women’s News”.

LINK: The Global Gender Gap Report 2007.

Canada's dismal record in early education child care

Here's a start to determining how Canada stacks up against other developed countries in the world when it comes to early education child care. In a study of 14 countries by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), we rank dead last.

Canada spends 0.25 per cent of its gross domestic product on early education child care, which means for children under age 6. Denmark tops the list, spending two per cent of its GDP on early education child care.

The list looks like this:

1. Denmark
2. Sweden
3. Norway
4. Finland
5. France
6. Hungary
7. Austria
8. The U.K.
9. The U.S.
10. The Netherlands
11. Germany
12. Italy
13. Australia
14. Canada

LINK: Full Story CBC News

If only I was making this crap up? ....Monopoly for Girls

This is Monopoly like you have never seen it - dressed up in pink and all about things girls love! Buy boutiques and malls, go on a shopping spree, pay your cell phone bill, and get text and instant messages. You and your friends will adore the funky tokens, cool buildings, and cute illustrations. Best of all, the game is stored in a beautiful keepsake box which doubles as a jewelry box.

Fast Eddy acquires 15 child care centres in BC

"Woman at Mile 0" writes "I was deeply saddened to learn that the for-profit, Australian-based ABC and 123 Early Learning conglomerate (renamed 123 Busy Beavers for expansion purposes in Canada) and headed by fast Eddy Groves, has acquired at least 15 child child care centres in Canada with the majority located in BC.

Find out more about multinational child care corporations

News Round-up

Forty per cent of recent Canadian homicides involve violence by family members or lovers. But the federal government seems more interested in addressing gang violence, reports Kate Jaimet.

Bev Oda at the Montreal Millennium Summit says: "Canada takes its responsibilities to children very seriously." Well then, perhaps you could explain why a 2005 UNICEF study on child poverty in rich countries ranked Canada only 19th out of 26. ?




Governor General Michaëlle Jean has a blog, and she particularly tags some of her posts as pertaining to women. Check it out at:http://www.citizenvoices.gg.ca/en/themes/women .



The New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity says the Liberal government should introduce legislation to ensure women are paid the same as men for work of equal value.

Sweden is pretty progressive, they even have a Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK). So how is it then that Sweden's new female equality ombudsman will be paid less than male predecessor? Anne-Marie Bergström's annual wage falls some 17 percent short of the pay package awarded to Claes Borgström for the same job. Huh?

Graphic Link: 2007 Purple Ribbon Campaign

Verner announces 60 projects will receive $8 million

Minister Verner announced on October 11 that 60 projects will Minister Verner announced on October 11 that 60 projects will receive funding totalling $8 million through the Women's Program of Status of Women Canada. The projects will have an impact on 260,000 women and girls across Canada.

LINK: NewsWire

An average $200-a-year individual tax cut won’t even buy a coffee a day. But collectively....?

What is becoming increasingly clear is that Canada’s slightly used Conservative government has no interest in 'using tax cut money collectively to do good'. They are much too busy managing the public relations of a war, shutting out the media and playing politics.

And while they play politics — fencing with each other over who is the sharpest politician in the lot — another child’s sense of wonder is dimmed by poverty because government chose tax cuts over action.

And that is the whole problem. We have a federal government that doesn’t believe in government, and so most days are spent dismantling and diminishing government as a force of change.

FULL STORY: Lana Payne

more on fairytales....

Once upon a Friday, fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes said feminist writers are crafting new tales to replace traditional children's bedtime stories.

Jack Zipes presented his talk, "And Nobody Lived Happily Ever After: The Feminist Fairy Tale and Its Consequences" in the Winship Drama Building.

The feminist movement made its way into fairy tale writing between 1979 and 1983, Zipes said. He said that during this period, male and female writers began an important dialogue about what constituted a fairy tale. As a reaction to sexist, racist and classist leanings of canonical tales, feminist writers began to subvert the older stories and create new ones, Zipes said.

LINK:Feminist writers remake the fairy tale.

LINK: F-email Fightback

Fairy tale scholar Vladimir Propp identified over 30 different constants in the fairy tale structure. Jack Zipes summarizes these constants in his book, "Creative Storytelling: Building Community, Changing Lives"

Study: Sexist Humor Is No Joke.....

Jokes about female drivers and dumb blondes may be told in good fun, but they can promote discrimination against women, researchers say.

Hmmmmm....Could It be the Conservatives tell too many sexist jokes??

Researchers found: "..... that, upon exposure to sexist humor, men higher in sexism discriminated against women by allocating larger funding cuts to a women’s organization than they did to other organizations," Ford said.

"We also found that, in the presence of sexist humor, participants believed the other participants would approve of the funding cuts to women’s organizations," he said. "We believe this shows that humorous disparagement creates the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination that may guide behavior when people believe others feel the same way."

LINK: LiveScience
LINK: Women Enjoy Humor More, Study Suggests
LINK: Study: Humor Makes Us Hopeful

Feminist reactions to sexist email jokes:

• First, the feminist reader may simply critically reject these jokes – for example, by deleting them and/or asking the person who forwarded them not to do so again.
• Secondly, she may engage in ‘resistant reading’: she may recognize and negatively evaluate the sexist discourse, thus resist and contest the jokes’ presuppositions, but continue to read, analytically. She may position herself as an ‘overhearer’ of a text addressed to men, in order to resist interpellation through identifying with a subject position of ‘men’, or of ‘women’.
• Thirdly, she may critically enjoy the text. For example, as suggested above, she may co-construct the text’s ironic potential, ‘double discourse’ the text, and take critical intellectual pleasure in that. “Jokes at the expense of others can also intersect in complex ways with those at one’s own expense” holds very true. But if this is the case, then we can also see the jokes as being (at least in part) not about women at all, but rather about the writers and (male) consumers of the jokes – suggesting a fourth reading.
• This fourth reading is to ‘reclaim’ the jokes, from a feminist perspective. Cognitively more complex, but perhaps ultimately more satisfying, is to ‘refocalise’ (ironicise?) the jokes for ourselves and take the woman’s perspective, moving the ‘object’ of the joke (women) to subject position and make the original focalisers, men, the object.

This allows us to see humour in the fact that these tired old stereotypes are still in circulation and that some people still enjoy them: “Nice spoofs – but how silly these jokes and their producers and the consumers who unthinkingly find their presuppositions funny are!”

Sexism and the games we play

This post is inspired by a Salon article on regressive advertising for toys:"...like the fact that while the girl is shown meticulously rearranging her living room furniture (as a reader pointed out, it's great training for the day when she can shop for her own décor in Pottery Barn), the boy is deliberately messing up the living room as his mother smiles in the background with a look that all but says, "Boys will be boys!" "

Board Games
Note where the women are while them men play battleship? (via pandagon and don’t forget to hat-tip The Sneeze for originally coming up with that fabulous Battleship image)

Then there's the Ouija Board ad from 1968

Park and Shop - released in 1960 by Milton Bradley. It was billed as “The Nation’s Traffic Game Sensation,” the object of which was to “drive your car from your home to the nearest Park & Shop parking lot, park your car, then move your pedestrian marker to all the stops on your shopping list.” There really wasn’t that much more to it, which is perhaps why it was never re-released.

Also check out: Revisiting sexist '60s board games.

Computer Games

Sexism in videogames may not be the most crucial issue on the top of the feminist agenda, but it’s not entirely unimportant, either. And to be told that there are areas of our culture that should be magically exempted from feminist critiques is a request that smacks of desperation according to The Feminist Gamers blog.

TV Games

Just look at NBC's newest hit, "Deal or No Deal," which will air its 100th show during sweeps. There are 25 women on the show, but they're more like wallpaper.

Scary is the way women are portrayed in reality TV: in the big-budget and intensely popular shows such as "Trading Spouses," "The Bachelor," "America's Next Top Model" and "Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll."