#stickmag

Which Women Inspire You?

In anticipation of Canada's 150th anniversary in 2017, the Canadian Heritage Department recently conducted a survey of 12,000 Canadians, asking the question, "Which Canadians have inspired you the most over the last 150 years?" The results of the survey were released by CBC on June 15, 2014 and, depressingly, the list of "Top Canadian Heroes" is exactly that: a list dominated by men, and predominantly white men at that. Jack Layton, Terry Fox, Pierre Trudeau, Wayne Gretzky - heck, even Sir John A. made the list, but there is not a "heroine" in sight.

The absence of women, indigenous people, and Canadians of colour did not go unnoticed. Kim Wheeler organized a social media call-out for indigenous Canadian heroes and has posted her collectively compiled top ten list on CBC Aboriginal. More broadly, CBCNews.ca readers responded to the all-male list with a range of alternative suggestions on Twitter, noting the blatant absence of diversity in the list. The comment section in reply to these reader tweets is disturbing, however. John2013, for one, opines that, "The political correctness and 'social justice' bulls**t has reached a ridiculous extreme in our society. Maybe we should require that every list compiled in Canada must contain at least one black person, on asian person, one hispanic person, one aboriginal person, at least 50% women . . . We can't offend anyone so let's make a nice diverse list that will make everybody feel good, right?"

Thank you, John2013. Now that we're all clear that you're a misogynist racist who hasn't quite pinned down the meaning of "social justice," perhaps we can compile such a diverse list. What a refreshing perspective it would offer!