So a group of prominent Canadian women have decided our national anthem isn’t quite up to snuff and are petitioning for change. “The words “all thy sons command” in the English national anthem suggests that only male loyalty is being invoked,” Margaret Atwood said in a statement. Of course Margaret Atwood’s at the helm.  As soon as you heard “prominent Canadian women” did you expect anyone else? She goes on to say that “Restoring these lyrics to gender-neutral is not only an easy fix to make our anthem inclusive for all Canadians, but it’s also long overdue.” Oh really Margaret?  Cause I’m pretty sure I was in school with your daughter when the lyrics were last changed to include the Judeo-Christian God, effectively alienating a whole lot of other people. But there were men in that group, so I guess it didn’t count. Do we also need to change manholes to utility covers?  Because if you start there, where does it end?  What about humanity to hupeopleity?  And the ever popular women to womyn?  I realise we ride a fine line between tradition and equality, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere.  A place where we can accept our history without constantly changing it to make us feel better. I find it interesting to note that the original lyrics to O Canada, written by, oh English Canada don’t cringe, French people, have never changed. Calixa Lavallee and Adolph-Basile Routhier can rest easy.  Their lyrics, with nary reference to gender, can’t offend anyone. Except those who don’t like floral wreaths… When I asked my 10 year old feminist daughter what she though of the proposed change, the first thing she asked was " what do they want to change it to?” I told her they want to change “in all thy sons command” to “ thou dost in us command." Without skipping a beat she said “well that’s really  stupid,” and started humming The Maple Leaf Forever.