From selling sex to Osgoode Hall - thestar.com
Article in the Toronto Star: From selling sex to Osgoode HallWendy Babcock ran away from abuse and into a life
DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR
Osgoode Hall Law School professor Alan Young paces leisurely. Standing before his Criminal Law I class, he begins to discuss a 1954 murder case.
"Here's a guy who's impotent," he says. "He goes to a prostitute ..."
"Sex worker."
Young stops. Dozens of eyes dart quizzically from laptop keyboards to the source of the brazen interruption.
Even at diverse York University, the woman in the front row is a curious sight. She takes notes on an unlined piece of white paper. Her arms are tattooed. Her brown hair is streaked pink. And her bespectacled gaze is firm.
In private, she will confess that Osgoode scares her, that she doesn't know if she belongs, that she doubts she is the intellectual equal of her classmates – who "look like law school students and talk like law school students and have the background a law school student should have."
Here, staring impassively at Young from a distance of two metres, she appears to be daring an eminent lawyer to argue with her over semantics.
Young, the civil libertarian behind a constitutional challenge of Canada's prostitution laws, instead offers a smile. "I knew you were going to do that, actually," he says. "It's about the only time I actually say 'prostitute.' Anyway, let's stop politicizing now."
But this is not politics. This is personal. Young knows full well.
Before Wendy Babcock was one of his students, she was one of his witnesses.
Hooker with a heart of gold. It charms. It sells. And Babcock is now selling herself again.
Not her body. Her intellect, her work ethic, her tenacity as an advocate, her desire to rectify injustices. She is selling herself as an investment in Canada's future.
Osgoode will cost $18,000 a year. Babcock was homeless as recently as September. She needs a benefactor or two. A fundraiser Sunday night at Goodhandy's, the Church St. "pansexual playground," raised about $1,500.
Babcock, an effervescent and articulate 30-year-old with a propensity for big hugs and an earnest desire to run for political office within the next decade, could make the Pretty Woman-meets-Legally Blonde movie pitch with ease.
She tells her story, perhaps perplexingly, with her perpetual smile intact. A defence mechanism, she explains. "I never wanted to show anyone pain," she says, "so I tried to show them normality."
Raised in an Etobicoke family she says was abusive, Babcock left home as a preteen, and entered the Children's Aid system at 13 or 14.
At 15, she says she began trading sex for the money she needed to pretend to be a "normal kid." With the cash she earned from the man who took her virginity, she paid for her high school semi-formal dress.
She dropped out at 16. She slept on the street and in shelters. Because the only respectable jobs available to her offered longer hours for less pay, she kept returning to sex work.
She quit in 2003, when her friend Lien Pham was murdered by a client. The world, she realized, did not much care about the lives of sex workers. She did. So she founded the Bad Date Coalition, a group that produces a monthly pamphlet with information about abusive clients, and runs an abuse hotline.
She found a job as a harm reduction worker with Street Health, where she earned a reputation as a tireless advocate for and counsellor to her former colleagues.
Taking an OSAP loan that she is still paying back, Babcock earned a sterling academic average at George Brown College.
She received a Public Health Champion Award from the City of Toronto. And she earned entrance into prestigious Osgoode, one of only 10 or so students in her class of 290 accepted without the years of university usually required.
With her degree, she wants to work on behalf of the marginalized and ignored to amend a justice system she sees as just only for the comfortable majority.
Through her personal and work experiences, she says, she has come to understand problems many do not know exist. "Some people see the most obvious barriers that laws can impose on people," she says. "I can see the other barriers."
She wants to fix Children's Aid. She wants to change the adoption rules that prevent her from contacting the now 11-year-old son she was forced to surrender when she was homeless in 2003.
She wants to protect sex workers, build affordable housing and create economic opportunity for both poor children and their parents – because, "of course, you can't eradicate child poverty until you eradicate adult poverty."
She is persuasive. She is endearing. But her life is nothing if not complicated.
Babcock faces an assault charge related to an August incident involving her then-boyfriend, Stephen Haggert. She says the charge will be dropped; Haggert says it was a minor, one-time occurrence and he never wanted her arrested.
He quickly scribbles down and reads a statement in which he praises her "ambition and focus," her "ability to succeed," and her commitment to mistreated children. "I feel strongly," he says, "that all those that become aware of Wendy and her mission should do whatever they can to support her."
Even though she is actively seeking financial support, Babcock says, unprompted, that she is not an especially good or altruistic person.
"No, no, no," she says. "That's not the case at all. I'm not."
But why, if not for a heart of gold, does she plan to devote her life to the betterment of others' lives?
Therapy. If she can eliminate the barriers that have made her existence so difficult, she says, the barriers will finally have meaning.
"I'm not like, 'I want to go law school so I can help everyone.' I'm like, 'I want to go to law school because it was really s----y growing up and this would make me feel better.' If I could change it, I could heal."
Babcock has countless boosters. Osgoode classmate Justin Dharamdial, a Queen's alumnus who attended the Sunday fundraiser, says she has prompted him to ponder issues he had never considered.
Street Health supervisor Mary Kay MacVicar, who insisted a skeptical Babcock apply to Osgoode, says she has become an inspiration to the agency's clients.
Michelle van Looy, a George Brown classmate, praises Babcock's get-it-done spirit and ability to make friends with the people with whom she disagrees.
"Wendy could move mountains. She just really needs support to be able to do it," says van Looy. "If we can just get enough money together to put her through law school, she can do incredible things."
But can Babcock get through Osgoode even if she gets the money? She has doubters, too.
She missed two weeks of school this fall when she was hospitalized for reasons she declines to discuss. Det. Wendy Leaver of the Toronto police sex crimes unit, with whom Babcock has done outreach work, said she is concerned Babcock's health issues might make the Osgoode workload overwhelming.
Babcock was dismissed as a spokeswoman at the advocacy group Sex Professionals of Canada in 2007. She says she and others clashed with executive director Valerie Scott; Scott says Babcock became unreliable despite her obvious gifts.
"There's just something in her – she has the drive, she has the intellectual capacity," Scott says. "I'd love to see her IQ level; that girl is far, far from stupid. I really hope she does well.
"But does she have the emotional maturity to handle the pressure of law school? That's my grave doubt. I don't want her to get chewed up by that machine."
In some ways, Babcock seems ideally prepared to use the machine. She appears to have memorized the statistical results of every study she has ever perused. She can tell you what is wrong with the laws of both Bob Rae and Venezuela.
She is convinced she will graduate and thrive.
Asked for a response to her skeptics, she points to her history of against-the-odds achievement. She knows school is difficult; she knows she is up to the task.
And yet, for all the confidence she projects, she cannot silence the stigmatizing judge inside her own head – the one who whispers to her, as she sits in her Osgoode classes, that she is still "Wendy the foster kid," "Wendy the group home kid," "Wendy the ho."
"I hope one day that goes away," she says.
And that it is replaced by, say, "Wendy the lawyer?"
"I'm looking forward," she says, "to the day when it's `Wendy Babcock.'"
She smiles. "Or Wendy Babcock, prime minister."
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Unions: For the people or Force the people?
Unions were once an essential system to protect the "little people" from the potential monopolization and injustices caused by major organizations. However, in recent years it seems to me that the balance of power is shifting. No longer is our democratic society empowered by these groups but instead there have been, recently, many instances of exploitation of the public for the purpose of the personal gain of these union members. The two major examples that come to mind are the TTC strike and the CUPE 3909 strike at York university.
For those of you who are not Torontonian, the TTC stands for the Toronto Transit Commission, it is the main transit system in the Toronto area. According to the TTC website they serve: "about 1.5 million riders every weekday. The TTC is the third largest public transit system in North America servicing some 4.5 million people in the Greater Toronto Area, with a network of subways, streetcars, buses, and a specialized service, Wheel-Trans, for people who require accessible transportation." The TTC went on strike in April of 2009. A union who is able to manipulate the transit system can be dangerous. With no way to get to work, school or any other place in the city, everyone is pretty much at their mercy. TTC employees make on average about 60-100k a year and yet they were striking due to low wages. LOW WAGES? Are you serious? They brought the entire city to a standstill, elderly people and children missed their doctor's appointments, students were late or didn't even show up for exams, workers were late for or weren't able to make meetings all because they were unsatisfied with their 60k a year salary for driving a bus?
Personally, it offends me that I had to rack up about $20k worth of debt in University and still was unable to find employment in my field, let alone any that matches that salary and therefore am stuck doing a customer service job with a bachelors degree with honours (that might as well be used as toilet paper) in psychology and english and these employees (who most of them do not have anything past a high school degree) are getting paid up to 100k a year. Is life unfair or is life unfair? Why didn't someone tell us in high school to stop waisting our time and go drive a bus.
The second prime example of exploitation by a union is the teacher's assistants and graduate Assistants union (CUPE 3903) at York university. These union members went on strike due, again, to low wages and "too much work" mind you TAs and GA's are only employed 10 hours a week and most of the year they work less than that, they do not have to attend the lecture classes given by the Professors and basically only work when it comes to grading assignments or exams. I believe they were getting paid about $1200 a month or so which is not bad for 40 hours a month of work. They were looking for approximately an 11% increase in their wages (this during a time of recession). In addition, they wanted their own tuition fees waved (as some of them were graduate students). Personally I have no problem with TAs and GAs and I believe they should be paid fairly, however, you loose my sympathy when I am forced out of school for 3 months. That is 3 months I paid for, 3 months I will never get back, 3 months of lost learning. We almost lost our entire year. My graduating year was in jeopardy because a union decided it was more important for a few hundred people to get paid a couple dollars more than to have thousands of students lose their time and money. How can these unions be allowed to do this? I had a hard time understanding why us students were expected to sit idly by and watch our education and money go down the drain because of a few unhappy teaching assistants. And where was our government during all this? Remember them? the ones who are suppose to protect us and assure our rights and liberties. Why didn't they intervene? Some students began protesting the strike, holding demonstrations infront of the legislature and contacting numerous MPs for their support, however, all but one (Peter Shurman) showed no interest in helping the students. The fear of losing union votes overtook any concern for the well being of university students, thereby allowing the union to abuse their power to the fullest extent.
Unions were set up to give a voice to the powerless but not to give them an iron fist. I am tired of being manipulated by these unions, maybe we should rethink the freedoms we allow them. If they are too great a nuisance to the public they're doing more harm than they are good. Critics of my editorial will undoubtedly say that unions had no other option but to strike because other forms of negotiation were inneficient. To those critics I say: that is ridiculous! These unions did not use their striking as a last resort but as a first means of attack. It was strategical and although they may have had some negotiations beforehand they did not use the full extent of their negotiating tools (such as mediators and the like) to come to an agreement until long after the strike began (especially in the case of CUPE 3903). Luckily our government did intervene when it came to the TTC strike, then again there was no way they were going to win favour with the public had they let that strike continue any longer than it did (only 2 days). In essence that strike was dealt with promptly because it affected a majority of their voters. Unlike the CUPE 3903 strike that affected students who are not known to be very active voters.
Finally, the message of these union strikes came across quite clearly to me, basically they can do whatever they wish and get away with it (most of the time). A lesson that has been passed on to subsequent unions (for example the recent city strike that left mountains of garbage on the sides of our beautiful streets). I only wish that these union members be held accountable and not be treated like by the government like a spoiled child's who displays disruptive public tantrums until their demands are met. Maybe you agree with me and maybe you don't but I am certain that I am not alone in feeling this way and I urge those who agree with me to make noise so that unions can trample on the population no more.
For those of you who are not Torontonian, the TTC stands for the Toronto Transit Commission, it is the main transit system in the Toronto area. According to the TTC website they serve: "about 1.5 million riders every weekday. The TTC is the third largest public transit system in North America servicing some 4.5 million people in the Greater Toronto Area, with a network of subways, streetcars, buses, and a specialized service, Wheel-Trans, for people who require accessible transportation." The TTC went on strike in April of 2009. A union who is able to manipulate the transit system can be dangerous. With no way to get to work, school or any other place in the city, everyone is pretty much at their mercy. TTC employees make on average about 60-100k a year and yet they were striking due to low wages. LOW WAGES? Are you serious? They brought the entire city to a standstill, elderly people and children missed their doctor's appointments, students were late or didn't even show up for exams, workers were late for or weren't able to make meetings all because they were unsatisfied with their 60k a year salary for driving a bus?
Personally, it offends me that I had to rack up about $20k worth of debt in University and still was unable to find employment in my field, let alone any that matches that salary and therefore am stuck doing a customer service job with a bachelors degree with honours (that might as well be used as toilet paper) in psychology and english and these employees (who most of them do not have anything past a high school degree) are getting paid up to 100k a year. Is life unfair or is life unfair? Why didn't someone tell us in high school to stop waisting our time and go drive a bus.
The second prime example of exploitation by a union is the teacher's assistants and graduate Assistants union (CUPE 3903) at York university. These union members went on strike due, again, to low wages and "too much work" mind you TAs and GA's are only employed 10 hours a week and most of the year they work less than that, they do not have to attend the lecture classes given by the Professors and basically only work when it comes to grading assignments or exams. I believe they were getting paid about $1200 a month or so which is not bad for 40 hours a month of work. They were looking for approximately an 11% increase in their wages (this during a time of recession). In addition, they wanted their own tuition fees waved (as some of them were graduate students). Personally I have no problem with TAs and GAs and I believe they should be paid fairly, however, you loose my sympathy when I am forced out of school for 3 months. That is 3 months I paid for, 3 months I will never get back, 3 months of lost learning. We almost lost our entire year. My graduating year was in jeopardy because a union decided it was more important for a few hundred people to get paid a couple dollars more than to have thousands of students lose their time and money. How can these unions be allowed to do this? I had a hard time understanding why us students were expected to sit idly by and watch our education and money go down the drain because of a few unhappy teaching assistants. And where was our government during all this? Remember them? the ones who are suppose to protect us and assure our rights and liberties. Why didn't they intervene? Some students began protesting the strike, holding demonstrations infront of the legislature and contacting numerous MPs for their support, however, all but one (Peter Shurman) showed no interest in helping the students. The fear of losing union votes overtook any concern for the well being of university students, thereby allowing the union to abuse their power to the fullest extent.
Unions were set up to give a voice to the powerless but not to give them an iron fist. I am tired of being manipulated by these unions, maybe we should rethink the freedoms we allow them. If they are too great a nuisance to the public they're doing more harm than they are good. Critics of my editorial will undoubtedly say that unions had no other option but to strike because other forms of negotiation were inneficient. To those critics I say: that is ridiculous! These unions did not use their striking as a last resort but as a first means of attack. It was strategical and although they may have had some negotiations beforehand they did not use the full extent of their negotiating tools (such as mediators and the like) to come to an agreement until long after the strike began (especially in the case of CUPE 3903). Luckily our government did intervene when it came to the TTC strike, then again there was no way they were going to win favour with the public had they let that strike continue any longer than it did (only 2 days). In essence that strike was dealt with promptly because it affected a majority of their voters. Unlike the CUPE 3903 strike that affected students who are not known to be very active voters.
Finally, the message of these union strikes came across quite clearly to me, basically they can do whatever they wish and get away with it (most of the time). A lesson that has been passed on to subsequent unions (for example the recent city strike that left mountains of garbage on the sides of our beautiful streets). I only wish that these union members be held accountable and not be treated like by the government like a spoiled child's who displays disruptive public tantrums until their demands are met. Maybe you agree with me and maybe you don't but I am certain that I am not alone in feeling this way and I urge those who agree with me to make noise so that unions can trample on the population no more.
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