I have returned from my little getaway with my spouse. He has returned to the U.S. from Canada to his home in New England, and I’m relieved to say his trip back was uneventful and easy.

He’s safe and resting before going back to work.

We spent the week book shopping, seeing movies, watching Glee — problematic shenanigans, trainwreck actors and all — and enjoying the local scenery and restaurants.

We celebrated our first anniversary, we thawed the frozen cake we saved from the wedding and experimented making simple syrup to liven up the dry crumb again. The results were mixed, but the lemon curd remained delicious.

Lemon and pumpkin spice is a surprisingly good blend. Our baker was a genius.

We hit the highlights from our relationship to date, enjoying our favourite sushi together — we announced or engagement at one sushi restaurant, and even signed our legal wedding papers at another. It’s one meal we can always agree on.

On the night of our anniversary, we had dinner at the hotel where we hosted our wedding reception.

The food was expensive, but great. Well worth it. I even tricked him into letting me pay for it. He insisted he cover for the next two dinners, which I graciously allowed. We teased each other about it for the rest of the trip.

We even spent the day watching all of the Twilight movies in one glorious, awful, highly entertaining binge. He’d never seen them. I got to laugh my ass off at his horrified, amused expression.

While he was here, we finally saw some movement on our immigration application, which is a huge relief to both of us.

First, he was asked to provide his biometrics, and our lawyers gave us the information on how to get that done — he was able to go to a Canadian office and got the necessary stamps to prove it.

While there, we found out that the new passports put out by the U.S. government don’t play nicely with Canadian systems and his documents couldn’t be scanned.

Thankfully it was a known issue and they took his information manually instead, but it was a scary moment, and it brought home how the American government is really fucking with the ability of their citizens to move around.

Scary thought.

A few days after, we got the news that I have officially been approved as a sponsor. I am legally eligable to sponsor a spouse and so now, we can move forward. At this point, it’s just his medical check and then waiting for the government to process and approve his Permenant Residence status.

We’re several long steps closer to my husband and I sharing a home together instead of making do with long distance.

Going through this process has really brought home the difficulties faced by immigrants the world over. Especially here. Those people who think that Canada has wide open borders and getting in is easy, I fucking wish it was. Holy heck, this process is long and painful!

Getting in ‘the right way’ is not an easy or cheap or simple process, and it’s difficult to maintain patience even when you’re relatively safe.

For migrants who are fleeing war or famine or violence or climate catastrophes at home, the process of immigration ‘the right way’ is fucking insane.

I can’t imagine going through all of this while struggling to survive at the border of an actively hostile country, all the while terrified of being sent home to be killed or die of disease or starvation or struggle in severe poverty with no hope of relief.

Not to mention the expense. It’s bloody expensive even without the lawyers we hired, and that’s with a generally favourable exchange rate. A person fleeing for their life with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a child in their arms just doesn’t have the money to pay even the basic fees.

Nevermind being able to fill out all of the documents and provide proof of financial stability or a verifiable work history or anything like that. It’s all well and good if you can do all that, but if a person has a gun at their back and salvation ten steps away, do you really think they’re going to wait to fill out paperwork?

Is it reasonable to expect that? With a hungry, frightened child in your arms? Looking at the person you love, or just fearing for your own individual life? You counting change and picking up a pen, or are you running like hell and praying to find an opening you can pass through without getting shot?

Are you waiting, or are you jumping in with a visa, finding work and hoping you slip under the radar rather than risk getting sent home by immigration officials at a check in?

Seeing the situation in the U.S. and how brutally the government is cracking down on desperate, fearful people who haven’t done anything worse than a civil infraction is heartbreaking.

And I’m serious about that, by the way. Illegally staying in the U.S. past your visa’s expiry or entering the border without documentation is not even a fucking criminal offense, per the U.S. legal system. It’s not something that would go into criminal court, and doesn’t typically include jail time as a possible consequence.

Legally speaking, it’s more on the level of a driving violation, rather than a violent crime like murder. Yes there are consequences, but it certainly doesn’t warrant concentration camps, abuse and death.

Then there’s the racism and the stereotyping. The social stigma and shame.

When people think of immigrants, even here in Canada a lot of people assume you’re talking about visible ethnic minorities. They’re assuming someone came over from the Middle East, South America, India, maybe Ukraine. They picture foreign accents and severe cultural differences.

They assume immigrants are easy to spot at a glance. They’re different.

My spouse, however, looks and sounds and behaves very much like any other white Canadian. He will be an immigrant all the same. He will have cultural differences, he will need to learn how our laws and expectations differ from the ones he was raised with.

But he will be treated very differently because, at a glance, he looks like what the racists assume ‘real Canadians’ look like. So his experience with being an immigrant is going to be much easier than others.

That’s not fair. And it sucks. And neither of us likes it.

No matter where someone is born or what language they grew up speaking, no matter their religion or their cultural traditions or any other intrinsic part of their identity, they are human beings.

And human beings deserve basic human dignity.

My spouse will be an immigrant. He will likely be treated kindly for presenting the image of a cisgender, white, able-bodied straight male. He will be given the benefit of every doubt by everyone who passes him on the street — except, of course, for a little ribbing because he was born in the States.

Canadians are a little mad at Americans right now.

But immigrant or no, he will be treated respectfully because of how he looks and how many sheets of paper he signed, how much money we were able to put on the table and how easily he can take time off work to travel and present himself to the government of my country for inspection.

He will be treated respectfully because his life is not in danger, and he could afford the time and money to wait for months on end without risk of death or worse.

The people who don’t have the money or the time for that will be hated. Treated like shit. Talked about like vermin just for the desperate hope of a better life across a made-up line on a map.

They get blamed for everything going wrong, as if they’re not exploited and mistreated for cheap labour and tossed aside to struggle when they aren’t needed anymore. As if they don’t contribute an astronomical amount to taxes and take little in return. The U.S. in its current form is highly dependent on them just to make ends meet.

Then they turn around and send ICE into the streets like Gestapo thugs.

I hate that. It’s disgusting. A human being is a human being, and we are all worthy of compassion. Respect, dignity, the essential recognition that when push comes to shove we will all fight for better lives, even when others don’t think we should.

I hope, in time, we can all grow up and take that message to heart.

Solidarity wins.

We booked the same hotel we stayed at before our wedding. It felt nice and romantic. It’s a bit more expensive, but we’v…

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There are days I miss working at the mall.

I miss pouring coffee for my favourite regulars. I miss the banter and chatter and joking with my coworkers, teasing each other about who said the ‘Q-word’ when they were out on break.

You never say, ‘Wow, it’s quiet today’ out loud. I swear every customer in the mall would beeline to the shop every single time, like clockwork.

I miss the smell of the first pot of coffee, setting up the giant pots and grinding beans. I miss getting in when the sun was barely up, washing out whipped cream canisters, and making up a fresh batch.

I had a job at this little coffee shop in the back of the giant bookstore, and I loved that place. It was so cozy, so comforting to stand behind that counter and look out at the endless stacks of books, people reading at the tables, and sipping the drinks I served them.

I miss that.

Until I take off my rose-tinted glasses and remember what it was really like.

It was one of the busiest places in our small town shopping center, and my coworkers and I were busting our butts all day, every day.

There was no time to take a break. It was tiring work, much more demanding than people think it is; retail workers and service industry employees don’t get the credit they deserve.

We damn sure weren’t paid enough.

We had no security team to watch our backs, nobody watching for theft — a common problem, with expensive mugs sitting on shelves in plain view — or for scam artists looking for free drinks.

I had to handle a lot of those. They thought they were being sneaky. They were not.

There was nobody there to kick out leering guys who harassed me. I had to deal with that on my own, especially if I was the only one working the front of the store when it happened.

There’s nothing you can do when rich older ladies treat you with complete contempt because low-wage workers are ‘beneath’ them.

The most annoying part of that job was the assumption that good customer service meant being the customer’s punching bag. You had to grin and bear it, and just put up with their bad behaviour or risk being written up.

Screw that. I decided I wasn’t interested in being bullied a long time ago.

When you work retail, you don’t have a choice in how you deal with rude people.

If somebody walks up to you in your personal life and says something vulgar or raises their voice, you have every right to tell them off or walk away. You don’t have to engage; you don’t have to stand there and take it.

But at work, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.

I vividly remember one customer who was the most two-faced jerk I’ve ever met. He would switch personalities on a dime depending on whether his girlfriend was with him or not.

When she was, he was in a nice button-down shirt with a friendly smile and his very best behaviour on display. He paid for their drinks, he was polite, he had eyes only for her and she was radiant under his attention.

Then he would come in without her. He’d be in a skin-tight tank top with sunglasses on — indoors, no less — and hit on every single woman working behind the counter.

Including my underage teenage coworker who had already been harassed by our older male boss.

You have no idea how badly I wanted to remind him that his girlfriend was a regular, that I literally knew her by name, and that I talked to her several times a week.

But he felt secure in assuming that I wouldn’t. He had every expectation that he was going to get away with his predatory behaviour.

See, retail workers are a captive audience. When you’re behind the counter and on the clock, you aren’t human. You’re a machine. You exist to take orders, make drinks, and smile.

The idea that he might get outed by one of us didn’t occur to him, and frankly, he had a point. It’s not our job to cause drama.

Luckily we didn’t need to; he wound up screwing it up on his own without our help. She’s better off without him. We heard all about it from her when she came in after the breakup.

Baristas are like bartenders; we collect all the hot gossip whether we want to or not.

Let me tell you about Jesus Dave.

Jesus Dave was the nickname we gave to our coworker’s pastor, the preacher who regularly spoke at her church. To her, he was very nice and welcoming — as you’d expect, with her being part of his congregation.

To the rest of us, he was the reason to draw straws on who would be working the register until he left the store.

Jesus Dave came to the coffee shop with one purpose in mind: To save our wretched young souls before it was too late. Our workplace, where we had no choice but to stand there and listen to him, was the perfect place to do that.

Now, to be clear, there’s nothing problematic with religious customers in general. Most are nice, except for the judgemental hypocrites who want to lecture you for working on Sunday while they pay you to make them lunch.

One of my regulars was a very devout gentleman who worked as a nurse at the local hospital. I used to get into theological discussions with him when I got off the clock, and we were pretty good friends by the time I left that job.

He once invited me to church, I politely declined, and he never asked again. When I told him I was pagan, he took it in stride and didn’t even blink. It was just another topic to discuss.

Jesus Dave was something else.

The first time I met him, I was caught off guard when several of my coworkers all suddenly found reasons to go ‘check something’ out back. I found myself alone, blinking at a very average-looking man with a big smile on his face.

He ordered a plain cup of light roast coffee. I poured it, and I rang him up. He looked me up and down as I did, taking in my dyed hair, my tattoos, and my piercings. He made a point of checking my name tag.

Then he said, with heavy emphasis and a very solemn tone, “Well, Sam. I’m going to give you one of these because I think you really need it.”

He handed me a little religious pamphlet, urging me to repent and come back to Jesus so I wouldn’t burn in Hell.

Charming.

Over the next few months, Jesus Dave would come in at random times. My one co-worker joked that he never got a pamphlet from Dave, and he felt left out.

As the one straight-laced young man in a nice button-down shirt and a short haircut, he was the only one to never get a talking-down-to by our visiting pastor.

The second time I met Jesus Dave, I had just clocked out and he slid into the line behind me when I went to claim my daily free latte.

“Sam, have you given any thought to letting Jesus into your life?”

I was off the clock. I turned to look up at him, not smiling, tone flat. “Yeah, I sure thought about it, Dave.”

He gave me a look of pure pity, gave a theatrical sigh, and said: “Well, you’re young. You have time.”

After that, he started hosting Bible study groups with kids from his church. He would bring them in, put tables together — right in front of the register, leaving just enough space for customers to get by — and talk loudly about the Good Book.

Every so often one of the kids would come up for a drink and try to give us more Jesus pamphlets. I started bluntly telling them ‘no’, pushing the pamphlets back at them across the bar.

I was losing patience. I was losing my good customer service attitude.

I was lucky that my supervisor knew Jesus Dave well enough to cut me some slack about it.

I developed a reputation by the time I left that job.

I was the one who had stopped giving a damn, who didn’t mind hustling people out the door when they were making themselves my problem.

I picked up that reputation after one awful experience that had us stuck at work well past the time we were supposed to be closed for the night.

We were in the process of cleaning up, getting ready to shut down the espresso machines and start their nightly wash cycles. We were wiping down coffee pots, filling the dishwasher, and generally winding down.

About ten minutes to closing, these two young ladies came in pushing strollers. They were new moms, carting bags full of baby gear over giant winter coats.

They ordered hot cocoa, which we didn’t mind whipping up before shutting down the machines.

Then I turned back to glance over the store and watched them dump their bags on a table. They were chattering amicably to each other, stripping off their coats and starting to get settled in.

I called out a quick, “Hey, we’re actually about to close!” and they waved their hands and turned back to talking.

I saw my supervisor’s expression fall. She was relatively new to the job, having just gotten promoted a week or so before. She didn’t feel confident in the role yet.

I took it upon myself to walk past the ladies as I wiped down tables, giving reminders as I walked back and forth.

Five minutes to closing.

Okay ladies, we’re closing in two minutes.

It’s five minutes past closing time, ladies.

They ignored me. It got to the point where one of them started taking her baby out of his stroller, making like she was going to start feeding him.

We were all standing at the counter, unable to start the nightly cleaning, money counting, or locking up until they were gone. I looked at my supervisor and she shrugged.

She didn’t want to be rude. I said I wanted to go home.

She bet me the pen she was holding that I didn’t have the guts to go and tell the moms with babies to get out.

I happily marched around the counter, straight up to the table, and loudly announced: “We’ve been closed for almost twenty minutes. Please get out of the store.”

There were gasps, affronted glares, and muttered protests. They had newborns; they just wanted a quiet place to sit out of the cold. I refused to budge and stood over them with my best RBF until it sank in.

They made a big show of it, dragging out their preparations and taking their sweet time. Tucking the babies away, packing up the bags of baby supplies, and giving me rude glares as they pulled on their jackets.

I marched them to the door, out into the mall, and made sure they left the building. When I got back, my supervisor sheepishly held out the pen without a word.

Customers act entitled because they’ve been repeatedly shown that it’s okay.

It isn’t.

Contrary to what some people might think, retail workers are equal human beings with every right to be treated with dignity and respect. There is no reason to be rude, condescending, or malicious towards us.

The customer is not always right. They aren’t gods giving commandments from on high.

I don’t work at that coffee shop anymore, but I still occasionally pop in to get a drink and browse the books. I don’t put up with the bull anymore, and I’m no longer bound by the rules of the store. There’s nothing stopping me from cranking up the attitude if somebody gives the workers a hard time.

I’m still waiting to run into Jesus Dave again. I have plans to go full-bore Petty Confetti on him if I catch him pulling another Bible Study stunt.

Getting children to help him harass us was a low blow, and I have no tolerance for two-bit bullies who exploit kids like human shields. I have no pity in my heart for people who use retail workers as a captive audience for their bully pulpit.

I have a whole speech planned out, loudly talking up the virtues of Thor and Eir. I imagine he’ll be horrified to find out he didn’t successfully convert me away from Heathenry after all his hard work.

If I run into the guy who hit on me behind his girlfriend’s back and he’s harassing the working women again, I will not hesitate to make a scene. I will ask him how his ex is doing and how she liked finding out what kind of loser he really is.

And gods help the woman who snapped her fingers at me like I was a dog when I didn’t get her food fast enough. I’d love to tell her that her expensive jewelry and her prissy attitude are too low-class for that establishment.

I’d love to give these people a piece of my mind because when they treated me that way, nobody else did.

The people in line behind them averted their eyes or just got out of the line and went to get coffee somewhere else.

Most people don’t stand up for retail workers.

This bullying behaviour is going to keep happening until we do.

Solidarity wins.

This piece was inspired by a great story written by Roz Warren, Writing Coach over on Medium. She stood up for somebody who was being berated by an angry customer who couldn’t accept his own mistake, and she deserves a round of applause!

Read her piece here and show her your support. It’s a couple years old, but cathartic all the same!

A few years ago I wrote an article about how our culture views the concept of masculinity. At the time, it kind of blew up.

The title was a little more tongue-in-cheek than this one, but the subject matter was actually pretty heavy. I talked about Pick-Up artists and serial abusers like Andrew Tate, Incel culture, and how our society’s emphasis on sexuality was resulting in a lot of pain and anguish — both to young men and to the people around them.

I also talked a little bit about the idea of Toxic Masculinity. And, uh… wow. Boy howdy, a lot of guys did not like that.

I even included a disclaimer in my article about the meaning of the term, emphasizing that toxic masculinity refers to a small group of traits that we associate with masculinity. Things like aggression, non-consensual dominance, unhealthy competitiveness, and misogyny.

Things that are very much current in internet discourse in the wake of both the Epstein revelations and the Cornell 57 case, amongst others. There is so much to unpack in how our society views gender roles, rape culture, consent and everything in between.

Back when I wrote that article, I made a point of stating, quite clearly, that the term toxic masculinity does not mean “All Men Bad.” It doesn’t mean that masculinity itself is toxic, only that certain aspects of traditional masculinity can be when taken to the extreme.

Yet, somehow, it seems like the guys who commented on that piece had hit the term and immediately stopped reading. It’s like they decided then and there that the rest of the article wasn’t worth their time, and had to snap at me for proclaiming the term masculinity to be a bad word.

And that’s a bit of a shame because if they’d read further, they’d have noticed that I mentioned another idea down near the end: Positive Masculinity.

Because yes, there is such a thing. And it’s awesome.

Positive Masculinity is what it says on the tin. It’s the opposite of toxicity. It’s all about emphasizing the good, healthy expressions of masculinity that don’t hurt others and focus on building people up instead of tearing others down.

Where toxic masculinity is all about insecurity and the need to establish power over others, positive masculinity is comfortable sharing that power. Positive masculinity doesn’t need to be king of the hill — it can be part of a council, as long as it still gets shit done.

Toxic masculinity is about aggression, being number one, and being better than everyone else. Positive masculinity recognizes that being a rung below the top isn’t the same as failure, and that ambition doesn’t have to burn you out.

Toxic masculinity puts women and LGBTQ+ people down for being ‘less than’ straight cisgender men. It views disability as weakness and worthy of scorn, it views conformity as necessity and sneers at any men who buck the expectations of strength and stoicism.

Positive masculinity isn’t threatened by somebody being different. It values diversity. Somebody else being gay isn’t scary. A woman being a lesbian isn’t a challenge to overcome.

The reason we feminists talk about toxic masculinity so much is that it hurts us. And, just as importantly, it hurts men. Guys, when is the last time you got a hug from your friend when you were in pain?

When is the last time one of your guy friends put a hand on your shoulder and told you that you were kicking ass? When is the last time they paid you a compliment without teasing you, or roasting you in the middle of it? Have they ever? Or do they just tell you to “Suck it up, pussy.”

When is the last time another person, man or woman, told you you looked good without you thinking they were hitting on you? Seriously, women compliment each other constantly, just because it makes other people feel good.

Try it. Tell your buddy he’s kicking ass today. Find something about him that he’s self-conscious about, and say something to make him feel better.

Or even just take a second out of your day to say “Hey, man. I know you’ve been having a tough time lately. If you need somebody to talk to, give me a call, okay?”

Just try that, and watch what happens. See, toxic masculinity has one big, glaring side effect: It blocks connections between men. It enforces isolation. It pits guys against each other and turns affection and cooperation into objects of mockery.

One guy crying while his buddy puts an arm around him?

“That’s so gay, bro!”

First off, what’s wrong with being gay? Secondly… why make fun of someone trying to help another human being?

We humans are social creatures. We thrive in groups, we are naturally cooperative and crave interaction. Remember how much it sucked to be stuck at home during the Covid lockdown? It really hits your mental health like a truck, doesn’t it?

Being starved for affection is a real thing. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. Do ever feel lonely in the middle of the night, just wanting to talk to somebody? Express how you feel, get it all out, and have somebody tell you it’s okay?

Toxic masculinity tells you those feelings make you weak.

Positive masculinity tells you everybody has feelings, and it’s okay to talk about them.

Bottom line, women don’t want men to be miserable. I promise. We really, really don’t.

Generally, we prefer dating secure, compassionate men with empathy and an open shoulder to cry on. We prefer men who will stand up for what they believe in but are willing to communicate openly and honestly and without throwing fists.

We don’t need somebody who’s going to fly off the handle because someone else got the girl he was looking at. We don’t want the guy who throws a tantrum because he got turned down when he asked a random woman for her number at the bar.

We’d like to get to know the guy who takes the refusal with a smile, wishes her a nice evening, and walks back to his buddies with an “Oh well, maybe next time!” kind of attitude.

We know that guy isn’t going to punch us in the face for making him ‘look bad’ in front of his bros. We have no idea what the angry guy is going to do to us in his rage at being rejected, but we’re pretty sure it’s going to be bad.

You may not realize this, but a lot of women are afraid to say no.

Some women go along with whatever a big, intimidating guy tells them to do in that situation because she doesn’t want to make him angry. Please, please let her know that you don’t want to pressure her and that it’s okay to turn you down. I’m begging you.

We don’t want the guy that’s constantly measuring us against his buddy’s girlfriend.

We don’t want the guy that’s using us to show off to his friends.

We definitely don’t want the guy who expects us to just put up with whatever degrading, misogynistic ‘jokes’ his bros make because we need to “Stop being so dramatic.”

We don’t need the guy who needs to be a macho Alpha Wolf out in front. We need packmates who’ll stand beside us.

The worst part is, the guys who most need to hear this aren’t going to read it. I’m a woman. They would curl their lip at taking my advice and say I’m trying to emasculate them and make them girly.

Because in trying to get women, they’ll only take advice from men.

Bit of a contradiction, right? It’s why so many of them fail; they’re being sold a bill of lies from grifters who profit off of their loneliness. The minute the guy actually succeeds in getting a partner he wants to stay with long term, the Pick-Up artist con man loses him as a customer.

It’s in their best interest to screw you over. Don’t fall for it.

Don’t be a ‘nice guy.’ Be a good man, instead.

Solidarity wins.

The squirrels keep badgering us at the door for almonds. Our neighbours started feeding them, so the little buggers have learned if they’re cute and demanding some hum…

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Don’t worry; I’m not skipping a week.

The episode is coming, but the more I worked on this one, the more it struck me that it’s an important topic that I don’t want to screw up. With the week I’ve had at work, my …

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Every step forward matters at a time like this.

It’s so easy to be critical right now, to demand to know what ordinary people are doing to resist the evil in control of the world, and why they aren’t doing more.

It’s a fair question. This is an all hands on deck moment, and those who aren’t bothering to take a stand are making it more difficult. When certain people aren’t carrying their fair share of the weight, the burden is heavier for those that are.

It’s easy to wonder why the U.S. isn’t in a constant state of mass protest right now. Why the ‘No Kings’ marches are so far apart, why we’re not seeing stand-offs in the news like Ukraine’s Maidan Uprising back in 2013.

I think most of us around the world would love to see such an open rebellion. It’d make it clear that the population of the country are no longer willing to endure tyranny.

It’d also be bloody, and violent, and incredibly dangerous for the innocents caught in the crossfire.

As angry as we are, we shouldn’t hope to see kids get shot like we saw in Maidan. People in the U.S. still have some hope for a peaceful resolution without gunfire, and I don’t blame them at all for trying for that first.

Still, a total shut down of the country would be preferable and probably faster than what we’re seeing right now — and given that innocent people are being shot, are dying, are being rounded up and shoved in concentration camps, perhaps it’s fairer to say that that this attempt at peaceful revolution is currently mired in what some activists call the Gandhi Trap.

The U.S., like many nations, has a serious issue with the state’s Monopoly on Power. When you have a fascist government, morality versus legality becomes a matter of serious and high-stakes debate.

Whether violence in response to violence is acceptable really depends on how desperate you are.

Who perpetrates violence and who must endure it to bring about lasting change is a problematic question with loaded undertones when the government in power is actively targeting marginalized people.

Speaking as a white woman, I don’t think I have the right to demand non-violence and peaceful resistance from the people of colour being brutalized by the state. I didn’t back in the Black Lives Matter protests, and I don’t now that ICE is acting out a Gestapo cosplay in American streets today.

So, while I understand the people who want protests to stay peaceful and stick to voting and small, quiet actions, I’m not going to judge the people who want to see more.

If your head is in the crosshairs, you want people to fight harder for your life. Can’t blame anybody for that.

I’m not making an argument for small, incremental change. What I am going to say is that every little bit really does count. Not everyone is physically, or mentally, or practically capable or willing to leave work and stand in an Occupy style uprising for months at a time.

Not in a country where healthcare is dependent on having a job, the cost of living is astronomical and you’ve spent your whole life being beaten down by a system that prioritizes capital over human lives. People have to feed themselves, get their medicine and be there to take care of their kids.

Facing down guns is terrifying, especially when you know for a fact these guys will shoot you in the face and walk away fine. We all saw Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti die — and those were white people, not even the ones being singled out.

Not everyone is hardened enough to risk it all. Many people have too much to lose.

But even if you can’t stage a huge mass protest, you can take part in boycotts, spread awareness of marches on social media, pressure your representatives and participate in mutual aid networks. You can donate to local food banks in your communities, share links to legal aid funds set up for immigrants being detained, and so on.

These actions are small, don’t get me wrong. They’re often invisible next to the big, overwhelming marches that dominate the news and make city blocks look like riots. The big actions feel good to those of us watching from the outside because it looks like something is happening.

Those big actions that happen every few months are vastly outstripped by the small choices that people can make every single day.

Just look at what Canada’s boycott of American goods is doing to the U.S. economy. Grassroots movements can topple empires if you stick with it long enough.

One or two drops in a bucket won’t fill it. But millions of drops every day will make that bucket overflow.

Big actions and little actions both matter. You need both in order to ensure lasting change.

The big demonstrations and No Kings protests are satisfying. They look good for the cameras, they inspire people. That’s needed. But if you aren’t in the streets every day bashing on the gates of the White House and screaming bloody murder for your rights to be returned, they won’t accomplish much on their own.

Trump and his cronies are cowards, and they’re selfish. Their response to violence is raised guns and riot shields. We saw that back in his first term.

But the boycotts? Here in Canada, we’re bombarded every day with American business owners and politicians travelling up to beg us to come back and spend our money.

Entire industries are faltering without us, and we are unrelenting.

Trump’s buddies don’t care about your demands, but they do care about their money.

The little actions don’t seem so inspiring, not like the big showy demonstrations and the signs and the shouting in the streets. But they’re sustainable in the long term for a lot more people, and that is absolutely worth crowing about.

Honestly, I think we’re too quick to judge people for how they choose to fight back.

I’m just glad to see people doing something. An army working towards a common goal can do great things.

Solidarity wins.

We’re back to talking about the Overton Window.

Go ahead, take a shot.

Today I wanted to vent a little bit about something we all know is going on, but which often goes under the radar and gets concerningly little discussion outside of a handful of social media posts.

I want to talk about how the American right-wing is attempting to construct a narrative of rigid gender roles and social conformity.

I want to talk about how social media is being leveraged, both by real people and by bots, to push the Overton Window towards accepting hatred, oppression and violence as a normal and permissable aspect of our day to day lives.

I want to talk about how women and LGBTQ+ people in general are being held up as the scapegoats for society’s ills, the internal psychological threat to everyone’s wellbeing in the way that immigrants are supposedly the external, physical threat to their lives.

I want to talk about how bodily autonomy and freedom of expression are hallmarks of democracy, and how authoritarianism always desires to take those things away.

I want to talk about Constructing a Narrative, and how fucking terrifying it is that they’re starting to succeed.

We all know the story. A sexual assault happens; any kind of sexual assault. A woman at a bar gets drugged and taken away by a guy she was on a date with. Maybe she’s attacked while walking home from work.

Maybe her intimate partner decides he isn’t interested in taking ‘no’ for an answer and forces the issue.

No matter how it happens, it’s horrifying and the survivor’s life is forever different. She will never be the person she was before it happened to her, she will never see the world the same way. She may heal in time and be able to smile and enjoy life, but those scars will still be there.

Trauma does not go away.

But what happens after this is just as torturous as the assault itself.

It’s the societal response. The game of twenty questions that try to determine what she did to deserve what happened to her, or what she should have done to prevent it.

Well, why did she choose that guy? Why didn’t she guard her drink better? What was she wearing? Why was she out that night? Why didn’t she call a cab? Why wasn’t she in the mood? How long had it been since she gave him sex?

The question so rarely asked is this: why did he decide he could do that to her?

The Cornell 7 story is in the news right now — a woman allegedly lured to a frat house, drugged, and repeatedly assaulted by 7 men over the course of 7 hours.

As of right now, the investigation has been re-opened and the facts are in dispute. But what we need to keep in mind is that if her statements are true and a gang rape took place, and I do believe her, it wasn’t just 7 men involved.

7 men allegedly participated in the assault, but the text messages about what was happening went out to the entire fraternity.

Not a single one of those guys who were in that group chat reported the assault.

Not one called the cops, not one told them it was wrong, not one of them made any effort on the behalf of the victim while she was being violated brutally after being drugged so she couldn’t fight back.

It wasn’t just 7 men.

And then you get the response from the school — two men expelled. Some temporary suspensions.

The rest of the frat got no punishment at all. The fraternity did close in 2024, but is that a consequence for the men involved?

And once again, society’s response is horrific. Many women call out the men, and rightfully so. But so many men online follow the same fucked up talking point list as they always do.

Why would she go to the frat party? Why did she go alone? Why didn’t she bring friends? Why did she drink? Anything to make it seem like it was her fucking fault that a group of men decided to do this to her.

The idea behind this is to make it seem like it’s her responsibility to not be raped, as opposed to the men’s responsibility to not rape.

By asking why she was at the frat house, they imply that there are certain locations where women do not belong, certain places where we should just accept that we aren’t safe and we should avoid.

The implication is that our world ought to be smaller than men’s worlds. That we should stick to the places we belong and nothing bad will happen to us. If we just stay at home in our kitchens, we won’t get hurt.

Statistically we know that’s not true, either.

Oh yeah — and the President of the United States was found liable for sexual abuse in court. Not to mention the Epstein issue. Is it any surprise women’s safety is in this state when millions of people decided he was a fit choice to lead the most powerful nation on Earth?

It’s not about keeping us safe. It’s about controlling what we do and punishing us for stepping out of our lane.

Sexism goes hand in hand with homophobia and transphobia. Any kind of phobia based around gender and sexuality, really.

Fascists love strict gender roles; it’s a way to enforce rigid rules of behaviour on people in a self-perpetuating way. If you tie morality to gender presentation and sexuality, the social stigma becomes a method of policing it.

When Hitler and the Nazis came to power, they went for Germany’s LGBTQ+ community first, alongside other political enemies of the party. I wrote about this extensively back when J.K. Rowling was trying to erase transgender victims of the Holocaust.

The entire point of authoritarian rule is authority. It’s in the name. It’s about keeping the population in line, following your orders, and running society along carefully managed lines.

Freedom of expression is not allowed because it gives people license to exist outside of those lines. Bodily autonomy is the enemy.

Women having the freedom to make choices outside of the home and people having the freedom to choose how to present, who to marry and fall in love with is a hallmark of open societies.

When those societies start to close down and democracy fails, those freedoms are often the first to be stripped away.

There’s a reason Trump’s authoritarian takeover was preceeded by years of the Republican party in the U.S. building up a narrative about LGBTQ+ people being groomers, sexually deviant and a threat to children.

It’s the Overton Window. They’re trying to make us seem evil so the masses will accept our rights being taken away without protest.

There’s a reason the right-wing is pushing so hard against women’s rights as we speak, against reproductive rights and even voting rights in the U.S.

It’s the Overton Window. Normalize the narrative, make it a topic of public discourse.

Control the marginalized, establish strict roles and rules, and viciously punish anyone who breaks out of them. We saw it in Nazi Germany, we see it in Russia, we see it starting to take shape now in the United States.

And thanks to the internet, it’s an ideology that spreads.

We all know how it goes. A meme with a snappy political comment and a funny picture gets shared online. It goes viral; a thousand likes, restacks or reposts, people copy the image and share it to their friends on another platform, on and on it goes.

It goes wild. People start quoting it in real life, suddenly it enters political discussions all around the world, because the internet is international and no borders are respected on social media.

And the culture shifts. Not just in the country where the meme was shared, but everywhere it travels from then on.

The Overton Window swings wildly online. The real world turns more slowly, but it follows all the same.

Memes are the modern day’s version of old school propaganda posters. The algorithm is the new information funnel. Propagandists have the easiest time influencing mass numbers of people these days.

The American right-wing is exceptionally good at leveraging this power.

We’ve all heard of the so-called ‘alt-right pipeline’ that channels young disaffected men — mostly white men, let’s be real — towards the right. The carefully managed network of influencers and political commentators and podcasters that nudge people down a cultivated road full of propaganda.

The left has not been nearly as successful at creating such a pipeline.

The internet is built to reward engagement, and negative emotions like fear and anger and hate induce such engagement and drive clicks faster than just about anything.

Fear sells, and that’s what the right wing feasts on. Fear of the ‘other,’ fear of not being good enough, fear of failing to fit in, fear of missing out. Fear of the unknown, of the unfamiliar.

Compassion for those who are different from you is less compelling.

They haven’t done this by accident; this is just one of many tactics used by the far-right in the U.S. to shore up their flagging support and entice voters to join their little crusade.

It’s right up there with closing polling stations in majority-Black and Latino neighbourhoods. Voter suppression is not a new game for them. Once again, I have a very passionate older article on the subject that I encourage you to read and share.

None of this is an accident. The Tradwife trend, the Manosphere, the Passport Bros, the rabid adherence to rape culture by those in positions of power.

They are building the society they want. Trump and his cronies, his supporters in the halls of power, the Epstein clients, the billionaires complicit in those crimes and expecting to avoid all consequences. Even the average guys raised in this culture who expect to be able to do whatever they want and get, at most, a little slap on the wrist.

They want the world to be their playground, and they want us silly little women and queer folks to shut up. They want us to be their servants again, the way it used to be.

But we live in this world too. And we don’t care what they want, do we?

That’s the beauty of getting a taste of freedom. Not many of us are willing to go back to the kitchen or hide in the closet anymore. Not when we know what the outside world can be.

We have the numbers on our side, and I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re sick and tired of being treated like playthings. We know what they’ve forgotten.

Solidarity wins.

I’m loving the crisp, chilly air around here lately. My coworkers from other parts of the world, not so much. We’re currently fighting a battle with the one and only guy who works at the store regularly — he’s from the Middle East, and he keeps turning off the A/C because he’s freezing.

Meanwhile, we’re al…

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Canadians are a polite people, but we aren’t pushovers.

We’re used to harsh conditions. Winter here can be brutal, and there isn’t a Canadian alive who hasn’t done their turn navigating heavy snows in some form or another. Able bodied Canadians clear our cars, struggle over ice, and drive on roads so invisible we’re basically praying that the driver ahead of us knows what he’s doing.

Even those of us who aren’t able bodied, those in wheelchairs or otherwise immobile, they have to deal with the added costs of the winter months. Heating, travel, care if needed, assistance even leaving the house — it’s all ten times harder with the snowbanks blocking you in.

Everything is more expensive.

We’re used to having a hard go of it for some part of the year. Yet, we persist; we remain cheerful, polite, and offer each other a helping hand.

I’ve been part of human chains crossing icy parking lots in the winter, where a half dozen of total strangers linked arms with my mother and I to help each other make it from our cars into the mall without slipping and going down.

That’s the Canadian spirit in a nutshell.

When I say that we don’t easily break when the going gets tough, you know I mean it. We buckle down and keep going because life goes on, even when the sun goes down early and the cold nights run long.

We throw some apple cider in the crockpot, grab blankets, and read in comfort. Even when the power goes out, we’ll drink our cider cold and light a candle so we can see.

No sweat.

I know a lot of American small businesses or even major tourism companies are hoping that Canadians are going to come back to the U.S. and save them. We’re going to keep being their ATM machines and bring a flush of money with us when we visit.

What they need to understand is that our boycott is not petering out. It’s gaining speed.

Since that disastrous attempt to overrule us and treat us like a vassal state with that ‘deal’ Trump tried to push us into, our Prime Minister has cut off trade talks with the U.S. and made our position clear.

We are a sovereign, free nation. We do not grant you any authority over us.

Instead, we’re finding new friends. We’re turning to Europe, negotiating to become the very first Associate Member of the EU, with incredible benefits to both them, and to our own people.

I’d love to be able to travel around Europe without a Visa. It’d be amazing to have closer ties to our cousins over the ocean. Especially our northern cousins in Scandinavia — there are a couple in the Union, too, and it’d be great to shore up our connections.

Trump pitched a tantrum when he heard this, threatening more tariffs.

He still thinks we pay those. He’s going to punish us by making his own constituents’ financial situation worse.

At the same time, it’s not just our politicians making grand gestures and trade deals. Canadians at the grassroots level are done.

The push to avoid the tariffs and support local businesses is getting stronger. Even the store I work at is putting American goods on sale to get them off the shelves, and cutting American suppliers out to replace them with Canadian sources.

Other local businesses are doing the same.

Even our airports are cutting flights to the U.S. because of how low the demand is these days.

So, American business owners, understand; we are not coming back. Our country is under attack, and the only ones to blame are Trump, his regime, and the millions of voters and non-voters who decided to put the reigns of power in his tiny little hands.

Don’t blame us. Don’t be angry at the rest of the world for moving on without you.

Be angry at the right people. At least then we could agree on something.

Solidarity wins.

Children are the future. We can all agree on that point; the next generation is growing up as we speak, deciding what to do with their lives and how best to live them.

I’m watching family members having kids, learning how to be parents, figuring out how to keep the little ones safe and entertained while teaching them everything they need to know.

It’s a magical experience, truly. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a parent, myself, my husband and I go back and forth on it particularly with the health issues I have, but even if I never have kids I’ll be able to be the fun aunt who brings Canadian chocolate and cheers for accomplishments.

That’s the best part of being an aunt. I get to fill them up with sugar and then send them home to terrorize their parents. Cue the maniacal laughter!

I like kids, I see them every day at work as their parents bring them in for doctor visits and take them through the pharmacy. I see sick kids or kids with injuries coming in for medication and examination, and tiny youngsters coming in for their first shots.

I hate seeing them sad, but it’s nice to see their parents taking steps to ensure their kids are cared for and protected.

I just wish everyone had the same thought. But alas, certain people, particularly those in positions of power to the south of me, are bound and determined to strip protections and provisions away from children.

All the while, they scream that they’re the ones with their best interests in mind.

Down south in the U.S., the Republicans have always claimed to be the party of ‘protect the children.’

Lately, over the past decade or so, we’ve seen them lie about this.

They lie about it while they protect the abusers on Epstein’s client list. They lie about it as they strip labour protections from kids, pushing them further into the workforce at younger and younger ages. They lie about it as they change school curriculum, demonize their identities if they’re LGBTQ+, and they lie about it as they refuse them food.

School lunch debt is an especially horrifying concept to me.

We see the American right-wing across many states refusing to end child marriage and install strict ages of consent. We see Fox News extolling the virtues of young marriage and childbearing for teenage girls — even lamenting that the birth rate for teens is dropping, as if that’s a bad thing!

Refusing to terminate pregnancy in kids who have been abused is another horror to consider. When a girl is assaulted by an adult, there’s no reason to force her to risk her life in pregnancy and childbirth when she is, herself, just a child.

The fact that this genuinely happens now is disgusting.

Don’t get me started on how the poster child for the modern GOP is a man who makes sexual comments about his own daughter and bragged about walking into teen beauty pageants while the minor children were undressing.

He’s picked health officials who want to mess with the vaccine schedule for children, pushes bullshit claims about the ‘causes’ of neurodivergence and says horrible things about disabled people.

They cut USAID assistance for vulnerable populations around the globe, leaving millions of kids without medicine or food.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that the ‘party of protect the children’ doesn’t live up to the standards it preaches.

The Republicans aren’t good for kids. They clearly view them as property rather than people, extensions of the parents, and subject to their will without any rights or boundaries of their own.

Start talking about parents rights, LGBTQ+ rights and sex education for minors and see where the GOP lose their gods damned minds.

This is basic shit, people. They can’t stand it because it gives kids the language to understand themselves, their peers, and speak out when they’re abused or mistreated.

I’m sick of allowing them to pretend that their ‘family values’ nonsense is good for kids. I’m sick of them proposing laws to take kids away from their families for allowing them to explore their identities on their own terms, and criminalizing medical care.

I’m sick of seeing them lead parents down a road that distrusts science and leaves little ones vulnerable to diseases that, by rights, ought to be long gone and no longer a threat.

I’m so sad that this is the world my nieces and nephew are growing up in. I want better for them.

It breaks my heart.

Solidarity wins.

The arguments I hear against universal healthcare in America usually boil down to cost.

Sometimes I hear some statement about the U.S. government being too fucked up to do a decent job of it, which is a much more understandable concern.

But primarily, what I hear is some commentary about taxation, cost, paying your own way, independence, ra ra, socialism evil, so on and so forth.

We could have that argument.

We could discuss the cost of insurance premiums, of wasted time going through the motions of getting treatments approved and fighting denials, the wasted money put towards failing alternative treatments before the correct ones will be granted, and the scam of co-pays and in-network hospital care.

We could talk about what awaits people who can’t work, or don’t have insurance.

We could do that. But I don’t want to. Other people have made those arguments before, much more effectively than I could with my total inability to do the math. Numbers hate me, and I hate them right back.

Rather, I want to talk about something more pointed. You might be worried about the cost of universal healthcare, but I’m worried about the value of a human life.

Numbers in a bank account, or a living human being.

What matters more to us?

I am not so much concerned about the numerical cost — hell, I’ve had Americans demand to know how much I pay in taxes, and even though I could easily hand them a list of the percentages paid out in every province of Canada, I don’t bother.

Because frankly, I do not care.

What matters to me is not the cost. It’s the outcome. It’s the fact that when I was a little girl and part of my digestive tract became impacted and required emergency medical care to prevent rupture, I got it.

My family was very poor at the time. We lived on the rough side of town, way out in the sticks, and if my mother had to consider for even a moment whether she could afford to take me to the hospital, I probably would not have survived.

My symptoms were mild at first. If cost were a concern, she might have tried to treat them at home and wait. By the time it got bad enough to override her financial worries, it might have been too late.

When my mother accidentally injected herself with double the amount of insulin she needed, we thought nothing of calling an ambulance and going to the hospital. Her life mattered more than the $150 we spent on the ambulance ride, and the hospital didn’t charge a cent for the emergency care and monitoring.

When I injured myself at college and had some nerve damage in my arm, I went to the emergency room without stopping to think; what was there to think about? The worst that might happen was waiting hours to be seen, and I had a novel in my purse to pass the time.

I was seen, I was examined, they diagnosed me and set me up with everything I needed to heal.

No charge.

If I get cancer, I won’t pay a cent. I’ll just have to figure out the logistics of working while getting treatment. If I break a leg in six places, I’ll get surgery without needing to worry about my budget.

I don’t need to fight with insurance. I don’t need to ask whether a hospital is ‘in network’ for it to be covered.

I could be on the other side of the country and walk into any hospital for a sudden illness and get exactly the same care for exactly the same cost, no surprise bills in the mail.

I will never have to go into debt to afford medical care.

Contrast that to the United States, where medical debt is a massive financial burden on the population. Imagine how much of an economic miracle it would be if all of those people suddenly had those debts erased.

Imagine if you didn’t have to choose between rent and chemotherapy. If, say, you chopped a few fingers off with a chainsaw, you’d never have to choose which one to keep based on the cost of having them reattached.

The only consideration would be whether the fingers could be recovered and attached properly.

Imagine the peace of mind that comes with knowing you won’t have to pay hundreds of dollars if you guess wrong, and that chest pain isn’t a heart attack.

That’s a scenario I actually witnessed, as I saw my American husband refuse to go to the hospital, gambling with his life that it was just muscle pain and not a serious emergency because he could not afford a bill.

Luckily it wasn’t his heart. I’m so fucking grateful, because I don’t know what I’d do without him.

I, as a Canadian, will never be in that position. I will never be rendered into poverty because of my health. It will never be a reason I could go into debt.

How much more do I pay in taxes for my healthcare? I don’t care.

Because the result is so valuable that it doesn’t even matter.

Solidarity wins.

Today is the anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York City, and people all over the world are grieving and bowing our heads in remembrance.

I still remember where I was when my mother told me about the attack. I was just a little girl, too young to really understand what she was saying, but recogni…

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Disabled people face a lot of barriers.

There’s nothing controversial about that statement, I hope; most of us here at World-Weary have some degree of understanding of the social systems and assistance available for disabled folks, and how hard they can be to navigate.

It’s a sore point for me personally, being disabled myself and having friends and loved ones who need to fight for the help they need. There are holes in the safety net, easily large enough for people to fall through.

There remains a heavy social stigma around certain forms of disability.

Disabled people are often infantilized, treated like we’re less capable of caring for ourselves — even in cases where that is demonstrably not true. We are often treated as though we require assistance from able bodied and neurotypical people just to go about our business.

They often don’t ask, they just step in with unwanted and unasked for advice or physical interference. It can be extremely frustrating, especially because we spend most of our lives learning how to adjust and work through our own limitations.

As shocking as this may be for some, a person in a wheelchair does not necessarily need you to step in and ‘help’ them get around unless they ask for it.

I have repeatedly heard from wheelchair users that they occasionally encounter people who simply step up and start pushing their chairs, trying to be ‘helpful,’ without asking permission.

It boggles my mind how anyone would think to do that, but it happens. Apparently the idea that the wheelchair user stopped where they meant to stop and they aren’t constantly trying to move is an alien one.

Sometimes you gotta read labels at the grocery store, Karen. Let go of the handles and let them shop in peace!

Part of the problem is that when there are discussions about disability assistance, it’s quite rare for disabled people to be consulted. A lot of assumptions are made, but few disabled voices are involved to correct misguided thoughts.

There are things that many of us need in order to make our lives easier, but it’s rarely assistance from an individual out in the wild. What we need is usually broader, accessibility provided to all, at all times, not just in one singular moment.

This is where systemic discrimination really hits home for most of us. Let me explain.

Most people take accessibility for granted. Able-bodied people don’t need to worry about walking up a set of stairs to enter a building, and you probably don’t even think twice about revolving doors or how wide an entranceway is.

For some disabled people, this lack of consideration gets in the way of their ability to function in society.

Accessibility goes beyond the simple act of entering and leaving a space. Some disabilities don’t cause issues with mobility but impact people’s ability to function in other ways.

As an autistic woman with sensory issues, some public spaces are so loud, busy, and chaotic that my brain shuts down and puts me into a daze. Places with dim lighting and a requirement to whisper and give people a wide berth are much more accessible to me than, say, a shopping mall.

I feel more physically comfortable and alert in a quiet library than in a grocery store, which can be an issue when you need food to survive. We haven’t figured out how to get around that yet.

It certainly makes my retail job a lot less fun. It’s a small store, so I can usually get by, but on very busy days with a lot of tasks I can very easily become overwhelmed and stressed out.

I’d wager that most younger, able-bodied neurotypical people don’t even think about things like this. Why would you? It’s entirely outside of your experience until somebody asks you the questions and gets you thinking.

So, let’s do that. Let me ask you some questions.

Firstly, how tall are your kitchen counters at home? What about your furniture? How is your bathtub constructed? Do you even have one, or is it just a narrow standing shower?

How far up on the wall are your light switches? The thermostat? Can you turn on a ceiling fan from the height of a wheelchair? What about if you were only a few feet tall due to a genetic condition that prevented your growth?

Where is your laundry machine located? If you’re in an apartment, is it on the ground floor? How do you transport your full laundry basket to its location?

Is it a front-loading or top-loading machine? Could a smaller person, or someone in a wheelchair even reach the buttons to turn it on?

Think about your workplace. Can a disabled person get around and complete basic tasks without needing the assistance of a coworker?

The abled population doesn’t have to think about basic daily chores and activities like this, and that can leave disabled people struggling to make do. It makes life ten times harder.

Two main barriers tend to block accessibility measures: a lack of funds and a lack of awareness.

Government subsidies can remedy a lack of funds, and frankly, they should. It’s the government’s job to ensure the safety and security of its citizenry, so ensuring the disabled population has accommodations should be part of its duties.

The real problem is a lack of awareness and public will. Fortunately, there are organizations working to improve general knowledge on these issues.

Here in Canada, the Rich Hansen Foundation is a great example. They work specifically to teach businesses about workplace accessibility for people in wheelchairs and certify them when they put proper measures in place.

This is a great help for their workers, ensuring that their employees can do their work successfully and also helping to cut down on in-house discrimination on the personal level.

For the home, it can be a little trickier. Of course, you can hire a contractor to come in and change things if you own the building, but what if you don’t have the money?

Take a look at this detailed breakdown of what one Canadian wheelchair user had to go through to find a place to live. Take note of the things she had to worry about, including the floor plan and the width of the doors and hallways.

It’s hard to find a home when you’re able-bodied and have the disposable income to make it happen.

Imagine having your field of potential homes narrowed even further by a lack of forethought during construction.

Disabled people are equally as valuable as everyone else. All human beings deserve to live free, open lives without being encumbered by a lack of compassion.

To be constrained by barriers that specifically bar you from access is frustrating and cruel, and as a society, we have a duty to do better.

Improving accessibility is a cause we should all be ready to fight for. We should fight for it every chance we get — most especially during election seasons, like the one approaching in the United States.

I wonder if any politicians are talking about this issue, or could be pressured to make it a part of their campaign platform? Particularly with the anti-DEI and discriminatory policies of the Trump regime currently under scrutiny.

Hint hint, nudge nudge. Contact your representatives. Talk to your boss at work, or to the owners of your local shops, or whomever you can think of. Ask what they’re doing to ensure accessibility, or if they might consider doing something in the future.

Nobody is perfect on this issue, and there’s always room for improvement. Hell, I work in a pharmacy where we sell medical braces and mobility aides, and even we have had to fight with our head office about accessibility before.

They wanted to put up spinning pretty lights in the back of the store. We had to fight them on the grounds of it being an epilepsy risk. They fought us on it, insisting it would be fine, but we won and the lights were taken down.

We’re a store that should be safe and accessible for everyone, and the last thing we want is to make it physically unsafe for some of our patients and customers. Putting our collective feet down brought victory, and it shows what’s possible if we only make an effort to stand up for one another.

A little community pressure can go a surprisingly long way.

Imagine what a lot of community pressure might accomplish.

Solidarity wins.

Scientists used to hope that we could cap the global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Even at that level, the potential consequences could be catastrophic. Even 1.5 C could lead to disastrous climate shifts, entire ecosystems collapsing, weather patterns twisting out of control and the mass death of many, many species.

Keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees was the goal for a while, but due to general apathy on the part of world leaders and a focus on profit rather than proactive and preventative measures, we’re on track to overshoot it by miles.

We’re already looking at 1.8 on the most optimistic scale. Some scientists, in the grips of despair, think we could hit 2.6 by the end of the century — particularly since global temperatures are rising faster than anticipated and we already sit at the precipice of several major climate tipping points.

And with certain leaders actively destroying environmental regulations aimed at curbing Climate Change and slowing the rate of destruction, it’s not looking good.

For an example of what this looks like in reality, don’t think of an overly hot summer day. Think of the killer heatwaves that left hundreds dead across Europe this summer.

Think of the flash flooding in Nepal right now, and the roughly 1,300 people who have been confirmed dead so far. Thousands more are still missing, and entire communities have been left cut off from outside help.

Think of the wildfires tearing through multiple countries, including my own, wiping communities off the map and killing people, pets, and wildlife.

That’s what Climate Change looks like right now. We haven’t even hit 1.5 consistently, yet.

We’re not talking about mild discomfort. We’re talking about mass death. We’re talking about famine, disease, resource wars, dehydration, natural disasters, and mass migration as entire regions of the world are left completely uninhabitable.

This is not me trying to paint a dystopian hellscape out of a non-issue. This is me telling you the facts in the hopes that people take this shit seriously.

Pressure your leaders. Talk to the experts, listen to what they say.

It’s not a matter of recycling and turning your house lights off when you leave for the day — although that last one doesn’t hurt. On the individual level, our efforts are a drop in the bucket. Enough drops might fill the bucket a quarter of the way if we all work together, sure, but that’s not enough.

Because the other three quarters of the bucket aren’t in our control. That’s the governments of the world, that’s the corporate industries running hog wild with emmissions and pollutions in the name of profit.

That’s an Externality that we all have to pay for.

There’s no amount of individual actions that will fix this, because even if we all change our ways overnight, the polluting industries will shoot us over the line all on their own.

We’re heading for disaster. We can’t stop it by making changes in our personal lives, so we have to target the most significant causes now.

We need more regulations, not less. We need our governments and leaders to make real, sustained efforts to break from fossil fuels and clean up our environment. We need real, enforceable laws that amount to more than a fine and a light slap on the wrist for the people poisoning us, and the world we live in.

We need real change.

Otherwise, we’re totally screwed.

Solidarity wins.

Part of my job here at World-Weary involves keeping a finger on the pulse of the public discourse.

Gotta keep watch on the Overton Window, y’know? Go on, I said the thing, take a shot.

For those who don’t know, the Overton Window is basically a fancy term for ‘what it’s okay to say in public.’ Things outside the Window are not okay. Things within the Window can be said out loud without the ladies at the local knitting circle clutching their pearls and fainting dead away.

It used to be that gay marriage was outside the Window. Now, it’s solidly centred inside the Overton Window, and there’s very little public stigma around being openly gay.

Apart from a few scattered assholes on the internet, but who cares about them? The MAGA cult can fuck off.

Then there came a new trendy topic that has everybody’s tongue wagging on the internet. A woman claiming serious psychiatric distress was left alone with her three kids. The unthinkable happened, and she allegedly took their lives before attempting to take her own.

Needless to say, this is a horrific crime. Needless to say, the murder of three little children is completely inexcusable.

It’s not the first time this has happened. Until mental healthcare catches up, it won’t be the last.

Many people with uteruses, especially people who have given birth, who have experienced the many outrageously catastrophic things that can go wrong with hormone imbalances, are expressing empathy and sadness over this.

Empathy for a person in the throes of intense mental illness who, at least going by the information we have right now, was not in her right state of mind. She did something utterly horrific and indefensible, but at a time when her brain was literally broken.

I want to be clear, I am not here to litigate guilt. I’m not on the jury, I’m not a judge, I have no part in this trial. Rather, I’d like to discuss the issues cropping up around this case.

The discussion of women’s rights and whether this single case, and the public response to it, is evidence that those rights should be taken away.

Since the Clancy trial started, I haven’t gone a single day without seeing some asshole claiming that women are all ‘defending child killers,’ that we have the intellectual level of children, and that we shouldn’t be trusted with responsibilities of any kind.

The discussion around women’s rights hasn’t been great lately, but even I was surprised by the level of misogynistic vitriol I’ve been seeing in right-wing spaces.

One woman is being used as a scapegoat to make all women out to be evil monsters. Anyone expressing sympathy for her illness is being painted as if they, too, pose a threat to children and show you ‘the state of women these days.’

I gotta say, guys. When’s the last time you got this up in arms over a male family annihilator? I’ll bet never, because it doesn’t fit your narrative.

The narrative that women are lesser, inferior beings who need to be controlled.

This is one of those subjects that a lot of people are going to be afraid to touch.

It’s like the old ‘Man vs Bear’ debate. I must be a glutton for punishment because I threw my hat in that ring, too. I stand by every single thing I said.

I’m not going to back down from it just because it’s a little controversial right now. Challenging these narratives and pushing back is how we shift the Overton Window back into line — there are people actively advocating for change in the wrong direction, and someone needs to be a door stopper.

When narratives are being constructed to normalize bigotry and misogyny, we can’t afford to ignore it. The consequences for those of us in the crosshairs can be severe.

Even just this morning I ran face first into several posts, ostensibly made by both men and women, stating that they support repealing the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution based on women’s reaction to this case.

Basically, they say that women expressing their concerns about the mental health aspect of this case and wondering if she was appropriately cared for means that women don’t have the emotional or mental maturity to vote.

There are people — and bots — on the internet saying that if men hear their wives or girlfriends expressing these concerns or their empathy for mental health struggles, that those men should leave or seek divorce because ‘their children aren’t safe.’

It mirrors the discussions of women and LGBTQ+ people early on in Trump’s term where people debated leaving their husbands if they voted for Trump.

Because a vote for Trump indicated a lack of respect for human rights and a serious difference in morality, not to mention the clear indication that misogyny was, at the very least, not a deal breaker for a President.

From that perspective, I see where this talking point is coming from.

But let’s be clear, this is not the same thing. A vote for the actual President of the United States is very, very different from an opinion around one woman’s criminal trial.

One impacts everything from the law to the price of groceries to human rights and human lives in and outside of the United States, and the other is just one criminal trial.

One criminal murder trial does not start wars with Iran or obliterate the economy.

And yet, the refrain is constant. If women can’t be logical about this one case, then they can’t be logical at all and they shouldn’t get to vote in elections moving forward.

They aren’t responsible enough.

That’s rich, lads. Extremely rich. Once again, I could point to millions of cases of male perpetrators found guilty of killing their entire families. I could point to cases of male rapists going to prison and being defended by millions of men online.

In the case of violent domestic abusers, they even find a way to blame women for that — they say she should have chosen better, or she should have left. Being beaten up, raped, or murdered is her own fault for being stupid.

But nobody ever talks about the percentages of violent crimes perpetrated by cisgender men and claims that men shouldn’t get the right to vote.

Because men are above that kind of deliberation. It’s only we lesser, feminine creatures who need to prove we deserve suffrage.

This is just one of many things being used to justify this potential stripping of the right to vote.

The discourse on women’s intellect has gotten vicious.

Everything from extolling the virtue of man as leader and woman as submissive helpmate, the stupidity of women ‘fighting nature’ by trying to break out of the patriarchal mode, the supposed ‘lack of accountability’ and so forth.

Women are being hated on publicly for everything from single motherhood — how dare she seek divorce when unhappy in a marriage — to how we dress. Modesty is becoming a byword again, and is being painted as self-respect.

The tradwife is becoming the ideal in some circles and bleeding out into the wider cultural view. I have my thoughts about that, as I’ve expressed in the past.

In effect, the idea of women having the agency to determine for ourselves how we want to live is being painted as a bad thing.

That if we can’t make good decisions, then we need to outsource our lives to the people who can. Namely, the men in our lives. Assuming there are any — these guys don’t think lesbians or aces are real, apparently.

Or they think their magic penises can ‘fix’ them.

These guys also have a lot in common with the whole ‘passport bro’ movement. Once again, we’ve talked about them. It’s toxic as hell, extremely predatory, and just another outgrowth of the manosphere that took on a life of its own.

It’s the idea that ‘western’ women are broken, no longer appropriately feminine and that in order to find a ‘good wife’, young men need to travel to more traditional and conservative countries.

They advocate going abroad to find a girl that they can marry, then take back to their home country and force to assimilate to the man’s culture. Apparently they have entire chat rooms and Reddit threads online dedicated to discussing where to go for submissive, traditional wives.

They also rate the hotness of various ethnic groups.

It’s exactly as gross as you think.

In short, there are several subcultures on the internet these days that are linked to the current American government, who wield substantial influence over the people in positions of power, and who spread those ideals online.

And when something is memed to death online, it spreads far and away outside of the country of its origin.

Social media does not respect boundaries on a map. Like a virus, posts jump from person to person based on shares, restacks, links and engagement.

Online, we have no nations. The internet has an Overton Window of its own that slides wildly based on the attention-grabbing headline of the day.

The cultural shifts follow.

Among those things being demonized right now by the American right-wing are no fault divorce, and of course, abortion.

Yes, we’re going there. We have to; these two arguments are heavily based on controlling women and the narratives being pushed right now will absolutely be used to push these cases.

In fact, they already are.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen abortion be brought up in connection to the Lindsay Clancy case, with people talking about how ‘Liberal women’ are defending a child killer because they want the right to kill their children, too.

How abortion is murder, and how we should have known this is where it would go.

They’re trying very hard to build a connection, and unfortunately, it’s gaining traction.

Likewise, this is coming at a time when many right-wing men are fighting hard to get the idea of no-fault divorce into the spotlight. They post memes and lengthy rants about how men sacrifice their happiness to provide for their families, but women will sacrifice their families to gain happiness for themselves.

As in, if your wife leaves you, it’s because she’s shallow and can’t see your true worth as a provider.

Fellas, listen — no-fault divorce is a literal life saver. Nobody should want it to go away. In the days before it was signed into law, the only way people had to escape an unhappy marriage was if the other person died.

We already have far too many cases of spousal murder, do we want to make that worse?

But to them, that doesn’t even enter the conversation. Because the reason they want to block no-fault divorce is the same reason they want to end reproductive rights. They want to be able to control their wives.

They want the power. They want to have authority over her, to dictate what she does with her body, where she can live, what her name is — oh, they hate that women don’t need to change our names anymore.

They equate total submission with respect, and a woman’s agency as a refusal to ‘take accountability.’

As far as I can tell, they mean that a woman should accept the negative consequences of her choices, such as abuse or an unhappy life, rather than trying to better her situation.

She shouldn’t seek to end an unwanted pregnancy, nor seek life-saving abortions when she’s in medical distress. If she didn’t want to get pregnant, she shouldn’t have had sex.

Take accountability and be a mother.

She shouldn’t seek to divorce her husband, even if he turned into a different person once he had a ring on her finger. She should have chosen better in the first place and never married him.

Take accountability and be a good wife.

They conflate a woman’s quiet obedience in the face of suffering with purity and goodness, and her desire to live well on her own terms as being overly independent and bad.

She’s not feminine if she isn’t willing to struggle to make things work.

I’m sorry, but as a cisgender woman, I do not accept their view.

I am an equal human being, and I rule my own life.

And I’m not alone — there’s a reason feminism exists, why women literally fought for the right to vote, the right to divorce, the right to abortion, the right to have our own bank and credit accounts, to own property and to not be property.

We are human, and we deserve that basic right to determine our own lives.

In closing, I want to take a moment to pay my respects for the dead.

We began this piece by talking about the discourse surrounding a murder trial, and in this case, the victims were three tiny children who died horribly, suffering strangulation, allegedly at the hands of their own mother.

Again, I am not here to litigate the case or discuss guilt or have a debate about criminal justice.

I am however going to say that nothing we discussed here takes away from the horror of what was done to these little ones, and my heart is broken for them and for their loved ones.

This is something that cannot be taken back, nor undone, nor is it a wound that will ever heal in the hearts of those left behind. Three lives ended in tragedy, without the chance to experience the wider world nor reach those achievements that so many of us dream up for ourselves.

Who knows what they would have gone on to do with their lives? We will never find out, and that’s heartbreaking.

I sincerely hope that their loved ones left behind can live long, happy lives and cherish their memories as they deserve.

In this storm of using her case to build this narrative against women as a whole, the lives of Cora, Dawson and Callan are being used as tokens. “Say their names,” the bots say, while they use their murder as a cudgel to try and strip the rights away from all women.

You don’t get to claim empathy for murdered children and then use their case for your political gain.

You don’t get to use their murder as a token to claim all women are evil, that we don’t deserve rights, and then turn around and say that our lack of love for these babies is the reason why.

If you want to respect them, then respect them. Don’t weaponize their suffering to win your screwed up battle.

They have suffered enough. And frankly, so have we all.

Solidarity wins.

I apologize if I sound a little tired in this episode. Workplace drama has exploded and I am beat. I need several naps and a lot of coffee.

Speaking of explosions and drama — get a load of what happened in the U.S.-Canada trade dispute! Ho boy, did things go poorly. Trump still wants us to act like a vassal s…

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I was at work when we got the news. Four women discussing workplace drama at the manager’s desk abruptly stopped talking at the sound of the announcement on our country music radio.

Four women dug in their smock pockets for their phones, frantically looking online to disprove what we just heard. As the sound of ‘Jolene’ played in our ears in tribute to the fallen star, we all sank in dismay.

It was true. Dolly Parton passed away.

While the other three pivoted to talking about her music, all I could think was, “Damn. The world just got a little bit darker.”

Dolly Parton was a beautiful human being in this world, with a deeply charitable and kindly soul.

She was known as a philanthropist, one who gave freely to the causes that touched her heart and brought her sadness. She wanted to ease pain wherever she could.

Her charitable efforts ranged from children’s literacy — her donations brought books to low-income schools worldwide, providing options for kids to learn reading and writing across multiple countries — to medical research.

Heck, her funding helped pave the way for research during the Pandemic, and provided money to develop Moderna’s vaccine. As someone from a high-risk household who thankfully didn’t lose anyone, we’re deeply grateful to her for that.

Dolly’s donations helped displaced families as they struggled to survive natural disastors, providing relief after floods and hurricanes and fires. She donated to pediatric care hospitals to help kids suffering from illness get the care they need.

She funded scholarships, helped all of her Dollywood Foundation employees go through college debt-free, and generally threw money at every single problem she could.

Throughout her whole 80-year life, Dolly Parton has given away tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to charities, both the ones she founded and also in direct donations to various humanitarian causes around the world.

She might have been a billionaire if she hadn’t. But she never stopped giving.

Dolly was a titan of the music world, the Queen of Country, and a genuinely kind person. She was a staunch and fearless ally of the LGBTQ+ community, spoke about sex work like any other job without judgement, and generally fought to keep an attitude of compassion towards the people around her.

She was a progressive icon. Her voice has been pushing people in a wholesome direction for decades.

She will be sorely, deeply missed, especially right now.

I just hope her legacy is treated with the respect she deserves.

Rest in peace, Dolly. I hope we manage to keep your work alive. I hope you and your husband are together again, and may you never be parted.

Solidarity wins.

I’ve been working on a longer form article about the anti-feminist backlash taking place on the American right-wing.

I’ve been doing a lot of digging into the discourse around the Lindsay Clancy trial because ho boy, are the comment sections revealing. Look forward to that essay a little later; I’m doing a lot of research for it and it isn’t going to be short.

But on top of how the right-wing is using this to push their anti-feminist narrative, what I’m seeing is a stunning lack of knowledge about mental health.

Now, bear in mind, this is a general lack of knowledge I’m talking about, not a debate about this case’s specifics. I’m not on the jury, and neither are you. We’re not lawyers here arguing one woman’s guilty.

I’m talking about the lack of understanding that’s on display.

People are making weird claims. First of all, that hormones have no impact on mental health and could not drive a woman to murder. Some people are claiming that Postpartum Depression is just ‘a case of the sads’ or that Postpartum Psychosis isn’t real.

People are claiming that if you’re in a psychotic episode, you still know right from wrong and what you do is a choice.

People are claiming that a person in a psychotic episode can’t appear normal at a glance. One man claimed that unless you’re not half undressed in the street screaming at a lamp post, you’re not mentally ill and you’re clearly faking it.

The claim that mental illness always looks exactly the same for everyone is wild, and obviously not true.

People are claiming that mental health issues have specific timelines that don’t vary, that mental illness isn’t a big deal, that people with a mental illness are ‘weak willed’ and lazy, or that it’s just an excuse.

It’s the same old stigma about disability and health that we see all the time.

There’s a tremendous amount of shame that gets lumped on people who have diagnosed mental illness. Everything from depression and anxiety and bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder and psychosis.

I have experience with some of this myself. Either me, or people around me.

I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety. I’ve been crippled by it. I’ve been burnt out, I’ve had suicidal ideation when I was young. I’m here today, thank the gods, but others are not.

And it’s not because I’m ‘stronger’ than them, it’s because I got the help I needed and my situation improved. My cause happened to be something that could be mended by medication and therapy.

I’ve even struggled with disconnection from reality before. Did you know that insomnia and sleep deprivation can cause symptoms of psychosis? It’s not fun.

All of this to say, there’s a lot of misinformation being thrown around that displays how the general public really doesn’t know dick about mental health, and that education on the issue is sorely lacking.

We would be better served with more freely available information, greater public awareness, and more funding for mental health research. As it stands, there’s a massive disconnect between what is generally known and what is true.

People who struggle with their mental health are just that — people. People with an illness that requires help and treatment. It’s no more shameful than having cancer or diabetes.

There shouldn’t be stigma, there shouldn’t be shame, there shouldn’t be blame or disgust or propaganda. Being sick is not a moral judgement on anyone.

The real sickness is at the heart of a society that treats sick people like trash.

Solidarity wins.

There are people in the world who still call themselves ‘apolitical.’

They don’t want to hear about politics or discuss it, they find it boring or controversial and they don’t like when others bring it up. They want nothing to do with debates or the news, they want to pretend it isn’t a thing they need to care about.

That’s crazy to me, because politics is… well. Everything.

Are you human? Do you breathe air? Drink water? Eat food? You’re political.

Sorry, but them’s the facts. Political matters are everything; the cost of your groceries, of gas, of rent and tuition in college. Sanitation and garbage collection, recycling, medical care and costs.

Do you want to be drinking clean, filtered water, or sewage? Politics impacts that. Politics has something to do with your kids’ schools, food safety and pollution regulation.

If you want city parks to stay open and not be sold to private corporations for real estate, then you should care about politics.

And if you’re of a minority group like I am, you don’t get a choice. Not only do you need to care about politics, but you are political by just existing. People will treat your life and existence as a matter of public debate. It’s fucked up.

You can’t escape politics. Nobody is truly apolitical.

The people who would rather bury their heads in the sand are choosing to abdicate their civic responsibilities because they’d rather focus on their own individual wants and needs.

Understandable, but if they want their lives to get better, then it’s very weird to me that they’re actively refusing to have a say in that!

You aren’t apolitical. You can’t be. You’re just deciding whether or not you get to exercise your power or if you’d rather give it away to somebody else.

Solidarity wins.

P.S.

I know I’ve been a little absent lately, and I’m sorry. I have recovered from my illness just in time for work to get absolutely insane and dramatic and overwhelming.

But, I’m pleased to report that over the next few weeks my schedule is going to open up and become much less demanding; I will have more hours to devote to writing and recording again, and burnout will be pushed further away.

I’ll do a better job of keeping up!

You guys absolutely rock for bearing with me so long. Much love and well wishes to you all!