The Unevolved in Progressive Times
I read Timothy Findley say in an interview once that we are our memories, which intrigues me whenever I read middle-aged people, boomers essentially, glorifying the Canada they think they remember in their youth. I mean, I was there and even as a smart middle-class white girl and fourth or fifth generation Canadian (one surefire way of staking claim on Canada was to completely blow off the old countries, in my family's humble opinion) growing up in Northern Ontario, I recall a sexist, racist society hellbent on maintaining a sexist, racist status quo.
We really are so much better now in terms of fairness - for everybody - that I have to wonder if these piners for a simpler time are simply pining for their privileged boy and girlhoods, because life, even for me, a smart middle-class white girl was a lot tougher than it should have been if society had been even remotely fair and not stacked in favour of a privileged male few. Femaleness was so discriminated against that it sticks in my craw to this day and is why I am an unrepentent Feminist who will have no truck nor trade with the politics of the Right, organized religion, or any other such patriarchal-related old guard.
I was an angry little girl, let me tell you, because injustice was everywhere. Kids from low income families were systematically discriminated against in school - because they were from low income families, Christian religious education was mandatory for everybody - even if you were Jewish, girls couldn't wear pants because that was considered unladylike - even in the deep of winter, women lost their jobs if they became pregnant - including teaching jobs, girls were prevented from pursuing dreams reserved for boys and encouraged to dumb it down for their futures as housewives, sexual abuse was endemic and not reported because reporting it caused little girls (and boys) even more trouble (and nothing was done about it, anyway), abused kids were stigmatized by schools, churches, parents, adults and abusers always got away with it, sexual assault was the fault of the victim and something that wouldn't have happened if you weren't asking for it, women couldn't make financial arrangements without their husband's signature, husbands had all the rights of the family, pharmacists and doctors could prevent you from having even the limited birth control available because their views didn't cotton to it, and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.
That's the past the memory of which the piners have clearly suppressed - or worse, want us all to go back to living.
I enjoy now so much more than then that I can't imagine where these people who want to go back to those days are coming from, unless it's money. A friend in the investment industry told me that the wealthy have essentially set up Canada so that only they will ever be wealthy, the middle-class will always be middle-class, the poor will most likely always be poor, etc. But nowadays, because we are a more democratic society, politicians must pay attention to the needs of the poor and middle-class since we vastly out-number the wealthy and we vote.
Also, the wealthy are no longer looked upon as deserving of special status. Inheritance doesn't cut you status with the middle-class, anymore. We see it for what it is - easy money and aren't you lucky to have been born into it while the rest of us have to work for a living.
Of course, politicians, being dependent on that easy money, are a little out of step with the times, but there's just no stopping progress. And for some reason, progress in an increasingly egalitarian society really terrifies some Canadians. It's as if they're afraid that other people having rights will diminish their rights instead of secure them - regardless of money and, really, that's just pathetic, isn't it?
