Allison McNeely
The Calgary Herald is reporting that YWCA of Calgary’s Sheriff King House, a domestic violence shelter, and Mary Dover House, a women’s homeless shelter, are close to capacity due to an unusual spike in demand. Sheriff King is housing more than three times the number of women and children that it did last year.
According to the YWCA of Calgary, shelters traditionally have lower numbers during the holidays because it is a difficult time to leave home.
That’s weird. Because from here’s what I’ve heard: Calgary’s women’s shelters can never keep up with the demand for space and Christmas is a spike period for domestic violence (financial stress, too much booze, doesn’t take a lot of imagination to guess why).
I interviewed Cynthia Wild, director of social development for the YWCA of Calgary, for Yeah What She Said. Wild told me during our interview that Calgary has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in Canada (a fact that does not seem to be disputed in any article), and that the YWCA has had to turn women away because they do not have enough space (listen at the 18:00 mark onwards). Wild also said that she would like to see more housing developments for women who have experienced domestic violence so that they can start a new life, rather than staying at the shelter or going back to their old home.
The Calgary Herald article frustrated me because it just doesn’t add up. How can the YWCA of Calgary turn away 1000 women last year, yet only be “close to” reaching capacity now?
I’m not trying to call out the YWCA of Calgary. That organization saves women’s lives. It does good work and it should be given money and resources to continue doing what it does. Plain and simple.
But what’s the real story here? If we can’t figure out whether or not there is really a shortage of beds, and if we can’t figure out whether or not Christmas is a bad time for domestic violence, maybe we’re in trouble? If Calgary has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in Canada, then I’m inclined to believe that there probably aren’t enough beds.
In its annual statistical report for 2010, Calgary Police Services reported that there were 15,789 calls for service related domestic violence that year. In 2009, there were 14,267 calls for service. Now I’m sure that some of those calls amounted to nothing or were related to cases that a women’s shelter wouldn’t handle, but you’ve got to think that a chunk of those were legitimate. And what about the people who never call?
Sheriff King House sheltered 766 women and children in 2010. Keep in mind that it is a 38-bed facility that will shelter women and their children for up to 21 days. By contrast, the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter increased their capacity from 40 to 50 beds in 2010/2011 to meet growing demand.
There’s no way we have enough beds in this city.
Statistics of this kind are difficult to ascertain because it all depends on when a count is done, where, with which population, etc. The variables of people moving in and out of a shelter environment are complicated, to say the least. Maybe we’ll never get it right, which is incredibly depressing.
But regardless of the margin of error, “nearing capacity” can’t be true. Domestic violence is an epidemic. If we’re going to talk about it, maybe we should get the numbers straight.
New work. Sorry. This is boring, but it behooves me to promote my work. (Real talk: did I use “behoove” correctly? Everyone is using this word lately, and while I may be a writer/editor, I totally had to look it up in the dictionary. After which I decided to try to use it in a sentence. Literacy!)
Anyway.
- I profiled the Speck brothers of Henry of Pelham winery for Wine Access.
- I also interviewed Bal Arneson for Wine Access — she talked a lot about garam masala.
- (I’ve also interviewed Michael Smith if you’re into him; that’s not super new work, but I didn’t put it on the blog when it published.)
- I also wrote about people being mean to feminists online. (Referenced in passing in my last post.)
That’s all. Thanks for reading.
So the Calgary Journal, which is a student newspaper at Mount Royal University, recently approached me to write a guest column about how feminists are treated online (spoiler alert: badly!). So I wrote that.
But a few days ago I came across an article on Poytner about how female journalists are attacked online, largely through social media. And then I came across a column by Toronto writer Alexandra Molotkow about her faith. The comments on her piece are mean and they are personal.
That’s the reality of being a female writer, especially online. Nobody is going to like everything you write, not even your Mom (she just might not say it). By the very nature of being a writer, not everything you produce is going to be gold (Sir Ira Glass has a few words on this unfortunate reality). But the difference is the vitriol that you have to deal with.
The more established and more reputable a female writer becomes, the more her work is criticized, and viciously so. It’s personal attacks, sexist remarks, unfair accusations of over-sharing and generally belittling someone’s work. We place an unequal value on the personal narrative/essay/opinion writing produced by men and women. And women get the shitty end of the deal.
So we protect ourselves and our fellow female writers. In the comments following Molotkow’s piece, the editor (Sarah Nicole Prickett) steps in to defend her. However, Prickett doesn’t really defend Molotkow. She basically tells the commenters to screw off. I would have liked to see her stand up for the quality of the work and highlight exactly why the story has merit.
(The editors at Mother Jones famously did this in the comments of a blog post criticizing reporter Mac McClelland for her piece, “How Violent Sex Helped my PTSD.”)
I believe—and maybe this is bizarrely old school in the age of the internet—that editors are ultimately responsible for the writing in their publication. The entire purpose of an editor is to take a writer’s ideas and make sure they are grammatically correct and have sufficient intellectual rigor to stand up for themselves upon publication. If an editor won’t truly go to bat for their writer and explain why the piece is great, I question if that editor is really helping their writer and publication.
I wonder if we aren’t being critical enough of each other’s work before it is published. To jump to McClelland’s PTSD piece, it was an interesting and entertaining read, but not without potentially serious problems. The criticisms that McClelland painted Haiti in an ethno-centric fashion and possibly misused the rape victim’s story have some merit. Although her editors did a wonderful job of defending her work, maybe they could have had a more critical eye toward it before the published?
Sometimes I think that we feminists and female writers huddle up and protect each other from the trolls and, in the process, perhaps miss the opportunity to make each other write better for the sake of our own careers. Critiquing is so important to writing. But it’s impolite. If you come out say that you don’t like a woman’s article, you’re abandoning the sisterhood.
Ann Friedman, the executive editor at GOOD, curates a blog called Lady Journos! that showcases the top work from female journalists. She is a huge advocate for putting more women on mastheads as contributors and editors. This is the kind of support for each other that we need. Shining a light on the good, solid writing, not just protecting it from the trolls. Not every piece of lady-produced long form journalism makes it onto Lady Journos!, and that’s the way it should be.
There is a fine balance, a tricky balance, but an important balance that needs to happen between supporting and fostering female writers and putting their work and their talent through the grinder. Are we over-correcting for the lack of women’s voices and stories in journalism that we publish everything, even if it’s just not ready for publication yet? If something isn’t very good, what’s the best way to share that criticism after its already been published?
Feedback and discussion is what’s needed to collectively up our game. How do we do that while being aware of the trolls and the mean-spirited critics?
Photo source: Jezebel via The New Yorker
I love this ad because The Economist often makes me mad, but in an intelligent way. Which is why I keep reading.
Recently at GOOD, Amanda Hess wrote a short piece about a baiting ad from The Economist targeted at female readers. The circulation advertisement said, in Hess’ words,
“Why should women read The Economist?” the circular asked, before answering, “They shouldn’t.”
Folded inside the pamphlet was the punchline: “Accomplished, influential people should read us. People like you.”
Hess goes on to say that only 13% of readers of The Economist are women. The magazine has no bylines and it’s writers are somewhat mysterious, but we know that the magazine has never been run by a woman. Less than 25% of its editors and writers are women. In the fight for masthead equality (a cause recently taken up by Hess’ editor, Ann Friedman), Hess points out that The Economist fails pretty big.
Which I agree with. The Economist seems to be a bro’s club. I mean, it’s not really surprising. They think the free market will solve everything and they have a hearty Red/High Tory view of the world. Straight up unadulterated, arrogant, old school bro.
Hess goes on to note that although The Economist does some excellent reporting on the status of women (especially in developing countries, in my opinion), they don’t have very many articles that are inclusive to women. As a result, Hess flips to the book reviews.
This is where she loses me. Inclusive to women, really? Come on.
I’ve been a subscriber The Economist since 2005. Or rather, my Dad has gifted me a subscription to the magazine every year since 2005, and I ask for a renewal every year for Christmas. I am a loyal reader of the magazine.
The Economist has been a presence in my life for longer than 2005. I can remember that when I was as young as 12 years old, my Dad would grab a his copy of the latest issue and make some hokey joke about US politics or finance or whatever was in the issue. He would shove the magazine in my face, leave it open in my room to an article he found interesting, and generally try to get me to read it. For a long time I only read the comic at the front.
But I turned out like my Dad and took political science and economics in university, and he bought me my first subscription. Turns out, a chunk of my political science friends were also subscribers. Apparently their parents had forced The Economist on them as well.
I don’t think that The Economist is exclusionary to women. Does it have a bro perspective on the world? Yeah. Is that occasionally problematic? Yeah. The aforementioned ad (which did not appear in my issue, I’m so mad!) is a little insulting to the feminist eye, but I think Hess takes her assessment too far.
Asking why women should read The Economist is silly. Implying that The Economist is for the boys discredits women. If we’re so worried about the lack of women at The Economist, I propose that more women read it, and more female journalists pitch to them. I plan on writing about public policy for them one day. (They don’t know this yet.)
I like The Economist because it makes me smarter. I like that it’s hard business and politics news, that they’re totally obsessed with the failing Euro (seriously, every other cover lately is about the European economy), that they think capitalism will save us all and that they don’t include bylines. I actually like that many of their stories have open opinion. The magazine is arrogant, but it’s smart, and they don’t bullshit you around on where they’re coming from.
When I was 13 I read about George W. Bush Jr. in The Economist and I distinctly remember telling my Dad that I didn’t trust the guy. That I could form an opinion on a future US president and discuss it with my father over dinner? That’s hilariously precocious.
Twelve years later, I’m still talking about The Economist and politics with my Dad. Lately, he’s been calling to talk about Mitt(ens) Romney. We agree that Rick Perry is nuts.
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