As surely as we believe that fat makes you fat, heart surgery demands bedrest, and wet sidewalks cause rain, we believe that abused women who flee to shelters should be granted secrecy and anonymity.
But that ‘given’ may be taken away, at least from our conventional thinking.
Last week, The New York Times columnist Rachel Louise Snyder wrote about the movement to make the locations of domestic violence shelters less secret and more public. They’re secret, of course, because we equate secrecy with safety. Otherwise, your abuser can track you down and hurt you or even kill you. It’s happened.
There’s a movement afoot in four US states to do away with the secrecy, not because the governments or shelter managers are monsters, but because these days most shelters are easy to find. As Snyder writes: “Neighbors know. Utility workers often know. Postal carriers know. And in an age of increasingly sophisticated technological surveillance, abusers know, too.”
But a 2020 report on open shelters concluded that “there is no longer a clear connection between a secret and inaccessible shelter location and the safety of survivor-residents.”
Snyder’s point is that abuse drives you into the margins of life and the world. You become very small, no matter how big your life was before. What brings you back is connection. “Public shelters meant neighbours could help facilitate safety, advocates could partner with outside agencies to offer more programming, and informal support networks for things like child care and social engagements could continue.”
Open shelters aren’t like chicken coops awaiting the fox. Often, they have many more levels of security than private shelters do, and their buildings buzz directly into the police station. But there’s also room in the reception area for art donated by local artists. One administrator notes: “If you’re going to allow it to be in the dark, then you’re going to get more dark.”
Snyder concludes with an idea I’d never considered: that there’s no crime less discussed in the public square than domestic violence…..and there’s no better symbol of this secrecy than the traditional domestic violence shelter.
Perhaps this coming out will allow for something I’ve advocated before: groups of women of means and connection, banding together to significantly boost the support for Toronto’s chronically-underfunded women’s shelters. Rich women do this now for art galleries and operas, but not shelters; there’s no social cachet in doing so.
It’s time for this old problem to fall to new thinking as well.
Meanwhile…
1. Wither weather whiplash. Feeling tropical one day, Antarctic the next? You’ve got weather whiplash, the latest malady sparked by global warming. In the past, phrases like “snowbelt” and “whiteout” described winter here. Now it’s “atmospheric lake” and “bomb cyclone.”
2. Double Dutch Death. A former Dutch PM and his wife died ‘hand-in-hand’ last week by euthanasia. They were both 93.
Speaking of MAiD, here’s a broadcast and a podcast and a Zoom call on medically assisted dying in Canada. The first, with the CBC’s Matt Galloway, is about allowing mental illness as the sole diagnosis for MAiD (Ottawa kicked that decision down the road), and the second is the story of a woman who practices MAiD, on Tony Chapman’s Chatter That Matters, which ranks among the top 0.5% of podcasts in the world. The MAiD doctor is Jean Marmoreo (I know, I know. But it’s a small country)….
3. The tallest teen on earth is….? Olivier Rioux from Montreal. ….Plus animals close up and landscapes far off….Plus when animals and sports collide… Plus Lovers’ Lettersfrom Letters Live…..Plus the world’s safest country is?…..Canada. Safest city? Honolulu.
4. Save 25% on Canada’s global orchestra. KUNÉ means “together” and what better hometown to display that than the world’s most diverse city? The 11-piece collective of 10 New Canadian musicians and one Metis-Canadian perform on 25 instruments. KUNÉ plays at Koerner Hall on Saturday, March 2 at 8:00 p.m, with the flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook and sufi pop star Meesha Shafi. AND…..you can join Mervon Mehta for a pre-show chat about the band and its singular journey. Just key in this promo code, OGKUNE, for a 25% discount on up to two tickets.
Oh …. and on Monday, Feb. 19th, you can get into the ROM for free. It’s Family Day.
5. Best fund-raiser ever. Certainly best Valentine’s fund-raiser. Combine a zoo with a bad relationship with a nasty bug and you get to Cry Me A Cockroach. Meanwhile, here’s a real bug’s life.
6. Super-Duper-Bowl. The game was super. The halftime show was super. The commercials were sort-of super (especially this strange spot for Pfizer). The Swifties (me being one) were in Heaven. And then suddenly, though not surprisingly because it’s America, super turned tragic at the Super Bowl Parade. This lays out just how tragic.
7. War is shell. 155 mm shells are staples in Ukraine and Gaza. And they’re subject to inflation, too: $2,000 for every shell pre-COVID and now $8,000+.
Speaking of hell, being in the airplane manufacturing business will guarantee you misery, getting your nation’s art plundered twice by the same invader is hell; worse is superimposing images of ‘undesirables’ to take down your avant-garde architects.
8. How-to’s from Architectural Digest. How to de-clutter your home, room by room. Then how to clean a computer screen. Plus, the world’s 10 most important Top Secret buildings.
9. Number 1 tip for a happier life? Talk to people you don’t know. Number 2? The next time you’re dressing up for Royal Ascot, heed the word of Daniel Fletcher, their first creative director in 313 years.
Speaking of British Toffs, it’s rare to see on the site of a leading public (i.e. private) school the words “But never arrogant.” But they’re on The Oundle School’s, where Prince George, son of Kate and Will, is rumoured to be enrolling.
10. Seiji Ozawa. He died last week, in Tokyo at age 88. It’s been decades since he led the Toronto Symphony from 1965 to 1969. But he brought a sense of class and global possibility to Roy Thomson Hall. We were living in a big brash city! Ozawa was then plucked away to San Francisco and in 1973, to Boston and one of the great orchestras of the world, which he led for 29 years. This ascent made his light shine even brighter here. Here’s their tribute to Ozawa.
Speaking of death and orchestras, read this extraordinary onstage plea from the musicians of the Belgrade Orchestra to save the 100 year-old group from collapse.
11. What I’m liking. Another free and fabulous documentary on CBC GEM, Without Precedent: The Supreme Life of Rosalie Abella. Time makes us forget that Abella has been at the forefront of legal reform and women’s rights for oh so many years. This makes us remember again.
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SIGN ON FOR A GORGEOUS KAYAK TRIP; GET SO MUCH MORE.
Last summer, Jean and I took 10 friends for a week in Karibu Adventures‘ wild and sublime North Vancouver Island. As I note in my 5-star TripAdvisor review: We signed on for a kayak trip; we got so much more.” Here’s what it was like.
Now, you can take this trip in August and bring your family and friends to North Vancouver Island from Aug. 23 to 29, 2024.
karibu’s mission is clear and enticing: “For the active adventurers and nature-lovers who seek raw and real experiences in some of the world’s most spectacular wild places and hidden gems, and want to keep them that way through responsible and inclusive travel. Our carefully-curated destinations celebrate what makes life truly awesome.
Onward,
Bob Ramsay