Bare Ankles

Ever since I did the bit about dress codes for young people at school I have been thinking off and on about women's clothing - or rather how society's standards are transformed, relatively quickly, in terms of what is appropriate to be seen and consequently what is sexually attractive. How those standards evolve is rather extraordinary. The logic as why anyone follows those same standards defeats me. I suspect that they are justified in terms of more freedom and more comfort. I wonder if that is always true.

I can remember the first time I saw a television commercial about bras. My parents, my sister and I were all sitting in our basement "family room" watching some program or another when the commercial came on. I don't think anyone said a word, but I can remember the distinct feeling of discomfort emanating from all of us in the room. In hindsight I think while it was embarrassing for me as a thirteen year old to see a bra on the screen, I am sure it was worse for my older sister. I think however, for my father it was probably more than just a bit embarrassing. I suspect that he more than any of us was not sure where he should or could look. He came from a pre-war culture where one just did not acknowledge such items of clothing. At least not in public.

There was a time when if a slip or bra strap was showing, it was a moment of embarrassment. It was not that one did not know that women wore such items of clothing, they had after all been visible for public consumption for decades in the Eaton's catalogues, it was that people didn't talk about them. Adjusting the strap so that it was back in the right place was a task of some delicacy. In 2015 not only are slip straps for the most part a non-issue because so few wear slips, but bras are now brightly coloured and made to be seen.

I thought of my father last week as I was biking home from the library. Ahead of me on the sidewalk was a young lady walking with I assume her boyfriend (they were holding hands). She was wearing black tights and a short t-shirt. To say that the tights hugged her skin to the point that one could easily tell not only what she was wearing underneath, but also see any marks on her thighs does not do justice to describing how skin tight that garment was. I suspect that if she had used a can of spray paint to cover herself , she would have revealed less. My father would not have had a clue as to where to look - but then one else on the sidewalk or in their cars did either. I can't imagine what my father would say about that young lady or the fact that Victoria Secrets has an annual runway show on mainstream television.

Low scoop t-shirts or blouses where much is shown or tight jeans that leave nothing to the imagination are just the current style. They are part of a fashion continuum that has, ever since the turn of the last century,  shown more and more female flesh. I think the question that someone could ask is - are women more sexually interesting than they were a hundred years. The answer is of course, no. Men in 1915 were just as interested in women as they are in 2015. In fact one has to wonder if life was just that little bit more interesting when seeing a revelled ankle was the highpoint of being with a young lady. There was so much to look forward to. Perhaps one can also wonder when that day comes when there are no more secrets to be viewed - what will be interesting then?

Ronnie Gilbert

Ronnie Gilbert died this past week. Her passing was not noted (or at least I didn't see it) by the Canadian main street media nor by anyone on my Facebook pages. And that is a shame. Perhaps the under thirty-five year olds, to which so much of our social media is directed towards, don't have a clue who she was. And that is incredibly sad.

But if you are an old folkie like me, long before there were trios or duos such as Peter, Paul and Mary, Ian and Sylvia or the Travellers- there were the Weavers. Three guys - Lee Hayes, Pete Seeger and Fred Hillerman and one woman - Ronnie Hayes. The Weavers in the late 1940s and early 1950s sang folk songs in the purest sense of the word. They sang songs from all over the world written by and sung by people who lived ordinary lives. Songs that told stories about their lives - their joys and their heartaches. Songs that talked about the struggles of the common people. Those songs are still sung around campfires. It is the music that is at the back of our heads as we travel long distances across this country.

The music was basic, the lyrics were simple but there was a joy and a vibrancy that rang through every song they ever sang. They were popular at universities and made it at least twice to Carnegie Hall. It has been argued that the folk music boom that blossomed at the end of the 1950s and into the 1960s may not have happened in quite the way that it did if the Weavers had not taught the world the songs of such unknowns as Lead Belly or Woodie Guthrie.

The members of the Weavers were, to say the least, on the left side of the political spectrum. Their comments as to the state of the capitalistic western world and the suggestion that we should be all working for world peace were enough for them to be banned from performing during the McCarthy era. They broke up, went their separate ways, rejoined back together and finally by the mid 1960s broke up. They did however occasionally preform with their last concert together being in 1980.

After the Weavers broke up for the first time Ronnie Gilbert earned an MA in clinical psychology and worked as a therapist. Later in life she did a one person musical show based on the life of the activist Mary Harris, sang in reunion concerts with Peter Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. She went on tour with Holly Near. Her voice, while very powerful, may not have been the most perfect voice ever to reform at Carnegie Hall. But she brought to the Weavers a balance to their music. She was an equal presence on the stage and in their music. She was clearly not just a backup singer or someone who was just along for the ride. Her humour and her love of song was present in every note she sang. And the weavers were so much better for her presence.

Ethics and the Mass Media

I think I have a reasonably well tuned moral compass. I work at making sure that my life decisions are ethical ones. I have long agreed with John Ralston Saul who suggested that ethics are like muscles - we need to exercise them regularly so that when we are faced with the really tough decisions, we make the right ethical decision without hesitation. Having said that - I am a bit confused over the recent tempest in the teapot known as the CBC. With the understanding that for many people the words ethics and media being used in the same sentence verges on creating an oxymoron, our mainstream media has been buzzing with the firing of Evan Solomon by the CBC because of ethical issues.

By all reports Mr. Solomon knew someone who had some expensive art to sell and he knew people who had money to buy expensive art. He created a small business where he got paid for hooking up the person who had something to sell with at least one person who wanted to buy. Because the paintings were very valuable, his commission was substantial. When it became known that he was doing this, he was fired.

The issue appears to be that he violated the public's trust in him as a recognizable public affairs/political correspondent  because he used his professional contacts to arrange for the sale. That is - if he had not been employed by a national news organization he would have never have met either the seller or the buyer. He used his contacts to make money. The suggestion is that in doing so, he also may have been "gentler" while interviewing the buyer so as to not spoil the deal. There is no proof, not even the suggestion that he did, but the possibility that he could have, made Mr. Solomon too toxic of an employee to be kept on.

Should  Mr Solomon been aware of the optics of his activities and decided not to do it? Probably yes. Did he know these people because of his status in the political world? Without a doubt. Was it unethical? I am not too sure. Ethics are frequently a private matter sorted out (at least for me) in the wee dark hours of the night. They are frequently deeply personal. If Mr. Solomon thought (as he said he did) about whether or not he could act as a broker for fine art and still do his job without conflict, I think we should believe him or at the very least take some time to think about it.

The fundamental error in people's over-reaction as to Mr. Solomon's actions and subsequent firing is that we chose to believe that the news is neutral. In fact Peter Mansbridge , the CBC"s anchor for the 10:00 national news, has a commercial airing currently airing on that station that suggests that all he does is read the news. How naive of anyone to believe that! How Mansbridge reads the item, where the item is placed within that hour, or whether or not it gets even reported upon are all the result of someone's bias.  There are countless examples of bias within all media whether they be labelled as mainstream or "independent".  Was Mike Duffy's reporting completely neutral when as reporter for CTV he discussed national affairs? Why didn't anyone criticize him when he shortly after retiring, he was appointed to the senate and started to act as the Prime Minister's shill?  Didn't he get the Senate job because of his previous activities? Wasn't he useful to the Conservative Party because of his contacts developed over years of working for CTV? Why isn't anyone crying foul? The only difference between Mr. Duffy and Mr. Solomon is that the former waited until he retired to trade in on his contacts, while the latter did not. At the risk of offending someone, it is difficult for me to believe that in the months before Mr. Duffy's retirement that there were not discussions as to how to use his work trained skills and contacts.

We live in a world where we are told, with some justification, that networking is critical. It is why social media is so powerful and so useful. To expect a semi-public person such as Evan Solomon to play by a different set of rules than other people is hypocritical. He is allowed to make a living. He needed perhaps to be more public about his activities, but it is not a moral crime to use one's contacts to make money. Like it or not - that is what we all do in some form or another. I am not convinced that we should punish the man. Give him a slap on the wrist? Sure. But to ruin his career opportunities for life seems a bit harsh.

Dress Codes

In the past month or so, the annual pre-summer debate as to what young people should wear to school has once again become a topic for the mainstream press. It is a discussion that by my memory is at least fifty years old.

The school that I went to had a very clear dress code for the girls. In grades one through seven girls had to wear a grey jumper over a white blouse. They had a choice as to whether or not they wore a blue sweater with gold trim or a blazer with the same trim. In high school they had to wear a grey pleated skirt, a white blouse and either the blue sweater or the blazer. The school board argued that by having a dress code, it meant that the girls would not have to compete with each other and that no one would know which child came from a rich or poor family. Of courses, families with less money could only afford one skirt and other families could afford two. Which meant that some girls could get their jumpers or skirts dry-cleaned through the school year. Wearing the same skirt everyday for three and half months could make the grey jumper or skirt look tired to say the least. We always knew who came from which families if for no other reason than only some families could afford the far more expensive blazer. The girls hated it. The guys didn't care.

The guys were not allowed to wear blue jeans but except for one year we never really had a dress code. Was it unfair - of course. Was it sexist? Without a doubt. Did the school board ever say that the young women had to wear a uniform so that they would not distract the guys? No. I am not sure if they even thought about it or if they had, that they would have had the courage to talk about it. The dress code in our little town had far more to do with issues of class and an attempt to stop the young people from becoming either James Dean or Marlon Brando (in the Wild Ones) than stopping young people from thinking about sex. As far as I can remember, those white blouses did nothing to stop the guys from thinking about sex.

Jumping ahead to 2015, the issue as to what female students can and should wear to school is far more about sexuality than the debates of when I was a teen. The argument from young women and those who have the ability to see the story from only one side is that if a female student is wearing something that a male student finds provocative or stimulating - that is his problem; that the male needs to his redirect those thoughts to something less distracting.

I would agree completely that is a male only problem only if the two following statements are true: (1) that anyone and everyone can turn off the mass media programming that all young men are exposed to that shows them what is sexually stimulating (give me a group of males for six years starting when they are in grade four and ensure that they are only exposed to the media I provide and I could make the majority of those males be obsessed with noses!) and (2) give assurance that no young female ever knowingly wears anything to school that is provocative because it is provocative. To suggest that it is only the males that have a problem is to ignore the reality of socialization and of biology.

None of which is to say that what a women wears ever gives a male permission to stare, make comments or unwanted advances. Never. What a woman is wearing should never be an excuse for males acting badly. The young women are right - guys need to grow up and get past this stuff. But it would be useful if some of the women who are placing all of the responsibility on the men would accept that what they wear can be distracting and that school might not be the best place for anyone to be distracted.

So in the next ten or so days, another principal (most likely a male one) will be afflicted with foot-in-the-mouth  disease and say something stupid, another administrator will over-react because a strap is showing ( bra straps are far less interesting or distracting in 2015 than they were in 1965) and students will rightly be angry that they are not allowed to wear what they want, when they want. It is an age old conflict - old fogies get to try and enforce standards that worked when they were young, and young people get to be angry about it.

We live in a post-modernist age. The old rules as to how people need to behave don't seem to apply anymore. I am not sure what the answer is, but I am reasonable sure that blaming half of the population for the problem is guaranteed not to be the solution.  As a matter of fact, I think we have already tried that. It didn't work out very well.