All posts by Ellen Rodger

Who Gets Mentored?

Recently, a good friend told me of a mentoring experience her daughter had at work. She’s a young lawyer in her first year at a big-city firm. When she returned from her post-articling break, she and some female colleagues were sat down for an informal meeting with some senior female lawyers. The first item on the agenda was a question: “so, what’s your debt?” As I was told this, I thought “now that’s direct.” But also important and thoughtful. The mentors were attempting to make a bridge and value the real-life situation of their newer colleagues who had come through eight years of schooling—many of them with debts ranging from the price of a new car to the price of a new condo.  They listened to them narrate their tales of navigation—some had families to support, others had families that supported them—and then offered suggestions, advice, and resources based on their own experience and knowledge of handling the first years out of law school.

Uncritical and Critical Mentoring

I was impressed by this story of women who, with knowledge of how it was for them—what supports were there, and what was missing—had stepped up to help their sisters with their experience. I was also a little covetous of the guidance. I have no idea if this is a common thing amongst women lawyers, but if it is I’d say it’s a good model. I wished that I had that sort of aid and nourishment when I started my career—or even throughout it. I don’t think I even understood what mentoring was when I was new to the regular work world. I had supportive co-workers, and even occasionally some who went the extra mile or gave (mostly unsolicited) advice. In one job, one of my older colleagues was selected to pull me aside and advise me on how best to deal with the boss’s drinking problem. I don’t think you could call it a mentorship, but it was helpful. When I mentioned advice here, I said “mostly unsolicited” because for most of my life, I didn’t even know I could ask for career or work life guidance. And I still feel that way, despite my age (don’t ask), and having navigated through different aspects of my career. I mean, I think for most of my life I saw mentoring as an exercise of the privileged over their younger (or less privileged) selves. To be honest, I still think that is what uncritical mentoring is: a one-way street where people who possess knowledge and the means set themselves up as pseudo TED talkers with clever words and deeds that gratify themselves, instead of the listeners.

Learning From the Mentored

Over the past decade, I’ve taken to following the teachings and suggestions of the younger women in my life (and yeah, most are millennials). I don’t know if they could be called mentors outright, but they use the tools of critical mentoring. They are inventive, smart, and enthusiastic. They listen and provide a platform when possible. And they don’t assume that a query or a question means I am a complete dullard who needs to be schooled. They encourage intergenerational dialogue but don’t idol worship what an older person says just because they are older. Maybe it’s because many millennials see how tenuous work is, and how we all need to share resources, Or, perhaps it is because they understand power but are not interested in wielding it like a weapon. I get such constructive dialogue from younger people who have an interest in mutual benefit—even if that benefit isn’t readily quantifiable.

The $14 Minimum Wage, Dystopian fiction, and Amazon HQ2

I’ve had a thing for dystopian fiction ever since I read 1984, back when that date was, well… in the future. Dystopian books have always had a market and they’ve been especially popular in young adult (YA) publishing for some years now. Then there are the television and movie adaptations (everything from The Handmaid’s Tale to The Children of Men, Hunger Games, and The Maze Runner) that visualize dreary survival in a repressive time to come. It’s frightening and compelling to see imagined futures mapping out the world that might be if the present just shifted slightly to the more authoritarian side. Of course, dystopian novels have special resonance in eras of political or social anxiety, like say, today.

“Please Sir, I Want Some More…”

Lately, I’ve been indulging in a bit of my own dystopian imaginings. What would happen if, say, we allowed democracy to be eroded so much that we surrendered our (liberal) human rights and citizenship for the faint hope of economic security (or, you know, a crust of bread)? I have been thinking a lot about this since the Ontario government raised the minimum wage to $14 an hour, and since the Amazon HQ2 shortlist was announced (stay with me…I’ll try to come full circle on these two).

Way to Go on the Solidarity Front…

I was not surprised to hear yelps and complaints about the minimum raise hike from small businesses that are precarious or operate on tight margins. Clearly, wages are where these businesses squeeze their profits from and the few extra dollars per hour will reduce or, in some cases, eliminate them. Or so they say. We’ll have to see. I expect this type of response from business owners. Profit is within their interests. I am however, continually knocked back when I hear people who make a few dollars more than the legal minimum grumbling about others being raised up. Their chief complaint goes something like this: “but I make $17 an hour and it took me years to get here. Now somebody who just starts is going to make $15.” It kind of shows how low the bar is set and how the majority of us really don’t have a say in our worth when selling our labour. Worker can’t bargain (at least not individually) for more if an employer sees them as not worthy. You’d think that fact alone would make some people more receptive to government guidelines such as the lowest possible amount of money you can pay a person to work. You’d also think it would make us all more generous of spirit when it comes to our fellow human beings almost earning a living wage. Of course, there are ways around paying the lowest possible amount. Ask your pizza delivery person about that.  That—the work for hire and gig economy—is also part of my dystopian imaginings. It is, in reality, happening right now, and I reckon it will expand in the future. This is why we need to tackle precarious work on our fairness and equality agenda as well. And this leads me to the other part of my dystopian imagining, which is that the world where we trade our rights for a crust of bread is already here.

Fighting Over a Crust of Bread

Just the other day, OXFAM released a report on inequality that stated 82 percent of the wealth created in the world last year went into the pockets of the richest one percent. The report, released for the suits who gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, called on governments to “ensure our economies work for everyone” by “ensuring all workers receive a minimum ‘living’ wage that would enable them to have a decent quality of life.” The report also asked governments to make sure wealthy pay their “fair share of tax through higher taxes and a crackdown on tax avoidance” while increasing spending on public services such as healthcare and education. You can see Oxfam’s report here:

Paying Tribute to Our Corporate Masters

The thing that frightens me is that while $17 an hour workers are sourly squabbling about their fellow underlings getting a raise, the richest man in the world is unashamedly asking our governments to give his company land and tax breaks and outright graft in order for him to set up shop in their communities and make more money. That’s right, cities across North America brought tributes to the feet of multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos’ empire, begging his corporation to bring jobs their way and shortlist them for a new royal city, erm, corporate headquarters. Amazon had prepared a ransom demand of “what we want from you in return for jobs” and governments all over North American bent over in servile compliance. Atlanta’s incentive bid included over $1 billion in free land, developments, tax breaks and bobbles. Boston waved $100 million in transit infrastructure and tracts of land. Chicago has apparently offered $2 billion in tax breaks. Also a contender, Toronto didn’t offer up any tax or  public treasure box subsidies, but is is already forking out to help build a “smart city” in a deal with Google’s parent company. Yes, of course having Amazon H2Q will bring a (hopefully enduring) economic boost and 50,000 jobs. But bribes and gifts for a monopolistic corporation whose founder has a net worth of $113.5 billion is truly science fiction worthy. While we whinge over whether people who work full time should (should?!) make a living wage, we have lost the plot and lost control. By all accounts, billionaire Bezos is a kind and giving philanthropist, meaning that when he chooses to spend his own money, he plunks it generously into charities and causes he believes in. Causes that he deems worthy. That’s lovely. That’s what emperors do. What’s nicer though, is that he and other uber wealthy citizens like him pay their fair share like the rest of us into the communal pot, so that Oxfam doesn’t have to run a campaign to remind world leaders that inequality is harmful and that living wages (like the $15 one Ontario will soon have) and taxes (not just taken from the $15 or $50-an-hour earners) are necessary for running a healthy, functioning democracy. A healthy, functioning democracy with things like infrastructure, health care, and education. You know…those state-provided things that make running a high-tech corporation possible.


Question of the Month

Question: Who is the most influential feminist?


Now there’s a question that isn’t posed everyday. Where to begin? It’s like being asked who is the most influential politician, scientist, musician, painter, or author. If I said (and this is just off the top of my head) Winston Churchill, Einstein, J.S. Bach, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Shakespeare, my picks wouldn’t raise a brown. Even if they were highly subjective and indicative of geography and culture, as well as race, age, sexuality, ability, and class. I mean, they are all male, all white, and all European for starters. Why not Angela Merkel, Rosalind Franklin, Asha Bhosle, Frida Kahlo, and Toni Morrison?

So, who do I think is the “most influential” feminist? I can’t give just one answer or perhaps an answer to that question at all. I can say that any list I came up with would reflect my particular feminist politics and my knowledge as well as my ignorance. I can also say the thousands of women who pushed boundaries, risked their lives, and braved (and still brave, as the struggle continues) ridicule and persecution while pressing for political and social equality, are the “influential feminists”. I know many who have influenced me, but perhaps just as important are the many who are largely unsung, who by their words and actions—the way they have lived and are living their lives—have changed the culture and made my life with its rights and freedoms possible. Some of them are women I know or have known and who have helped raise me up and shape me: my familial forebears and contemporaries, and my friends, co-workers and bosses. All that said, I’m partial to the writing of bell hooks, and authors Marguerite Duras, Margaret Atwood, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, among others.

I owe a debt to many protofeminists who had the courage to live their lives the way they wanted to, as well as the leaders and worker bees of various feminist movements. I’m impressed by the the new feminist thought leaders such as Pussy Riot, the women who organized Idle No More, and all the women who took part in the Women’s March on Jan 21. Who do I think is the most influential feminist? How about all of them?


As a Women’s and Gender Studies student, I have come to realize that feminism is a very broad movement and to define an influential feminist as being more influential than others is by no means an easy task. As we are in the third, going into the fourth wave – i.e. the various stages of feminism – we are starting to look at intersectionality, where an individual’s various identities affect their experiences.

When we think of an influential feminist, we look at woman like Betty Friedan, bell hooks (her name is purposely not capitalized), or Kim Anderson. However, each one focuses on something different in their activism and literature because their lived experiences are all different. The experiences of a white, black, or indigenous women can’t be generalized as being the same regardless of the fact that they’re all woman because race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, etc. all play a role in their individual lives and how they look and experience the world.

However, to understand where feminists first appeared, who in my opinion have always existed, just feminism itself became a more mainstream movement, would be when women wanted the right to vote. In Canada, white women were allowed to vote in 1918, but this was only those whose husbands served in the war and it wasn’t until 1960 that Indigenous women were allowed to vote. THAT’S 42 YEARS LATER! Now it’s been 57 years since all women in Canada have been allowed to vote. That isn’t a long time when you look at the grand scheme of things.

The start to this RIGHT as we know it now as a Canadian citizen, started with only upper-middle class white women, who had a lot of time on their hands. They were known as the suffragettes and they were the “First Wavers” but to say they were the most influential feminists would be wrong. To identify a singular individual as being more influential in the movement in my opinion is a bad way to look at feminism because it assumes that one person is the face of all that is feminism but they are not.

To look at feminism is not to look at one individual or one particular group, because there isn’t one type of woman or one type of feminism. The suffragettes or the women in the Women’s Liberation Group, were all influential because without them fighting tooth and nail, women would not have the rights that they do today. I, in all honesty, can’t really give you an influential feminist because feminism itself is a growing process and no one person helped to make the movement what it is.

Make A Self Care Resolution


I just want to say it won’t always feel this way.





Year End Motivation: Move Forward, Not Backward

“Don’t agonize, organize”

Florynce “Flo” Kennedy was known, among other things, for her biting wit, intelligence, and ability to incite and organize protest in the 1960s and 1970s civil rights and feminist movements. Among her famous quotes is the above, and this:

“I’m just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I’m crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I’m not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren’t like me.”

The story is that this is what she said after she organized a mass public pissing (erm, urination) at Harvard university in 1973, to protest the lack of female bathrooms.
died in 2000, but her words live on, and so should her methods. I kind of like her idea of “making noise” and “rattling your cage door”. This past year has battered a lot of people emotionally. In the grander scheme, it has been another year of war and political turbulence, where we’ve seen the relentless pummelling of parts of Syria and the most disheartening return to fear and loathing in politics with the U.S. presidential election. In Niagara, it has been another year of economic stagnation that presents challenges for individuals living on the edge and the organizations (such as the YWCA) that work on their behalf.

What Progress?

Many moons ago, when I was in university, I recall a political philosophy professor telling my class he wasn’t so sure about human “progress”. He was sure about scientific progress, and ever so grateful for advances in medical technology, but progress in human nature? That is what he wanted us to read on about, ponder, and determine for ourselves. It is, for me, a nagging doubt that surfaces in times of strife or crisis. Are we better humans than our ancestors? Despite our supposed sophistication, have we learned anything?

The hind-end of 2016 left a lot of people anxious about the future and fearing a resurgence of racist and sexist ideals from the past. In North America, Trump’s ascendency seemed to embolden a lot of haters. In the U.K. and Europe, far-right ideas seemed to drown-out good-will and love. A lot of people were and are demoralized. Have we really forgotten our history and the brutal, blood-soaked lessons of the past? Are we moving into a new age of dystopian futility where people believe hate is right and good? Is this our era of De-Enlightenment?

I hope not. I don’t want to go there. And I’ve got work to do (with others) to help ensure we don’t. Flo Kennedy advocated grand acts of rebellion, but just as importantly, small acts of resistance, to bring about change. She clearly had faith in human progress and believed in moving forward. As she said:

“the biggest sin is sitting on your ass.”

Youth are Leading


Following Breadcrumbs of the Young


A New, New Wave



Dullard History



Using Power to Change



When Motivational Memes Serve to Shame

In between the click bait of things “you won’t believe,” recipes for the “best brownies ever,” articles speculating on how Donald Trump isn’t even human (hmm, perhaps not just conjecture), and the usual shots of friend’s children and vacations, my Facebook feed (and Instagram) seems to offer a lot of advice on how I should live my life. I mean, a lot.

On any given day, I can scroll through 20 different memes of motivation that, quite frankly, don’t do much beyond exercise my eyeballs. I mean, I wish they would do more. I wish it was that easy. I also wish it was easy to ignore most of them. I know some people say they can, but I call bullshit. Unless you ignore social media altogether (and yes, there are people who can and do), you will be inundated with motivational memes. And some will catch your eye. But so what, right? They’re harmless, right? Well, yes and no. I think we know words can hurt, no matter the intention.

Take this one I recently spied on Instagram:

“If you want to be happy, you have to be happy on purpose. When you wake up, you can’t just wait to see what kind of day you’ll have. You have to be the one to decide what kind of day you’ll have.”

or this:


Or this:

“Just do it. No more excuses. Just do.”

Fair enough. I’d like to have a great day, thank you. In fact, I’m a naturally happy person, I’ll just come out and assume I will have a great day. And if I’m sent challenges to my happiness, I’ll just put on my impenetrable cloak of joy, and I will repel the sad-making stuff. There. Done.

Not So Fair Enough

Get hit by a car on the way to work? Choose positivity! Loved one diagnosed with brain cancer? Think on the bright side! Lose your job? Your home? Your hope? Just go out and change your life! If this take sounds harsh to you, it’s because it is meant to be critical. I am skeptical about most inspirational memes. I want to question their premise. I want some critical thinking used on their validity. And the reason I want to do this is because I feel that often they are empty words. I know words can work as a placebo, and that is something, but I think many memes are a misdirection. And misdirection is a technique used by snake oil salesmen, sneaky politicians (not all mind you, not all), skilled statesmen, and dodgy preachers. Worse than that though, inspiration memes can be sticks and stones that do harm.

Sometimes Choices Aren’t Choices

I say this because sometimes choices aren’t choices. Sometimes they are illnesses that have nothing to do with free will. And sometimes those illnesses lead to other illnesses: addictions. Fighting occasional blue funks with memes that amount to inspirational porn is one thing. Believing that a person with a mental health issue, a clinical disorder, can be prodded into health with positive messages is another. It’s like saying good thoughts cure cancer or lung disease. (And if you believe they can, then I’ve got some swampland in Florida just waiting for you.) Good thoughts are important, but they aren’t the cure or an enduring or effective treatment, even when they are meant to encourage good practices. This is particularly true for addictions. One thing we know about addiction is that it anesthetizes pain. For people in pain—those suffering from undiagnosed and diagnosed mental health issues, addiction is a double burden. A judgey meme isn’t going to galvanize change. The “just do it” mentality serves mostly to remind people that they aren’t worthy. This opens wounds and personalizes blame. It makes things seem simple when they aren’t. It prefers to assign blame to irrational things; to ascribe great power to people who are in many ways powerless to their illnesses. All you need to do is get your act together, one minute or second at a time and all will end well… Simple words for a Sisyphean task.

Motivational Porn

Much like inspiration porn, where people with disabilities are called inspirational just because they live with a disability, this mental health and addiction motivational porn serves to make people who don’t have a mental health or addiction issue feel like they don’t have a responsibility, or part to play in turning things around (beyond posting encouragements). It largely forgets that mental illness is in some measure, structural and the treatment of it requires more than a few encouraging words. It requires money. Money for treatment and continuing care. Money for housing. Money for teams of professionals doing research into the medical, psychological, and social conditions that create and perpetuate mental illness and addictions. People don’t fail to “conquer” their mental health and addiction issues because they aren’t courageous, or clever, or fighting hard. Getting healthy does require great, and often repeated effort. But it isn’t just a personal thing. It has more to do with decent support systems and societal advantages than shaming people with “change your thoughts, change your life” memes.

Gender Wage Gap

The Gender Wage Gap: Whatever the Rationalization, It’s Still Discrimination.


A few months ago I was flipping through an old family photo album when I came across a newspaper clipping marking my nana’s retirement in 1975. She had been a nurse for over 50 years, retiring finally at age 75. Yep, 75. She worked at her local hospital until she was 65, then feeling idle, took a job at a nursing home for another 10 years. Questions of stamina (or perhaps financial ability to retire) aside, what most interested me about the article was Nana’s response to the reporter’s query on whether she felt “today’s nurses” deserved a pay raise. “Yes, they work very hard and I think they deserve a raise,” she responded. The candid answer made me smile, particularly as it seemed a cheeky question (would the reporter ask a retiring male accountant the same thing?) Also, I had clearly mistaken my Nana’s quiet manner for acquiescence. Here was a woman who had entered her profession roughly five years after the end of the First World War. Her own mother had not worked outside the home, and took in boarders for ready household cash. Nana was part of a newly emerging middle class cohort of “women’s professions”. Her two sisters trained as school teachers. These were among the few options open to women. And her two brothers? Well, after military service in WWI, they picked up living wage jobs with the railroad—without the need for additional education or training.

My Nana spent her early, unmarried years in her chosen field honing her skills in housekeeping, furnace-stoking, laundry, and instrument sterilization, in addition to hands-on nursing care. In a time of rapid change and undefined work parameters, her job required an ever-expanding skill set. And when compared to some other jobs available to women, nursing paid a steady wage. But you can bet that the hospital janitor, if there was one, took more coin home in his pay packet. Nurses pay in 1921 ranged roughly from $75 to $90 a month. That’s $2.50 to $3 a week (I pulled that from 1920-21 copies of The Canadian Nurse, in case you are wondering).

Finding this bit of family history in a binder of snapshots made the issue of the gender wage gap more three dimensional—and multi-generational. Canadian women comprise roughly half of the workforce today. Women are often better educated than men, with according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development stats, 55 per cent of Canadian women aged 25-64 having a degree, compared to 46 per cent of men the same age. Yet women in this country still earn 20 percent less than men (OECD figures). For women of colour, indigenous women, and disabled women, the gap is even larger. Also, the gap can vary according to province, with say, women in Alberta, where my Nana lived and worked, earning even less. It’s infuriating. And the rationalizations of why this is still our lot, even more so, especially since these rationalizations seem to change to suit the discrepancy. Take the argument that women earn less because they chose to study and work in lower-paying fields. Apart from the obvious fact that traditional “men’s work” has occupied a privileged wage space (why should daycare workers, payroll clerks, or social workers earn less than concrete finishers, truck drivers, or tool and die makers?) Studies have shown that wages consistently go up when men enter in numbers a traditionally female dominated profession (the reverse is true as well). Yes, more women work in lower-paid occupations, and more women work part-time (both voluntarily and through no other choice). But stats also show that 10- 15 per cent of the wage gap can only be explained as wage discrimination.

I thought that if I worked harder, became more educated, and proved myself a good and willing wage slave, my salary would rise.

Let me shine a light on that—to some employers, ethics and the law don’t matter (and let’s face it, the law is a fairly recent thing when it comes to pay equity). I know a little something of this type of discrimination. As a young woman in my 20s, I clearly wasn’t much of a critical thinker. If I was, I would have been more frustrated when I was struggling to pay for winter boots while my male colleagues in the same job and with the same education and work experience, were supporting partners or families, or, if single, taking vacations and living in somewhat nicer accommodations. Granted, none of us were rolling in the dough, but I was clearly making less than they were. I somehow assumed that my low pay was a personal failing. I thought that if I worked harder, became more educated, and proved myself a good and willing wage slave, my salary would rise. Once, years after leaving one position, I ran into a former colleague at a party. We joked about the onerous working conditions at our old place of employment. “Oh my God, and the pay was so bad,” he laughed. “I couldn’t afford my own apartment and had to live with my parents.” It may have been the alcohol that made him so free with his words. Perhaps he honestly thought we were “comrades” and therefore on equal terms with equal pay. He blurted out his wage. Turns out he made $5,000 more than me. We did the same job and had the same education. I had two years more experience and had moved to this city, with its high rent-to-income ratio, in order to take that job because it offered benefits. I wonder what went on in the heads of my former employers. What made them decide to pay the men I worked with more money than they paid me? It could not have gone unnoticed when doing the bi-weekly payroll or handing out the yearly T-4s. Yet at appraisal time, no one said “gosh Ellen, you are doing such a great job and it has come to our attention that we made an accounting mistake and paid you the wrong salary. Let us bring you retroactively up to the ‘male scale’.”  It was such a measly wage to begin with, and yet they managed to chisel it down even further. To what end? To earn more profit off the back of the lowest paid? It appears the answer is yes. That wasn’t the last job where I earned less than my male colleagues for equal, or even greater work. Indeed, as time went on I gained more education and specialized training, and even more experience. But you want to know something about earning less for being just as good or better? It is demoralizing. Because no matter what you do, you can’t measure up in the eyes of the paymaster. And over time, you internalize that and begin to believe, at least on some level, that you aren’t worth it. That’s what discrimination does. It crushes the spirit and makes it that much harder to keep on keeping on—to keep on telling yourself that you are equal and you are worthy of being treated that way.

I’ve heard the gender wage gap described as a complex economic formula used to describe the discrepancy in wages between full time, year round working women and full time, year round working men, and not specifically the wages of women and men doing the exact same work in the exact same job (my personal anecdotal findings above.) It necessarily takes in women and men who work in different industries and occupations and is “influenced” by occupational segregation (or jobs held mostly by women or mostly by men) as well as wage differences between men and women doing the same types of jobs. So, there are many factors that add up to a wage gap, but even the federal government’s own Pay Equity Commission website reaffirms that 10 to 15 percent of the 20 percent gender wage gap is due to discrimination.

The gender wage gap has an odious impact on women and those they help support.

I want to be clear here, whether overt, or subtle and unconscious, discrimination hurts and it is unequivocally wrong. We can’t as a society continue to say we care about equality or poverty when we make weak rationalizations about strength, suitability, or “personal choice” for paying one half of the population less than the other half. We can’t smugly point to other countries and cultures and say “look at how they treat women” as an indictment of their lack of modernity when we say “nah ah, this higher wage, this carrot that makes life less precarious, this goes to the man because we value his work more” here at home. The gender wage gap has an odious impact on women and those they help support. According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, “women’s lower earning power means they are at a high risk of falling into poverty if they have children and then become separated, divorced, or widowed.” Simple as that. The wage gap means more economic dependence on a higher wage earner (i.e. a man). And based on the gender wage gap in Ontario today, women on average will have to work an additional 14 years to earn the same pay a man earns by retirement age of 65. My Nana was lucky that she had nursing to fall back on when her husband died and she was left with three children to raise. She was lucky that it was a stable career that offered a living (if less than a man’s) wage. But still, she did work hard, very hard, until she was 75.



The Struggle Continues – Waistline, Charity Line

I’m not a country music aficionado, but I like that old Merle Haggard Christmas song “If We Make It Through December.” It’s a nice metaphor for the season, with the desperate hope of someone just holding on for a better tomorrow. “If we make it through December, everything’s gonna be alright. I know it’s the coldest time of winter, and I shiver when I see the falling snow.” Lovely song. No matter that December is just the beginning of winter (and also not the coldest time of winter) and that the need will be just as great throughout the rest of the year.

Continue reading

It’s hate people, pure and simple

Don’t let Fear replace Reason

I watched the 1951 sci-fi movie classic The Day the Earth Stood Still recently. I’ve seen it at least twice before, but this time it resonated deeply. In the movie, a flying saucer lands in Washington, D.C., and alien visitor Klaatu announces he has an important message he must deliver simultaneously to all the world’s leaders. This being post WWII, cold war Earth, Klaatu is told his request can’t possibly be met. He is held under armed guard, but escapes, and is hunted down, while being helped by a human boy and his mother. Long story short, Klaatu’s message was that having become aware of Earthlings’ atomic capabilities, the folks from other more advanced planets had decided they had better warn Earth to settle down—or else. The idea being that Earth could choose peace or be destroyed. Pretty heavy handed but hey, I’m starting to think we Earthlings do need a little slap down. Klaatu’s explanation was that humans had “replaced reason with fear”. That line has become my mantra of late. It helps me get my head around the garbage I’ve been reading and seeing on social media.


Last week I encountered three in one day—three Facebook meme messages of hate couched as “opinions” and calls to “preserve our way of life”. Now, I don’t have a problem with people having opinions or speaking out on things they feel strongly about. My problem is with what constitutes both an opinion and “our way of life”. Is a meme designed and written by some nameless person and shared by another, considered an “opinion”? Or is it just a blank statement? I like to consider opinions something that I can engage with and something that the opinion giver has spent time mulling over before expressing—and not just a study in semiotics.  Is it that we are so used to clever images with trite reductionist statements that we have lost our ability to say things in our own words? Or is it that we are just too lazy to say them? Here’s a description of one of the memes that showed up on my Facebook feed: it was an image of three Muslim women in hijab (not burqas) at a protest (faces contorted while yelling) with the caption: “France and the Netherlands BAN the burqa on security grounds, SHARE if you think Canada should do the same!”

Now, what was I supposed to take from that? That the poster is an Islamaphobe who believes in their right to an opinion, but doesn’t believe in freedom of religion or freedom of expression for others, and has an unreasonable fear of burquas to boot? Because that’s what I got from it. Why didn’t the poster, who I had only known to be a caring and thoughtful person, write: “I think Muslim women shouldn’t be allowed to wear what they want to wear because they might be terrorists”? It seems the poster isn’t afraid to hold those opinions, since they publicly share them on the internet. So why don’t they write them on a banner in front of their house as well? Do they fear outing themselves to their neighbours and having to engage or explain themselves?

Usually, when I see such memes and posts, I query them. I feel it is important that these messages of fear be countered by something else—preferably reason. The other day, I came upon a meme that said something about “our rights being taken away.” I asked “who is taking
your rights away?” Of course, I received no response. I’m not as ease with poking the bear. I’m not naturally confrontational but after one or two of these things I think, do I quietly de-friend (as many people I know do), block certain posters messages, or do I say what I want to say, which is, seriously people, put your thinking cap on! Read something. Or more importantly, critically read critically written material. An “opinion” that is racist is a racist opinion. It is not right or good. An opinion that is Islamaphobic is dangerous and harmful to society.

One meme that was “shared” carried a mixed message of fear and indignation:

“Why is our government so willing to help illegal minors

When so many of our own children are homeless and need help?”

Again, seriously, as if we can’t do both? If we know anything about homelessness, it’s that it can be ameliorated through public policy. If there is a will there is a way (and to swerve off topic a bit here, that is a plea for everyone to vote their interests. If you believe we should eradicate homelessness, vote for a party that says it will work towards that goal.)

So what about this “preserving our way of life” thing? That’s a statement that frustrates me. Basically, it says we have only one way of life and that’s the dominant one. But we are a nation of many cultures. Even those whose ancestors arrived here hundreds of years ago were, in many, many cases, escaping some form of tyranny. The irony is, we set up shop and inflicted a new brand of tyranny on the original inhabitants of this land. Is this our hazing ritual? Everyone gets hazed at sometime, but some more than others? If we truly are a multicultural nation, and I haven’t met anyone yet who wasn’t in some way proud or cognizant of their ancestry, do we not have to back that up? But I’ll get point, how is Zunera Ishaq, the Muslim woman who desired to say her public citizenship oath in the niqab she customarily wears, a threat to “our way of life”? I’ve named her here, since most who point to her beliefs as an oppression imposed upon her, seem do not seem to give her that courtesy or respect as a fully actualized adult. She has to identify herself in private prior to the ceremony. If anything, Zunera is embracing the ideology represented by the Charter of Rights by asserting her individual right (and the rule of law). This means she is embracing a fundamental belief that we all accept. We lose nothing by being inclusive.

I cannot adequately convey how these memes and messages on social media and in the media sadden and anger me. They tear us apart but implanting seeds of contempt.

I have often wondered how ordinary people in 1920s Germany could have been induced to support and vote for the Nazi Party. I mean, how do you get an entire nation to support a hateful, racist ideology? Clearly, it didn’t happen overnight. In 1928, the year before the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression, the Nazi party had 12 seats in Germany’s Reichstag. By 1932, the party had 230 seats, and shortly after, Nazi leader Adolph Hitler became chancellor. The rest is a brutal and bloody history of repressing and eliminating opponents, creating racial villains who must be exterminated, and waging war. It took time, a skilled propaganda machine, an economy decimated by the Great Depression, and ineffective opposition, but the Nazis managed to harness and enflame the post World War I and depression-era anger, bitterness, and fear of the German public. I know most of us like to think we are morally superior to the German masses that supported the Nazi party’s brutal rule. The thing is, we aren’t. In fact, we don’t even need an all-controlling fascist political party to help us get our hate on. Today we have Facebook and its endless trite memes, and online newspaper comments sections that allow people to spew venom with anonymity, and hate factories that masquerade as right wing “opinion” blogs.  Fear does seem to be replacing reason. And if we allow it to consume us, we risk destroying what makes us good.