Alexandra Dobrowolsky, Saint Mary’s University
Guest Contributor

This blog post is part of the Federation Equity Portfolio’s ‘Equality Then and Now’ series, marking 40 years since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

The drafters of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) deliberately chose to write about the inequalities facing Canadian women in general, strategically focusing on the major social, economic and political struggles women in Canada experienced as a whole.  By doing so, the Commissioners “wrote out” many women’s specific realities: from the more precarious rights status of lesbians, to the higher citizenship hurdles faced by immigrant women. While there were some exceptions (for example, the discussion of Aboriginal women), the overall the choice was made to deal with women as if they were an undifferentiated group.

In the decades that followed, however, diverse women showed the limitations of this type of “sameness” approach. And so, as Caroline Andrew has argued in her blog post for this special series, perhaps one of the greatest changes that came in the wake of the RCSW Report was the growth in appreciation of women’s diversity, and the recognition of intersectionality: the understanding that women are never just women, but have multiple cross-cutting identities revolving around race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, ability, and citizenship status.

Today, however, both equality and diversity are increasingly under fire. For instance, Janine Brodie, in this series and elsewhere, details women’s “disappearance” or “invisibilization” from Canadian politics and policy. Here I want to suggest that some women find themselves in the paradoxical position of being both “invisible” and yet all too visible, even “hyper visible.” This seems to be the case for immigrant women, especially those who are racialized.

In this blog, I would like to reflect on the status of this particular group of women who were not mentioned in the RCSW Report in order to show that they are still being “written out” of policy decisions, to draw attention to the ways they are currently being “framed” in the popular press and with what political consequences.  (more…)

Jill McCalla Vickers, Carleton University
Guest Contributor

This blog post is part of the Federation Equity Portfolio’s ‘Equality Then and Now’ series, marking 40 years since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Look for more on this topic in upcoming posts and at Congress 2010.

I recently read in the Globe and Mail that Quebec’s MNAs had unanimously passed the following resolution, “that [Quebec’s] National Assembly reaffirms the right of women to free choice and to free and accessible abortion services, and asks the Prime Minister … to put an end to the current ambiguity on this issue.” Premier Charest explained, “the consensus [of]… the National Assembly reflects the consensus…in Quebec society” that “abortion is an inalienable right.”

Given the puzzled and sometimes irate e-mails about the reported event, I thought exploring why such support exists in Quebec would be useful to English-speaking Canadians as we contemplate this anniversary of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women – called the Bird Commission after its chair, journalist Florence Bird.

In recent decades, most English-Canadian feminists ignore women’s politics in Quebec, and have little sense of its historical importance in getting the Bird commission, and in getting abortion decriminalized, first in Quebec in the 1970s and a decade later across the rest of Canada.

Watch Bird discuss Quebec women’s demand for change.

Indeed a feminist colleague was rather irate about Premier Charest’s statement. My colleague insisted that “everyone knows Quebec women owe their abortion rights to the Supreme Court, and that the Quebec nationalists wanted them to go on having dozens of babies.” After exploding about this ignorance of the struggle for reproductive rights in Canada, I realized many women in English-Canada may share her false conceptions and that few know about the leading role Quebec feminists played in the decriminalization of abortion. Moreover, few feminists in English-Canada today understand how important it has been to our rights that Quebec governments have steadfastly defended women’s rights to bodily integrity as the basis of their citizenship.

So I decided the best contribution that I could make to this blog would be to explain the role federalism and Quebec feminists’ alliance with nationalism have played in the relative success of feminist activism in Canada generally. Without the strength of the movement in Quebec and the consensus of support for women’s rights, I believe English-Canadian women would be fighting to keep their rights from conservative erosion as has happened in the United States. (more…)

Rita Shelton Deverell, Mount St. Vincent University
Guest Contributor

This blog post is part of the Federation Equity Portfolio’s ‘Equality Then and Now’ series, marking 40 years since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Look for more on this topic in upcoming posts and at Congress 2010.

In my 36 years in Canadian broadcasting, I’ve championed meaningful inclusion of the four designated groups. It goes with my professional territory as a black woman that a goal in life is engendering opportunities for women, persons with disabilities, Aboriginal Peoples, and visible minority creators.

Recently I have delivered numerous lectures on ‘Diversity in Media’ where I asked: Who will inherit the airwaves? The key points from these lectures are included below.

First, an ancient story about racial discrimination: Back in 1974, the position of host was available at the CBC newsmagazine ‘Take 30.’ I am told by an executive producer, “Some people at CBC think you’d do a really good job, but the Canadian people aren’t ready to have a black host of a network show.”

All that season I had been a substitute host while Adrienne Clarkson was on loan to ‘Primetime’ (renamed ‘The Fifth Estate’), and had been the researcher/interviewer on a 26 part ‘Take 30’ mini-series on the Rights of Children.

Later conversations with a retired feminist, Anglo-Saxon Dodi Robb, who had been CBC’s head of daytime information programming and had hired Adrienne Clarkson as ‘Take 30’ host, demonstrated that who you see in front of the camera depends on who is in the executive chair.

Fast-forward to the era of the mid-1980s to the end of the millennium, since both you and I would like to say that 1974 was the Dark Ages.

Let’s acknowledge how much better things got. (more…)

Caroline Andrew, University of Ottawa
Guest Contributor

This blog post is part of the Federation Equity Portfolio’s ‘Equality Then and Now’ series, marking 40 years since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Look for more on this topic in upcoming posts and at Congress 2010.

Forty years on, it is interesting to look back on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) that was led by Florence Bird.  In part there is some nostalgic feelings for that time when – to some extent – the solutions looked clear: give women access to well-paid jobs in the public sector and a lot of inequality would be eliminated.

I always saw the Royal Commission as Simone de Beauvoir being brought to bear on the Canadian reality. In part, this solution did not take enough account of the complexities of class and race – and the issues of violence – but it certainly did target an extremely important area and one where the political pressure of the Canadian women’s movement could and did have influence. Although not perfect, the public sector in Canada has certainly seen a huge feminization over the last forty years.

What has changed since the RCSW is a great deal more visibility to intersectionality. Women were certainly never a homogeneous block and we have become more conscious of the need to integrate the various dimensions of intersectionality into our thinking about women’s roles. (more…)