Many Korea women are boycotting Squid Game, Netflix’s blockbuster new reality game achieving unheard of levels of popularity within just weeks. Excessively violent and beyond weird, the game gives desperately poor people a chance to win money by playing classic children’s games like red light, green light that inevitably turn bloody. “Squid Game is a threat to women with its exclusively male gaze and disturbing reproductions of violence again women which reinforces misogyny and clearly supports patriarchy,” a Korean feminist spokesperson told Al Jazeera. The degradation of women is often a component of the entertainment game formula. Offending video game examples include Grand Theft Auto and RedDead Redemption. An even more in-your-face example of women-hating is the YouTube video Beating Up an Annoying Feminist, which gives a player the chance to assault a woman talking about her right to vote.
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(Not Even) Half Baked
A deadly dusting
U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, known for her masterly poster board take downs of corporate mighty men has turned her sights on Johnson & Johnson. The don’t-mess-with-me California congresswoman noted this week that the company is moving to sever its Baby Powder component in light of lawsuits from tens of thousands of women. “Johnson & Johnson filed in court last week to split its Baby Powder from the rest of the company,” Porter tweeted. “Why? J&J knew asbestos laced some bottles but kept it a secret for decades. Tens of thousands of women with ovarian cancer are suing, and the company wants to shield its assets. J&J sold the powder for 60 years, and now that it has to pay for these women’s medical bills, it wants the courts to treat ‘Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder’ as a separate company.” The company, which denies the claims, is alleged to have aggressively marketed to Black women as a product that would “maintain freshness and cleanliness.” Now there’s a winning corporate strategy: First prey on women’s insecurities about their bodies and then fail to disclose information about traces of asbestos in your product.
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Dial 911 or Press Record
Sometimes there’s no fathoming the behaviour of people. Last week it was widely reported that onlookers did nothing to help a woman being raped to the point of unconsciousness on a Philadelphia train, choosing instead to record the crime on their cell phones. Maybe we’ve come to believe than the mere act of pressing record is an act of heroism. But the seeming lack of humanity shown by the train passengers may not be so unusual after all. Researchers have found that people’s willingness and inclination to offer help when witnessing a woman being attacked depends on many factors. While many cling to the notion of male chivalry, it’s women who are more likely to offer help to another women. The train incident seems to support research that says people who are alone are more likely to help someone in trouble than people who are amongst others. It’s true that a recording of a crime can be extremely valuable evidence in a courtroom, as we saw in the George Floyd murder case. And it’s often ill-advised for a bystander to insert themselves into a violent circumstance. But let’s not let our cellphones get in the way of our human instincts to help when we can.
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Dress codes under siege
A Hamilton, Ont. high school principal just found out how volatile the issue of dress codes for students can be. She had to apologize to students and parents after reminding them to cover their shoulders and stomachs in accordance with the dress code just days after police began investigating sexual assaults at the school. The timing of her announcement led some to accuse her of blaming the victims. The dress code issue, which has been front and centre during the back-to-school period, is full of minefields for teachers and school administrators who are finding out just how difficult it is to tackle without causing offence. Some have had to walk back suggestions that certain clothing is “distracting’ as that also implies girls are to blame for boys’ behaviour. And now that the issue of dress codes is being framed as sexist and discriminatory to girls, no one wants to touch it. But as students continue to push the limits of acceptable classroom fashion, school administrator and parents need to form a united front to communicate – without shaming – that what is fine attire for a day at the beach doesn’t cut it in a learning environment or a workplace.
(Not Even) Half Baked
Words that threaten dominant story line
Conservative lawmakers in Wisconsin want to ban the following words among others from schools: whiteness, white supremacy, structural bias, structural racism, systemic bias, systemic racism, equity, multi-culturism and, of course, patriarchy. It’s an attempt to strip educators of the vernacular needed to teach students about concepts of racial injustice and systemic discrimination. Controlling the historical narrative about the land of the free has become a preoccupation of some GOP members in other states also concerned about the ‘psychological stress’ caused to students subjected to such instruction. A social studies teacher in Tennessee was fired last month for addressing the issue of white privilege in the classroom. We can never let this disdain for confronting truth take hold in Canada where the teaching of systemic race theory is a critical part of our commitment to Indigenous people and all Canadians as part of reconciliation and recovery from horrible racist abuses of the past.
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Not your grandmother’s cookie jar
Through a leak of about 12 million documents, we are learning how rich and powerful Canadians, and their brethren around the world, have been laundering and stashing gazillions of dollars to avoid paying taxes.
Oxfam International said this is response to the last week’s release of the Pandora Papers: “This is where our missing hospitals are. This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need. Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is ‘no money’ to pay for climate damage and innovation, for more and better jobs, for a fair post-COVID recovery, for more overseas aid, they know where to look.”