The gates weren’t scheduled to open until 10:00am but even as early as 9:23 I could see the throng of milling, listless bodies shuffle about just beyond the gates.

“Are you guys open yet?”

Shit. Must stock faster, I told myself. I had been at this for an hour, repairing the damages incurred yesterday and I was only on “Daddy Day Care”. I worked distractedly, one eye never leaving the hoard at the gates. I was already sweating.

At 9:56, I looked up from my work. It was almost time; none of my peers were ready. I sure as hell wasn’t  The throng beyond the gates had grown to about 150 and the gate would be opening in three minutes. I will never forget the way they just slithered back and forth behind the Plexiglas, never once breaking eye contact.

There was no time left to prepare. We had to make our stand here and now or die. It was as simple as that.

Luckily, I survived the Christmas season but it wasn’t easy. There are still nights that I lay awake and all I can do is think back on the horrible things I saw and that I did.

I was working in an HMV store, one of Canada’s leading sellers in CDs, DVDs, and fan memorabilia in a central shopping mall near a major city. In other words, I was in the worst possible place to be during the holiday shopping frenzy.

This experience, although traumatizing, taught me some skills that I plan to use when the Zombie Apocalypse finally hits. And I’m willing to share them with you, reader because any way I can think of to best prepare people the better it will ultimately be for the chances of the human race.

RULE #1: MAKE A PLAN, ASSIGN ROLES, AND STICK TO THEM 

I believe that human behaviour when in a frenzied situation is a good indicator as to what zombie behaviour will look like; I refer to this as zombie psychology. In both cases, holiday shoppers and zombies have but one goal: To get stuff/brains right fucking now.

Whether you’re making your stand in a retail outlet or a street barricade made from demolished cars, a semblance of order will help in two very important ways.

Firstly, a unified force communicates. If everyone has a task and knows what each of their other comrades are doing, the odds of survival rise tenfold. This includes knowing who to call for ammunition/quarters, who will be relieving you for your break/mental breakdown, and, most importantly, who is in charge. Also, in terms of base safety, six sets of eyes working together see more than six sets of eyes working alone.

Secondly, a well-orchestrated strike force can funnel their focus to eliminate a mindless horde as efficiently as possible whether that means selling them stuff or debilitating their central nervous system with a hunting rifle.

What you must never ever do is break ranks, even for the easy kill. As soon as a weakness is spotted in your defenses, the zombies will capitalize on it.

I witnessed a co-worker taken down tragically when he thought he’d help a woman by ringing her purchase through without her having to wait in the massive line-up since she was elderly and had reserved the CD months prior. This action was regarded as favoritism by the frenzied crowd and before he knew what was happening, about six shoppers had descended on him in a fevered rage. It was so terrible to watch.

“MAINTAIN YOUR POSITIONS! YOU CAN’T HELP GARY NOW!”

If the rule is that all shoppers must wait in line, then all shoppers must wait in line. No exceptions.

RULE #2: DON’T ATTRACT UNNECESSARY ATTENTION TO YOURSELF

Assuming that Christmastime shoppers exhibit similar behavioural patterns, I have a theory as to how to avoid attention in the midst of the zombie apocalypse.

I should start by stating that I believe that Hollywood is responsible for distributing some false information in regards to zombie psychology. We see often, in films and television, zombies that are able to perceive the living as a target simply by the living person’s presence. Do they smell the living? Are they detecting active brain patterns? There’s often no inclination as to how the zombies are able to perform this but I think, if anything, the living dead will lose sensory abilities rather than gain them. If we couldn’t necessarily smell a living person or read brain patterns in life then why would we after the body begins to break down?

But, Christmas shoppers can identify irregular social cues and behaviours and therefore, we should assume, so can zombies. I noticed that while I was stocking shelves with a handful of CDs concealing the corporate logo on my shirt (the logo itself an irregular social cue), I looked like any other shopper ambling my way slowly through the store trying to find the right CDs. In these moments, the soulless soldiers would amble past me, mumbling softly, frustrated by their own inability to find the latest “Pink!” album. But, when I was finished stocking one section and was needed in another, I picked up speed, walked directly and determinedly, and revealed the HMV logo on my chest. Suddenly, 20 heads in my direct vicinity shot up, recognized that I was one of the living, and collectively began moving towards me.

In an instance where you are outnumbered by the living dead, be they angry shoppers or actual undead, I theorize that you would see much better success trying to amble your way across a vast expanse rather than trying to sprint your way across.

RULE #3: NEVER ASSUME THE (SHOPPER) ZOMBIE IS SATED

In Canada, we have a very unique holiday just after Christmas. On December 26^th, all those that received hundreds of dollars worth of stuff to play with and ate one third of their body-weight in food get up bright and early to go back to the mall and buy more stuff. We call this Boxing Day. What this tells us about zombie psychology is that so long that there are brains/sales to have, the zombie will not rest.

It is safe to assume that a zombie won’t simply eat until it is full. It will continue to consume until it is overburdened with human entrails/credit card debt. It is important to point out that we can’t even be sure if zombies will even eat their food before they continue hunting or that their exists an optimum amount. It’s very possible that they might hoard first and then consume.

The only sources we have seen on this are simply the imaginings of the writers of fiction and this doesn’t help us prepare for the real zombie apocalypse when it finally hits us.

RULE #4: ZOMBIES ARE INDIVIDUALISTIC. USE THIS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

While the brainless flesh-eaters may advance in a horde, this does not necessarily mean that zombies are acting as a unified group. Based on the behaviour I saw of the Holiday shopper, each individual of these creatures was looking to serve their own selfish end. They would interrupt other  customers  mid-question to have me tell them where “that album with the guy with the dark hair that sang on that show a few years ago” was located in the store.

“Yes, I heard you, mam. I was, uh, wondering though if you remember anything maybe a bit more specific.”

Knowing these creatures are individualistic doesn’t really help you if you find yourself halfway down the Adult-Contemporary aisle with ten shoppers coming at you from either side but it can help you if you have a means of escape. For example, by placing a shopper between myself and other shoppers, especially if this shopper had a baby carriage or is occupying a a narrow space, I am now dealing with a single shopper rather than fifteen. This was often a very good tactic to quickly help a single customer and then, before the others could move around the one being served, making a dash to the break-room to recuperate.

On a quick side-note, zombie-shoppers, and therefore real zombies we can assume, do not tend to note the presence of physical barricades. rather than walking around a shelf of Nickleback CDs, they will instead lean their body into it and attempt to get my attention by rapidly repeating “hello” or “excuse me”. A zombies sense of direction includes only a direct line to the target, not necessarily the most sensible. Make use of this.

RULE #5: SURVIVE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

I am not proud of this rule and it is because of this rule that I wake up in a cold sweat some nights. I have never known what a survival instinct actually was until a found myself working retail on the weekend before Christmas in a major mall. It’s nice to think that, innately we are all very generous people and that we would be willing to sacrifice it all for the ones that we care about. But the truth is, my need to live proved stronger than my want to be morally correct.

As I have mentioned earlier, shopper-zombies are really only after your brains/information but that doesn’t mean they need yours, necessarily. At one point, I found myself being overwhelmed by an overpowering surge the angry and ravenous. I knew that if help didn’t arrive in a few moments, I would be finished. That helped arrived in the form of a co-worker, Jacob. Knowing that only one of us was going to leave the situation alive I quickly blurted, “I can’t help you at the moment but Jacob can! He has a moment!”

And I ran. I remember hearing Jacob’s screams as the shoppers landed on him. All I could do was bolt for the stock room, tears streaming down my face.

Was it right to do what I did? No. But in these circumstances what is right becomes less and less of a priority. It is in these moments that the strong and the crafty will prevail and although I have seen some terrible images burned into my mind, I regret nothing.

We owe it to ourselves to survive. Because once the dust settles from all of the rabid Christmas shopping or the actual zombie apocalypse, the strong will be needed to reclaim society. It will be up to you, the survivor, to end the miserable existence of these things and start building a better, a stronger world.

“Dear Madam, I find thee exceptionally captivating and would be honoured is thou didst accompany me to a most excellent dance rave this night.”
“Thank you, dear sir, for the emphatic offer but I disirest not to be wooed at this time.”
“Very well, milady. As disappointed as the answer finds me, I must accede to thine own self-wisdom. Shouldst your position alter, I pray, considereth me!”
“O, I shall, good sir! I shall!”

I’m getting a little tired of hearing how the feminists have ruined chivalry for us  straight men.

A recent article/essay from Psychology of Women Quarterly defined acts of chivalry as “benevolent sexism” and since then there has been no shortage of responses to this redefinition. Why are the mean feminists making it so hard to be respectful? Why do they hate gentlemanliness so much?

And aside from the article from the quarterly publication and its reactions, the internet is a great place to find inane articles where feminism is pitted against chivalry. As if to suggest that, only one of these two incompatible forces can survive and, right now, it looks like feminism has taken the lead.

Men that engage in chivalrous acts are acting out the old patriarchal pantomime of benevolent sexism, so says feminism (or rather, “so says feminism,” so says the internet) and empowered women would love to see its demise. But chivalry is based on respect for women, isn’t it? This can all be a little confusing for dudes with good intentions. Take this guy for example:

A woman got mad at me for holding the door open for her. #feminists , whats so demeaning about respect?

— anthony kelly (@anthonydkelly) January 21, 2013

And I can relate to that guy. It’s not easy being chivalrous these days. What we were brought up to believe as decent human behaviour is suddenly not kosher. Let me share a personal anecdote.

A few months ago, I met a lovely young woman on a night that would have otherwise been a total disaster. We got to talking and when the larger group decided it was time to push off. I suggested that those of us not quite tired go somewhere where there was dancing to be had. No one was into it, except for that one lovely lady. My heart rate accelerated a bit.

We headed to a local dance spot with a live band, bought a few more beverages and had an amazing time. Great dancing, great conversation, and a light drunkenness turned what was almost a write-off of a night (there might be a post about part 1 of this night someday) into one of the more memorable nights of 2012.

When it was finally time to head home she told me that she was going to make the 25 minute walk. Well, being raised to not let women walk home alone at 2am I offered to walk her back to her home.

Her eyes suddenly squinted and she looked at me like she was staring at me through a sniper-scope. I could visually see her drunkenly running an assessment scan, reaching into her memory banks for clues to my character from earlier that evening. Before she had the chance to say anything, I raised my hands skyward and declared, “I’m just offering to walk you home. That’s it.”

“Alright,” she said, hesitantly.

So I proceeded to walk her home. We stopped and got a burger along the way and she even linked her arm through mine at one point which had the effect of making me feel totally awesome. When we got to her place she turned to me and I said, “It was great to meet you. I hope I see you again sometime.” And then she hugged me, making me feel, once again, totally awesome. Then we parted ways.

This experience gave me a great deal to think about.

Firstly, did I engage in benevolent sexism? In a way, yes; I suggested that a woman should not be walking alone through a city at night and should be accompanied by a man. That is a fairly sexist sentiment. On the other hand, the threat of assault or rape, however unlikely, is real and I’d feel grossly incompetent if a let her walk alone. On the other, other hand, as I pointed out in a previous post, about 80% of women who are assaulted or raped are assaulted by people they know so she would have grounds to argue that she is better off ditching the escort and walking alone.

This leads me to another lesson from that night: women can be suspicious. Being scrutinized when I offer to do something that is simply a nice gesture in my head is something that I find really troublesome but I don’t blame the ladies. Women have every reason to be skeptical of gestures to walk her home, buy her a drink, or pick her up in our car. The rise of feminism has resulted in more women becoming aware and speaking out against men that would seek to take advantage of a seemingly innocent situation under the guise of chivalry.

So if feminists aren’t actually the ones killing chivalry, then who is?

I hate to say it, but we are. That is, men are. Not most of us personally, but those that have used chivalry and abused it have the same face as us. If enough well-seeming men reveal themselves to be selfishly serving their own ends then we all become suspect. There is no easy way to differentiate the difference between one offer to be walked home from the other, more insidious variety.

So then, what is chivalry in this day and age?

We need to broaden our definition of chivalry, for a start. All of the articles I cited at the top of this post refer to activities like “opening doors”, “footing the bill”, and “buying computers”. I think chivalry is much broader than that. To me, chivalry is more a way of life than it is a strict list of acts that are recognized as being chivalrous; if it were up to me, chivalry would be defined as the placing of one’s comfort, safety, and happiness over one’s own.

So, in that sense, feminism may have altered the rules slightly but certainly hasn’t killed chivalry. If you notice a woman following closely behind you to a door, by all means hold the door for her. That’s chivalry. If she instructs you not hold the door for her in the future because it enforces benevolent sexism, don’t hold the door for her. That too, in my opinion, is chivalry. If the situation is hazy, then ask her what’s up. Also chivalry. Basically, discover what would bring satisfaction to the woman in this scenario and act accordingly.

Also, I believe that chivalry isn’t just about the ladies. A man can and should be chivalrous to anyone; hold the door for women, children, and men of all walks of life.

Chivalry is also about not attaching assumptions and expectations to an encounter with women. I was grateful to prove to the lovely lady I mentioned earlier that by offering to walk her home, I meant walk her home. Period. To me, it seems that women have been pushed into a really unfortunate mindset where they have to consider every possible outcome of the offer made. A simple question like, “Would you like to go have a drink sometime?” requires a great deal of scrutiny from ladies. Some men have proved that a great deal can go wrong from such a simple question. Us more chivalrous men can work to take this back by speaking at face value. If you ask a woman to a drink and she says yes, consider the night planned only that far.

Above all things, chivalry is a man not assuming that he is going to get laid at the end of the night. He must take his cues from the present situation and act accordingly;a chivalrous man knows when to simply say goodnight. This is why chivalry is dying. We live in a culture of all or nothing when it comes to men’s sexuality. I’m sure I don’t need to tell any of my readers what the very first question I get asked at work is if it is known I’ve met up with a women the night before.

To me, chivalry is about spending my time on this planet as a respectful spectator and sometimes participant in the lives of others. This means that sometimes I will make offers that are deeply seeded in benevolent sexism unintentionally. And men, there’s no shame in this. Most of us have been raised under certain standards about how to interact with women, many of them archaic and patronizing. I think we should all uphold these teachings but be mindful of how they might be interpreted and adjust to the situation at hand. There’s nothing wrong with offering to pay for the meal as a chivalrous act and there’s nothing wrong with her wanting to go dutch.

I agree that chivalry isn’t doing well but it isn’t empowered women that are plunging the knife. Brothers, our beast to conquer has our face and in a way that makes it the most frightening enemy of all. We must take a stand against those that would wear our mask and commit injustices while wearing it.

This past Christmas season, I spent many hours working in an HMV store in one of Victoria’s major malls. For those unaware, HMV is a big music retailer in Canada and was in the UK, evidently. What made the job so engaging for me, speaking as a major audiophile, was the conversations I got to have with customers who desperately needed help finding the perfect CD for those on their shopping lists. Looking for a CD for a Michael Bublé fan that already has all the Bublé? Try Michael Kaeshammer, friend! Your girlfriend loves Norah Jones but has all her solo stuff? Well get her The Little Willies, guy! These are the conversations I live for and talking music springs life in me the way few other conversations do.

I’d have to say that the most memorable conversation, however, was with a sweet old lady who was looking for some music for her fifteen-year old grandson.

“Do you have something called… um… Skr-Skrielex?”

“Skrillex?”

“Yes. That one”

“Right this way.”

She told me that she always loved giving the gift of music but that this new trend that her grandson was into was totally beyond her; what exactly was Dubstep and could I explain it to her?

“Well, it’s electronic music but it’s most known for the moment when ‘the beat drops’, as they say. Dubstep is characterized by the moment when the song is reduced to a very simple bass beat that holds the song together while a cacophony of various electronic noises make a great deal of seemingly random noise… Does that make sense?”

“That sounds awful,” was her honest reply.

“Well… it is but it isn’t… It’s kind of designed to be… awful… in a good, dancy way.”

“…”

“It’s sort of an acquired taste,” I choked.

So what is Dubstep and how does one define it? As a musical genre it is very minimal is scope and pretty unimaginative. There are only really so many ways you can “drop the beat” before the trend gets tiring. Or at least one would think but it seems that more and more artists, even those well outside the realm of electronic music, are picking up Dubstep and running with it.

Despite what Dubstep’s detractors might say, it seems as though the trend is picking up more and more listeners. As much as I can recognize the limitations of the genre, I find the music eerily catchy and, well, provocative. I have to confess, hilarious but accurate descriptions my friends have associated to the form aside (like “two fax machines fucking each other” or “robotic whales battling while being consumed by a shredder”), I like Dubstep.

So I have a theory as to what Dubstep is and why it resonates, but first, dear reader, I need you to become familiar with this song. I recommend listening to it as loudly as possible for the greatest effect.

This is Dubstep at it most pure and easily dissected. It also has the distinction of being the only Dubstep song that I have heard that is actually about something. Muse has used this form to create cacophonous tune depicting the current crisis facing our natural world to great effect. So, let’s dissect it, shall we?

We have in this track two very specific camps of which music is originating from. Firstly, you’ll notice, the song starts out with a full orchestra without a hint of electronic influence; all of the sounds generate from an organic source. Let us call this “The Natural World”. “The Natural World” clips along rather melodiously for a bit but then we are made aware of the crisis facing the availability of our natural resources thanks to our abuse of the world’s goods. And then, we are told that what we are doing is unsustainable.

And then the beat drops.

This introduces us to the second camp: “Technology gone wrong”. The sounds and noises it emits are awful, high-pitched, and dissonant. Here we are subjected to the angry and mechanical sounds of what, according to Muse, is happening to Planet Earth.

For a time in the middle of the song, both camps play together be we hear the full-orchestra being drowned out slowly by the elements of Dubstep. “The Natural World” is losing its place and technology is taking over. We are treated to another grim warning and the beat drops yet again. We won’t be hearing from “The Natural World” again. Then, abruptly, on the final “Unsustainable”, the song dies. This, to me, seems to propose the idea that once Nature is eradicated, technology will only take us so much further before it too meets a sudden end.

So what does this tell us about Dubstep as a whole? Well, as mentioned earlier, this track is about something specific and highlighted in the song itself: the degradation of the natural world and its resources. In this sense, this song is an anomaly. What doesn’t make is distinct is its sense of anxiety and anger expressed through a bombardment of awful sounds set to a beat.

And to me, Dubstep is all about that feeling of dissociated anxiety and disembodied rage set to music. Ever have that feeling when you feel all pissed off and have no understanding as to why? Can’t find the words as to what’s troubling you? Well then Dubstep is the music for you! At least in those moments, anyway; a diet of pure Dubstep would be pretty unhealthy for you, I’m sure.

This is also why I think, despite what many people wish, Dubstep is not going away. It is the music of those that feel powerless facing-off against invisible or overwhelmingly complex oppressors while still being high-energy and danceable. It is the music of the digital and the angry in the 21^st century.

So on that note, since I’ve been listening to non-stop Dubstep while writing this post, I’m going to go off and listen to anything else! As for you, dear reader, perhaps you’d like one more listen so here’s a video for your listening pleasure.

Then again, maybe you don’t. And that is perfectly understandable.

LOL!

There has been a great deal of conversation online these days about what is known as the “friend zone”. For those of you who are unaware of what or where this place is, it is that strange, hypothetical place where a guy (and it is always a straight, cissexual guy) sometimes feels he goes when the girl of their dreams refuses (or is ignorant of) their romantic advances. The romancer is then left to dangle, hoping that the potential “romancee” will one day realize how great he is, come to her senses, and take him up as their boyfriend or lover. In the meantime, the romancer’s heart is ripped asunder afresh each and every day that the two cannot be together since he generally seems to spend his time helping his crush deal with her life problems while taking the romantic back-seat: i.e. being a friend.

When put that way, it sounds almost poetic, doesn’t it? I’m sure the users of the term would like to think there is some elements of classic tragedy in the suffering they endure. But the truth is it is just male entitlement, plain and simple. It’s just a bit more of a passive-aggressive flavour than we normally see.

A great deal of attention has been drawn to the issue of “friend zoning” lately thanks to the-now-defunct blog “Nice Guys of OK Cupid”. What this site did so incredibly well is indicate the paradoxical way in which some men claim outright that they are “nice guys” and yet go on to further declare that women are mostly “bitches”, must regularly shave their legs, and even suggest that there exist instances when a woman is obligated to have sex. Oh yes, they also hate being “friend zoned” which happens quite often, evidently.

It would seem that being a nice guy really ought to be enough to win the heart of any lady. And I’d say that being nice (and I mean actually being nice, not the “I’m-a-nice-guy-that-feels-you-are-obligated-to-fuck-me” nice) is a really great start. But if you think of what you bring to the romantic dinner table in terms of a school report card, “being nice” alone will bring you a “C-”. OK,  you pass, but barely and “being nice” really ought to be the absolute minimum that is offered and really isn’t a very interesting attribute on its own.

Imagine being interviewed for a major job with a big company and when the board asks what qualities you bring to the table, your response is, “I am very seldom late!” Well… great but that was sort of assumed and not much of a selling point.

Essentially, I don’t believe that being nice is all that special and certainly not something for a lady to get weak in the knees for. It’s definitely not something a guy should gloat over. A guy has to be able to offer more. And I’m not talking strictly money, either! That is a common trope in the land of the “Friend zoned”: in order to get out of the zone, you need to be rich. While I’m sure that vast finances are a turn-on for some women, it’s ridiculous to assume that that is the only other possible thing to offer other than being “nice”.

The real problems with this trend is that these men seem to have an awfully hard time in taking “no” for an answer. I mean, let’s face it, being rejected sucks. No one likes the feeling of sticking your heart right where it’s most vulnerable, asking the big question, and then being told “no,” But that’s the risk of the dating game and the time to move on. The “friend zoned” seem to have a hard time understanding this.

I have heard of other times when a guy hasn’t actually made a romantic advance and is still resentful of the “rejection”! The entire pick-up attempt hinged on being a shoulder to cry on for a girl going through a hard time from a break-up or otherwise and telling her that he will always be there for her whenever she needs someone. The man then becomes resentful because the woman proceeds to date other people while still seeing the original guy as a person to talk to while not considering him as a romantic opportunity.

In other words, the fastest way to be put in the “friend zone” is to tell the girl you’d like to be her friend.

So how is this male-entitlement? Well, firstly, there is the off-handed suggestion that these ladies are managing their own sexuality “incorrectly”: these “fake bitches” have turned down “nice guys” to be with “assholes”. In the language of these “nice guys”, these women have made a profound mistake in their mate selection and all the proof we need of that is that they’re not sleeping with the “nice guy”: never mind that the guy that they might be seeing might be far more interesting. Perhaps he plays guitar in a band, or is on the verge of being drafted into AAA Hockey, or is studying 10 hours a day to finish his Masters thesis. It doesn’t  matter what the case is; the girl is wrong and incapable of properly managing her own sexuality.

Or maybe the woman is single and just doesn’t see the original dude in that way. The “nice guy” speak suggests that she is wrong in this instance too. It would seem that she can’t be interested in a guy that is “too sweet” or too much of a “true friend”.

The second and far more disturbing aspect of the entitlement begins to show itself if we look at some disturbing facts. The numbers waiver slightly, but general findings indicate that roughly 80% of women that have been raped have been assaulted by someone they know. Mix this fact with the resentment of the “friend zoned” and the belief that women don’t know what’s best for themselves sexually and you have a recipe for a real disaster.

But that’s pretty extreme, right? Surely not all of these “friend zoned” men are destined to be rapists. Of course not, but I was disturbed with the ease of which I found this next rage comic:

Whoa. And all I had to do was search “friend zone” in Google

While it is not spoken, the “friend zoned” man’s primary concern is sex. It would seem that most of the other areas of a relationship are covered (intimacy, loyalty, trust, etc.) but it’s just not quite enough. This really calls to question whether these men were ever friends in the first place or had any real desire to be. They had always hoped to have a sexual relationship and satisfaction or closure would not be available until that was achieved.

And what is so wrong with friendship anyway? Is it such a horrible fate that a girl wants to “only” be a friend?

What I find so irritating about this trend is how easily avoided the “friend zone” is. There is nothing wrong with one wanting to be the boyfriend of someone they’ve been a friend to or even simply wanting to have sex with a lovely lady they happen to know. With some honesty, integrity, and courage it can all be a potential reality. If the fellow states point-blank what he hopes to see happen to the lady of his desires, he has already escaped the “friend zone”: that murky wasteland of no-closure. The woman has the opportunity to accept, deny, or propose a modified situation. The man is then free to shake on it, walk away, or counter-offer. It sounds all very bureaucratic but at least there is no “friend zone”.

This is all very well and good but, as we have seen, some men are incapable of this sort of dialogue and this is a danger that everyone ought to be aware of. I would hazard to suggest that most heterosexual women are already aware of this potential danger but us straight men aren’t giving this trend the full attention it deserves. I have known men that have harboured beliefs that are similar to those found on “Nice Guys of OK Cupid” and, in past years, have said nothing. In fact, I perceived the behaviour as normal! I even said a few gross generalizations in my earlier days concerning women and their dating habits; there was a great deal of this sort of conversation circulating in my high school walls. But I now feel that I have an obligation to call out this sort of behaviour and challenge it. 

As much as it might hurt, women can’t be proven “wrong” in their selection (or non-selection) of a mate anymore than a man can. Men need to realize that “no” is not only a possible answer, but a legitimate one and accept it at face value. Or else, we get more fellas like the ones from OK Cupid, and that can’t be good for anyone.

A few years ago, I had the extreme privilege to speak on the phone with Winnipeg-based Psychedelic Folk singer/songwriter, Smoky Tiger. He spoke of energy centres on Earth where spiritual energy was its most acute (he was, in fact, in the process of packing for a trip to visit the Mayan ruins: one such spiritual hotbed). We spoke of souls, we spoke of inner vision, and we spoke of the then oncoming apocalypse of 2012. Up until that point, I had written off the idea of the impending apocalypse as a bogus media blitz attempting to incite the masses into a consumerist frenzy as they readied themselves for the end of life as we know it.

But it was Smokey Tiger’s take on the apocalypse that I was most interested in. Ever since I had first heard the surprisingly upbeat track, conveniently enough called ‘Apocalypse‘, I needed to know what anyone could find so cheerful about the mythical End of Days, even if it all was a sham. Smoky Tiger informed me that the notion that the world would literally end was misguided. I had to confess that I was ignorant of the origin of the word to Smokey so he enlightened me towards its Greek origin meaning “to uncover forever” or “to reveal what was once concealed never to be concealed again”. The apocalypse meant a great awareness would take place and the ways in which we, the people walking around on this world, would witness a shift in how we see and interpret ourselves and each other.

Importantly, he also shared that the apocalypse would happen on a global scale (which I feel we did see some spiritually apocalyptic events this year) but also on an individual. People would see the world changed if only to their eyes alone.

In that sense, 2012 was the year of a great apocalypse in my life. Without going into too great of detail (as I’m sure many details will bleed into future posts), I found myself single, homeless, and in town that I hated and all in about two hours. With the support of a few amazing people, I got through it. I am changed, I have a great deal more emotional scars, but I am well thanks to those that I love and that love me.

Anyway, the point is I stopped writing which is something that I look back on as being rather unfortunate. The posts I put up last April and May, and the ways in which they were received, made me so very excited. I felt as though I was participating in an important series of conversations and inspiring others to take part also; it was an amateur social-critics’ dream come true! And then, when my great epiphany hit, I stopped. Not because I didn’t want to write anymore but because I didn’t have a place to call my own where I could sit in comfort and type away. I am a creature of habit and when the comfortable and predictable space is removed I struggle to focus long enough to string enough words together to make an entry. I was also dealing with some very real personal demons as to who I am and what sort of effect I want to have on people that I encounter on the day to day.

The nice thing about an apocalypse is that, as much as it shreds your guts in the process, the time after it is a Renaissance of sorts. While I feel that a part of me died last year, it has cleared the way for a newer and better me. To make a long story short, I am in a very good place both spiritually and physically and I am going to be writing again!

So, I hope you all had as marvelous an apocalypse as I did and may 2013 be the best year of you life (so far)! You can expect in the next little while some a gender role-inspired post on “friendzoning”, a post on Dubstep (I know, right?), a new rant on white privilege, and what I hope to be a concise and far more intelligent than the standard argument as to why Romantic Comedies really do suck. I will leave you with this song because, after all, it’s a fresh year and everything is new.

Much love,

D.W.

Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

This got me to thinking about how I understand my own privilege as I, as many regular readers might know, identify as Scalzi’s target audience, a straight white male.

Firstly though, I think I’d like to touch on why so many straight white men resent or get their back up when that dreaded word “privilege” comes up. It is easy to interpret the discussion of privilege as blame thrown at straight white men, crediting them for all the social injustices that take place in the Western world. These men become defensive because they didn’t create the rules to the game or select their role any more than Scalzi’s Hardcore mode players, gay minority females, did.

A light but relevant pic I picked up at feministdisney.tumblr.com

But I agree with Scalzi’s model and don’t find discussion of white male privilege to be a personal attack but certainly something to be aware of. And adding to Scalzi’s argument is the notion made popular by Michael Kimmel is the idea that privilege isn’t actively enforced but rather it is something that a person does not need to think about.

For me, when I have moments of privilege awareness, they arrive in flashes, oftentimes when I am engaged in an activity that people of differing ethnic backgrounds or sexualities could not perform without an incredible amount of social scrutiny.

Take me and my friend James, for example. A few days ago we were celebrating the completion of a simple construction job and decided to have a beer to toast the occasion. We sat in a public place, outside, in the late afternoon and enjoyed a nice cold beer each. It really was just a simple act of relaxation and required no further assessing on our part. James and I wanted to share a beer, therefore we shared a beer.

And then an aboriginal family of four passed by and I was hit by one of my privilege awareness flashes.

James and I, being white, can sit outdoors and drink alcoholic beverages and not worry about the social stigma of our actions. Of course, someone might regard us as engaging in light hooliganism or a police officer might chance by and tell us to dump the beer and head on home but apart from that, our potential consequences are pretty mild. And in the event we are judged, James and I would represent no one else other than James and I.

That is a privilege that people of Native descent in Northwestern Ontario don’t have. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, the relationship between Canada’s aboriginal population and the descendants of settlers is complicated and racist undertones permeate society. A particularly strong stereotype that gets thrown around an awful lot is the notion that all Aboriginals are rampant alcoholics.

Had James and I been Native, we would have been regarded as a threat to public safety, changing nothing of the situation except the hue of our skin and the colour of our hair. Additional, we would no longer be regarded as simply two young men drinking beer, we would be representing all Aboriginal people of Northewestern Ontario and maybe even Canada.

It’s odd to think that the simple act of drinking a beer on a hot day is something that is only really open to “club white” but it is. There’s an Aboriginal performance artist around these parts who confided in me how he absolutley refuses to allow anyone other than his father to see him bring alcohol to his lips because, as he tells me, “It looks ugly on me”.

And he is right, as far as society is concerned. The permeating racist stereotype informs many people to fear the drinking native so it’s really no wonder that an identifying aboriginal man would show such an aversion to public drinking even after the successful completion of a performance or just simply a long day of hard work.

And that really struck me. Suddenly something I took completely for granted was given the “white privilege” stamp. Since then I have been acutely aware of the sheer lack of aboriginal people in the regional drinking stops. I have been even more acutely aware of the general vibe of my fellow “club white” members when someone of aboriginal descent does enter a bar and order a drink or two, the same as us whities.

Returning to James and I, this flash was the awareness that public drinking means very different things when performed by white people as opposed to Native people. This is just one more thing I don’t need to think about.

I suppose that’s why it’s called “Easy Mode”.

***SPOILER ALERT***

It is 2012 and we still haven’t reached gender equality. There is still evidence to suggest that women are earning less, on average, in the workforce than their male counterparts. Culture is still rife with constant reminders that suggest that a woman’s body is, unless meticulously trimmed and sanitized, a horrifying spectacle. Unfortunately, I don’t say anything revolutionary when I suggest that much of what keeps us entrenched in a sexist culture are the ways in which women are framed in the popular media.

In that regard, I can understand why some people would get up in arms when we see, once again, a woman in the role of the domesticated housewife grace the silver screen. The “housewife” is a trope that we really ought to be leery of. The smiling, obedient and well-maintained archetype has been long-identified as an oppressive ideal that suggests and encourages women to bear the brunt of the household work, raise the kids, keep the husband/father happy, and do so with a smile; the satisfaction that is derived from putting her family’s needs before hers is “the housewife’s” reward.

Additionally, anytime a housewife enters the frame, we can assume that, unless the film is intent on flipping the status quo, heteronormativity is not far behind. Standing beside their determined, breadwinning husband, the “housewife” is one of the footsoldiers of the heteronormative, patriarchal, slut-shaming army at its most cliché.

However, a film that features a housewife is not inherently evil either. It is not fair to immediately dismiss a movie as sexist simply because it features a stay-at-home mom. There are, after all, moms, and dads for that matter, that opt to stay at home and act as the primary caregiver for a growing family. These people do exist and a portrayal of such a lifestyle in a film ought to be criticized on a case by case basis.

This is why I think that Pixar’s “The Incredibles” has been receiving some rather unfair treatment by feminist-themed reviews. Yes, Helen Parr, wife of Bob and mother of Violet, Dashiel, and “Jack-Jack”, stays at home to tend to the “domestic” side of things while Bob works at an insurance company’s main headquarters as an office drone. This is a perfectly justifiable reason in and of itself to begin questioning this film in terms of its portrayal of gender norms but, in my opinion, this is as far as “The Incredibles” tows the stereotypical line.

The problem with the traditional housewife stereotype is that it reinforces a notion of “mom” that is passive, submissive, infinitely agreeable, and can boast no other skills other than “being mom”. Some, evidently, have seen this at play in the Parr family home; as Heroine Content puts it, “Elastigirl is simply mother and wife.”

The problem that I find in this argument is that it ignores all of the instances when Helen is not simply mother and wife, at least not in the conventional sense. She does not simply bow down to Bob’s demands and desires. There is actually a scene when Bob and Helen get caught arguing by their kids and I badly wish I could find a clip of it as I suspect it to be one of the finest representations of a marital spat in animated film history. Despite her diminished stature, Helen is not afraid to stand up to Bob and is quite capable of calling him out on his bullshit.

Also, what about all of the things we see Helen doing that completely contradict the stereotypical housewife expectations in a broader sense? We know, based on what we see in the film, that Helen was and is a crime fighter, she’s an elusive cat-burgler, it’s insinuated she is a martial artist, and she has an incredible tolerance of pain. Also, so long as we’re talking about stereotypes, if “The Incredibles” was portraying women in their “proper places”, then there would have been absolutely no room for this scene in the final cut.

What I absolutely I love about this scene is the not-so-subtle implication it makes. To the casual viewer, it’s an action packed scene filled with tension, high-speed, and explosions: i.e. all that stuff that makes action movies great. But to the more analytical viewers, this scene begs the question, “Where in the hell did Helen learn to fly a plane like that?!” Well, I suppose the obvious answer would have been flight school. It’s also fair to say that Helen didn’t simply take a weekend seminar either; her fluency in controlling an aircraft and her communicating swiftly via radio suggests years of experience.

One final note, she reacts immediately and knows precisely how to handle the threat of incoming ballistic missiles, which suggests, more specifically, a military background in flying. So when would she have had the opportunity to learn this skill so well? Well, the bulk of the film is set fifteen years after Bob and Helen get married and based on their appearance in the film’s present, around forty-ish, that would mean that the two were around their early to mid-twenties when they tied the knot. I don’t believe that anybody could have learned to fly so deftly without years of experience which would mean, in all likelihood, that Helen earned the bulk of her experience piloting a plane after her marriage to Bob.

My point is, the knee-jerk reaction made by some reviews to immediately see a housewife character as a sexist trope does complex characters a severe disservice. Much of Helen and Bob’s life together we do not see since the bulk of the story takes place in a very specific moment in the characters lives. So, for all we know, Helen, after fighting crime as a vigilante was made illegal soon after her marriage, she joined the Air Force as a cadet, learned to pilot a jet, served her country, and opted to stay home and raise the kids after returning from war. Of course, this is all hypothetical as we are never treated to the complete Helen story but so long as we’re making assumptions, I think, after observing how magnificently Helen navigates a freakin jet airplane, my theory incorporates more of Helen’s overall character than the “was married and then became instantly domesticated” theory.

I find another regular complaint of “The Incredibles” somewhat baffling. Critics have commented on how Bob is selfish in the way that he, at the onset of the film, has come to regard his current life as unfulfilling and has distanced himself from his family:

“Bob feel[s] divided between work and family/be resentful of family for taking time away from work and glory.”

-Feminist Disney

“Incredible is your archetypal selfish male breadwinner, believing that the fact he works an eight-hour shift outside the home gives him the inalienable right to ignore his family: he hides in his study, goes “bowling” with Frozone in the evenings, and reads the paper at teatime while Elastigirl does all the childcare and housework.”

-The F Word

“And while Elastigirl is busy trying to hold the family together, Mr. Incredible reads at the dinner table, doesn’t listen to her, doesn’t take his kids’s problems seriously, locks himself in his own room to relive the past, and sneaks out with Frozone to play Hero, something which has caused the family to relocate and get new identities at least once and probably more than once.”

-Heroine Content

(Watch the clip here for a relevant scene.)

The way these commentaries are framed in the above cited reviews erroneously identify that Bob’s distant and aloof approach to family life is the problem with the movie when, in fact, these issues are the problems within the movie. It is because of Bob’s aloofness and resentment that starts the overall story of “The Incredibles” and introduces us to Bob’s character arc.

And it’s not as though the film blind-sides us with this mid-life development in Bob either. I am not a parent so I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I’m pretty sure that Bob’s first few lines, set up as an interview in his glory days, would not be consistent with most parents’ actual experiences. Bob says,

“No matter how many times you save the world it always manages to get back in jeopardy again, know what I mean? sometimes I just want it to stay saved, you know? For a little bit! I feel like the maid. I just cleaned up this mess, can we keep it clean for ten minutes?! [...] Sometimes, I think I’d just like the simple life, you know? Relax a little and raise a family.”

At least among the people I’ve spoken to, “relax” and “raise a family” do not belong in the same sentence. We see, literally in the first two minutes of the film, that Bob is not equipped, or at least fully prepared, to the real challenges of parenthood. Bob buys into a narrative that is actually a pretty common misconception in our culture, particularly among straight men. We “settle down” into a “domestic” life that includes very high stress things like taxes, kids, mortgages, yards, jobs, bills, etc. so it really shouldn’t surprise us, as viewers, to see Bob resenting the realities of “the simple life”.

And hence, he begins snowballing down a path known as the “mid-life crisis”. He begins looking for ways to find self-fulfillment: Bob does free-lance (and illegal) hero activity, he accepts a secret job to venture to a secret island (unbeknownst to his wife), and he buys a swanky new car (which is important later).

On the other hand, Helen has this to say:

Settle Down? I’m at the top of my game. Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

Some of the reviews have addressed the big switch that Helen seems to make after getting married but I think that depends on your definition of “saving the world”. As I mentioned earlier, it’s highly likely that Helen served in the Air Force which is one way of “saving the world” (if you bring a dichotomous and problematic approach to war but that’s a post for another day). And another way is to ensure that the future leaders, i.e. the youth, are given the best example and learning opportunity possible. In that sense, Helen’s statement is vague enough to encapsulate any notion of “world betterment” so I don’t believe that Helen ever compromised her original ideals.

Ultimately, I believe the intention behind “The Incredibles” is a promotion of gender equality within the family unit which is in complete polar opposite to other reviews. The family is placed in very grave danger, metaphorically and literally, thanks to Bob’s reckless and selfish behaviour. Also, armed with his delusions of grandeur he sets out to defeat a killer robot single-handedly only to discover he is too weak to destroy it. The moral of the story is that what is insurmountable by an individual, in this case, the father, is defeatable if the family pulls together.

The importance of this scene, I think, rests in the fact that no one character steals the show. All of the family’s strengths, as well as Frozone’s, contribute to the defeat of the robot that Bob was unsuccessful in destroying by himself (also note the hilarious send-up of the old “family arguing over the remote control” cliché).

Of course, there is one final confrontation in the film and that is with the inventor of the robot, Syndrome, which becomes a battle performed only by “mom and dad”. This scene is also important for a few reasons: both Helen’s and Bob’s powers contribute equally to the resolution and we see a symbolic gesture made by Bob where he finally rejects the notion of self-fulfilling status and becomes emotionally invested in his family (See! I told you that car would be important).

One more note, I love that “Jack-Jack’s” powers begin to materialize in this scene but, since he is an infant, it’s impossible to tell just what he will truly become in the future. Who knows, maybe young “Jack Jack” will break up that heteronormative trend the Parr family has going for them.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Whew! Sorry that took so long to publish! There are many things about this film that I didn’t cover addressed by the other reviews that might require a re-visit sometime soon. They mention issues pertaining to the other Parr family memebers as will as the issue of race in The Incredibles. I could go on and on about this film but I think for now I have to hang up my cape for a while…

…just kidding. I never wear a cape.

I want to start off this post by stating that if it comes off as argumentative, I have done something wrong. I’ve flipped this particular piece over in my head a few times now and bounced my theories off of some friends with relevant expertise yet the sum of my own limited personal experience prevents me from claiming this theory of mine as a universal truth. It is an argument and I will do my best to represent my stance as clearly as possible but, ultimately, I hope to offer this theory more as an invitation to a lengthy and possibly never ending conversation rather than assert my “rightness”. So, while I will argue that it is, in fact, impossible to not objectify someone, the subject of this post (as the title suggests) is an open question and your response, whoever you might be, is greatly helpful and appreciated.

So, having said that, I would like to address what I think is a misdiagnosis on society’s part in regards to sexist behaviour. We hear time and time again that sexually objectifying someone is wrong and that by doing so, a person is dehumanized into an object to be used as a means of sexual gratification. Oftentimes, when a woman is sexually harassed, the source of the issue is often identified as the aggressor objectifying her sexually therefore sexual objectification is wrong. I find this leap, making “objectification” the root cause of sexist behaviour, problematic.

To objectify someone is to reduce them to a simpler, truncated version of themselves. In a sense, an objectified person becomes more “manageable” as the objectifier has now conveniently reduced the objectified to a narrow version of themselves that exists only to serve the matter or need at hand. This, I think, not only makes long-term relationships workable but is absolutely fundamental in the initial flirting stages of meeting a potential romantic interest.

We can objectify someone for many reasons; we can yearn to spend time with someone due to their knowledge of classic literature, knowledge of sports, incredible grasp on quantum physics, amusing collection of novelty T-shirts, etc. We objectify when we say things like, “I hate my boss”. Even having a group that connect over certain activities like poker, breakfast, or martinis is to objectify the others in the group to some extent; your friends are “objects” whose appearance and conversation you can rely on. Also, assuming that you never fully understand someone or know exactly how they think, i.e. completely see the entirety of another individual and their mind, you can know someone, even intimately, and still objectify them to a certain degree. What are terms like “husband”, “mother”, “best friend”, or “lover” but objectifying terms?

And when it comes to flirting, I would argue that it is absolutely impossible not to sexually objectify someone even if you’re not “sexually objectifying” in the standard context of the term. if someone is attractive to you, there is probably, at the onset of the attraction, a single trait, mannerism, or skill that could be identified as the source of the attraction. Whether your pulse is quickening because the person across from you has a great ass or is fluent in Klingon does not matter, it is still sexual objectification.

The problem with our society is that the overwhelming emphasis of desirability for women is placed on her sexual attractiveness that is, in turn, based upon unrealistic and often unattainable beauty standards set by the media but this is not an inherent problem with objectification necessarily.

We live in a culture where sexual assault and rape are very real occurrences but, again, we are mis-catagorizing these acts as resulting from objectification. Instead, we ought to recognize this systemic problem as the result of a male based sense of entitlement. The media “promises” sex to men in the way it frames women (and men, for that matter). Thanks in part to media representation of gender roles, men come to expect sex at their proms, from their dates, and, horrifyingly, sometimes from women who bear too similar an appearance to the media women who “promised” the sex. We also live in a world where the kind of thinking that leads to the rape of women dressed provocatively is often excused by rationalizing that the men in these cases were “provoked”. What this suggests is that heterosexuality, even at its most violent and invasive, has been normalized which is far more dangerous, I think, then the act of objectification.

As opposed to articles I have read about sexual objectifying women written by other men, I do not think that lecherous activity, such as leering, cat calling, or rape is a natural instinct of heterosexual men. I find that theory to be, well, stupid. We live in a culture that celebrates heterosexual masculine desire while all other variations of sexuality are taboo. To argue that straight men only behave this way in public because we are programmed that way is only furthering the notion of heterosexuality as the “normative” identity. I’d be curious to know how long it would take to reprogram these “innate” traits if the leerer was aware of the very real possibility of being ostracized as a “whore”, or “faggot”, or “dyke” every time they expressed their variation of sexual desire in public. Probably not very long.

Essentially, I feel that the problems that continue to pervade our dating scene is the overemphasis on women’s physicality as a statement of her desirability, the ways is which the said physicality is warped in the media, and the normalization of male heterosexuality: not objectification. Objectification is something that everyone does and, if not paired with the three qualms listed above, can serve to form healthy relationships and very engaging flirting opportunities.

Now, If you, the reader, find that there’s a weakness somewhere in my argument, I have a theory as to where you might find it. I identify as a white, straight, cissexual man and, as a fellow blogger,Timber Wraith, says, “Nothing blinds like privilege” (who, by the way, writes an incredible blog and ought to be read by anyone more interested in asking the bigger questions than finding the smaller answers on religion and atheism). I concede to the fact that, having never been scrutinized the way that women are in society and never having had my flirting techniques called perverse, there may be “blind spots” in my argument. So please, comment away. All comments will be posted below and I will do my best to respond to all feedback.

Mmm! So womanly.

Last week, my friend Sebastian and I volunteered to grill hamburgers at a public barbeque. We were both sequestered to our own separate grills and assigned a patty variety: Sebastian would be in charge of the veggie patties and I would be responsible for the beef. As the break between classes neared, we both loaded our grills in preparation for the hungry students that would soon discover free food on campus. There was never any question that we would push more beef burgers than veggie as that is usually the case with barbeques (beef is simply a more popular choice) but what surprised me was how adamantly veggie patties would be denied by the men.

The ensuing horde of students looking for a free burger made it impossible for me to keep up with the demand. My grill was simply not hot or large enough to keep the line moving without the occasional gap in service. But while I tried to gain lost ground and feed the hungry masses, there stood Sebastian next to me who, it seemed, could not even give his veggie burgers away, at least not to men anyway. Sure, there were a few females who approached Sebastian for a burger and even the odd man but for the most part, the male population of Lakehead University rejected the veggie patties with an animosity that goes beyond an aversion to the taste.

What Sebastian was offering was not simply a soy-based product, it was a cultural symbol: a symbol that equates to feminine eating habits. Even those men that were initially attracted to Sebastian’s thicker, juicier, and better cooked patties literally backed off in horror when it was discovered they contained no beef. They would be happy to wait the ten minutes for burgers containing cow, thank you very much.

Now that there is what I call “Man Food”!

It would seem that men choose their food based on the sexual politics that lie within the food they eat. Men that long to be deemed “manly” will chose “manly” foods. This has been commented on by many gender theorists including Michael S. Kimmel who tells us that, “[Men’s] efforts to maintain a manly front cover everything we do. What we wear. How we talk. What we eat.” So what is it about beef patties that are so “manly”? Or, what is it about veggie patties that are so “womanly”?

It seems a meat/vegetable binary has become connected to a man/woman binary in the realm of food and that this comparison has become common knowledge on the subconscious level of our society. Without being able to express where I picked up on these rules initially, I can go into any western themed restaurant and divide the menu into “manly foods” and “womanly foods”. As ridiculous as that claim sounds, if one actually stops to consider the notion of a prepared meal’s “gender”, I argue that anyone who has lived within this society long enough could perform the same task with similar results.

Returning to the barbeque, what Sebastian and I witnessed that day was men being caught in the act of self-policing. For a heterosexual man, to be linked to an effeminizing activity, such as eating a hamburger made from vegetables, is the ultimate shame. “The fear of being seen as a sissy dominates the cultural definitions of manhood,” writes Kimmel.

Perhaps it seems trite to allow the subject to weigh so heavily on my mind. It is, after all, just a hamburger. But when a sense of sexual-self is so tied to the complete aversion to “effeminizing” activities in such a self-conscious way, real issues are never far behind. This is the kind of thinking that has led to the objectification of woman, the demonizing of the queer community, and the effeminizing (or the hyper-masculating) of racial minorities in a desperate attempt to maintain what is perceived as manliness in a Western society.

When all was said and done, Sebastian had been forced to toss veggie burgers into the cold snow. In a botched attempt to be prepared for the consumers that didn’t come, the charred hockey pucks that were once perfectly edible veggie patties were cast aside: discarded symbols of man’s complete refusal of the feminine left to steam in a dirty snow bank.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a piece I ran a few months back on my Tumblr site. I’ve learnt that Tumblr isn’t the greatest atmosphere for lengthy posts so I thought I’d re-post this here while I work my way out of exam hell.

Cheers!

The new warning to brand ratio on Canadian cigarettes

I feel that Canada has a guilty conscious when it comes to the selling of tobacco products and is overcompensating in a couple of regards. In the last few decades, cigarettes were banned from restaurants, then patios, then all non-designated public spaces. In 1988, packages began running single line warnings which gave way to half page warnings in 2000 which in turn have now been replaced, in 2012, by a harrowing warning that occupies three quarters of the overall packaging. In 2005, Canada’s provinces were given the green light to force store owners to conceal cigarettes in stock behind a curtain of sorts, effectively making the cigarettes invisible to the casual shopper. On top of that, several lawsuits have been launched at tobacco companies by government offices to show that Canada expects these companies to help contribute to the recovery costs of the industry’s victims.

To me, it seems that the Government of Canada has done everything in its power to stem the flow of cigarette consumption in this country. That is, it has done everything it can short of not selling cigarettes.

Finding actual figures as to how much the government pulls in from cigarettes proved difficult but we can be certain that a fair sum is brought in every year from Canada’s Tobacco Tax alone.

This is why I find this to all be sort of two-faced. On one hand, Canada sells tobacco products to those who wish to buy them, attaching hefty taxes to the products that insure the smoker is putting back into society. On the other hand, the government is making efforts to diminish the rights of smokers by dictating where and when they can exercise their government-sponsored addiction.

As a non-smoker, I am all for banning smoking within indoor public places like restaurants in the same way that I think someone should not be allowed to idle a car in a store. But making it more and more difficult for one to smoke outside to me seems to be a cruel trick being played by those that sell the cigarettes in the first place, especially in a country that poo-pooed the Carbon Tax (with the exception of Quebec).

Bigger, uglier warnings are not the answer. People, we can assume, know now what the risks of smoking are. This information is everywhere. This information is probably more readily available than cigarettes themselves. Perhaps this kind of campaign would have been useful back when cigarettes hit the market and advertisers claimed that their brand was doctor sponsored.

Thanks, Doc!

By making the warnings bigger, we are failing to deal with the real issue.

I think Canada really ought to put its foot down somewhere. Either sell cigarettes to smokers who we can assume know the health risks and tax the hell out of them and leave it at that, or begin to make real measures to wane smokers off the product, measures that involve assessing the cultural weight of smoking and why people choose to smoke in the first place despite the health risks.

But by attacking this problem effectively, Canada might be losing out on one of it’s big money-makers and, I think, that’s the problem. We won’t see any real results while Canadian smokers continue to pour so much of their hard earned dollars into the tax system. Instead, we throw a big scary ad on a carton reiterating what we’ve already heard a hundred times, as if to say, “See! We tried!”