Shout Out Louder!

Today is Shout the F**k Up Day, according to a group on Facebook. I think it's about time. Today, as well as being Mother's Day (happy Mother's Day to meeeeeeee...) is also the 50th anniversary of the FDA approving "the pill" for use as birth control. It's ironic the way that the current government has been working to take away women's rights.

Conservatives deny it's happening. They say we shouldn't be funding abortion in other countries anyway, citing laws in many of these countries make abortion illegal. This ignores the fact that it's not illegal in ALL of the countries that the G8 is trying to help.

Funding cuts are affecting everyone, they say, not just women's groups, and if new rules created by this government make it easier to deny funding to certain groups, that's just a coincidence. If the Toronto Pride Parade loses it's funding, it's because it's such a big event that it can stand on its own two feet. The Calgary Stampede (which has been around since 1886, by the way) obviously can't.

What does the Pride parade have to do with women's rights? Truthfully, it has everything to do with women's rights now, because the Tories are just showing again that if you're not a white, middle- or upper-class man, they just don't care about you.

The claim this week is that this government has done more to promote safety than any other, and apparently that's what women care about. We don't care about abortion rights at home or abroad, they told us. We don't care about groups promoting women's equality, or protecting women from violence. Isn't it good that they told us that? Because obviously we don't know what we care about without Stephen Harper telling us. And the claim about safety? This is the same government that's trying to dismantle the gun registry, despite a coalition of police officers and chiefs telling them that they want and need it.

Stephen Harper, you do NOT speak for me, and you have no idea what I care about, but I will not STFU just to avoid further backlash. I will use every last breath that I have to keep shouting the f**k up. I am a mother, a daughter and a woman, and there is nothing "fringe" about that.