Disclaimer: Ipso Facto editorials represent the views of the author, and do not represent the views of the Ipso Facto editorial board, CJAM 99.1 FM, the University of Windsor, or the University of Windsor Faculty of Law.
81 years ago 5 women got together and did something that seems almost unthinkable to us today; they forced the government of Canada to recognize that women are persons. For Emily Murphy, Nellie Mooney McClung, Louise Crummy McKinney, Irene Marryat Parlby and Henrietta Muir Edwards, the fight to have "persons" as it was interpreted in the then British North America Act include women meant being recognized as equals in politics, and in life. Since then Canadian women use October 20th-dubbed "Person's Day"-to celebrate equality and bring attention to contemporary womens issues.
It may seem strange to some of us now that the personhood of women is even up for discussion. Women in Canada enjoy equal rights; they have actively particpated in the political sphere for some time and more and more we see women rising to positions of power in the judiciary, in business, and on the world stage. However, every once and a while a news story comes up that should remind us all that the battle for equality is not yet won.
One such news story is the Col. Russel Williams trial.
I have been following this case since the story broke due to my own morbid curiosity. Here we have a man who, by all accounts, was outwardly kind and friendly. A leader at CFB Trenton, he loved his wife and was a good commander. But the second life he led was one of hate. The more and more details that come out of the trial the more we find that Col. Williams was a deeply disturbed individual. His crimes are indescribably horrific (I won't repeat them in full here, as they have been adequately covered in mainstream press). It were as if this was an episode of "Dexter" rather than a true story that happened not 600 KM from where I now write.
The more I read about his victims the angrier I get. I have always considered myself to be a peaceful person, but I'll admit that there is a dark part of me that would take a grim sastisfaction in having this pitiful excuse for a human strapped to an electric chair. He represents to me one of the scariest things a woman would ever have to confront; a man that views females as pure objects, nothing more.
Objectification. It's a word that's bandied around a lot by feminist scholars without much understanding of what the issue with it is. In our culture objectification can occur when women are viewed singularly as something to be obtained for sexual and/or domestic pleasure. It's pervasive in our media images. Advertisements will often depict models as tied to (figuratively) the object for sale, or as passively gazing at the viewer while the male is active. The men on "Jersey Shore" go to clubs to find someone DTF (down-to-fuck) barely caring to find out their name and throwing them out of the house if they aren't immediately willing to hop into bed. I haven't always bought the "media will warp the minds of youth!" argument, but I do believe that when women are continually shown as objects that it can be hugely discouraging and create a systemic belief that this is in fact the case.
And why is this dangerous? An object is something with no voice, no conscience. It can be used at will and discarded just as easily. It can be destroyed and maimed with no thought to any ill effects. This is how Col. Williams views women. When Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd begged for their lives, he didn't hear anything. Because objects don't have lives; they don't have mothers and fathers or siblings and friends who will care that they are gone. We know that they were people, with hopes and dreams and all that mushy stuff that belongs in a Lifetime movie. They deserved to have the life they wanted. But that chance that all people deserve was unmercifully ripped away from them.
Col. Williams represents an extreme. A wide majority of men do not view women as pure objects. But the systemic beliefs that we carry thanks to years of gender roles being burned into our brains does affect what we think of ourseleves as woman, and how people view us.
This is why Persons Day is as important as it was 81 years ago when the Privy Council handed down its decision. Women have come so far, but as long as even one person like Col. Williams is able to exist, we still need to agitate for change. We need to make sure that womens voices continue to be heard and we need to seriously question the way that women are represented in media and in society. This is the only way that we can truly honour the memory of so many women, like Comeau and Lloyd, who are killed in acts of sexualized violence, and the many more who continue to bravely live with the physical and psychological scars of sexual assault. We need to talk, we need to yell, we need scream, and sing and make sure the whole world knows: I am a person. Hear me roar!
-H.G. Watson
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