even in canada, my body is yours

i just finished Stephen Lewis' book 'Race Against Time: Searching for hope in AIDS- ravaged Africa. he talks extensively about woman's rights and the lack thereof in African and other developing nations. he outlines how their bodies are outsourced to men and their pleasures. then i thought about canada, and its role in giving women the right to their bodies.

many canadians point fingers at other (developing) nations for not doing enough on gender violence, and gender rights. we talk about international hotspots where female genitle mutilation, rape, honour killings, gas stove 'accidents' are grotesque and not at all acceptable behaviour in canada, land of the free, where rights and responsibilites are respected and expected.

i was having a casual conversation with a friend the other day and she told me she made $100 per hour standing at a beer table at a night club wearing skimpy lingerie. she was a struggling university student and needed the money. what she didn't apply for was the gropping, touching, and harassment from club-goers. as she told me, the only time her assigned bouncer would intervene was when the club-goer got 'too' aggressive, meaning a threshold of agressiveness was tolerated, just not 'too' much.

it came to me: here we (canadians) are pointing fingers at countries across the world who don't respect women and their bodies; and yet, we do the same albeit with more subtley without raising ire amongst our own citizenry.

when will gender politics convene in the public arena with serious merit? importantly, when will canadians stop advising other nations regarding gender violence and heed its own advice?