(written by Terry MacNeil, on April 27-28, 30, and May 3, 2025)

Today, I finished reading Kate Beaton’s graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. Being the cheapskate I am – I waited a few years for her book to come out in paperback, before purchasing it.

My main takeaway from Ducks – is that the resource extraction sector sounds like an even more hostile workplace for women than the RCMP or the Canadian military. At the tar sands, Beaton was able to experience a high level of hostility, misogyny, and sexual harassment from A LOT of unpleasant men – these being men who make all men look bad. And I say that, as a man who frequently engaged in “guy talk” with “the guys” throughout my life. The only reason I don’t engage in actual “guy talk” nowadays – isn’t by choice. It’s because I don’t really have any male friends left who engage in “guy talk”. Instead, when it comes to me expressing my thoughts on the physical attractiveness of women – nowadays it is usually only in the form of public posts on my Bluesky account (typically after seeing a movie or TV show that results in me drooling over a physically “hot” actress). Is “guy talk” a bad thing? Well, it is incredibly juvenile. And if you’re a male feminist (as I am) and if you engage in “guy talk” – it is proof that you’re a FLAWED feminist (which is how I see myself).

Before I continue, I must mention my Mom (a “Classical Marxist”) is old school – she says “If you’re not an anti-capitalist, you’re not a socialist.” But I am more lenient in my lingo – I am comfortable labelling “social-democrats” (despite not being anti-capitalists) as “socialists”.

In my opinion – being kind is an essential personality trait of being a socialist. Which reminds me of Ana Kasparian – a longtime host of The Young Turks (TYT), which USED TO BE a social-democratic news analysis Youtube show. I recall one of her videos that put me off, when she revealed she’s basically anti-social and is purely hostile to everyday human interaction – though NOT for reasons of social anxiety. So I took that as proof that you can be a socialist with admirable political stances, and still be a shithead. And I wasn’t surprised she later abandoned “the left” – and became a right-winger (the last I heard, she claims to be “neither right nor left”, a label commonly embraced by left-wing sellouts). When Kasparian made her right-wing pivot, she became rabidly anti-crime – which, if memory serves me correctly, occurred around the time Kasparian became a victim of crime. Kate Beaton was frequently treated with extreme disrespect (and also raped more than once) in the tar sands – yet retained her empathy for the men (even the nasty ones) at the tar sands. If I were a woman and had gone through what Beaton went through – I’d likely become a misandrist, that would want to have as many horny men as possible thrown in prison. Would I remain an empathetic person? I highly doubt it.

Granted, I don’t know Kate Beaton personally – though I have read the Wikipedia articles of herself (and that of her husband – the author Morgan Murray). And I make sure I check out her Bluesky and Twitter social media accounts on a daily basis. Those accounts (particularly based on the replies her online friends/acquaintances/fans write to her posts) do SEEM to reveal one thing – that Beaton is kind. It is clear Beaton’s experiences working in the tar sands did not harden her heart. Despite enduring A LOT of bad experiences out there, she does SEEM to have always been a very kind, caring, considerate, and empathetic person. Those are the kinds of socialists the World needs more of – though I wouldn’t recommend those gentle socialists participate in the street brawls where Antifa slugs it out with fascists/neo-fascists. Ⓐ