Going for a Walk

Here it is 6 April 2011 and on this day in 1830 Joseph Smith and five others founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints which is probably why The Book of Mormon is the number one musical on Broadway. So what have I been up to in the past week? Not much.
Well not much does seem to cover a lot like some quick grocery shopping and a quick run downtown to the first annual Slut Walk of Toronto. Now a week and some ago there was an article in the newspaper that said this lady from York University had heard what a Toronto police officer had told an Osgoode Hall full of potential lawyers that women could help stop rape by not making themselves a target by dressing slutty. So she decided that this betrayed a bias by the Toronto Police and the fact they could not define what was slutty meant their apologies were empty and a demonstration or protest was needed to show the police and people the error of their ways. As a result Toronto got a Slut Walk from Queen's Park to Police HeadQuarters and an expected 100 marchers turned into five thousand supporters on Facebook and one thousand five hundred or more actual marchers.
Now I was aghast by the police saying what they did but all in support of this take back the night type protest. My father when I mentioned this thought it was a sex show. Then he thought it was shameful. Shameful that women would want to dress as sluts. Dad was missing the points. People should be allowed to dress as they want without being judged in any particular way. AQnd if the police or any court tries to blame the victim of a crime as their fault and not realize no one goes out and says rape and beat me. I posed to dear old Dad that what if a possible grand daughter were to dress up as say Lady Gaga or Madonna would that mean she should be raped and to that Dad said no and was there something I wasn't telling him. After that he refused to be goaded into conversation about this and sort of dismissed the SlutWalk when it was brought up. That is until Sunday afternoon when I changed the channel to CP24 and upon seeing the start of the speeches at Queens Park was worried when I told him I needed a lift to the subway as I was on my way there. I said to him that if we don't support this now then what to happen next time someone is assaulted and someone says it's okay they were just nerds. Discrimination is discrimination and we should never allow bias to come into it.
The walk was to say enlightening. Many people had signs and to say the range of clothing being provocative was to say I was expecting a lot of Gucci knock-offs and didn't was something more about the cool wind than the people trying to be deliberate provocative. Many seemed to understand the issues at hand. It would have become a small street party until the police started kettling people off the street to crowd the sidewalk. After that I wandered off like everyone else and did a bit of walk about to Ryerson, Yonge Dundas Square, and Nathan Philips Square. With that I got to see the new Nintendo 3DS in action and while I like it's gimick approach to gameplay I found their lack of info comparing it to the Nintendo DSXLi a reason to leave well enough alone. A nice way to end the day downtown and to seperate myself from just one cause at a time.
Unfortunately it took more than a full day for Dad to sit down and see my photos of the day. Reluctance was the ideal to describe him. I think he finally understood what was at hand when I pointed out that not just the police kettling but that a large part of the crowd was not just young women but their mums and grans.
Some of the things that gets me is while I rushed to place my pics on Facebook no one seemed to notice but the next day when this hit the news the next day everyone seemed to pick up on it without realizing I
a) I was there, and b) they had still missed it.
They weren't thinking of the future just that they finally wanted to support this. The day after it happened. The day after it happened and was no further than page three of the newspapers, and in a couple of the the TV news channels and in a lot of internet feeds.
So nice to see myself a head of the curve for once.
See you all next time.