Tag: campaign

Categories
Opinions

Editorial: Vicious victim-blaming rhetoric needs to end

Graphic by Ana Bilokin

This past year, we’ve heard a lot of conversations about racism, sexism, equality and sexual assault. It’s safe to say that something has changed.

Perhaps it’s the fact that some voices are now louder than others, and these ‘uncomfortable’ conversations are happening more often. Regardless of the reason, when we reflect on this past year from an optimistic perspective, we can see many instances of positive change.

But while movements like #MeToo and #TimesUp successfully dominate the news cycle, we still have a lot of work to do within our local communities. This is particularly apparent in the recent actions of our city’s police. According to Le Devoir, Montreal police faced backlash for launching a sexual assault prevention campaign that implied women make themselves more vulnerable to sexual assault when they drink too much.

The campaign was called “Je sors avec ma gang, je repars avec ma gang,” and was initially launched in 2012. Montreal police recently decided to reactivate the campaign by distributing some leftover flyers in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough. However, they received a lot of backlash from social media users due to the victim-blaming nature of the campaign, and decided to retract it.

This isn’t the first time Montreal police have been involved in victim-blaming. In 2016, local police told girls at Villa Maria High School that they were “asking for harassment” because of their short skirts, reported CBC News.

We at The Concordian are appalled by the lack of social awareness in the Montreal police’s decision to re-launch this campaign. In a social climate bursting with conversations about sexual assault and victim-blaming, it’s inexcusable to promote the idea that victims are responsible for the horrible actions of perpetrators. While we’re glad they retracted the campaign and realized their mistake, the fact that they re-launched it in the first place shows we have a long way to go.

This isn’t an ongoing issue exclusive to Canada either. On Nov. 14, protests took place in Ireland against the use of a victim’s underwear as evidence in a rape trial. A 17-year-old girl accused a 27-year-old man of rape, and the man was found not guilty of the crime, according to Global News. The defendant’s lawyer argued that the jury should consider that the girl was wearing lacy underwear at the time. “You have to look at the way she was dressed,” the lawyer said. “She was wearing a thong with a lace front.” This sparked protests all over Ireland, and people posted pictures of their underwear on social media with the hashtag #ThisIsNotConsent.

Sexual assault is not the victim’s fault. It is the fault of the perpetrator—the one who chooses to violate and hurt an innocent person. We need to end the victim-blaming narrative, and we must continue to call out those who perpetuate it. Not only does this narrative place the blame on people who need to be listened to and believed, it also promotes lies. If sexual assault was related to how much someone drinks, then sober people wouldn’t get sexually assaulted—yet, they do. If sexual assault was related to how revealing an outfit is, then people wouldn’t get assaulted in the winter—yet, they do. If going to a club or bar makes people vulnerable to sexual assault, people wouldn’t get assaulted in their own homes—yet, they do.

We at The Concordian hope this upcoming year continues to see a huge shift in the narrative surrounding sexual assault. We hope survivors feel they are listened to, validated and respected, rather than blamed and condemned. The only people we must condemn are those who commit these acts—and those who continue to push this vicious, victim-blaming rhetoric.

Graphic by Ana Bilokin

Categories
Concordia Student Union Opinions

Supporting the CSU’s call to end student exploitation

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth.

School can only teach you so much. This is what makes internships so valuable. They are an opportunity to get real-world, first-hand experience in your field before entering the job market. But as some posters displayed around campus assert: “Exposure” doesn’t pay the bills.

These posters are part of the 2017-2018 Concordia Student Union (CSU) campaign against unpaid internships. According to their website, unpaid internships became popular after the 2008 economic crash. “Unpaid internships, specifically, download the pressure of getting a good education onto the individual while taking that pressure off of the government and the employer,” the CSU’s campaign pamphlet reads.

While some students may have the financial capability to take on this pressure, many students simply can’t afford to dedicate time to a job that doesn’t pay. According to a 2013 Statistics Canada survey, 52 per cent of students between the ages of 20 and 24 relied on employment to fund their education. Other students may need an income to pay for rent, to buy food or to support their children. For many students, earning money is a necessity while in school, and juggling a full course load, a part-time job and an internship simply isn’t possible.

It might come as surprising to some of you, but unpaid internships are actually illegal in Quebec. However, there are three exceptions listed in Quebec’s Act Respecting Labour Standards. Internships that are either part of a program provided by an approved educational institution, completed at a non-profit organization with community purposes or part of a vocational training program are not required to be paid in Quebec.

That first exception is of particular significance to Concordia students. While internships for credit can be an exciting way to learn outside of the conventional classroom setting, there is debate over whether the value of that experience merits students giving away their labour for free.

Among the CSU’s calls to action for the provincial government is the need to create standardized criteria for internships. We at The Concordian support this initiative. In a perfect world, all internships would be paid. But if students are going to be working for free, the government needs to ensure that the line has clearly been drawn between what constitutes a valuable learning experience and what is simply student exploitation.

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth 

Categories
News

Concordia Collects for the homeless

Concordia students are collecting hygiene products for local women’s shelter. Photo by Savanna Craig

Concordia students create a fundraiser for local women’s shelter

Two Concordia students created a campaign to collect female hygiene products for the Patricia Mackenzie Pavilion women’s shelter with the aim of helping homeless women get through the winter months.

The fundraiser, spearheaded by Veronica Rios-Rodriguez, a fine arts major, and Julia Sutera Sardo, the vice president of internal affairs and administration for the Arts and Science Faculty of Arts (ASFA), is calling all Concordia students to get involved.

Rios-Rodriguez reached out to Sutera Sardo to launch the hygiene product drive after watching a documentary on women and homelessness called How do Homeless Women Cope With Their Periods?

“After watching the documentary on homelessness, I was heartbroken,” said Rios-Rodriguez.  “It made me wonder what we could do as students to help these women out.”

The video showed women struggling each month to find female hygiene products due to the high cost. “One woman in particular talked about how the cheapest package of pads were $7 each, which was enough money to also cover one meal for her and her partner,” said Rios Rodriguez.

Rios Rodriguez’s did more research on female homelessness and called Patricia Mackenzie Pavilion—a women’s shelter on De Maisonneuve Boulevard, which is part of The Old Brewery Mission—to find out what she could do as a student to help the women at the shelter.

The Old Brewery Mission operates seven pavilions in Montreal. According to their website, they offer a variety of social services to over 4,000 homeless men and women every year. They state while most homeless individuals are men, there are a growing number of homeless women.

“We want to make sure that women never have to choose between eating a meal and buying female hygiene products,” she said about the purpose of the campaign.

Rios-Rodriguez reached out to Sutera Sardo, who directly represents more than 30 departmental student organizations within the Faculty of Arts and Science, with the hope of getting more people involved and sharing the message on different Concordia student Facebook pages.

“Many students from a variety of different programs have reached out to us on Facebook or have stopped by my office to get involved,” said Sutera Sardo. Students can drop off soap, tooth paste, pads, tampons, shampoo and other products at her office on the fourth floor of the EN Building on Mackay, any day between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Sir George William Campus.

“During the winter months, we realize how hard it is for women in the shelter and we hope that providing them with feminine hygiene products will help,” said Sutera Sardo. She and Rios-Rodriguez will deliver all the collected items to the shelter around Christmas.

“What’s important is helping people all the time, and we hope to continue this throughout the year,” Sutera Sardo told The Concordian. She also hopes the campaign will raise awareness about how expensive feminine hygiene products can be.

The Canadian government has removed the GST tax on female hygiene products such as tampons and pads as of July 1, 2015, to help make these products more affordable for women.

Exit mobile version