Latest blog entries

05 Jul 2011
Steal this poster! (On the links between women’s status in society and how we treat the earth.) by Bill Patrick

 

I have just completed a course in physical geography in which one of the assignments was to explore a geographic phenomenon. The professor encouraged us to pursue these explorations in creative ways.

28 Jun 2011
The real cause of the hockey riot in Vancouver? Male socialization. by Bill Patrick

I think it is safe to say that most Canadians love hockey. But after recent events in Vancouver, it also seems clear that the citizens of “the True North, Strong and Free” much prefer the violence to occur down on the ice, and become very uncomfortable when it spills out onto the streets, as it did the other day after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup in game seven to the Boston Bruins. Ever since the Canuck loss (and the subsequent street-level melee), the Canadian airwaves a

21 Jun 2011
Now that he’s gone, does it really matter that “The Big Man” Clarence Clemons was once convicted of domestic violence? It does t by Bill Patrick

Let me begin by saying that I love love love love love the music of Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band. I own every album. I know the words to pretty much every song. Even the words to the obscure but haunting “County Fair.” So yeah, I’m that much of a fan.

13 Jun 2011
Men and women should have full equality – except when it comes to dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. by Bill Patrick

Abortion is not an easy topic to discuss. Good people can hold very deep and yet totally opposite convictions about this issue. But I believe that no matter what we men feel about abortion, our voices on the issue of women’s reproductive choice should sound a lot like this:

07 Jun 2011
War is not a woman. (Thoughts on society’s thoughtless misogyny.) by Bill Patrick

Maybe our desire to blame women for everything that goes wrong goes all the way back to the beginning. To Genesis, 3:12, when God got mad at Adam for having eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge. What did Adam do? As the old feminist saying goes: “The first chance he got, Adam blamed a woman.”

31 May 2011
Forget about blue ribbons! When it comes to ending violence against women, these leaders wear white ones. by Bill Patrick

(Special thanks to Madeline McDaniel for inviting me to see a talk by Todd Minerson, Executive Director of the White Ribbon Campaign. And to the YMCA of Fredericton and the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Foundation for bringing him to town.)

25 May 2011
Slutty until proven innocent. (How we treat women who bring forward allegations of abusive behavior by powerful men.) by Bill Patrick
(Since these are powerful guys I am writing about, let’s get the legal stuff out of the way: the now ex-head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is currently facing charges for sexual assault in New York City, but these charges have not been proven in a court of law. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton settled the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him by Paula Jones out of court, but he was not found guilty of harassment in a court of law. And the sexual harassment allegations made against U.S.
16 May 2011
For Dr. Ottilia Chareka the sky was the limit… until one man brought her crashing down. by Bill Patrick

I never had the good fortune to cross paths with Dr. Ottilia Chareka, a fellow immigrant to Maritime Canada. And now, because of a senseless, violent act, I never will. She is dead, and the police say that her all-too-brief, amazing life was ended by a brutal attack at the hands of her husband. If the charges against him are true (and there is every reason to believe that they are) it means that one man – for reasons known only to himself – was able to snuff out her brilliant light. And we are all diminished by the loss.

08 May 2011
10 Things Men Can Do To Celebrate Mother’s Day by Bill Patrick

It is Mother’s Day, the one day of the year when we finally take a moment to honor the immense and continuing sacrifices that mothers make – first to bring babies into the world and then to raise those babies to adulthood, all the while uttering a quiet but fervent prayer that those children will have safe, healthy, happy, and fulfilling lives. Sadly, not all mothers are good mothers, and, tragically, not all children will be born into situations where they will have the opportunity to have a life that is safe, healthy, happy, and fulfilling.

03 May 2011
“What are you looking at?” On the link between traditional masculinity and paranoid personality disorder. by Bill Patrick

In the mental health field there is probably no more controversial set of diagnoses than those that live on “Axis II” – the so-called “personality disorders.” Unlike the Axis I disorders – which are more likely to be illnesses in the more classic sense of the term (i.e. schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression) – the personality disorders can be thought of as being more like deep character flaws. They are less about what someone has, and more about what someone is.