Grrls-keep yer ‘gender talk’ in Women’s Studies

Re: “Clashing conferences, boring machismo, frozen Mid East discussion,” Jan. 27.

  • Isn’t it just too easy to reduce all the problems of the world to gender? If that’s your point of view, then there’s no difference between the Fatah terrorist, and those planning IsraelFEST or Israeli Apartheid Week: just blame it all on us males! Oops, hold on-aren’t the two chairs of Israel Affairs at Hillel both female?!

The purpose of IsraelFEST is to display the arts and cultural side of Israel, not a political conference. There are many other opportunities for that.

It is in Israel that there was an increase in women’s rights groups, women in the army, and the world’s second female prime minister, Golda Meir. The only increase in activity for women in the Palestinian territory has been in female suicide bombing.

Your attempt to whitewash the differences so as to impose your feminist ideology may work well in the Women’s Studies department. But for those interested in discovering the truth, and in seeking a more democratic and free Middle East, there’s not much to learn from such an absurdly skewed analysis.

Alex Green

  • “Inviting violent interaction is not feminist.”

No Ms. Taylor, it isn’t. Violent interaction is the sole domain of 100% of men. In fact, I’m sure every Jew and Arab male who attends U of T is planning ways to kill each other.

Ms. Taylor has taken her otherwise peaceful message of mutual understanding and turned it into a piece more focused on man-hatred than anything else. Is stereotying all men as nationalistic and violent an acceptable academic practise at U of T? I suppose it is. If you were to replace the stereotypes you’ve placed on men, and shamefully place them onto any discernible ethnic group, you’d probably lose your job, and rightfully so.

Apparently the gross stereotying of all men is acceptable to Judith Taylor. She should be ashamed, as should her employers.

David Nagler

Coalition of hypocrites

This would be the groups opposing the Arab Student Collective’s “Anti-Israeli Apartheid Week”. It includes the extremist Canadian Coalition for Democracies, who staunchly support “democracy” abroad, just as long as the “elected” leader is a pro-West puppet.

True to their paranoia, they claim the event is a “race fest” that will “poison” the atmosphere for Jews, as if the event will brainwash Canadian youth into becoming neo-Nazis. Yet they didn’t complain about how racist and inflammatory “anti-terrorism” events could “poison” the atmosphere for Arab students.

How ironic that the advocates of the “only oasis of freedom and democracy” in the Middle East are anything but free and democratic, with their attempts at silencing any opinion they don’t like.

Peter Riad

VP Equity on vaction

Re: “Equity VP’s job will be a sprint to finish,” Jan. 27.

After reading your article on Jasleen Sekhon, SAC’s new VP Equity, I couldn’t help but wonder how effective she will be at fulfilling her duties. With only “mere months to get a year’s worth of work done” I thought it would be worth mentioning that our VP Equity is on a six-week vacation. I only hope that SAC takes up her offer to forfeit her pay while away. Jasleen’s opponent in the by-election, Calvin Yang, was democratically elected by the students, only to have his victory denied by a biased elections committee voting on trumped-up election violations. Mr. Yang, by contrast, is not on vacation.

James Webster
SAC Director, Woodsworth College