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On September 7 in Calgary, the Annual Mister Canada Pageant will again crown your "ideal". But this year, reality will liberate the contest auction-block in the guise of "andronez" de-pasticized, breathing men. Men's Liberation Groups, black men, high-school and college men, men's peace groups, men's welfare and social-work groups, men's job-equality groups, anti-birth control and pro-life groups - men of every political persuasion - all are invited to join us in a day-long boardwalk-theater event, starting at 1:00 pm on the Pavement in front of Calgary's Olympic Park. We will protest the image of Mister Canada, an image that oppresses men in every area in which it purports to represent us. There will be: Picket Lines; Guerrilla Theater; Leafleting; Lobbying Visits to the contestants urging our brothers to reject the Pageant Farce and join us; a huge Freedom Trash Can (into which we will throw boxers, briefs, jock straps, cologne, aftershave, and representative issues of "Men's Health", "Maxim", "Esquire", etc. - bring any such man-garbage you have around the house); we will also announce a Boycott of all those commercial products related to the pageant, and the day will end with a Men's Liberation rally at midnight when Mister Canada is crowned on live television. Lots of other surprises are being planned (come and add your own!) but we do not plan heavy disruptive tactics and so do not expect a bad police scene. It should be a groovy day on the Pavement in the sun with our brothers. In case of arrests, however, we plan to reject all female authority and we demand to be busted by policemen only.

Female amazonist-radicals on this issue had best stay away, nor are female conservatives welcome in the demonstrations. But sympathetic women can donate their bodies as well as their lingerie and brassieres.

Female reporters will be refused interviews. We reject matronizing reportage. Only newsmen will be recognized.

We Protest:

The Degrading Mindless-Pecker-Boy Symbol.
The Pageant contestants epitomize the roles we are all forced to play as men. The parade down the runway blares at the metaphor of the 4-H Club county fair, where the nervous animals are judged for teeth, fleece, etc. and where the best "specimen" gets the blue ribbon. So are men in our society forced daily to compete for female approval, enslaved by ludicrous "handsomeness" standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously.

Racism with Raunchiness.
Since its inception, the pageant has not had one Black finalist, and this has not been for a lack of test-case contestants. There has never been a Mexican-Canadian winner. Nor has there ever been a true Mister Canada - an American Indian.

Mister Canada as Military Death Mascot.
The highlight of his reign each ear is a football player-tour of Canadian troops abroad - last year he went to Afghanistan to pep-talk our husbands, fathers, sons, and (some of our) boyfriends into dying and killing with a better spirit. He personifies the "unstained patriotic manhood our boys strive to achieve." The Living Boxers and the Dead Soldier. We refuse to be used as Mascots for Murder.

The Consumer Con-Game.
Mister Canada is a walking commercial for the Pageant's sponsors. Wind him up and he plugs your product on promotion tours and TV - all in an "honest, objective" endorsement. What a shill.

Competition Rigged and Unrigged.
We deplore the encouragement of a Canadian myth that oppresses men as well as women: the win or you're worthless competitive disease. The "beauty contest" creates only one winner to be "used" and twelve losers who are "useless".

The Man as Pop Culture Obsolescent Theme.
Spindle, mutilate, and then discard tomorrow. What is so ignored as last year's Mister Canada? This only reflects the gospel of our society, according to Saint Female: men must be young, juicy, malleable - hence age discrimination and the cult of youth. And we men are brainwashed into believing this ourselves!

The Unbeatable Michael Jackson-Pimp Combination.
Mister Canada and Playgirl's centerfold are brothers over the skin. To win approval, we must be both sexy and wholesome, delicate but able to cope, demure yet titillatingly virile. Deviation of any sort brings, we are told, disaster. "You won't get a woman!"

The Irrelevant Crown on the Throne of Mediocrity.
Mister Canada represents what men are supposed to be: unoffensive, bland, apolitical. If you are tall, short, over or under what weight The Woman prescribes you should be, forget it. Personality, articulateness, intelligence, commitment - unwise. Conformity is the key to the crown - and, by extension, to success in our society.

Mister Canada as Dream Equivalent To-?
In this reputedly democratic society, where every little girl supposedly can grow up to be prime minister, what can every little boy hope to grow to be? Mister Canada. That's where it's at. Real power to control our own lives is restricted to women, while men get matronizing pseudo-power, an ermine cloak, and a bunch of flowers; women are judged by their actions, men by their appearance.

Mister Canada as Big Brother Watching You.
The Pageant exercises Thought Control, attempts to sear the Image into our minds, to further make men oppressed and women oppressors; to enslave us all the more in tight-tie, low-status roles; to inculcate false values in young boys; to use men as beasts of buying; to seduce us to prostitute ourselves before our own oppression.

NO MORE MISTER CANADA

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* Originally appeared as a handout written by New York Radical Women.