Me, a feminist ?

It took me ages to identify myself as a feminist. I was always talking about injustices towards the poor, the immigrants, the disadvantaged, the women, the handicapped, ... It was before politically correctness kicked in and I realized that those who were the most likely to suffer were women.

My epiphany came during cégep when I had to research the promotion of gender equality for my first Model UN conference. It was all fine and dandy until I had to debate on that topic with other people who were basically saying that women had enough rights and there was more important stuff to discuss such as I.T.

In university, I finally met fellow feminists who pushed me to assert myself as what I am, a feminist, someone who wants equality for everyone that is male, female or something else as we are all people. However, last year, feminists at the University of Ottawa were ridiculed for not having a sense of (bad) humor. I had never thought that not finding sexist jokes funny meant I was not a "fun person". It made me think about what my feminism was and I realized that every single feminist I know had a different definition of their feminism.

As my friend Becky once wrote

I am a feminist. I don't hate men, I am not a lesbian (although I support and love those who are), I have never burned a bra, I do not want to take over the world and create a radical feminist utopia (although you have to admit, its pretty cool in theory), and I hate it when others project their own skewed perceptions of feminism onto my beliefs, without ever consulting me on what my beliefs really are.

She was right! Some of my close friends think that feminists believe that women are better than men and my little brother told me feminism was evil and that Marc Lépine, the Polytechnique mass-murderer, had a point. This is where it hurts, people that ought to be better educated about issues like feminism don't know anything about it and whose fault is it ? The Fédération des femmes du Québec ? Our mothers ? Who knows! All I know is that I enjoy the rights I have to vote, to study, to work, to be independent. I enjoy wearing high heels and I love to bake and knit but my place is not in the kitchen unless I chose to be there! The world is my place!

La mort de C-484 ?

En tant qu'étudiante en droit, je savais que le projet de loi C-484 du député conservateur d'arrière-banc annonçait de mauvaises nouvelles pour les femmes canadiennes et bien que je comprenais les raisons sous-jacentes, je trouvais que c'était un cheap shot envers les droits des femmes, droits qui ont été acquis après de nombreuses batailles qui persistent encore aujourd'hui.

Il me semblait évident qu'un fœtus ne pouvait avoir de personnalité juridique. Après tout, on ne pouvait tout simplement oublier plusieurs arrêts de la Cour suprême du Canada, la dernière cour d'appel. Or, cette dernière n'ayant jamais affirmé que l'avortement était légal en se contenant de dire que le droit de la femme à disposer de son corps et que le fœtus n'était pas une "personne", il me semblait clair que certains juges pourraient interpréter cette loi à un dangereux avantage.

Néanmoins, je trouvais que le meurtre d'une femme enceinte à la Sharon Tate constituait davantage qu'une simple meurtre. J'avais donc affirmé que s'il y avait une mens rea de faire mal à cette femme en tant que personne, mais aussi à l'amas de cellules que contenait son utérus, alors cela devrait être considéré comme des circonstances aggravantes. Ainsi, Ken Epp aurait le même résultat qu'avec C-484. Toutefois, les spécialistes de violence envers les femmes affirment que des meurtres similaires à celui de Sharon Tate sont extrêmement rares. Pourquoi alors le législateur agirait-il s'il n'y a pas besoin ? Il faut agir pour la violence faite aux femmes en général, pas seulement celle commise envers le femmes enceintes.

Je suis peut-être cynique, mais je doute que les conservateurs laisse tomber ce projet de loi maintenant. Partout, on nous parle d'élection générale et nul ne peut prétendre connaître les résultats. Il n'en demeure pas moins que l'idée du ministre de la Justice, Rob Nicholson semble attirante à prime abord, mais elle vaut la peine d'être étudier.

and off we start!

A long time ago, I blogged almost every day and I loved it! Tonight I found my old blog which is still online and it was weird to read what 17 years old me used to think.

I decided to start anew and to blog about what is important for me, a 22 years old law graduate student in Montréal. I am many things, I have many interests and I'll try to touch to everything in both official languages of Canada whether it's politics, feminism, just awesome gossip, languages, international relations and law parce que la vérité, toute la vérité et rien que la vérité c'est mon motto!

So follow me, it should be a great journey into the modern world as seen by a young feminists who is heavily politicized.