Blog - Page 90 of 93 - Maureen F. Fitzgerald

Pope Joan – Hooray For A Female Pope

Ever since Dan Brown’s mega blockbuster books I have been interested in the history (or should I say, herstory) of women – and how much of it has been blotted out, particularly by the religions of the day. I am looking forward to seeing this film on Pope Joan since it suggests that there may have been a

Pink Boardrooms – Women Make Dismal Progress On Boards

According to the 2009 report: “Catalyst consensus: Financial post 500 Women Board Directors”, in the boardrooms of the top 500 companies, only 14% were women. And most disappointing was that there were no (not one!) female directors in 45% of all of the public companies in Canada. As a lawyer I know well the reasons

ICBC Pulls $1.7 Mill Ads That Embarass Men

A $1.7 million advertising campaign targeted at teen boys to prevent drinking and driving was pulled by `ICBC partners` because it was apparently too raunchy and had suggestive sexual themes. One TV ad showed a boy receiving a penis pump in the mail and just when he is getting ready to use it, he is interrupted by his mother

Please Dont Criticize Women On Boards

Instead of celebrating Norwegian and French laws that set quotas for women on corporate boards, Canadian Business Magazine used rhetoric to criticise the move. In a recent article (July 19, 2010) it suggests that because there are so few available women to fill board positions, the same women keep showing up on several boards (obviously). However, the slant they decided to take is

Women Still Underrepresented in News

Tracy Sherlock (Vancouver Sun) reported this week that women are still significantly under-represented and misrepresented in news media coverage despite some recent improvements . The Global Media Monitoring Project discovered the following: 76% of people reported in the news are men women are mostly used as providers of personal accounts and rarely as knowledgeable experts 32% of

Women called “whores” and “bitches” in politics

Jane Taber of the Globe and Mail recently interviewed Belinda Stronach about what needs to change to get more women into politics. Belinda, now the executive vice-chair of Magna International Inc. had just accepted an award from Equal Voice for her contributions as a parliamentarian. Ms Stronach mentioned three things: video conferencing of meetings, phone voting and more respectful behaviour in the House of Commons.

Ms. Harper Our First Lady Stands Up for Women

I love it when powerful women find ways to play out that power in such a positive way. Jane Taber of the Globe and Mail reports (Nov 24) that Ms Harper (Canada’s first lady) co-hosted a gathering with Heather Reisman (CEO of Indigo books) and 14 human-rights experts from the Iranian community and a few journalists.

Men Against Pornography

I was pleased to see a recent article in the Globe and Mail by Wency Leung (Nov 5, 2010) that discussed the movement by many men to fight against pornography. Sadly the pornography industry has become a multi-billion dollar machine, often takeing advantage of very young girls and vulnerable women who have few other means of livelihood. But the

Don’t Legalize Prostitution

Although I support those women who are fighting to legalize prostitution – because they want sex-trade workers to be safer as I do – I can not agree that legalization is the answer. I think this would simply turn this very-dangerous-de-humanizing job into a bit less-dangerous-but still- de-humanizing job. We must stop framing the issue as one of “women’s choice” when very few of these

Use of only male rats unacceptable

I read recently about a research doctor (Jeffrey Mogil, of McGill University) who was challenging the use of only-male rat research. As it turns out, in about 80% of scientific studies, only male rats are used. Why? Because of “menstrual cycles and the variability in results that it might cause.” Since both men and women get diseases,