So, I wish Stephen Harper would call a federal-provincial meeting of first ministers NOW, in this bright moment, when for the first time nearly a third of our premiers are women. I wish for such a meeting essentially for the optics. It would banish the lasting image that inevitably comes to my mind when we are told the prime minister will meet the premiers.—the spectacle of an all-male line-up like this one in a photo taken in 1994,
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or this from 1996.
Now, in your mind, imagine the transformation, if you substitute Stephen Harper for former prime minister Paul Martin, and insert the four new women in place of the male premiers who proceeded them.
Our new female premiers may not push for more national social programs either, but at least they’ll know why women need them, and that understanding will be a bigger part of the equation when first ministers balance financial costs versus human needs.
Now for the bad news.In our highest elected legislature, the federal House of Commons in Ottawa, women are still only 25 per cent of elected Members of Parliament, half what they should be.
It might have been worse but for that last-minute electoral surge by Jack Layton’s New Democrats which brought 39 NDP women into the House this spring—more than half of all the women sitting in the Commons. Without the surge, mainly in Quebec and possibly temporary, Equal Voices’ tracking of female nominations in competitive ridings shows that women’s representation in the Commons could well have slipped backwards.
The awkward truth is that in the year 2011, none of our four major federal parties can boast an elected woman leader, and there is no sign yet that a woman has the substantial support needed to win either the NDP or Liberal leadership races expected next year. That leaves Elizabeth May, a party of One, as the only women leader in the House or even in the wings.
And let’s not get so excited about the new female premiers that we ignore the lack of female bench strength behind them. In Alberta, the new Progressive Conservative leader Alison Redford heads a legislature that is only 20 per cent female. In Newfoundland, where Kathy Dunderdale has just been elected premier in her own right, the Tory-dominated House is, sadly, less than 15 per cent female.
On the other coast, B.C.’s Christy Clark presides over a legislature with 31 per cent female representation, the best among the provinces. Clark, a right-wing Liberal who is also her province’s first female premier, should be a little less lonely in maintaining the female perspective at the top—providing she survives the coming election.
On the third tier of government, on municipal councils, women councillors occupy only 25 per cent of council seats, and women mayors only 16 per cent, according to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The election record belies what we mistakenly assumed—that the local level of government would prove the handiest entry point for women aspiring to public office.
Today, the only woman to be mayor of one of Canada’s 10 largest municipalities is Mississauga’s perpetual mayor Hazel McCallion. She heads a council that is more than half women, with women councillors vying to replace her. So there ARE bright spots at the municipal level. There’s Hazel’s largely-female council. And, there’s the 15 women elected to Toronto City Council, a 30 per cent high point for Canada’s biggest city achieved almost unnoticed in the same election that made Rob Ford mayor.
Substantial progress, the election of what is called a “critical mass” of women, has been so slow at all levels of politics that fatigue is setting in. The excitement that first greeted the founding of Equal Voice a decade ago, has been replaced by shrugs of resignation.
I felt this shift in attitude a few years ago when I held up that 2004 photo of the first ministers to a classroom of graduate students in political science at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and asked them what was wrong with this all men line-up.The students’ dismissive reaction stunned me. The gender issue, men and most of the women in the class told me, was old-hat. They are a non-sexist generation, they said, so for them the gender of our politicians is irrelevant.
As the Founder of Equal Voice, I had supposed most Canadians must agree that electing more women was a desirable, even urgent, aim. I still assume that, but I run into younger women, who are confident that change is on the way, and are less than impressed with the impatience and alarmism of older feminist activists like me. I’m concerned young women are buying into the myth that in the western “advanced capitalist” countries at least, social progress now is inevitable, meaning human rights and freedoms, including those of women, will expand without specific political effort.
I’m concerned because we may, as the Virginia Slims ad said, have `come a long way baby`. But the entry of women into the work force and the high numbers of young women graduating from Canadian universities has yet to translate into substantive change at the top of the power structures. Women generally still make less money than men, shoulder most of the burden of child care and elder care, are more likely to be poor, and are STILL a minority on large corporate boards, in legislative seats, at at the cabinet tables where public policy is formulated. Today`s women are uncomfortably fixed in what the late great Canadian women`s leader Doris Anderson described as The Unfinished Revolution.
Let us not forget that the freedom enjoyed today by mostly white women in western countries—to vote, to earn a living, to form equal partnerships, write books, star on television, hold multiple degrees of higher learning—is a brief moment in the long span of human history. We may take our continued advance for granted, assume we can never again by pushed back to housewifery, but I believe that is a mistake; that nothing guarantees the ”non-sexist” society. Economic turndown may prove my point. If unemployment continues to rise, do you really doubt that voices will be heard advising women to stay home and tend the babies. If you agree that it could yet be back to the vacuums, you understand what makes feminists urgent for change. Until we achieve political parity—meaning women governing the country in partnership with men-- women’s recent gains remain vulnerable to a backlash.
You’ll notice that I’ve been using the F-word, Feminism, and this is a good point to get that word out into the open. Let me ask. Would YOU be comfortable identifying yourself as a Feminist? Hands up. Or, would you slide away from being lumped in with those brazen bra-burners, and tend to preface your remarks with “I am not a Feminist, but . . .”
The truth is Feminists have had a bad rap. I am 70 years old, and I was there, so please believe me when I tell you that bra-burning and putting down men—was not what motivated the so-called Second Wave of the women’s movement in the 1970s and 1980s.
I concede that like most underdogs, from time to time, we bolstered our insecurities by telling stories and jokes we wouldn’t tolerate from men. I squirm whenever I hear a speaker quote former Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton’s remark that a woman has to be twice as good as a man to make it in public life, but “fortunately that isn’t hard.”
Her point , women have it harder and do it better, is reverse sexism. These kinds of women-bonding jokes contain an assumption of superiority. Repeated publicly today, I think not only men are offended, a whole slur-sensitive generation is put off the cause.
What second-wave Feminists wanted was equality with, not dominion over men. We were for equal pay and adequate child care. Far from denigrating men, we actually believed they’d prefer us to step out of the “here’s your pipe and slippers dear” clinging vine role in favour of speaking our own minds and earning our own money.
Equal Voice was born a decade ago because a handful of we feminists in Toronto feared the second wave of the women’s movement had ebbed. The political activists who met in Libby Burnham’s dining room in November, 2000 to kick around strategies for creating a new women-in-politics group were all veterans of the gender wars. For almost a decade we’d worked together as members of Equal Voice’s predecessor group, the Committee for ’94, which disbanded when our target year of “Half the House by ‘94” passed by with little sign of progress.
With a decade’s volunteer efforts behind us—but no breakthrough—we’d become a tough-minded group. There was me and another journalist Patricia Dumas, political writer Christina McCall, party insiders like Tory fundraiser Libby Burnham; women who’d been elected including former Ontario cabinet ministers Frances Lankin and Chaviva Hosek ; senior political aides and party organizers, and a pollster, Donna Dasko of Environics, now Equal Voice’s national chair.
We Equal Voice Founders wanted to smash the “glass ceiling” limiting women’s political aspirations, and the so-called “glass cliff” over which women politicians fall, or are pitched—think of our first women to be prime minister, Kim Campbell, whose chances so quickly evaporated. If the first feminists—the suffragettes—fought for the right to vote, we were fighting for more female candidates on party slates so Canadians had a chance to vote for women in more than a sprinkling of ridings. We were fed up with tokenism and tired of watching women’s delegations approaching governments cap-in-hand. We wanted women inside helping make decisions, not outside lamenting out exclusion.
My personal commitment was born of experience-- from three decades of watching from Press Galleries where invariably I looked down on a sea of mostly men as they made often negative decisions on issues that mattered most to women—on childcare, for instance, or home care, both largely dependent on unpaid female labor.
One of my early experiences at Queen`s Park was hearing catcalls directed across the floor at then 29-year-old Sheila Copps, coming from male colleagues who suggested she `go back to the kitchen``. Copps instead went on to become deputy prime minister of Canada, but for most of her career she was a lightning rod for sexist insults, a negative reaction perhaps to her fearless, headline-making style. Copps was called `baby`` and slut and was reminded by a cabinet minister of the old song `pass the Tequila, Sheila, and lie down and love me again`.
I heard men mocking Justice Minister Anne MacLellan`s high-pitched voice. I heard laughter at Elsie Wayne`s designer sweaters. As late as 1994, MP Belinda Stronach, a mother of two, was termed a `blonde bombshell`by the media. When she switched parties to join the Liberals, a furious Conservative MP called her a `whore`` --not a traitor or an opportunist as he might less hurtfully have done—but a whore. Other MPs added “nitwit” and “dog”.
Just names, you might say, not sticks and stones, but with a message that hurts: women aren`t wanted here. The cumulative effect has turned too many women off running for office. Before the last federal election, Anne MacLellan, now in legal practice, was asked by then Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff to explore ways to get more women to run. MacLellan found three serious barriers; work life-balance; the aggressive and negative culture of politics; and what she called the `Belinda Stronach effect’--women`s aversion to the prospect of sexist hazing in Parliament and in the media.
She concluded that what makes a positive difference is a party leader who reaches out to persuade capable women to run; but even more importantly a party structure and culture at all levels that believes in running women in winnable ridings. Leading the search for female candidates for the Liberals, MacLellan had run into, and been angered by, resistance from party regional brass who quietly under-cut the leader`s instructions that they should help her get more Liberal women nominated.
Equal Voice early identified the political parties as the gatekeepers who barred too many women at the very first hurdle to election—the local party nomination process. We sought to raise awareness within the parties about what we diagnosed as not intentional, but systematic, discrimination. Party leaders all said they wanted more women in their caucuses: but out in the ridings, where the nominations took place, ridings opted for a white male professional with two kids as the ideal candidate—80 per cent of the time.
We urged party leaders, by letter, deputations and media pressure, to set voluntary targets to increase the numbers of women on their candidate slates. We drew attention to polls that found the problem was not with voters—Canadians were happy to vote for women--but because so few women were running most voters didn’t get the opportunity.
During election run-ups, Equal Voice volunteers tracked the nominations of women, and publicized the numbers achieved by each party. We spoke out when elected women were demeaned in the media or in their legislatures.
We wrote letters and briefs. We sent lists of potential women commentators to TV editors responsible for those all-male pundit lineups. We met at one another`s houses, carrying bottles of wine and ordered in pizza, brainstormed and had a lot of laughs. Over the decade since our founding , we grew from a Toronto-based ginger group.conducting our campaigns from my laptop, to a national organization, with sponsors, two paid staff, with chapters across the country and with increasing influence.
Nonetheless, we lost an important battle for electoral reform, when in Ontario`s 2007 referendum, voters turned down an opportunity for proportional representation, the most effective way to create a level playing field for women and other under-represented groups. That loss, and similar losses in PEI, New Brunswick and British Columbia diminished for the foreseeable future our best prospect for, in the words of our mission “creating the climate in which a critical mass of women would be elected”.
The failed referenda were more proof that while Equal Voice has succeeded in raising public consciousness of the dearth of women in our governing councils, we have not succeeded in our campaigns to get the parties to nominate and elect a lot more of them.
We have faith in our founding formula, as the right approach for a volunteer women`s organization attempting societal change. First: We are single-minded, sticking to our longer-term project of getting more women elected, and not being distracted by the issues of the day. Second: We are multi-partisan: we work with all major political parties. Elected women from across the political spectrum have joined with us in common cause. We act as their volunteer support group, creating public pressure to back the women MPs and party activists who risk party wrath by speaking out both within party councils and in public.
Now Louise Carbert told me some of you work on Parliament Hill, and urged me to tell `war stories`from my days as a rare female in the political reporter pack. But I am reluctant to indulge that temptation because most really good stories are potentially libellous hearsay. And truth to tell, we women weren`t fragile flowers (anymore than you are) and I loved being a reporter and later a columnist.
I think it was actually easier to confront blatant sexism back then, than it has been to counteract the more subtle sexist messaging of recent years. So no, I`m not going to tell you how awful it was. I don`t think young women of today have it easy because of the battles waged by their grandmothers. In your lives you are going to encounter some hard realities. Just look at the world around you.
Three years ago we all watched what I felt to be the truly harrowing U.S. race for the leadership of the Democratic party, and hence the presidency, between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. Living it vicariously, I felt there was no other choice than to back the woman who was probably the best qualified candidate ever to seek the U.S. presidency. I was aghast at the sexism directed at her, by the public references to her as a bitch and worse. In her book on the contest “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” Rebecca Traister argues that blatant sexism had awakened American women who would now move forward in reaction. That optimistic proposition remains to be proved.
Even in the egalitarian Scandanavian countries, women can’t say with confidence that a woman running for the top job will be treated with respect as an equal. I went on line to read the stories the day after Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s recent landmark victory as the first woman elected prime minister of Denmark. I discovered the Danish media calling her elegant and blonde and leading into stories by reminding Danes of her nickname “Gucci Helle”, as if her style and appearance were the new prime minister’s most remarkable characteristics.
Much worse of course, is the atrocious treatment of women who try to take a public stand in the world’s remaining patriarchies. The Globe and Mail three weeks ago contrasted the announcement one day by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah that Saudi women would at last be allowed to vote in some municipal elections: contrasted that with the decision the next day by a Saudi Court to sentence a woman to 10 lashes for the “crime’’ of driving a car.
In Afghanistan, women’s rights activists are pleading with countries that sent troops, not to withdraw without first safe-guarding women’s rights in the transition—for fear all those who spoke out, or stood for public office will be at terrible risk, that girls will lose schooling, and that funding for services to women, including health and education, will be sacrificed in the international community’s rush for a “quick fix” .
If we in Canada had more women in elected office, I think we would expect our Parliament to do more to stand up for women elsewhere, wouldn’t we? I’m not talking about formal diplomatic protests—although that form of action is probably useful too—but about putting Canada’s resources into practical measures to help women by providing, and safeguarding, education for girls and training for women. With more women in our political arena, we might actually see our country in the forefront of an international effort to secure women’s rights.
However, as things stand, Canadians are in a weak position to offer lessons to other countries about gender equality. I learned that lesson last year when a journalist from India’s largest newspaper interviewed me, and then wrote an article pointing out Canada ranks behind many so called third-world democracies—in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central and South America—in the proportion of women we elect. Her reading of Canadian culture, gleaned I gathered from the mass media, was that Canadian women were uninterested in public affairs, being obsessed with marriage, beauty and celebrity gossip. I dislike her generalizing, but it is hard to quarrel with the statistic the Indian journalist held up. The Inter-Parliamentary Union ranks Canada 38th among world democracies ranked by the proportion of women elected to each country’s national legislature—in our case the House of Commons.
So why are there only 76 women today in Canada’s 308-seat House of Commons?
A big part of the explanation is our electoral system, which leaves the candidate choice so largely to local riding associations. That problem is magnified by the rural bias built into the electoral system because as as political scientists Manon Tremblay and Louise Carbert have demonstrated, women are less likely to be nominated and elected in rural ridings. On top of that, there’s a huge weight of male incumbency, best illustrated perhaps by the joke Groucho Marx once made about his seat in a crowded streetcar: “I’d be happy to get up and give my seat to you Madam, but for the fact that I am sitting in it myself.” In recent elections the two biggest parties—the Liberals and the Conservatives –protected their incumbent MPs against nomination challenges, which left only a small pool of seats available to new candidates.
And, while not forgetting some of the wonderful women politicians who have sprung from Atlantic Canada—Flora Macdonald, Elsie Wayne, Catharine Callbeck, and Alexa McDonough among them—up to now the low numbers of women elected here has been another part of the explanation.
At one time, Ms. McDonough was the sole female MP elected to the Commons from the four Atlantic provinces. Today, there are still only four, one each per province—Conservative Tilly O’Neill-Gordon from New Brunswick; Liberal Judy Foote from Newfoundland and Labrador, New Democrat Megan Leslie from Nova Scotia, and Conservative cabinet minister Gail Shea from Prince Edward Island. These four hold 12 per cent of 32 federal seats assigned to the Atlantic Provinces.
What the heck is going on in Eastern Canada’s political life that explains the dearth of women? For her book, “Rural Women’s Leadership in Atlantic Canada”, Louise Carbert went out and interviewed women who were community leaders and came back with a story of real and perceived exclusion. She found a powerful political patronage system that gives men the nod. In a few cases, seats pass from father to son. Carbert found women reluctant to buck the system, worrying that political activity could cost them public service jobs or loss of commercial contracts for their families. The women she interviewed voiced their suspicions that women are set up to fail in politics, and expressed an over-riding disdain for sullying themselves in the dirty game.
The book was published in 2006, and I notice since then that Louise has become a tad more optimistic. She’s heartened by an increase in the pool of women available to stand as candidates, which she feels signals progress on the near horizon.
I’d like to turn this session over to you students and the audience now. What do you think? Do the male networks still prevail here to deny aspiring women the backing they need to get elected? Is it asking too much to suggest more women need to take the risk anyway? Will we see a surge of successful women in the next round of elections?
I surely hope so. I’m impatient for the day when I can raise a glass of champagne to a House of Commons that comes a lot closer to being half-women, with strong female representation from all regions of the country. The women who have been elected from here are, by and large, down-to-earth practical women, and all Canadians need to see more of Atlantic women’s feisty style.
© Rosemary Speirs, October 2011.
41st General Election, 2011
Congratulations to Megan Leslie who was re-elected for the New Democrats in the riding of Halifax.She is the only woman to hold one of Nova Scotia’s 11 federal districts.
Four other women stood as candidates and were defeated: Wanda Webber for the Conservatives, and Marney Simmons, Wendy Robinson, Kathy MacLeod for the New Democrats. The Liberals did not nominate any women. Our admiration and appreciation goes out to all the women who put themselves on the line in this election; thank you.
A record number of women, 12, took office in the 2009 Nova Scotia election, but still only make up 23 per cent of the 52-seat legislature. The current women members are:
Pam Birdsall (Lunenburg)
Ramona Jennex, Hon. (Kings South)
Michele Raymond (Halifax Atlantic),
Maureen MacDonald, Hon. (Halifax Needham),
Vicki Conrad (Queen’s)
Marilyn More, Hon. (Dartmouth South – Portland Valley)
Denise Peterson-Rafuse, Hon. (Chester – St. Margaret’s)
Becky Kent (Cole Harbour-Eastern Shore)
Lenore Zann (Truro – Bible Hill).
Kelly Regan (Bedford – Birch Cove)
Diana Whalen (Clayton Park).
Karen Casey, Hon. (Colchester North; elected as Progressive Conservative; crossed 2011).
For a complete list of women ever elected provincially, go to the NS House of Assembly site.
Only 3 of 71 candidates running for mayor were women; one was elected mayor - Marney Simmons of Mulgrave. Of 750 candidates running for municipal councillor, 181 (24%) were women and 569 (76%) were men. As was the case in 2004, women now comprise 21% of the 437 municipal council positions (mayors and councillors) in Nova Scotia. Women also comprise 43 of the 91 people elected to school board positions.
Halifax regional council boasts a higher percentage of female representatives than the provincial and federal governments — nine out of 24, or 37 per cent.
Gloria McCluskey, Jacky Barkhouse, Mary Wile, Dawn Sloane, Sue Uteck, Debbie Hum , Linda Mosher, Lorelei Nicholl, Jennifer Watts.
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This workshop covers the basics of how parliamentary democracy works, and shows women just how easy (and delightful) it is to become involved in the political process. Topics include: our parliamentary system, our constitution, and how to get involved with political parties and elections.
The purpose of this workshop is to show women just how easy (and delightful) it is to become involved in the political process. It is specifically directed to adult women, those who are wondering how to take their community service to the next level. For those many women who are not yet active in public life, this workshop hopes to ignite their enthusiasm for taking on greater responsibilities.
Up-to-date Nova Scotia, and National versions of Government is Us are now available, as well as Youth variants. Please contact Louise Carbert at equalvoicenovascotia@gmail.com
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Backbencher: Beyond the snake pit.
Who's needs Obama when you've got Nellie Gordon?
Halifax Chronicle Herald
May 2010
At a time when so many people view politicians with cynicism and distrust, how can we ask women - who still face many barriers to entry - to enter a career that seems so disagreeable? On May 13, Equal Voice Nova Scotia (EVNS), a multipartisan, volunteer organization committed to increasing the role of women in politics, held a “community conversation” to consider two questions: “What is good about political life?” and “How do we get beyond the snakepit version of politics. We used the currently running CBC radio drama series, Backbencher, as the catalyst. This article summarizes the responses to our questions.
Wendy Lill, who served as MP for Dartmouth South beginning in 1997, developed Backbencher. The series dramatizes the experience of “Nellie Gordon,” who unexpectedly won a by-election in the imaginary riding of “East Nova.” The heroine of Backbencher is not exactly Wendy Lill - Nellie is a paramedic single mother with a nose ring - but she shares and benefits from the real MP’s mixed but worthwhile experiences.
The EVNS community conversation brought together women and men involved in electoral politics at all levels. The NS Advisory Council on the Status of Women and the Local Council of Women, Halifax were our partners and sponsors in this event. We listened to Wendy Lill, actor Joanne Miller, and producer Peggy Hemsworth describe their work on Backbencher and how it reflects politics today. The discussion then raised key points of interest to anyone who wants to end the “democratic deficit,” especially those of us who hope to get more women in all parts of government.
Here are some key benefits of political life, reflected in brief quotes from our community conversation:
And here are comments about getting past the snakepit:
Signed: Naomi Black, Louise Carbert, and Brigitte Neumann, Steering Committee, Equal Voice Nova Scotia
Backbencher website (where you can hear episodes you might have missed): http://www.cbc.ca/backbencher/
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Challenges still there, say women politicians, Halifax Metro
By: Alex Boutilier
8 March 2010
June 12, 2009: Equal Voice Nova Scotia Congratulates Women Elected to Provincial Legislature 
May 22, 2009: MORE WOMEN IN THE NEXT HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY? Major parties nominate more women than ever says EV Nova Scotia
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