Canada’s Debate

Seeing as I have only one X chromosome, I don’t have any great insight or wisdom to share on what life is like for women. However, understanding women and understanding the circumstances that women face are entirely different; and that is the reason why we should all take some time to consider International Womens’ Day.

I am not going to delineate the status of women world wide (although Redjenny has a pretty good brief on the subject up), or provide some sort of comparative evaluation of the womens’ movement here or elsewhere. Instead, I direct your attention to this story (emphasis mine):

More than 600 Guatemalan women a year are murdered. The figures have quadrupled in the last five years, while the murder rate among men has remained constant. Since January, 102 women and girls have been killed, among them a 7-year-old who was raped and beheaded….

Director Giselle Portenier went to Guatemala after reading an Amnesty International report on the escalating violence against women in this country of 12 million people.

That so few of the female murders are even investigated only adds to the sense that killing a woman is “a third-class crime.” Not one of the 665 reported cases in 2005 was ever solved.

If that doesn’t give pause, then no amount rational discourse will.