Musings and Ramblings of a Geeky Monarch

Thursday 21 March 2013

Barbara Amiel and Her Steubenville Blunder

It's been ages since I've actually read an issue of Maclean's -- this, despite the fact I've had a subscription to the Canadian magazine for months, now. My lack of interest stems mostly from the publication's unexpected veering into Crazy Conservative country sometime in the last couple of years.

No better example of this can be found than that in the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of Barbara Amiel. The Maclean's writer is often off her rocker, but not more so than in today's Opinion piece, "Land Mines In Our Sexual Landscape".

Hey, it's just a little bit of rape, yo. S'all good

In it, Ms Amiel gives us a rather warped -- and, luckily, brief -- summary of the Steubenvillle rape case. With lines like "...a bunch of high school teenagers got drunk at house parties and one of the girls ended up sans her clothes, of which there were not many to begin with," we get the feeling Ms Amiel, at least in part, blames the victim for making herself so rape-ready.

She goes on to describe the boys', and the victims', behaviour as appalling. Because, we all know that raping a girl and videotaping it is on par with a girl who's had too much to drink. Then Ms Amiel throws in this little gem: "In a normal society, the girl's mother would have locked her up for a week and all boys present would have been suspended from school and their beloved football team."

"Normal society," in this case, must be based on her own days at U of T's Whitney Hall back in the 60s. You know, when it was perfectly normal and acceptable for teen boys to go around raping unconscious underage girls.

Barbara Amiel: Back in the day when rape was okay

"This girl," she continues, "could do with an alcohol abuse program....", while, if indirectly, towing the MSM line that the boys', Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, should have gotten away with a slap on the wrist. There's a bit where she bemoans the invention of the term "sexual harrasment", back in the 70s. A term, she suggests, "that ought to have been strangled at birth".

That's only roughly half the article. There's other bullshit about Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford's bum-grabbing incident on the eve of International Women's Day (with an unkind portrayal of grabbee, former mayoral candidate, Ms Sarah Thomson). She ends her diatribe on a high note: Reprimanding North American culture for being so ready to murder our unborn children, but wanting to defend those addicted to child pornography.

Yes. I know.

That Maclean's would publish this bullshit is astounding. That we should hold both them and Ms Amiel accountable for this bullshit is obvious.


No comments:

Post a Comment