A World of Cheese, For your Pleasure

Womenomics au Québec

The current issue of Commerce magazine talks about Womenomics, which the Economist talked about last April. (If anyone can get me a copy of that article, it would be greatly appreciated. I can only find bits and pieces of it online.)

2 out of three new jobs in Quebec are taken by women.
More specifically, in the last 30 years women have been hired in two-thirds of the nearly 600 000 jobs created in Quebec, and their unemployment rate hit its lowest in 30 years in 2005, 5.8%. But which jobs? Apparently the higher-paid and safer jobs, because
There are more girls in school at all levels, and they do better. (Since 1987, 70% of all new jobs require some higher education.)
and
The growth sectors are in health, social sciences, education and public service, which are apparently more suited to women than men, or at least suit women very well compared to, say, construction.
I don't know about here, since I didn't have my pre-university education here, and I didn't have much in the 90s at all anyway, but in the US there were major programs designed to make sure that girls (out)performed. It does not surprise me that much that girls do better in school and are more likely to continue their education. Boys, on the other hand, were busy getting in trouble for being physically active (in a safe way, not the obvious cases where action needs to be taken) during recess. As an aside, I'd like to compare the budgeting and implementation of programs designed to improve the performance and confidence of American female pre-university girls in the 90s to similar programs designed for American black students in the same period.

Women in Quebec are responsible for 80% of consumption.
Why and how is this? I would like to know more. I think they really mean 80% of the consumption of household goods, which is still impressive, but not as impressive as saying that women are responsible for 80% of consumption.

6 in 10 women in Quebec had a paid job in 2005, compared to 4 in 10 in 1976.
Okay, I can buy that. Second-wave feminism and 80s inflation pretty much required that women hold jobs, and keep them. See below.

During the last thrity-odd years, men's working and economic activity has slowed, and there are more men than women collecting EI.
Doesn't the second part just make sense? Traditionally more men than women were working. You have to work to collect EI. If you don't work, you don't get EI.

Women are taking fewer part-time jobs by choice.
I think that this means that women are not forced to take jobs with fewer hours, since they are so powerful that they can so what they want, more or less.

The growth in female participation in Quebec is largely, if not mainly, due to the aggressive day-care policies in place here.
Because of this, women can have it all: a career and children, but not without certain other personal and societal costs. Actually they say that this isn't true: birth rates in developed countries where many or most women work are higher than in developed countries where they stay at home. There is more money coming in with which to raise them, and more support such as day cares and flex hours. The article also says that women spend the same time on child care in 2003 as in 1965 even though far more of them were working in 2003. Excuse my ignorance, but why would you need as much or MORE child care if you aren't working outside the home, in general?

There are as many working women with small children as there are with no children..
Women witrh small children are dropping out of the workforce in Alberta and in other provinces, which are cutting back on child services for women. According to the article, this goes hand in hand with the social conservatism in the rest of Canada, or as many francophones would say, English people. <tangent>Some people would also suggest and social conservatism means anti-woman, so English people don't like or support women.</tangent> Feminism (and unionism) is stronger in Quebec than elsewhere.

The cost of living requires women to work (which is true everywhere). If women didn't work, the poverty rate would increase by one-third.

Here's something interesting: In 2003, 29% of female workers in Quebec were the breadwinners in their households. The average annual salary was $41 200 and they made almost twice what their husbands made ($21 300). This does not include single working mothers.
Maybe women aren't doing that badly with respect to the so-called wage gap between men and women. Warren Farrell's 2005 book Why Men Earn More comes to mind. More on that later.

Quebec women can earn more money faster than men do, thanks to the Loi sur l'équité salariale.
This law was, among other things, supposed to compensate women for unrecognized work that was generally done by only by women. More specifically, it correct salary gaps due to systemic discrimination based on the gender of those who occupy jobs in job categories that are predominantly female. I would have to look up the details of what constitutes women's work; I would like to know what this work was, and if men ever did this work under similar conditions, did they also become entitled to the money? In any case half a million women were to get cheques of $2000 each. Half of all businesses forced to comply have not yet done so.

Women have more money than ever, hire more women than ever and all have become bigger consumers. More women are buying big-ticket items than ever.
The house, the car, the appliances are being bought by women. This would obviously contribute to the 80% statistic above if they are isolating household spending. But 80%? Why aren't men spending money on these things? What are they spending what little money they have on? Beer and hookers? Don't men take care of their families? (You might want to ask the fathers out there this question, and not just the mothers, or women's organizations.)

Women are better investors than men. They take fewer risks. They are now able to bankroll other ventures. Male investors ask what it is. Women investors ask what it's for.
This appears to be in line with what people think they know about men and women. I am surprised that more women weren't playing the stocks years ago. Some say that the dot-com crash would not have happened if more women were asked to be the venture capitalists in the 90s.

The battle isn't over for women yet, though, not by a long shot. Because despite all the things that women have going for them, they haven't not reached what so many people think is the most obvious thing to define: economic (and social) equality. For instance:

Women's overtime is often unpaid. More women than men work two jobs, which lead some to suggest that women need to moonlight in order to have the same quality of life as men.
I don't think that female moonlighters are doing it to try to catch up to John, but I understand what they are saying.

Women still onl earn three-quarters of the money that men earn.
I DESPISE THIS STATISTIC. This is the biggest reason why people do not trust them. They do not tell the real story. Women and men do not work in the same jobs. They do not make the same choices. They do not make the same sacrifices. They do not have the same training or experience. So why the hell SHOULD they make the same money? However, all of those things are changing, especially the training, and by extension, the experience. And further, when you do compare apples to apples, the gap dramatically decreases, disappears entirely or in some cases, works in women's favour. In my experience, I have never actually observed a pay disparity in favour of men when all is taken into account unless it was in women's favour, although such advantages were quite small. Seriously, read this book.

There are more women in poverty than men.
Probably for similar reasons.

Angelo Soares says that in Quebec, we are far from having achieved the ideal working conditions for women.
I would ask him what those are, and if anyone else has had or deserves such perfect conditions.

Men do less at home. This includes both housework and raising children.
The assumption is that having more women in positions of power is what women, men or society actually want or need, which I partly doubt. Francine Descarrières says that an equilibrium will not be achieved until the division of chores at home is natural. Does this mean that within a given home, the man does one set of tasks and the women does the rest? Does it mean that they both do everything half the time? What does this perfect balance for all households look like?

I agree that women are currently the biggest economic growth vehicle. I also agree that there are many unique challenges that women face. But as you can see, I am skeptical of many of these statistics that are trotted out as givens; I won't take them at face value, and neither should you.

What the Europeans call it

I think it's what non-Europeans call it, actually. This is a list of sexual activities broken down by European country (content SFW, background images, not so much). As though they invented sex or something. I gotta say, I didn't know that there was a Swedish sex, or Russian style. I wonder what Canadian style is. Doggie style with beer, both watching the hockey game?

"You use them as a punchline."

Although I can no longer be part of the sales group directly, I defend those that are putting their asses on the line for the company. Those who live and die by the fickle winds of cold calling, negotiation and rejection. If the lapdances are expensed, maybe it should be overlooked once in a while. Especially since the contract the sales team brought in saved your oh-so-important Maritime Marketing division. This is especially for those techies, marketing people and support saps that only know how to complain about the sales guy, but say nothing when they save the company. Again.

Salespeople, I, for one, salute you.

What kind of "ista" hipster are you?

Read this. Then read the comment by High Five. Christ, don't we know when to leave well enough alone? What's a hip female blogger? A bloggerista. What's a female attorney? Another kind of barista. Blah.

The cutest thing Quebec City could ever do

Seriously, wouldn't it be cute as shit if all these other bonhommes were there?

Who decides what we are?

Sadia had a nice entry with the following quote from the End of Dave:

"La culture ce n’est pas un referendum, pas des bombes, pas la FLQ, c’est le peuple qui la fait vivre, qui lui donne son élan, son souffle. Je suis Québecois, pas parce qu’on m’a dit que je suis Québecois, parce que j’ai décidé que je l’étais."

Translated:

"The [Quebec] culture is not a referendum, not bombs, not the QLF, but the people who make it alive, who keep it going and give it its breath of life. I am Quebecois, not because someone told me that I am, but because I decided that I was."

That's a really nice sentiment, and I would like to believe this. But I don't, not in practice. For these things are decided by the majority, not the individual. It's all great to be self-affirming, but it sounds a little like Stuart Smalley ("I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!"). If this were true; if I could actually decide how I am to be viewed in this world, couldn't I? Instead of seeing a black man that "isn't like the others" (more on that some other time, because there is much to be said there) but "probably isn't as well trained as his white peers", or a "fucking threat that I will avoid in the name of safety", or "a sexual curiosity that I just HAVE to try out, you know, just to see if it's true", I could declare that I am what I am, what I decide to be, and that is that. What a long sentence.

But surely Sadia, Dave and Stuart didn't mean that one could say some magic words and you would be instantly viewed differently. Maybe they meant that by making your (daily) affirmation, you would believe what you say, and act accordingly. And then people would see you as you want to be seen. But this is only true for some people, not everyone. Forgetting the obvious cases where a fifty-year old man wants people to believe that he's a twenty-five year old hot chick, of course. Here's a less obvious example.

Joe Nyugen is 27 years old and was raised in Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Quebec, although he was born in Vietnam. (I don't know if that place really exists, but it really sounds like it does, doesn't it?) Joe grew up with Vietnamese and Quebec values. Joe speaks French just like every other person from Ste-Marthe. Joe's politics are very much like those of the people in his neighbourhood, although you might assume differently by looking at him. What are the chances that Joe is seen as a québécois by his peers? I would say that they are slim. In fact, I suspect that as much as Joe may be liked and/or respected, he'll probably never be seen as one of the community. He is different. He looks different, he probably has different belief systems, and he speaks a funny language sometimes. He's NOT quebecois, and he never will be. Joe used to say that he is, but not anymore. All the comments and conversations he has heard throughout his life about foreigners coming in and changing this and that, wanting rights that they should not be granted at the expense of Quebec's culture have left him feeling "othered". No matter how much he has integrated into the culture, he's not one of so-called natives, and that's that. In the long run, this may or may not matter. Joe generally gets along fine.

Another example, a real one, is that of a former coworker, Jesse. He was born and raised in Quebec, and his family has been here for about six or seven generations. Jesse is English, speaks French extremely well, and will not allow anyone to say that he isn't quebecois. But they try, oh yes, they try. Some have insisted that because he isn't pure laine, that he is a Quebecker, which isn't at all the same thing.

As for me, I have been treated as everything from an interloper to an invader. One of the last times I went to the Sainte-Élisabeth bar downtown, there was nearly a physical altercation between my group and some francophone haters that complained to STAFF that there were "trop de blokes icitte". We, and in particular, we, were not supposed to be there.

I have defined myself as a Quebecker, or just a person living in Quebec (actually, I consider myself a Canadian and a Montrealer first and foremost, the rest be damned) and not as a quebecois, even though I have pretty well intergrated myself into the culture here more than many people I know that were born here. I won't bother saying that I am quebecois, because it seems very clear to me that that is not something that I can decide. Even if I were given some kind of honorary québécois title by the premier it wouldn't change the hearts and minds of most of the people living here. And perhaps that's fine. If you consider the québécois label as referring to a cultural or ethnic group, calling myself québécois would be like moving to China and calling myself Chinese, wouldn't it?

Does being considered québécois give you advantages in Quebec? I would think so. Any member of a dominant culture has advantages that non-members do not have whether you like it or not. I think that the point is, you can't unilaterally declare yourself québécois. Society has to allow you to be. The membership of any hegemonic, ruling or dominant culture is VERY exclusive. (This does not mean that I think that it is okay to abuse non-members, nor do I believe that non-members are necessarily being abused by those dominant cultures.)

But maybe this is all beside the point. Apparently no one knows what it means to be québécois, anyway. If you live here, do YOU call yourself québécois?

UPDATE: I googled Ste-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, and it's real. I must have seen it at some point.

Brand new tiger cub!

Look, Cute Overload is sickening as a site. Sure the stuff there is cute, but having to suffer through all that babytalk is usually not worth it. I saw the following only because Rose loves the site. Occasionally there are things that are worth seeing and enduring the saccharine comments. This is one of them. I love this cub. See him again at three weeks of age!

Another child confinement story

I have never been sexually abused, and I don't know anyone who has been over an extended period of time. But sometimes I find it hard to believe that that is singularly the worst thing you can do to someone. There are some things that I believe may be just as bad. When people hear of certain crimes taking place, they get angry and upset. For some, it's sexual abuse of a child or a woman. For others, it's murder. We all are outraged when these things happen, but some more than others. For me, confinement stories like this one make me sick with rage.

In short, these people confined a 13-year-old girl to her room for 22 hours a day. There's being grounded, and there's this. 22 hours a day with no books, TV or anything. For two years. One minute to use the bathroom. PB and J and bars are all you are allowed to eat. And the all-seeing eye. A camera and an alarm. These are the types of things you would do to your worst enemy. Someone you HATE. What kills me is that there were toys and gadgets, etc for three other children. Does that mean that there were actually three other children living there? If so, couldn't any of them said anything to anyone over two years? Maybe they were really young and might not have known better.

When you are faced with these types of crimes, I think it is normal to want to exact revenge in the name of justice and do to them what they did you their victims. And sure enough, they will be confined. But this confinement will be a luxury resort compared to what they put this girl through.

I suspect that these things are happening far more often than we believe. After all, if no one has ever seen the victim, there's no reason to be suspicious. If I were a neighbour, would I have any reason to believe that there was a problem? At least with sexual assault, the child has a chance to ask for external help. In this case, they simply vanish.

So what should be done? Nothing. The only things you can do are criminal actions, which are fine as long as you are willing to pay the price, I suppose.

I may have seen everything

I don't normally talk about Blue Nuit here, and I am not sure where this post actually belongs, but it's so nifty I thought to talk about it here. It's a woman that seems to be able to lick herself down there (NSFW), or close enough. What the word that means arousing and disturbing at the same time? Asturbing? Distrousing?

Drugs are BAD. Don't do them.

Poor bastard. See the video after the jump.

I would also like to point out that based on some VERY reliable sources, I might rather have to deal with your average convicted murderer than your average convicted drug user/dealer on a day-to-day basis. Specific examples are not needed here; I am talking about the person that accidentally killed that guy in the bar, or the spouse that needed out somehow and temporarily lost their mind. Why? Your average murderer is not the type to kill anyone they see; they aren't crazed bloodthirsty animals. They are generally speaking as honest and stable as anyone else (which means that anyone is physically able is capable of murder, think about that). On the other hand, poor or average convicted drug addicts and dealers do not care about social conventions, do not care about ANYTHING except getting that fix, or getting paid. They lie as easily as they breathe and they do things such as what you see in this video which can potentially make them as dangerous as any psychopathic killer you've ever seen in the movies. When they are utterly consumed by the drug, or the drug game, then they aren't necessarily whole people in a sense.

Again, I'm just speaking of the convicted ones, the ones that do crimes because of the drug habit or drug dealing. Further, I am only speaking about two very specific kinds of fairly specific crimes. This doesn't include child-killing or sexual assault. Those are considered, socially if not necessarily legally, different things entirely. And I also am aware that murderers often enough commit other crimes such as rape, robbery or what have you. Just not the AVERAGE person convicted of murder or manslaughter. (By the way, doesn't the word manslaughter SOUND more brutal than murder? You slaughtered someone. Think of what happens in slaughterhouses.)

My information comes from people who have been around a lot of people that are either convicted drug addicts or convicted murderers. I would not have come up with this on my own. I do not know what I am talking about; but the ones working and living with them do. If you think that this might be an unfair stigmatization of drug addicts, keep in mind that these drugs are often HIGHLY psychoactive and therefore change what might have been an otherwise normal person into a dangerous, deceitful criminal. Sure, drug addicts need help, and they should have it. But it should be noted that real recovery from addiction usually involves addressing the personality, the person, and not just the addiction. Unless the person is not addressed, they remain dangerous either to society, the people around them or themselves.

Butt wrestling. Guess where?

I could use a Japanese translator.

Beheading in St. Vincent: A Cheeseorgy Exclusive

Last month, a 21-year-old woman was beheaded by a 35-year-old man for rejecting his advances. This occurred in front of a large crowd of horrified onlookers as she was pulled off the bus and chopped to pieces. It's old news now, but a friend of my brother's father (click here for some family details) happened to be in the crowd with a digital or phone camera. And so that is how these pictures come into my hands. This is a Cheeseorgy exclusive, as these pictures exist nowhere else online. Do not use without permission, and please be warned; these pictures are graphic.

My brother did tell me that he was lucky to be here, rather than languishing with the idiots down there, but it seems to me that there are idiots everywhere. Especially Florida, but Canada isn't doing too badly in the crazy idiot department. I guess hearing about these things in other countries makes you think that your country is safer, or that its citizens are better. We certainly have a completely different attitude when that type of thing happens in our own country, but that's all part of another discussion, I suppose. Thanks got to Trench at News of Doom.

Picture 1
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Dunking cheerleaders

This is simply incredible. I LOVE it. Forget the rest of that cheerleader crap: just train them all to do superdunks and they will be the most popular cheerleaders since the Dallas Cowgirls of the 70s and 80s. The first picture has the beauty of a pretty, athletic 19-year-old girl with the power and grace of the classic Air Jordan. Can't beat that, excellent shot. And this one: it says, "There's a lot of ass to be kicked, and I am just to one to kick it!"

What they need now are scripted half-time scrimmages at football games culminating in a hail-Mary long bomb pass caught in the end zone, or a run play where the girl (scantily-clad, of course) dekes and twists out of a series of attempts to stop her. A massive pile-on ensues. I'm not one of the whole girl-on-girl thing, but that looks like good, clean family fun to me.

And saving precious family moments, too!

"Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn." - Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate.

I should probably mention that I have two Seagate SATA hard drives in my desktop machine. Read the rest of the article here.

From pubes to prosperity

I was getting sick of all the *-aid organizations out there. You know, Live Aid, Farm Aid, Queer Aid, this Aid, that Aid. But how could I resist Pubes Aid? You buy the pubic hair of some celebrity, and the money goes to some charity. It's a great idea. If I had the money to burn, why the hell not? I actually think that people would be interested in seeing these shorn locks. If I were a celebrity, I'd donate. It's not like it's in short (however curly) supply. Although I would think that simply regular hair would also make for a good charity item.

The best by far, though, is the pubeaganda. Fucking brilliant. Oh, and there's a timer. In about 4 days the donors will be revealed, so check back.

Weird porn or science documentary?

The German accent really tops it off. Acromegaly never looked so good.

Giantess Astrid From Germany.

I used to know a girl this tall, actually, but she didn't seem to have a tenth of the confidence Astrid has. I heard that she found a tall husband and had a tall daughter.

How it works

This is supposedly how we operate. I want to know how WOMEN operate. She smiles too much.

The sincerest form of flattery?

I would have to come back from obscurity to find some knockoff site. They even use the same cheesedoodle image that I used to use on the front page. I wonder what they are all about. I knew I should have registered that domain name when I had the chance.