To follow my previous post (after a 20-or-so-day lapse):
The University of BC offers something like a "Women's Boot Camp" for women, natch, who want to run for political office or otherwise get involved. I listened to a radio interview this afternoon with the director of the program, one Penny Priddy.
Penny Priddy. Sort of like Pippi Longstocking. Carrie Nation. Penny Priddy. I've heard that name somewhere . . .
Ah, yes. Penny Priddy. Minister of Women's Issues or whatever in the late, unlamented Glen Clark NDP government.
Ms. Priddy was in full Victorian mode, assevervating on how women's superior morality, dignity, blahblahblah would somehow redeem the grubby male world of politics. All that was needed was for women to reach the "critical mass" of 30% or so of elected seats, and lo, enlightenment and serenity would envelop the world.
(We'll not dwell long on Camille Paglia's contrarian position, that if women did truly rule, we'd all still be living in grass huts by the river.)
Penny Priddy. The name fairly trips off the tongue. But why should I remember it?
Ah, yes.
Priddy is mainly famous for a practical joke she and a couple of other female MLAs perpetrated in the Legislature during some debate. Modesty forbids me from revealing all the details, but suffice it to say that the punchline was a clockwork windup dancing penis that somehow materialized on the desk of an opposition member (Must. Resist. Obvious. Pun.), causing the poor fellow to become thoroughly discombobulated. He was gay, too, which leads in several promising directions.
Ms. Priddy and her co-conspirators were absolutely giddy with this triumph, until some commentators noted that, well, wasn't there something just a bit . . . vulgar about it? A bit sexist, maybe? What would happen to a man who did something equivalent to a woman?
Well. Ms. Priddy went into an outraged huff, puffing that "If we [presumably, she means all women] aren't allowed to be human then blahblahblah."
Nobody's challenging your right to be human, Ms. Priddy.
What's up for grabs is your stake to the moral high ground.