First, why is a father determining who his daughter has sex with? Is he following her? Checking the texts on her phone? Reading her diary?

Second, why doesn’t the decal say, “Ram the son. Dodge the father.”? Or for that matter, why not “Ram the daughter. Dodge the mother.”? Why is it only the daughter who needs protecting, and why is it the father who does the protecting?

Finally, why is this need for protection underscored by a threat of violence? Like, this father is so caught up in preserving his daughter’s chastity that he needs to threaten with violence someone she had sex with (probably willingly)?

This sort of trope is patriarchy wrapped up in a package and tied up with a bow. It perpetuates the idea that women and girls are property; owned by their fathers until the father gives them away to a husband at the wedding altar.

If you ever wanted to know what people are talking about when they mention “toxic masculinity’, this is it. Expressing domination over other males while you protect females is one of the most primal, animalistic instances of human behaviour. It’s messed up enough when you’re trying to protect your partner or spouse from other males, but doing the same thing for your daughter is seriously creepy.

Because so few people can amass capital in capitalism, people assume they amass that capital through their own efforts. It’s why individual property rights are foundational to capitalism. Individualism is behind rational choice theory, for example, the idea that individuals pursue what’s in their own best interests.

If one believes that rich people are rich because of their own labour, then it’s easy to believe that we are all rewarded for our own labour and that people who are rich performed more labour, or at least performed their labour more efficiently.

Conversely, if we’re not rich, we simply didn’t work hard enough. If we lack anything, it’s because we lacked labour.

And if you believe that rewards follow labour, then it’s easy to believe that labour is never hindered by institutional barricades, such as sexism, homophobia, and racism.

It’s no coincidence that those who most strongly support capitalism are the ones who are most likely to be oblivious to institutional oppression. They’re the ones to claim that the justice system is not racist. They’re the ones to claim that it’s not sexist that most politicians and CEOs are men. They’re the ones to claim that giving LGBTQ+ people equal rights is “destroying the family”.

It’s why capitalists deny racial privilege. It’s why they deny gender privilege. It’s why they deny class privilege. It’s why they deny privilege in general. After all, if privilege exists and actually prevents people from finding success, then it proves that the idea that we can find success just by pulling up our bootstraps is just a myth.

And if the idea that we are rewarded solely because of individual labour is a myth—an idea that is foundational to capitalism—then it exposes capitalism as nothing but a scam.

Racism, for example, is abundant in capitalism. Capitalism requires labour costs to be as low as possible in order to maximize profits. That’s why slavery was a key component in capitalism getting a foothold. By spreading the myth that indigenous Africans were less valuable than white people, it was easier to treat them like animals, like property, to exploit them for their labour at very little cost.

Same goes for killing and relocating the people indigenous to the Americas. By establishing them as savage and uncivilized, it was easier to justify violence toward them as a way to gain unfettered access to the raw resources necessary to establish Western economies.

Even today, capitalism depends on the low wage labour of developing countries or undocumented workers, while at the same time convincing other workers that immigrants are stealing your jobs.

Capitalism requires the low-wage labour of incarcerated workers to keep retail prices low and profits high. Apprehending, convicting, and sentencing people of colour at higher rates than white people allows capitalism access to the low-wage labour they used to enjoy with African slaves and Chinese railway workers.

And it’s not just racism either.

Consider sexism. Capitalism requires labour. And the easiest way to get labour is through your workers having children, and those children being healthy and educated. Having a mother at home to keep them healthy and ensure they receive education while the father is at work works in capitalism’s favour more so than if both parents were working.

As well, if families are organized so that the father is the boss, children grow up being comfortable with the idea of being a subordinate, with the idea of hierarchy in the workplace.

Even homophobia is wrapped up in capitalism. It’s no coincidence that defenders of the so-called traditional family are also defenders of capitalism. Every person who isn’t in a heterosexual relationship and raising children is another person threatening the future job pools of capitalism.

If billionaires convince us that immigrants are stealing our jobs, that gay people are destroying the family, and that women are emasculating men, then they can keep stealing our wages, our resources, and our dignity.

There are multiple reasons why it’s problematic, but one reason has been on my mind recently.

This arrangement keeps women unskilled and uneducated. I mean, technically, stay-at-home parents gain skills as they manage a household, but these skills rarely transfer over well to the workforce.

If a woman is encouraged to, above all else, be a stay-at-home mother, to get married as soon as possible, and to have children as soon as possible, then there’s little incentive to get a degree in a marketable field and to plan out a career trajectory.

And as such, she becomes entirely dependent on her spouse to provide for her temporal needs. This becomes concerning when a woman wants to leave her spouse but can’t because she depends on him to provide for her.

If a woman is in an abusive relationship, for example, and she has no trade certificate, no college diploma, no university degree, getting a job to support herself while on her own can be a challenge. And the longer she is out of the workforce, the more challenging her predicament.

When we encourage women to be stay-at-home mothers above all else—to the point of eschewing education and any career development—we force women to stay in relationships they don’t want to be in (or that are even dangerous for them) out of fear of not being able to care for themselves.

Women in these situations are driven to choose between staying or accepting menial, low-paying labour to sustain themselves and their children.

Even when we tell young women to pursue an education “just in case” (job loss, spouse health, etc), it still frames careers as exceptions. Which means that they don’t see education and career development as necessary. And no one goes into a marriage expecting their spouse will be a threat to them or their children. Everyone assumes their marriage will be free from abuse.

And encouraging women to stay in abusive relationships is just one of the problematic aspects of telling them they should be stay-at-home mums.

For example, consider these examples:

The lists go on.

I have to wonder why society is like this. Maybe if we keep women fighting against each other they won’t band together and fight against systems that oppress women as a whole.

Maybe it’s time to change that.

The most recent video was produced by Always:

It’s a great message, one that touches me as a father of 3 girls. The downside to the video is that the message of empowerment has to be tied to a company.

As a result, my girls and I made our own, undefined by corporate greed:

A group of citizens will present to Lethbridge City Council this Monday, advocating for changing the usage of “alderman” as a term for city council members to “councillor”. I support this change.

The equality of women has become more important to me as I have been back in school. I have taken several courses that discuss women’s right and feminist theory, and it is clear to me that while we have made strides in women being treated better than in the past, there are still institutional changes that need to be made before the hegemony of our patriarchal system is gone.

There has been quite a bit of discussion regarding this proposed change, and there are a few common arguments I wanted to address:

This will cost too much money and that money could be spent on more important things.

The costs of this change in terms of money and time is negligible if the change is done when the next council is elected and most of those changes have to be made anyhow. Also, calling the equality of women unimportant (or at the very least, less important) does nothing to further their equality.

“Alderman” is a term that has come to refer to both men and women. It makes no difference what they’re called.

If it makes no difference, then why is there even a debate? The fact that people consider a male-dominated term like “alderman” to be acceptable for both genders is further evidence of how embedded the hegemony is in our society. Additionally, if the term doesn’t matter, then I assume supporters of maintaining the status quo would be fine with using “alderwoman” instead to refer to both male and female city council members.

There are more pressing issues requiring the time and attention of city council members.

Certainly there are issues requiring more of the attention and time of the city council. This is precisely why this non-issue should be dealt with. It will take hardly and time, we can be done with it, and city council can move onto the so-called more important issues.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The problem is that it is “broke”. Period.

Supporting the change is the socially responsible thing to do. There is no compelling reason to keep the archaic “alderman.” The Municipal Government Act uses “councillor,” and so do many communities across Alberta, even many smaller and more rural than Lethbridge.

I see sexism and discrimination against women in places I previously would have overlooked and in things I previously would have found funny.

This past week has been pretty hard for me. I have seen many of my friends participating in Facebook memes that denigrate and objectify women. When I do try to stand up against such, I am the one labelled as being insensitive and told I should lighten up.

I am very fed up this week and I am disgusted more each day that goes by to the point I feel sick to my stomach and my hands shake.

Here are a few of the images my friends have posted:

This one tries to make light violence against women. Strictly speaking it’s spousal abuse period, but since I am a man and the friend who posted it is a man, I saw this as directed at women. Besides, as the saying goes, it’s a dog is man’s best friend, not human’s best friend. It is never okay to laugh at the idea of stuffing one’s own spouse into the trunk of a car.

This is sexist in several ways. First it treats men as prizes (You’re all mine if you plan to marry in the temple. It treats women as objects of desire (if you aren’t going to get married in the temple, you don’t get me). It trivializes the sacredness of temple ordinances.

This perpetuates the stereotypes of women being emotionally unstable, and it ties so-called manhood to men being accepting of emotional abuse.

This objectifies women and glamorizes sodomization, both of which together promote sexual violence against women.

Yet another one objectifying women. This one goes even further by presenting women as objects that can be eaten. And why is it women have to wait for men to come along; why can’t they initiate relationships?

Finally, this one is sexist on several fronts. First, it promotes emotional instability in relationships. Second, it promotes the idea of women being owned by men. Finally, notice how the male progresses from boy to gentleman, but the female in the relationship remains a girl? Also, notice the female in the relationship is a girl, but the females outside of the relationship are women.

What disturbs me the most is that those who post these images are completely oblivious to the sexism contained within them.

And the sexism isn’t confined to just these images either. Every day, it seems, someone I know posts similar photos. New photos. The cycle continues: Someone promotes violence and sexism in their images and other perpetuate their messages by sharing them.

In all sincerity, what is there that can be done?