A note on language

Before we begin our study of disability justice, let’s take a moment to think about the language we are using. It is crucial that you know the difference between person-first language, and what it means to use the term “disabled”.

Person-first language:  The person-first language of “persons with disabilities” is contested.  As you will learn in this module, critical, social, and radical approaches to disability see person-first language as problematic for the way it emphasizes the person or the person’s body as the site of the ‘problem’.  Yet, some people, policies, and organizations use person-first language. For example, the Government of Canada’s Employment Equity Act defines persons with disabilities as “persons who have a long-term or recurring physical, mental, sensory, psychiatric or learning impairment”.  Like person-first language, the language of ‘impairment’ and ‘limitations’ is controversial because of the ways it treats disabled people as inherently less ‘whole’ than able-bodied people.  Importantly, for example, Deaf communities reject the person-first language of “persons with disabilities”, instead asserting their status as Deaf people with distinct linguistic and cultural practices.  This approach shifts the emphasis from treating so-called “hearing impairments” as medical conditions or problems in need of fixing, towards sign language as a unique and significant form of communication. The capital ‘D’ Deaf represents the cultural, linguistic, and political community of Deaf speakers and listeners. From this perspective, sign language is another mode of communication as opposed to a limitation. Before you move on, check out this video by Dr. Flavia Fleischer, Professor of Deaf Studies at California State University explaining Deaf culture.

Disabled: the term “disabled” shifts our focus from people’s bodies as problems in need of solutions, and instead identifies the source of the problem as the policies, attitudes, spaces, practices, and structures that disable certain individuals, actively imposing barriers to inclusion and equity. For example, from this perspective stairs to enter a building are dis-abling. The problem is in the structure, not the person’s body. Critical, radical, and social approaches to disability recognize that all individuals have access or accessibility needs. However, some individuals’ needs are met automatically by the policies and practices that structure people’s lives. Can you think of other examples of ways institutions can actively dis-able or present barriers?

LESSON: Disability Activism in Canada

Before you move on to the next lesson, listen to Stella Young explain why she doesn’t want to be an inspiration. Reflect on this ‘inspirational’ model as you learn about the other models of disability.

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LESSON: Distinct Approaches to Studying Disability

Studies of disability employ distinct approaches.  Think of these as lenses through which scholars view disability.  Each approach is like putting on a different set of glasses, impacting what we see or don’t see.  A.J. Withers, a Canadian disability politics activist and scholar, outlines the following 6 models: the eugenics model, the medical model, the charity model, the rights model, the social model, and the radical model. These approaches define disability in different ways and thus prescribe particular ways of treating, managing, and viewing disability at a societal and individual level. These models are not always distinct from each other, meaning they can overlap, reinforce, challenge, or enhance each other.  For example, a medical approach to disability gives rise to an emphasis on charity. In contrast, the social model of disability enables us to think about the ways that a medical view can be limiting.  This lesson outlines distinct models.  As you study this lesson, consider which model you find the most persuasive and why.  

BIG IDEA: Disability Justice

Disability justice is a framework that challenges and aims to dismantle the social privilege attached to “able” bodies.  Fundamentally, a disability justice approach critiques the dualism of “abled” versus “disabled” and the hierarchy that privileges able bodies over disabled bodies. In this hierarchical dualism, being able-bodied means being better, more capable, and more whole. According to this binary, a person is either “able-bodied” or “disabled.” This binary either/or thinking tends to erase people whose experiences of disability may not be obvious or ‘visible,’ and thus falsely presents disability as a homogenous category. But people have all kinds of experiences of disability.  

A disability justice approach makes the Black feminist concept of intersectionality a priority, acknowledging that disabled people are not just impacted by ableism but also by racism, class inequality, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and colonialism.  In fact, a critique of capitalism, which views all people as valuable to the extent that they are productive, independent, and self-sufficient, is a fundamental part of a disability justice approach.  Therefore, a disability justice approach views people as inherently valuable no matter their “productivity”, efficiency, or labour outputs. A disability justice approach acknowledges that people are always interdependent: a person’s ability to be self-sufficient is not what makes them valuable.  From a disability justice perspective, disabled people must be able to have their voices heard in social justice movements in order to create meaningful alliances across differences.

Sins Invalid, a group of queer, racialized, and disabled artists, outlines “10 Principles of Disability Justice”:

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Summary: Trans women are women.

Trans identity — defined broadly as a form of gender identity and expression that transcends the sex/gender binary — exists cross-culturally. That is, while the terms ‘trans’ and ‘transgender’ are relatively new terms in the Western contemporary context, there have always been people, all over the world, whose gender identities do not conform to one of two, rigidly defined forms. Check out some of the pins on this map to learn about forms of gender diversity around the world.

In this module, we’ve only skimmed the surface of trans studies — a distinct field that challenges the gender binary and its relationship to heteronormativity. Trans studies emerged as a counter to medical and scientific studies of trans people that have pathologized their identities — treating trans identity as something to be treated or cured. But, as trans studies scholar Susan Stryker explains, trans studies also implies a critique of queer theory and feminist theory, fields that have not always been inclusive of trans identity, theory, and experience. Stryker explains that queer theory privileges the study of sexuality, whereas trans theory seeks to complicate our understandings of gender and the various ways people ‘deviate’ from ‘normal’ gender identity.

For its part, feminist theory has, at times, been outwardly hostile to trans people and experience. Until the 1990s, feminist theorists were very reluctant to incorporate accounts of gender that threatened the notion that ‘women’ were a coherent, stable category with a common set of interests and experiences. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists or TERFs are feminists who reject the notion that trans women are, in fact, women. When TERFs argue that trans women are not women — perhaps because, at some point trans women have lived their lives outwardly as men — they reify the connection between biological sex and gender in a way that contradicts the feminist theoretical and political project to challenge biological determinism. Trans women are women.

In this module, we resisted the work of Leslie Feinberg, who argued that trans liberation is for everybody. Feinberg encourages us to think about the ways in which everyone — whether cisgender or trans — benefits when gender norms and expectations do not structure all of our life choices. Dean Spade shifts our attention to the material conditions necessary to bring about the kind of liberation that Feinberg wanted. Spade argues that trans people need healthcare, housing, and freedom from violence. Spade emphasizes that a critical trans political lens must incorporate a critique of racism, and all forms of state violence, including military violence. An American scholar, Spade is concerned about arguments for trans inclusion in the American military — an institution that does violence worldwide. Spade’s “trickle-up” approach to social justice emphasizes the need to focus on meeting everyone’s basic needs, including housing, healthcare, and freedom from violence.

Test Yourself

check back soon!

Discussion Questions

Let’s talk about what Dean Spade means by “critical trans politics”, because this is the big idea for this module! Start by working together as a group to identify one component each of a “critical trans politics” approach. For example, you might start by saying “Dean Spade argues on page 42 and 43 that a critical trans politics is concerned with wealth inequality”. Next, explain why you think that is part of Spade’s critical trans politics approach. Finally, identify examples of how Spade’s critical trans politics approach is different from the narratives you tend to learn about trans people in media. Use examples from popular media.

Dean Spade is a leading trans legal scholar and the founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP), which provides legal assistance to trans and low-income people. The SRLP is named after trans activist Sylvia Rivera who led the police resistance at the 1969 Stonewall Riots.  Associate Professor at the Seattle University School of Law, Spade is at the forefront of trans and social justice politics in the United States, but his work has been influential for trans and anti-racist scholars in Canada too — particularly those concerned with incarceration and policing.  In this interview, Spade describes what he calls “critical trans politics” — the “Big Idea” for this module.  Spade’s vision of queer and trans social justice is focused on rejecting the focus on inclusion in state institutions like marriage and the military. Instead of using the law as a tool to criminalize people, Spade focuses on combatting marginalization through ending poverty, homelessness, and racism, and by advocating for health care for all. These are all approaches to social justice that he argues will benefit queer and trans folks who are marginalized. Spade argues for a “trickle-up” approach to social justice, instead of a “trickle-down” approach.

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LESSON: DEFINING SEXUALITY & GENDER IDENTITY

Before we begin, it’s necessary to define some terms. In particular, understanding the difference between sexuality and gender identity is key for this module. While trans identity is included in the LGBTQ2S umbrella, gender identity is distinct from sexuality.

There are many ways a person can identify sexually: straight, gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, or pansexual are just some ways people identify.  Sexuality is separate from gender but related to gender.  That is, the binary sex/gender system, which separates people into two categories (male/female) and presumes corresponding gender identities (masculine/feminine), also presumes opposite-sex attraction. For example, for men (sex), heterosexuality (sexuality) is a fundamental part of being masculine (gender). 

The word ‘trans’ is an umbrella term that captures different forms of ‘gender crossing’ or deviation from gender norms, from cross-dressing to gender reassignment surgery.  The language used to describe trans identity has changed over time and continues to shift according to the language preferred by trans communities and scholars.  While gender identity is often conflated with sexuality, trans identity and experience are distinct from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer experiences. 

Remember: not all trans people transition!

Cis means “same.”  A cisgender person’s felt gender identity corresponds with the sex assigned to them at birth.

Current medical and scientific approaches to trans healthcare are rooted in the field of sexology, meaning the study of human sexuality, which emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century to study those who deviated from ‘normal’ sex and gender expression.  Many sexologists treated forms of deviance from ‘normal’ sex and gender identity and expression as pathological, meaning a form of disease.  In Psychopathia Sexualis, Richard von Krafft-Ebbing, a German-Austrian sexologist, conflated sexuality and gender, positing that a man who is attracted to other men must have a pathology wherein he thinks, acts, and feels like a woman.  His ideas continue to influence how we understand cisgender and heterosexual behaviour and identity as ‘normal’ and anything that deviates from these models as ‘abnormal’.  Gender dysphoria is still listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM), which some trans people argue unnecessarily pathologizes their identities. 

Today, the field of trans studies seeks to take back studies of trans identity and experience from the fields of medicine and science, which have often treated trans as a form of disease.  Trans studies scholars emphasize that trans people have important knowledge crucial to understanding their own identity and experience.  Trans studies is a crucial part of any gender and social justice education, but it is a field of scholarship in its own right; as such, this module only provides an introduction to some of the key thinkers, issues, and theories in the field.

LESSON: 50 YEARS OF LGBT RIGHTS IN CANADA

This lesson presents the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans rights in Canada from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Work through the lesson, taking notes in your own words, watching videos, and completing activities as you go. Definitions of key terms and concepts are highlighted.

We begin this module in the late 1960s when lesbian, gay, and trans folks began organizing in resistance to state-sanctioned homophobia.  The notion that gay, lesbian, and trans identities were forms of mental illness and sexual deviance forced queer and trans people to conceal their identities and relationships.  Pervasive homophobia meant that lesbians, bisexual folks, trans folks, and gay men could not live their lives in public, were forced to hide their relationships from their friends and families, and keep displays of affection to the private realm or in ‘private’ public spaces, like cars. 

In the midst of the Cold War, fears of national traitors led to an intensification of homophobic attitudes.  Communists were not the only people labelled ‘deviant’, ‘subversive’, or potentially traitorous.  Lesbians and gay men were also perceived as socially and politically deviant and likely to betray the nation.  Throughout the Cold War era, the Canadian state engaged in surveillance of its own citizens out of fear that members of the public service, including the government, the military, and the RCMP,  were sharing state secrets with the Soviet Union.  The Canadian state targeted lesbians and gay men as potential ‘deviants’ or ‘subversives’, suspecting that queer and trans people suffered from a fundamental moral weakness that made them potentially disloyal to Canada, particularly susceptible to Soviet blackmail, or more likely to share state secrets out of fear that their ‘secret’ lives would be revealed.  The RCMP used the so-called “fruit machine” to try to identify gay and lesbian members.  In what is known as “The Purge”, the Government of Canada fired gay, lesbian, and trans people from their jobs in government, the military, and the RCMP. Watch this video describing a documentary about the purge.

The 1960s are characterized by competing realities: on one hand, prevalent homophobia excluded gay, lesbian, and bisexual people from political, social, and cultural institutions and, on the other hand, an emerging gay and lesbian rights movement challenged heteronormativity and homophobia. In the aftermath of World War II, an emerging consensus emerged in the international community to enshrine and protect human rights.  Anti-war activists, civil rights leaders, decolonization movements, environmentalists, and women saw an opening and organized to pressure the political establishment for social change.  In this context, gay and lesbian folks began organizing against discrimination and exclusion in society, law, and policy.  For example, in Canada, the Vancouver-based Association for Social Knowledge (ASK) formed to challenge exclusion and homophobia. Yet, organizing against homophobia was difficult in the 1960s because this involved being potentially ‘outed’ to family, friends, and employers.  

1969: The Stonewall Riots

The Stonewall Riots in 1969 catalyzed a movement. In a context of state surveillance, homophobia, and transphobia, police consistently raided queer spaces, harassed and assaulted patrons, and arrested them. The following excerpt from Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues is a fictional account of a police raid during a drag show. The scene is narrated by the main character, Jess:

When the police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village during the night of June 27th, 1969, trans women of colour — especially Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera — led the bar’s patrons in resistance.  The Stonewall Riots galvanized a broad movement contesting state surveillance and repression, demanding space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and trans people to exist in public, free from violence. A direct challenge to police violence, the Stonewall Riots gave birth to the pride protest movement and gay and trans liberation movements, wherein trans, queer, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people took their lives into the public sphere, demanding inclusion on their own terms.  Further, they demanded basic human rights in the areas of housing, employment, and healthcare.  

The influence of the Stonewall Riots crossed the Canada/US border. As in the United States, police frequently raided queer establishments in Canada. For example, in ‘Operation Soap’ in 1981, Toronto police raided four gay bathhouses, arresting over 300 people.  Police have raided queer establishments in Canada as recently as 2002. In response to police raids, LGBTQ2S communities organized pride parades as forms of protest. In the video below, queer women and trans folks describe the significance of the queer women’s bathhouse community as a form of sexual expression.  

Next, read the story transcript of the CBC’s The Current with Mark Segal, who was at the Stonewall Inn when police raided the bar on June 27th, 1969.

1969 Criminal Code Reforms

Police raided queer spaces on the basis that queer sex was criminal.  That is, police used sections of the Criminal Code related to “gross indecency”, “buggery”, “vagrancy”, and the “bawdy-house law” to criminalize gay sex.  This meant that people like Everett George Klippert were criminalized for having consensual sex.   A gay man, Klippert was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ for having consensual sex with other men, sentenced to jail, and declared a dangerous sex offender. He challenged his conviction at the Supreme Court of Canada, but the court upheld his conviction. Public outrage led Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s Liberal government to pass a series of Criminal Code reforms in 1969.  The 1969 Criminal Code reforms were part of Prime Minister Trudeau’s vision of a “Just Society” in which the state would not encroach upon people’s intimate lives, a sentiment captured in his famous phrase: “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”. 

The Government of Canada commemorated the 1969 Criminal Code reforms and the “50th anniversary of decriminalizing homosexuality in Canada” in 2019. Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston explain here, however, the claim that Canada decriminalized homosexuality in 1969 is a myth. In fact, they argue that gay sex was not decriminalized. The Criminal Code reforms of 1969 did not decriminalize homosexuality; rather, the reforms focused on two sections: “buggery” and “gross indecency.”  Trudeau’s reforms made permissible for two adults over the ages of 21 to engage in “buggery” and “gross indecency” in private.  When Trudeau famously argued that “the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation,” he meant that adults could do what they want in private — which is a very limited form of ‘liberation.’  Whereas the age of consent for gay sex was 21 years of age, the age of consent for most forms of heterosexual sex was 14. In fact, Hooper and his colleagues explain that “charges for consensual queer sex increased after 1969”, including through bathhouse raids.  In 1971, gay and lesbian activists assembled on Parliament Hill to protest the 1969 reform.  Klippert remained in jail for two years after the reforms. He was released in 1971.

The 1970s: Gay Liberation

The 1970s were focused on gay liberation.  The movement organized to challenge heteronormativity and to advocate for human rights. When they demonstrated on Parliament Hill in 1971, they demanded:

• the removal of  “gross indecency” and “buggery” from the Criminal Code
• equal sexual assault penalties for gay and straight sex 
• the same age of consent for gay and straight sex 
• that gay and lesbian immigrants be allowed to come to Canada
• an end to employment discrimination 
• an end to sodomy and homosexuality as grounds for divorce or denial of child custody 
• enabling lesbians and gay men to serve in the Canadian Forces
• a public report on the RCMP’s surveillance of gay and lesbian public servants
• equal status for gay men and lesbian women in marriage, pensions, and income tax
• human rights protection based on sexual orientation

Whereas public policy change did not follow, the 1970s were an important decade for developing queer subcultures.  Lesbian and gay communities formed in major Canadian cities, including the Church/Wellesley area in Toronto, the gay village in Montreal, and Vancouver’s West End.  The development of queer public space is significant because it enables queer people to exist in public spaces in ways they had not previously been able.

The word heteronormativity combines two words: heterosexual and normative. Normative means a standard by which things are typically done or by which things should be done. Heteronormativity refers to the presumption that one is, from the start, heterosexual or that one should be heterosexual. Social, cultural, political, legal, and religious institutions revolve around an assumption of heterosexuality, which naturalizes heterosexuality.  Queer scholar Miriam Smith offers this definition of heteronormativity:

“Heteronormativity means that social organization is structured around the assumption that heterosexual sexual preference and heterosexual coupling is the dominant mode of sexual, intimate, and family organization and that homosexuality is deviant.  Even when dominant norms are not homophobic or hostile towards homosexuality, lesbian and gay people are outside of the ‘norm’”

Miriam Smith (2008) “idENTITY AND OPPORTUNITY”

The heterosexual questionnaire illustrates the ways that the social is organized around heterosexuality. Reflect on what your own responses to these questions might be.

1980s: HIV/AIDS

The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s took almost all of the energy the gay rights and gay liberation movement had.  Members of the gay rights and liberation movement either died or mourned the loss of friends and loved ones.  Because the state did not recognize same-sex relationships, partners were often left out of decisions about health care and funerals.  Meanwhile, the notion that HIV/AIDS — originally called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) — was a disease caused by or inextricably linked to gayness prompted a backlash against gay men and an intensification of homophobia.  As Miriam Smith writes:

 “The idea of open sexual expression became problematic as some argued that traditional gay spaces such as washrooms, parks, bars, and bathhouses should be regulated in the interests of public health.” (182)

Governments and medical and scientific communities were slow to act as gay men died.  To protest government and medical inaction, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) used direct action tactics, including “die-ins”.  The documentary How to Survive a Plague depicts ACTUP’s struggle to get governments, researchers, and doctors to pursue treatments for AIDS. In Canada, gay rights leaders formed organizations across the country to advocate for patients and their partners and to promote education about safe sex.  Former Edmonton City Councillor and former University of Alberta Board of Governors Chair Michael Phair formed Edmonton’s AIDS Network to respond to the crisis.  When no real estate firm would provide Phair with a space to lease to run the Edmonton AIDS Network, he ran it from his home. Learn more about Michael Phair by watching the short video below.

1990s: Human Rights

In the 1990s, lesbian and gay organizations focused their activism and advocacy on human rights and freedom from discrimination. In 1982, when Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau embarked upon his goal to bring the constitution home to Canada and entrench within it constitutionally guaranteed individual rights, many groups, including Indigenous peoples, women, disabled people, and immigrant communities, organized to ensure that the Prime Minister and the provincial premiers would include their rights in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Yet, the lesbian and gay rights movement did not have a strong organizational capacity to mount a challenge to the Charter. The only openly gay Member of Parliament at the time, Svend Robinson, advocated for the inclusion of sexual orientation in the Charter, but alas “sexual orientation” is noticeably absent from section 15 of the Charter, which reads:

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

s. 15 of the charter of rights and freedoms

While the Charter of Rights and Freedoms did not enshrine freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation in law, the new constitutionally entrenched bill of rights did suggest the potential for making human rights claims based on sexual orientation.  Two ‘Charter’ cases exemplify major gains in the 1990s regarding human rights law. 

First, the Egan case, depicted in a Historica Canada Heritage Minute below, revolved around the case of Jim Egan and his partner of nearly 40 years, Jack Nesbit. When Egan filed for spousal allowance benefits under the Old Age Security Act, the Government of Canada denied his claim because they were a same-sex couple.  Egan argued that this reflected discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada argued that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does imply protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. 

Second, In 1996, King’s College (now King’s University) in Edmonton fired Delwin Vriend, who worked there as a lab instructor, because he was gay. The Alberta Human Rights Act did not protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. When Judge Anne Russell ruled that the Alberta law was unconstitutional — meaning it contravened the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — the Alberta Government, under Premier Ralph Klein, appealed the case, which wound its way to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998.  In Vriend v. Alberta, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that human rights legislation should protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  They argued that courts should ‘read in’ sexual orientation in the Alberta Human Rights Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision set an important precedent for legislative and policy change in the areas of pensions, adoption rights, inheritance, and marriage.

2000s: Marriage & Beyond

In 2000, the Government of Canada, under Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien, passed the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act, giving same-sex couples the same benefits as heterosexual couples. Meanwhile, same-sex couples in Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario challenged laws stipulating that they could not marry. In Halpern v. Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal found that same-sex marriage was constitutional.  The Government of Canada followed suit in 2004, asking the Supreme Court to rule on the question of whether same-sex marriage infringes upon religious freedom, which the court decided it did not. When Paul Martin of the Liberal Party of Canada assumed the position of Prime Minister in 2005, same-sex marriage became law.  Opponents of same-sex marriage argued that marriage was fundamentally a heterosexual institution. Religious conservatives, especially Evangelical Christians, argued that same-sex marriage would end the traditional nuclear family and that enshrining the right to gay marriage in law amounts to support for an ‘immoral’ and ‘deviant’ lifestyle.  

While same-sex marriage is, in some ways, perceived as the pinnacle of the LGBT rights movements — the natural culmination of the argument that ‘love is love’ — there is tension within LGTBQ communities over marriage.  The Stonewall Riots and the pride movement that followed were about challenging social norms and traditional relationship models.  For some, same-sex marriage represents tradition, reinforcing the hetero-patriarchal nuclear family structure.  Queer critics of same-sex marriage argue that this legal change does very little for queer and trans people experiencing marginalization and discrimination in the areas of housing, employment, healthcare, police violence, or racism.

BIG IDEA: Queer politics

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Are you an ecofeminist?

Are you an ecofeminist? Do you favour an environmental justice approach? What does one approach offer that the other doesn’t? Or, do you believe that Indigenous feminisms have the most potential to transform human and non-human relations? Reflecting on where you sit can help you consider the differences between these theoretical approaches.

Women and girls are at the forefront of the movement to protect the planet. Greta Thunberg and Mari Copeny (aka Little Miss Flint) have galvanized international movements. Mari Copeny organized for water justice in Flint, Michigan, writing:

“When the water crisis began, all I wanted to do was to fight for my younger siblings, especially my little sister, who would get such bad rashes from the water that she would need to be covered in a special ointment and wrapped in plastic wrap to try to help heal her skin. I wanted to fight for all the kids here that were scared and confused. I wanted to fight for the adults that had to teach the kids that the water was poison.”

Mari Copeny aka Little Miss Flint

Ecofeminists argue that women and girls like Mari Copeny and Greta Thunberg engage in environmental activism out of an ethic of care for the natural world and people, for whom women and girls often take on care responsibilities. Ecofeminists argue that:

“women, more than men are concerned about the elements: air, water, earth, fire. To be able to bear and rear healthy children and to provide their families with nourishing food, adequate clothing, and sturdy housing, women need fertile soil, lush plant life, fresh water, and clean air.”

Rosemarie Tong, “Ecofeminism” (278)

Do you think women and girls have a unique “ethic of care” for other humans and nature? If so, is this the result of socialization or some innate connection to nature? In their emphasis on gender, do ecofeminists pay adequate attention to the relationship between environmental racism and colonialism? Does an environmental justice approach offer a more robust framework? What do you think?

Test Yourself

Discussion Questions

Your task for this module is to work together to identify the differences between ecofeminist, Indigenous feminist, and environmental justice approaches and apply those lenses to a discussion of this article by Sharon J. Reilly in The Narwhal about federal funding for cleanup of oil and gas wells. What kinds of questions would an ecofeminist raise about funding for the cleanup of oil and gas wells? Next, what kinds of questions arise from an Indigenous feminist perspective? Finally, what kinds of questions emerge when we analyze the issue from an environmental justice perspective? If you want, you can offer your perspective on which lens is the most important or valuable for understanding the issue of coal mining in Alberta.

Remember, you are working together on this, so it is not up to you as an individual to answer all of the questions presented here. Your job is to contribute by offering examples from lessons and readings to help your team answer the questions. If you arrive at the conversation after your teammates have provided most of the answers, you can weigh in by: a) summarizing the discussion so far, in your own words; and/or b) explaining why each perspective is important or necessary.

References

“Canada’s Toxic Chemical Valley (part 1/2)”. 2013. Produced by VICE, August 14, 2013. Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd_QgMc5B_s 

“Canada’s Toxic Chemical Valley (part 2/2)”. 2013. Produced by VICE, August 15, 2013. Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvQk0lolpz0 

Copeny, Mari. 2019. “The Flint Water Crisis Began 5 Years Ago. This 11-Year-Old Activist Knows It’s Still Not Over.” Elle, April 24, 2019. https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a27253797/little-miss-flint-water-crisis-five-years/ 

“Is Ecofeminism Still Relevant?” 2019. Produced by Our Changing Climate, April 26, 2019. Youtube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBP0-XUe6bU 

Konsmo, Erin Marie, and Pacheco, A.M. Kahealani. 2016. “When Relatives are Violenced.” In Violence on the Land, Violence on Our Bodies, Building an Indigenous Response to Environmental Violence, 20-35. Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) and Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN). http://landbodydefense.org/uploads/files/VLVBReportToolkit2016.pdf 

Riley, Sharon. 2021. “$100 Million in Federal Funding for Cleanup of Alberta Oil and Gas Wells Went to Sites Licensed to CNRL.” The Narwhal, May 7, 2021.  https://thenarwhal.ca/cnrl-alberta-oil-gas-wells-cleanup/ 

Taylor, Dorceta E. 1997. “Women of Color, Environmental Justice, and Ecofeminism.” In Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature, edited by K. Warren, 38–81. Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Tong, Rosemarie. 2018. Feminist Thought, Student Economy Edition: A More Comprehensive Introduction, Fourth Edition. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429493836.

Warren, Karen J. 1990. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12 (2):125-146.

Wiebe, Sarah M. 2017. “Toxic Matters: Vital and Material Struggles for Environmental Reproductive Justice.” In Abortion: History, Politics, and Reproductive Justice after Morgentaler, edited by S. Stettner, K. Burnett and T. Hay, 313-33. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Before you study the assigned resources for this module, let’s pause and think about access and ableism.  Discussions of accessibility emphasize how physical barriers, such as stairs or narrow hallways, make spaces inaccessible but also how ideas or ideologies limit people’s access.  For example, the idea that disability is an impairment, a limitation, a disadvantage, or an inspiration contributes to inaccessibility and reproduces ideas about normality or what is normal and abnormal.  Ableism refers to an ideology that views disability as a disadvantage or defectiveness relative to ‘normal’ people.

A social approach to disability emphasizes that every person has access needs — things that make a space, learning environment, working environment or social environment more or less accessible.  Take a moment to reflect. What are your access needs when it comes to learning? For example, consider a classroom. Classrooms have desks for people who need to sit while they learn, tabletops so people can rest paper on to write, screens for visual learners, sound systems for auditory learners.  Which of these do you need to access a classroom? How do you move through a classroom? What kinds of physical structures make a space accessible?  If a classroom has stairs, narrow doorways, and no aisles, a wheelchair user cannot access the space freely. What do you need in order to make online learning accessible? Try to make a list.

Disability activists ask, why stairs and not ramps? Whereas ramps function well for most, stairs exclude many.  Sally Chivers writes: “The choice [between stairs and ramps] is supposedly aesthetic, but it is not at all clear on what basis steps are more beautiful than slopes” (311).  What kinds of attitudes make a classroom feel accessible for you?  Thinking about access involves structuring working, learning, social, and activist spaces to accommodate various needs.  In the video below, Patty Berne and Stacey Milbern of Sins Invalid discuss ableism. Watch this video before you move on to the reading by Danielle Peers and Lindsay Eales about the ways queer spaces can reinforce ableism.

Next, you will read “The Mountain” by Eli Clare from Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation (CW: sexual abuse). In the introduction to their book, Clare defines the “supercrip”: the inspirational disabled person who ‘overcomes’ their disability. Ultimately, Clare argues that the “supercrip” functions to “reinforce the superiority of the non disabled body and mind” (2).

TIMELINE: GENDER, RACE, & REPRESENTATION

Below is a timeline of key moments related to gender, race, and political representation in the Canadian context. The purpose of this lesson is not to encourage you memorize particular dates, but to provide you with a “big picture” sense of the ways ‘progress’ towards equal representation has been unsteady and uneven.  For example, some women voted in colonial elections before provinces banned women from voting in the mid-nineteenth century. The state’s extension of voting rights to women was uneven; Asian and South Asian men and women, for example, were not permitted to vote until 1948.  Likewise, whereas Claire Brett Martin became the first woman to join the legal profession in Canada in 1897, Black women continued to be excluded from legal education.  When Violet King Henry was called to the Alberta bar in 1954, she became the first Black woman lawyer in Canada, over 50 years later. In 1917, Annie Gale became the first woman in Canada to serve as a city councillor when she was elected to Calgary’s City Council.  It was not until 1974 that Calgary elected a Black woman: Virnetta Anderson.  University of Alberta Political Science Professor Lois Harder’s (2006) description of the history of women’s political involvement in Canada rings true here: “women had power where we often presume they had none, and they may not have had power where we presume that they should” (51). As you read this timeline, do not try to memorize everything. Rather, notice two or three moments that peak your interest and identify why you think these moments matter.

Before European contact in North America:  Before the arrival of Europeans disrupted Indigenous ways of life, women, men, and two-spirit people on Turtle Island all had important and unique political roles.  The “Six Nations”, including the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Iroquois nations formed the Six Nations Confederacy, the first democracy in North America.  Women played important political and legal roles in the Six Nations Confederacy, responsible for selecting and deposing leaders, participating in spiritual ceremonies, controlling the distribution of food and other goods, exercising autonomy in sexual and marital relationships.  In Nehiyaw (Cree) society, women had spiritual, legal, and political roles rooted in their power to give life. 

1600s: The French arrived in ‘New France’ in the early 1600s.  Between 1663 and 1673, filles du roi, dowried single women sent by the French government arrived to help populate ‘New France’. The French viewed the presence of women as vital to their colonial pursuits in North America; without women, it would be impossible to establish a French and Catholic identity in this new colony. Understanding women as fundamental to settlement challenges the notion that European women have no political power or agency when it comes to settler-colonial regimes.  For example, Lois Harder explains that white women participated in negative constructions of Indigenous women’s identities in order to gain power relative to Indigenous women. 

1763-1867: During this period, there was an influx of immigration to British colonies in North America.  Immigrants came from Europe, Britain, and the United States, including British loyalists and Black people fleeing slavery.  In 19th century Britain, gender roles were governed by a strict separation of the supposedly ‘masculine’ public sphere of law, politics and education from the ‘feminine’ private sphere of domesticity. But, in North America, rural women participated in the hard labour required to establish new settlements.  As Lois Harder (2006) explains in “Women and Politics in Canada”: “the necessity of women’s work to the functioning of British North America as well as to their families gave women authority and influence that was not reflected in the formal declarations of social order” (56). 

1791: New Brunswick prohibited women from voting in 1791; otherwise, there were no formal restrictions on women’s voting rights before Confederation.  Women’s voting rights were ambiguous until the mid-nineteenth century; as such, some women voted in elections before provinces enacted formal bans. 

1836: Prince Edward Island bans women from voting. 

1849: Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) ban women from voting. 

1851: Nova Scotia bans women from voting. 

1873: Women property owners can vote in municipal elections in British Columbia. 

1879: Medical schools open to women in Canada.

1883: Queen’s University and the University of Toronto medical schools reinstituted bans on women.  

1884: Unmarried women with property could vote in Ontario municipal elections, but they could not hold public office. 

1885: Sophia B. Jones, born in Chatham, Ontario, became the first Black woman to graduate from medical school at the University of Michigan after the Toronto Medical School denied her access to medical training because she was a Black woman. Dr. Malinda S. Smith tells her story, which is “little known in Canada”, in her research project on Black women trailblazers.  

1891:  In 1891, the Ontario legislature passed a bill allowing women to study law, but prohibited women from practicing law (Harder, 60).  Claire Brett Martin became the first woman to join the legal profession in Canada in 1897 after nearly a decade of advocacy.  Prohibited from becoming a practicing lawyer, she engaged the help of Dr. Emily Stowe, an advocate for women’s inclusion in medical education, and Lady Aberdeen, the Governor General’s wife, to pressure Ontario to include women in the legal profession. Brett Martin formed the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC) and became a practicing lawyer in 1897.

1914: Women were permitted to study law in Quebec.

1917: The federal government gave some women the right to vote. In particular, nurses and women who had men relatives who were serving or who had died in WWI could vote.  

1917:  Annie Gale is elected to Calgary’s municipal council, becoming the first woman “alderman” in Canada. In 1923, she became the first woman in Canada to serve as an acting mayor. 

1918: The federal government passed the Women’s Franchise Act, allowing women to vote if they were British subjects (which, essentially, meant Canadian citizens).

1921: Anges MacPhail, a candidate for the United Farmers of Ontario party, is elected to the House of Commons, becoming the first woman Member of Parliament in Canada. 

1927: The “Famous Five” contest the British North America Act’s definition of ‘personhood’, arguing that women are persons capable of serving in the Senate. After the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that women were not persons, the Famous Five appealed the case to the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (1929), which ruled that women are, in fact, persons. The Famous Five’s view of personhood, however, was rooted in white supremacy and ableism. That is, members of the Famous Five, including Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung, were proponents of eugenics and forced sterilization. 

1940: Quebec grants women the right to vote in provincial elections. 

1941: Quebec permits women to practice law. 

1945: Ivy Lawrence Maynier becomes the first Black woman and the first woman of colour to graduate from the Univeristy of Toronto Law School.  She was also the first student to graduate with an honours degree in international law.  Dr. Malinda S. Smiths writes about Ivy Lawrence Maynier here. 

1948: Canada permits Asian and South Asian men and women to vote. 

1953: Violet King Henry graduates from the University of Alberta with a law degree, becoming the first Black person in Alberta to graduate with a law degree.  When she was called to the Alberta Bar in 1954, King became the first Black person to be called to the Alberta Bar (1954) and the first Black woman lawyer in Canada.

1960: Indigenous men and women could vote without giving up their status, a process the government called “enfranchisement”.  Before 1960, “status Indians” under the Indian Act could only vote if they gave up their status. 

1967: Pressure from the women’s movement leads Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson’s government to establish the Royal Commission on the Status of Women on 3 February 1967 to “inquire into and report on the status of women in Canada, and to make specific recommendations to the federal government to ensure equality for women in all aspects of society.”  The commission held public hearings over the course of six months and released its report in 1970, providing 167 recommendations for achieving women’s equality.  The recommendations became a “blueprint for 20 years of subsequent feminist activism” (Harder, 2006: 67).  

1974: Virnetta Anderson becomes the first Black woman to serve on Calgary’s City Council.  

1972: Rosemary Brown becomes the first Black woman to serve in the British Columbia legislature.  When she ran for the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party in 1975, she became the first woman to run for the leadership of a federal party. 

1980: Alexa McDonough becomes the first woman to lead a major political party in Canada when she became the leader of the Nova Scotia’s New Democratic Party (NSNDP).  In 1995, McDonough was elected leader of the federal NDP. 

1989: Jan Reimer became Edmonton’s first woman mayor of Edmonton.

1993: The Right Hon. Kim Campbell became Canada’s first woman Prime Minister when she assumed the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1993.  Named “Canada’s coolest Prime Minister” by Maclean’s, Campbell served as Prime Minister until her party was defeated in the 1993 election by Jean Chretien’s Liberals.  When Campbell became Prime Minister, she assumed the leadership of a country deeply divided by a decade of constitutional reforms, and two unsuccessful attempts by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to bring Quebec into the constitution.  As Justice Minister in 1991, Campbell implemented the “No means no” law, providing clear legal definitions of what constitutes consent.  

1993: Jean Augustine becaomes the first African-Canadian woman to be elected to the House of Commons.  Augustine made history when she secured unanimous support for her motion to make February Black History Month in Canada. 

1993: Sheila Copps became the first woman to serve as Deputy Prime Minister. 

2011: Alison Redford becomes Alberta’s first woman premier when she assumes the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party.  She leads her party to victory in the 2012 provincial election before resigning, her tenure as premier plagued by a series of scandals.  Redford was the eighth woman to serve as a provincial premier in Canada.

2015: Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appoints Canada’s first ever cabinet with equal representation of men and women.  

2015: Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appoints Canada’s first ever cabinet with equal representation of men and women.  

2019: Canada elects a record 98 women to the House of Commons.  Women comprise 29% of the seats in the House of Commons.  The table below, from Equal Voice Canada and the Library of Parliament, evidences the slow progress on women’s representation. 

BARRIERS TO GENDER PARITY IN POLITICS

Transcript “Barriers to Women’s Representation”

BIG IDEA: Representation

Transcript Big Idea – Representation

Summary: Black Lives Matter & Black Feminist Thought

Intersectionality is a contested and hotly debated concept, and it is subject to competing definitions. Some argue, for example, that intersectionality is an analytical tool that can be used to analyze the ways that any systems of oppression or “socially constructed” categories of difference, such as gender, sexuality, and class, overlap and converge (see, for example, Davis 2019). From this perspective, the concept of intersectionality might help explain how class and gender — as multiple systems of oppression — result in higher rates of poverty among women. In fact, the Canadian Women’s Foundation reports that 30% of single mothers in Canada experience poverty (CWF 2021). Critics of this approach argue that dislocating intersectionality from its roots in Black feminist thought, and taking ‘race’ and racism out of the equation, ends up actually obscuring racism, and, therefore, perpetuates that very system. Paradoxically, by applying the concept of intersectionality without an analysis of ‘race’ or racism, some white feminist scholars actually end up erasing Black women from the picture — the very problem that the concept of intersectionality was designed to solve! An intersectional analysis of gender and poverty, for example, reveals that the gender wage gap between women and men widens when ‘race’ is factored in (Block et al 2019). In this course, we will focus on studying and applying intersectionality within the context of a long history of Black feminist thought to avoid erasing Black women from view.

The contemporary Black Lives Matter movement in Canada and the United States is influenced by Black feminist thought when it calls upon followers to say the names of Black women and Black trans women killed by police. Studying the work of Black feminist activists and scholars like Sojourner Truth, the Combahee River Collective, bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, and Angela Davis provides a richer understanding of contemporary movements calling for an end to institutionalized anti-Black racism. Canadians tend to think of anti-Black racism and histories of slavery and segregation as American problems. But, anti-Black racism has never stopped at the border, as the women from Dionne Brand’s Sisters in the Struggle explain. Edmonton, too, is a product of histories of anti-Black racism, white supremacy, segregation, and police violence, and a vibrant civil rights movement in which Black women resisted segregation and exclusion. Your big idea challenges for this module involve researching Black women civil rights leaders and trailblazers from Edmonton. But first, test your understanding of the big idea, lessons, and assigned resources from this module and log on to eClass to engage in discussion with your peers.

Test Yourself

References

Brand, Dionne Brand and Ginny Stikeman. 1991. Sisters in the Struggle. NFB,

Collins, Patricia Hill. [1990] “Defining Black Feminist Thought.” Republished in: The Feminist eZine. Accessed September 21, 2023. http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/modern/Defining-Black-Feminist-Thought.html.

“Combahee River Collective Statement 1977.” Reprinted in Frontiers 38, no. 3 (2017): 164–189.

Crenshaw, Kimberle. 2016. “The urgency of intersectionality” TED, December 16, 2016. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o

Davis, Kathy. 2020. “Who Owns Intersectionality? Some Reflections on Feminist Debates on How Theories Travel.” European Journal of Women’s Studies, 27 (2): 113-127–127. doi:10.1177/1350506819892659.

Dinerstein, Joel. 2019. “Opinion: The pernicious myth of a Caucasian race.” Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-10/race-caucasian-myth-racism 

“The facts about women and poverty in Canada, what is gendered poverty.” n.d. Canadian Women’s Foundation. Accessed June 20, 2023. https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/womens-poverty/ 

Raphael, Daisy. 2020. “Lecture: Anti-Black Racism and Resistance in Canada”. Women and Gender Studies 102: Gender & Social Justice. University of Alberta. https://wgs102.org/2020/04/11/intersectionality-lessons/

Walkden, Jessica. 2013. “Marie Joseph Angelique: Trial of a Rebel Slave”. May 17, 2013. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlBsKzYqYbA&t=60s

Discussion Questions (please check eclass)

You will complete two short readings for this module and watch a documentary.  First, bell hooks’s “Feminist Politics: Where We Stand” defines feminism as “a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression”.  bell hooks is a Black feminist scholar from Kentucky. Born Gloria Jean Watkins, she uses the name bell hooks in honour of her maternal great grandmother. She rejects the use of capitalization because she wants the focus to be on her ideas — not her identity or her name. hooks writes about race, class, and sexism as structures of oppression, and remains an influential voice in feminist cultural criticism.

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Second, you will watch Status Quo: The Unfinished Business of Feminism by Karen Cho. This film is made available by the National Film Board of Canada.

Leslie Feinberg (1949-2014) was a white trans lesbian, an anti-racist, and a member of working-class and secular Jewish communities.  Feinberg, who embraced the feminine pronouns she/her and the gender neutral zie/hir (pronounced zee and here), was a revolutionary writer and activist. She confronted serious illness throughout hir life. In the essay you’ll read, “We are All Works in Progress”, Feinberg describes hir experience of discrimination while seeking medical care.  Feinberg’s novel, Stone Butch Blues, is a classic text in queer, trans, and feminist communities. According to hir website, Feinberg worked tirelessly at the end of her life to make Stone Butch Blues available online, for free. You can download a copy on Leslie Feinberg’s website.

In “We are All Works in Progress,” Feinberg argues that “trans liberation is for everyone”. By trans liberation, Feinberg means freedom from binary ideas about sex and gender that associate male bodies with masculinity, and female bodies with femininity. Calling attention to those who live outside sex/gender binaries, Feinberg writes: “Our lives are proof that sex and gender are much more complex than a delivery room doctor’s glance at genitals can determine, more variegated than pink or blue birth caps” (195). 

LESSON: FEMINIST THEORIES ON THE GENDER DIVISION OF LABOUR

The gender division of labour describes a system in which women tend to do the majority of unpaid labour in the home, whereas men tend to work in paid labour outside of the home.  Liberal, Marxist, and Socialist feminists each approach the gender division of labour differently.  This lesson explores how these distinct theoretical feminist approaches each approach the issues of the gender division of labour between paid and unpaid work. 

Note: the audio for this lecture cuts off at 5:14. I will re-record the audio as soon as possible. Please refer to the transcript in the meantime. (Nov 15 2021).

The concept of the “double day” or “second shift” refers to the number of hours women tend to spend performing unpaid labour after their paid workday ends.  Statistics Canada reported that, in 2015, women spent 3.9 hours on unpaid work per day on average compared to 2.4 hours for men, a difference of 1.5 hours. When surveys factor in the time women spend multitasking — or doing unpaid labour simultaneously with another activity (ie. folding laundry while watching tv), this gap increased: women spent an average of 2.5 hours more per day on all unpaid work activities.  This kind of “care” work tends to fall to women because gender norms and expectations dictate that such nurturing work comes more ‘naturally’ to women. 

Dr. Marilyn Waring is a feminist economist who critiques the erasure of women’s unpaid labour from measures of a nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  In the video below, Waring explains how the concept of GDP, which remains an important measure of global wealth and production, erases women’s labour by defining them as “nonprimary producers”. As you watch, think about labour you do that the state deems unproductive. Why do you think this kind of labour is erased from calculations of GDP? Which of the theories you’ve just learned about best help you formulate an answer to that question?

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CARE WORK BY THE NUMBERS

• Women are less likely than men to be employed in the paid labour force. 
• When employed in wage labour, women are more likely to work part-time.
• Women in Canada spend 2.8 hours per day doing housework.  Men spend 1.9 hours per day doing housework.  This means that, on a weekly basis, women do up to 6.3 more hours of housework relative to men. 
• The time women spend on housework per day is decreasing; in 1986 women spend an average of 3.5 hours per day on housework. By 2015 this had dropped to 2.8 hours per day.  
• Women continue to spend more time than men caring for children or other dependents (ie. elderly parents or disabled folks).

Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-503-x/2015001/article/54931-eng.htm

BIG IDEA: Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism has been, since the 1970s, the predominant way of thinking about economics in Western liberal democracies like Canada, the United States, and England.  Neoliberalism has profound impacts for women, racialized minorities, Indigenous peoples, queer and trans folks, and disabled people.  In order to understand neoliberalism and why it matters, first we need to understand its corollary: social liberalism. 

The market collapse of the 1930s, known as the Great Depression, left citizens experiencing unemployment, poverty, and poor health.  The “invisible hand” approach, which held that the government should not intervene in the market, had failed.  Citizens, labour movements, and left-wing parties demanded more from their governments.  They understood that it was the government’s role to prevent widespread poverty, illness, and unemployment.  After decades of searching for solutions to the problems of unfettered capitalism, a new consensus emerged: social liberalism.  Social liberalism, sometimes called Keynesian economics after John Maynard Keyenes, was based on the principle that capitalism is an unstable and unpredictable system that does not provide for everyone’s basic needs equally.  Because people live and work in political and economic systems, individuals cannot be held responsible if the entire system fails.  Industrialized countries around the world introduced social programs and welfare policies, including healthcare, pensions, and unemployment programs.  

What did this mean for women?  Because women worked primarily in the home doing domestic labour, new post-war social liberal policies tended to conceive of women as men’s dependents. That is, the state conceived of men were the natural primary wage earners for their homes. This logic held that men should be paid a “family wage” — enough money to support their dependents.  The welfare state’s benefits were distributed to those who worked full time outside of the home.  This is a major limitation of social liberal policies for women.  Yet, at the same time, this new way of thinking about the state’s role created an opening for the women’s movement to argue that the state had a role to play in promoting the equality of women and men.  Women advocated for policies like: employment equity legislation, anti-discrimination legislation, day cares, funding for women’s shelters, and paid maternity leave. 

Neoliberalism emerged as the new orthodoxy in the 1970s after a period of economic crisis. A neoliberal approach is based on the logic that the state should let free markets prevail.   Neoliberal policies promote the privatization of state-run services, liberalization, and deregulation, so that entrepreneurs and businesses are free to pursue wealth without interference from the government.  A neoliberal approach to daycare, for example, states that daycares should be privately-owned and the principles of supply and demand will determine how much daycare costs.

Widespread evidence from around the globe shows that neoliberal policies that let the market decide who gets what consolidate power in the hands of the already rich.  For example, in Canada, neoliberal policies have increased income inequality. The Chartered Professional Accounts of Canada report that: 

“Rising income inequality continues to be an economic, social and political concern both internationally and here in Canada. Inequality may have only risen modestly, on average, across the country, but economic forces continue to concentrate both income and wealth among Canada’s richest. This represents a serious concern for our country’s standard of living — high levels of inequality can be a substantial barrier to future economic growth.“

In addition to deepening income inequality, neoliberalism as a set of policies and a way of thinking has particular consequences for women.  

Because neoliberalism presumes that every individual has an equal opportunity to become wealthy, those who demand equity, including women, LGBTQ people, disabled folks, and racialized minorities are labelled “special interests”.  Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was particularly intent on dismantling policies and departments aimed at promoting gender equality, cutting funding to the Status of Women Canada, and removing the word “equality” from its mandate.  The Government of Canada, under Harper, argued that “all women are equal”, despite evidence pointing to ongoing gender inequality.  Today, on the other hand, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proudly declares his feminism, but evidence suggest that his government’s policies appeal to women who are already privileged.  

Before we turn to Trudeau’s approach to gender equality, let’s examine the evidence of persisting gender inequality as it pertains to work:

• Women in Canada earn less than men, despite their educational achievements (women now outnumber men in law schools, for example)
• When studying annual earnings for both full time and part time workers, women earn 69 cents for every dollar men earn. 
• When studying full-time work, women earned 75 cents per dollar earned by men.
• Women tend to work fewer hours than men because of unpaid care labour responsibilities.
• When Statistics Canada studied the wage gap based on the total number of hours worked in 2015, the wage gap narrowed to 87 cents per dollar earned by men. 
• The gender wage gap widens for racialized and Indigenous women. 
• When racialized women work full-time, they earn 67 cents for every dollar earned by white men. 
• Indigenous women who work full-time earn 65 cents for every dollar earned by non-Indigenous men. 
• Of 43 countries in the OECD, Canada has the 8th highest gender pay gap 

One of the reasons the wage gap persists is because work traditionally performed by women — especially care work — is undervalued relative to work traditionally performed by men.  For example, truck drivers, 97% of whom are men, earn, on average $45,417 per year.  Early childhood educators, 97% of whom are women, earn an average salary of $25,334.  Women tend to be concentrated in minimum wage and part-time jobs because of a lack of affordable child care options.  This suggests that, contrary to neoliberal dogma, the market does not provide equally for all citizens. 

The Trudeau government’s approach to feminist policy has been focused on encouraging women’s participation in the workforce. Yet, in the absence of a publicly-funded national childcare program, recommended by the RCSW in 1967, the government’s investment in childcare does not match its goals.  Trudeau extended parental leave by 6 months, allowing parents to take 18 months instead of 12.  Yet, the amount of funding remain the same, forcing parents to stretch their budgets across a longer period.  As Political Scientist Alexandra Dobrowolsky points out, Trudeau government’s approach to gender equality has been to encourage women to become entrepreneurs, though programs supporting “women-led businesses”.  Further, the Trudeau government changed the name of the Status of Women Canada to Women and Gender Equality (WAGE), reflecting its prioritization on market solutions for social problems (Dobrowolsky 2020).

Today, women tend to be concentrated in precarious jobs — jobs that are low-paying, insecure, and short-term, with no health benefits.  Fields like healthcare and postsecondary education, which used to provide long-term stable jobs, now offer workers short-term contracts with no benefits. Often, people work several part-time jobs to make enough to get by. Going from one short-term gig to another means that many people in “the precariat” do not qualify for social and welfare programs, like unemployment insurance. In Janine Brodie’s (2018) words: the precariat are “the embodiment of successive neoliberal policy failures and the incessant individualization of systemic injustices” (20).

It remains to be seen whether the COVID-19 pandemic will usher in a return to social liberalism or a move towards an entirely new consensus. COVID-19 has forced governments around the world to acknowledge, once again, that the state must provide for citizens in times of hardship that are outside of their control. In its government’s September 2020 Speech from the Throne, Trudeau’s government announced that it would “make a significant, long-term, sustained investment to create a Canada-wide early-learning and child-care system.” For families who spend between $500 and $1750 per month on childcare, depending on their city and province, this could mean that women are able to return to work.

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