Wednesday 2 November 2011

CBC: Canadas' Secret Misogyny Meetingplace?

Today, the CBC published an article which they've published before about Canadian women being politically stifled. No doy. I'm not going to point out the obvious here. In terms of equal representation in our major political parties, we're pathetic. We rank behind places such as Burundi, Latvia and Guyana, which are supposedly more backwards than the liberal, modern, equality-for-all-type haven Canada touts itself as. Look at who our leader is. This is on the verge of becoming a dead horse for me.

What I want to point out, however, is that every time the CBC posts an article that has anything to do with women's rights, equality or anything of the sort, these (presumably) white-dude trolls come out of the woodwork to shit all over it. Where do they all come from? Why do they all flock to the CBC? How do they have the time?

Listen to some of the few comments, unedited and in their original form, posted so far on this particular article:

Women are still considered an "under-represented" group by the federal public service yet they make up 55% to men at 45% a 10% difference and I was denied applying to a job a couple weeks ago because it was only open to women and other under-represented groups. I think this needs to change for one, gender equality should go both ways.

As to politics more women should run, perhaps men are more interested in politics thus more run? I vote for the best person, be it a woman or a man as fo most people now so the only issue I can see is getting more women interested in it.
 Says "Darexc". Here's a short but sweet one:

People vote for the best PERSON and that's how you get elected.
 Thanks "Kritterz" for that tired old fucking line of bullshit.

If you want to enter a trades program, as a women you can get full funding. Not as a man. Go figure.
 "DaleMartell" ignores most, if not all of the facts here. Nice one, dude.

so long as women have babies... this isn't going to change
good luck with that!
This gem posted by a dude with the handle of "Anti-Establishment". Just as an aside, what do you wanna bet that Mr."Anti-Establishment" just loves him some high-budget pornography? And then, there's the worst of what's posted so far:

Most women are smart enough not to get into politics that's why!
 You can thank a dude by the handle of "SayWhatThe" for that one. This is what I mean. And, to be truthful, these are pretty tame in comparison the blatant woman-bashing that usually goes on in the CBC comments. These comments are supposed to be moderated under strict guidelines ( found here) and if you'll look at what to always avoid as a commenter, let's see if you can spot anything that might be amiss:

Always avoid:

  • Lengthy excerpts from other posts. We want to hear your own opinion.
  • Racist, sexist and offensive language.
  • Personal attacks and defamatory statements.
  • Breaking copyright rules (that includes copying and pasting excerpts from other sites without permission and attribution).
  • Violating someone’s privacy.
  • Threats or suggesting committing a criminal act.
  • Insensitive comments regarding the death or injury of private individuals, especially children.
  • Posting your message in all CAPS (this makes it difficult to read and in online speak is considered yelling).
  • Posting press releases and commercial promotions.
 Above boldface emphasis mine. However, the majority of comments I read on the CBC are racist, sexist and offensive, I have seen commenters post personal attacks against other commenters as well as post defamatory statements, and hardly anyone is civil. The policies clearly state that "If you violate any of these rules, then your comment will not be posted and your account may be suspended." But, some of these people post comment after comment after comment, even gaining the rank of so-called 'Trusted Members', which I interpret as meaning that their comments go unmoderated altogether. Who does this moderating? Why have these policies if they're so obviously ignored? Why do my posts never seem to make it through, even though they are NOT in violation of the commenting guidelines?

The CBC is touted as "liberal media" which is a bullshit label, I suppose, but would lead some to believe that they (the CBC) are more enlightened, more tolerant and that their readers/viewers would follow suit. Canada has many more Conservative media options than true liberal ones, but the CBC isn't really making the grade. I know that "liberal" is kind of an iffy term, in the sense that a lot of liberal dudes hate women just as much as conservative dudes, but what I mean to say is that I guess with Sun Media and the National Post and all the other crappy news sources out there, I want to expect more from the CBC. I want them to stand up for equality. I want them to at least enforce their fucking comment policy! I don't know if this is really an issue of the greatest importance, but it irks me to no fucking end whenever I go a-searching for news during the day. I guess it just goes to show that when dudes have the opportunity to talk shit about women, the venue just really doesn't fucking matter to them. And that's goddamn depressing. Because like I said, the comments I posted above are just the tip of the iceberg. I have read comments of a truly disturbing, threatening, disgusting, frightening and violent hateful nature on the CBC. I just don't know how most dudes can hate women so fucking much that they will derail a comment thread about a raped or murdered girl just to get their hateful point across. The backlash against women is getting stronger in this country every day. If this is the type of commentary we see in our "liberal media", then I'm even more afraid than ever about what the future holds.  

2 comments:

  1. Only one or two of those comments is really all that bad. How is saying you'll vote for the best person sexist, or saying more women should get interested/run in politics? I highly disagree with you here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Saying you'll vote for the best PERSON (in caps, as in the original comment) is inherently sexist in this context, because men are being defined as the default of personhood. Women, by default, aren't given the chance to fairly compete in politics, because not only do they have to be smarter and more charismatic than men, they also aren't allowed to 'fight dirty' and have their appearances critiqued more than their political views.

    Which brings me to the second point. I believe that many women ARE interested in politics and WOULD run if the deck wasn't stacked against them, not only in the ways I detailed in the above paragraph, but also in various ways like the notion that women aren't suited for politics because it detracts too much time from them caring for they're families, the notion that women are 'too emotional' for politics, etc.

    Also, to sum up the point of the original post, the opinions of the commenters, however misogynist was only part of it. The other point was that many, if not all, of the sample comments I reposted here break the rules and guidelines that the CBC itself sets out for commenters.

    ReplyDelete