The first half hour of the Current this morning (http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent) addressed the cyber abuse experienced by women politicians. The following is the long version of a paper I ended up writing after Newfoundland and Labrador Finance Minister, Cathy Bennett, went public with the abuse she was suffering online. It was originally intended as a blog, but quickly turned into a full paper that I have now revised and sent out. The following is an early draft prior to editing and focusing the argument, which includes more examples of the salacious and outrageous behavior towards women that occurs during parliament debate. What follows is a suggestion for controlling abusive language by starting with parliament taking seriously and modeling the gender-sensitive and inclusive political system that we expect in 2017. This requires a rebalancing of parliamentary privileges which could be attained by recognizing speech acts in the legislature as sexual harassment and...
This blog is a feminist commentary on issues regarding women and politics both in formal government, big-P, politics and informal grassroots, small-p, politics.