on salami

Remember a few posts ago I said I was going to the big city for a meeting about women and law? And I wondered if it would be tired and depressing? Well it wasn’t, it was the best damn weekend of feminism a girl could ever hope for.

In addition to campaigns around Morgentaler’s case in NB and the third federal reading of C-484, the org is also currently involved in some family law stuff. This is one productive femmy group. They’re responsible for women being able to give their children a maternal surname (not sirname); for spousal support in same sex partnerships; for balanced tax benefits (and penalties) between support-paying separated parents; for fathers having employee benefits to childcare; for the sharing of CPP between elderly ex-spouses; for the elimination of the “spouse in the house” rule governing social assistance in Ontario (last time I checked this still applied in NB); for the requirement of legal aid provision to poor families; for retroactive child support; for enforcement of child support; and for the equitable sharing of economic consequences of divorce. Major shit. If you want to join a local branch, especially if you are a law student or lawyer, contact me.

Meanwhile we workshopped in my favourite focus group style: Like, we know it is insane to kick a girl out of a soccer game because she wears a hijab, but is it insane to be furiously opposed to FGM? No. So, discuss limits of respect for religious freedom. Until happy hour. I love that.

My former supervisor had her team over my last night in town. She is the bossiest powerhouse I have ever encountered. She never met an opinion of her own she didn’t like. So we cooed at coworkers’ babies and barbequed salami (seriously, that happened. My supervisor is CLASSY) and the six-year olds flooded the sandbox with unsupervised access to the garden hose. Then my supervisor told me she completely disagreed with all of my always ridiculous plans and that she really wished I would just become a lawyer.

Speaking of which, Babs became a full-grown full-blown lawyer last week. Congrats.