Gerson: Guess who’s at fault for all the world’s ills? It’s women again

2025/11/24 Leave a comment

Interesting commentary:

….If we have, indeed, produced too many college graduates, this is the sort of behaviour we would expect: greater class insecurity amid growing pressure to conform to ever more radical intellectual dogmas to maintain precarious footholds in narrow cultural in-groups. Who dares risk censure and dissent when there are 20 others just like you with nowhere else to go?

We’ve seen versions of this play out in both progressive and conservative spheres in recent years. Arguably, Ms. Andrews’s own essay is an example of this from the right: a radical position intended to secure her own status among a largely male conservative audience.

To the extent that elite overproduction is disproportionately female – our universities are graduating disproportionately more women – there may be some truth to the Feminization thesis. Women are different from men – indeed, there would be no reason to pursue equality of opportunity if we were all the same. But gender alone can’t adequately explain “woke.” Anyone who misunderstands this fact is just looking for an easy out that affirms some very ancient and easy biases. 

Source: Guess who’s at fault for all the world’s ills? It’s women again

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Lisée | Féminisme viril: On reactions to “disappearing” reference to women

2024/11/05 Leave a comment

My favourites example is pregnant people rather than pregnant women:

…Ce n’est pas son propos, j’en conviens, et ça ne le rend pas moins pertinent. Car en parallèle de ce progrès fulgurant, des forces venues du volet masculin de la planète et prenant les atours du progressisme tentent de faire subir recul sur recul à un certain nombre d’acquis féminins durement gagnés.

Sophie tient un compte précis du nombre de fois où, par dérive intellectuelle ou par simple volonté d’être dans le vent, des organismes de l’État ou de la société civile ont voulu faire disparaître le mot « femme » du vocabulaire, ici et ailleurs, y compris les mots vagin, clitoris, même sein ! Au nom de l’inclusion du 0,75 % de la population qui s’auto-exclut des deux genres, il faudrait biffer les mentions de l’existence de la moitié des 99,25 % restants. Un peu comme si on interdisait à Justin Trudeau de dire « Canadiens, Canadiennes », car il est certain qu’il y a toujours un ou deux touristes dans l’auditoire. Elle note par exemple qu’il ne sera plus possible de suivre l’évolution du nombre de femmes au Collège des médecins, car leurs questionnaires ont changé pour donner, non deux choix de genre, mais 14 (14 !).

Une poignée d’insurgés

On pourrait lui répliquer que plusieurs des cas locaux et recensés ont été battus en brèche à cause de la réaction provoquée dans l’espace public par des femmes (et des hommes) qui réprouvent ces dérives. Justement. Si ces réactions existent, c’est que Sophie Durocher et quelques autres se sont donné le rôle de dire non. De faire de la « pédagogie de combat », selon l’expression de l’admirable Française Caroline Fourest, ou du « féminisme viril », selon celle de Sophie.

Ces interventions portent leurs fruits. Je me hasarde à penser qu’en Occident, ces dérives auront connu leur apogée entre 2020 et 2023 — et qu’elles sont désormais sinon en retrait, ou du moins sur la défensive. C’est davantage le cas au Québec qu’ailleurs, ce coin de continent que j’aime appeler la République du bon sens. Martine Biron a été prompte à refuser que le mot « femme » disparaisse du Code civil. Elle a été appuyée même par Québec solidaire. C’est un signe. Le refus d’accepter que les Montréalaises soient représentées par une femme voilée dans une image d’accueil à l’hôtel de ville s’est rendu à Valérie Plante, qui y a donné droit. C’en est un autre.

Ces victoires ne sont pas arrivées seules. Il a fallu qu’à la manière de Sophie Durocher, des citoyens s’insurgent contre ce qui s’installait comme une nouvelle façon d’être, présentée comme moderne et inclusive, alors que leur effet combiné, voulu ou non, réduisait l’espace que les femmes avaient acquis. Pour mener ce combat, il fallait accepter d’être exclu, pendant cet instant où la bêtise semblait dominante, du club des gens bien, du réseau de l’élite et du progrès.

C’est plus ardu que vous ne le pensez. On trouve moins de volontaires pour mener ces combats que de partisans du confort bien-pensant. C’est pourquoi on ne demande jamais, sur ces questions, où est Sophie Durocher ? Elle est toujours là, au front.

Source: Lisée | Féminisme viril

… That’s not his point, I agree, and that doesn’t make him less relevant. Because in parallel with this meteoric progress, forces coming from the male component of the planet and taking the guise of progressivism are trying to subject a number of hard-won female achievements to back and retreat.

Sophie keeps a precise account of the number of times that, out of intellectual drift or out of a simple desire to be in the wind, state or civil society organizations wanted to make the word “woman” disappear from the vocabulary, here and elsewhere, including the words vagina, clitoris, same breast! In the name of the inclusion of 0.75% of the population who self-exclude themselves from both genders, mentions of the existence of half of the remaining 99.25% should be deleted. A bit like forbidding Justin Trudeau to say “Canadians, Canadians”, because it is certain that there are always one or two tourists in the audience. She notes, for example, that it will no longer be possible to follow the evolution of the number of women at the College of Physicians, because their questionnaires have changed to give, not two gender choices, but 14 (14!).

A handful of insurgents

It could be said to him that several of the local and registered cases were defeated because of the reaction in public space by women (and men) who disapprove of these excesses. Precisely. If these reactions exist, it is because Sophie Durocher and a few others have given themselves the role of saying no. To do “combat pedagogy”, according to the expression of the admirable French Caroline Fourest, or “virile feminism”, according to Sophie’s.

These interventions are bearing fruit. I venture to think that in the West, these drifts will have reached their peak between 2020 and 2023 – and that they are now if not in retreat, or at least on the defensive. This is more the case in Quebec than elsewhere, this piece of the continent that I like to call the Republic of common sense. Martine Biron was quick to refuse to have the word “woman” disappear from the Civil Code. She was even supported by Québec solidaire. It’s a sign. The refusal to accept that Montrealers be represented by a veiled woman in a welcome image at City Hall went to Valérie Plante, who gave it the right. It’s another one.

These victories did not come alone. It was necessary that, in the manner of Sophie Durocher, citizens rebelled against what was being installed as a new way of being, presented as modern and inclusive, while their combined effect, wanted or not, reduced the space that women had acquired. To lead this fight, it was necessary to accept to be excluded, during this moment when stupidity seemed dominant, from the club of good people, from the elite network and progress.

It’s harder than you think. There are fewer volunteers to lead these fights than supporters of well-thinking comfort. That’s why we never ask, on these questions, where is Sophie Durocher? She’s still there, at the front.

Filed under gender, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Saudi women’s quest for change enabled them earn citizenship rights

2024/06/27 Leave a comment

Interesting long read. Much different than my time there in mid-80s:

Saudi women have obtained their citizenship rights through their own struggle and there is little truth in the widely held idea in the West that their role in the fight for their freedom has been negligible.

The finding is part of a new research in the journal Diogenes authored by Zahia Salhi, a professor at Sharjah University’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

“Far from being passive victims of their society, Saudi women are active agents who possess the tools and the necessary resilience that enable them to militate for their citizenship rights. This goes against prevailing stereotypes, especially in the West,” says Prof. Salhi.

The research comes as Saudi Arabia’s women can now get freely behind the wheel, travel abroad without a male guardian’s permission, apply for passports, and are almost on equal footing to men.

These rights, unimaginable a decade ago, were only honored in response to harsh and long struggle by Saudi women for equality, Prof. Salhi adds.

Prof. Salhi’s research maps out Saudi women’s battle for equal treatment and full citizenship via a vibrant movement, demonstrating that the Saudi women’s course of struggle for their rights is not dissimilar to that of other women’s movements elsewhere.

“My research traces Saudi women’s trajectory to secure citizenship rights and achieve autonomy against the threat of a conservatism that is deeply imbedded in the Saudi socio-cultural fabric,” affirms Prof. Salhi.

Two important epochs in Saudi Arabia’s modern history are highlighted in Prof. Salhi’s research as watershed moments that awakened Saudi women to the fact that their rights have long been usurped.

The first watershed epoch in the pursuit of Saudi women for freedom began with the oil boom of the 1970s that brought in its wake massive wealth, fueling “numerous fundamental socio-historical changes,” Prof. Salhi writes.

The second occurred at the onset of the 1990s. “It is hardly surprising to note that before 1991 Saudi women could not mobilize in a movement to demand their confiscated rights. Until very recently, Saudi women were deprived of suffrage rights, freedom of movement, and the right to own their bodies and act freely without the consent of their male guardians,” Prof. Salhi points out in her research.

The research marks two incidents in Saudi Arabia, which Prof. Salhi says galvanized Saudi women movement, spurring women activists to voice their protest and even demonstrate openly for their rights.

In one incident which took place in 2002,15 girls died and many others were injured when fire broke out in a girls-only school as religious police prevented girls from escaping and barred volunteers to come to their rescue because “the (female) students were not wearing their abayas, possibly because their (male) guardians were not present,” Prof. Salhi writes.

The tragic incident was a game-changer as it emboldened both women and the Saudi government to curtail religious police powers and transfer responsibility for women education to the government-run Ministry of Education.

The incident and subsequent events “led to a wave of protests by female university students … culminating in the protest at King Khalid University in the Saudi town of Bha” in which reportedly nearly 8,000 female students took part, Prof. Salhi notes in her research.

“In the absence of a free national press that would broadcast the true story about their demonstration, the students resorted to and posted videos about the event. Furthermore, in a desperate act to let the world know about their ordeal, they reached out to international news agencies by telephone to tell their own story.

“Although the demonstration was brutally put down by the police, this event constitutes a milestone in Saudi women’s mobilization to demand their citizenship rights.”

Another incident outlined by Prof. Salhi as pivotal on the path of Saudi women’s drive for their rights is their defiance of the driving ban.

She mentions several driving protests by Saudi women one of them as recently as 2013 in which hundreds of them, in defiance of religious police and civil authorities, appeared behind the wheel on main streets despite their being fully aware of the consequences.

One main factor assisting Saudi women to stage protests and demonstrate for their rights relates to education which Prof. Salhi sees as a major catalyst for change and women’s ongoing struggle to slacken the grip of the conservative and clerical dominance of the society.

“Saudi women have indeed gained in feminist political awareness and against the fortress of conservative ideology, they have reaped important human rights achievements,” says Prof. Salhi. “Having followed closely the work of the women of the Saudi Shura Council (legislative body), I can affirm that they are not mere ‘cosmetic female representation’ in the council, but active women who have their human rights at heart.”

Prof. Salhi’s research dwells at length with Saudi women’s campaigns for their rights among them the July 2016 launch of the “I Am My Own Guardian” campaign via a hashtag and posts on social media, which eventually culminated in a 2019 royal decree allowing them to travel independently.

“They are intelligent, outspoken, highly motivated, and mostly determined to secure more rights for Saudi women. They demanded legal representation from the state, in the form of full citizenship and governmental responsiveness to their demands as citizens,” Prof. Salhi says, adding that Saudi women’s struggle for rights encompasses calls for social recognition and economic redistribution.

Prof. Salhi believes her research will have good implications, hoping for the findings to change stereotypical perceptions of Saudi women. “They (the findings) will be valuable for international organizations such as Amnesty International, and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

“I hope the research will help forming a different judgment about Saudi women, who have often been perceived as passive victims of their religion and culture.

“Saudi Women, like their Muslim sisters from across the world, do not need the West to save them from their own people, as often claimed by Western feminists. They know how to fight for their rights, and they know how to achieve them.”

Asked what she would expect from Saudi women reading her research, Prof. Salhi said first she would like them to “feel good about themselves and their important achievements in their quest for becoming full citizens.”

And second, she would be happy if after reading her article, Saudi ‘s reaction was “thank you for not describing us as victims.”

The research is part of a larger project Prof. Salhi is considering investigating in the future to include cases of “feminist trajectories from other countries of the Arab and Muslim world.”

Source: Saudi women’s quest for change enabled them earn citizenship rights

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Newcomer women often struggle to pursue their careers in Canada. These programs are helping them succeed

2023/10/26 Leave a comment

Of note:

When Rikhita Nair moved from India to Victoria, B.C., she had nearly a decade of experience as a PR and communications specialist working with startups in tech, e-commerce and higher education. Eager for a job, Ms. Nair says she applied “like crazy to just about anything that remotely matched my abilities,” focusing on marketing and communications roles. But her efforts didn’t result in any opportunities.

“I quickly realized that this approach wasn’t working out so well,” she says.

Ms. Nair says she was “mentally prepared” for a long job search, taking into account the state of the economy and layoffs in the tech industry. “But it became particularly challenging after eight months. The constant rejections in job interviews began to take a toll on my confidence. Sometimes, I believed I had performed well having reached the final stage of the interview, only to be turned down, which was demoralizing.”

While browsing LinkedIn for job postings, Ms. Nair came across a program that piqued her interest. Called Lumen, this skills training program helps folks from Indigenous populations, visible minorities and newcomers find their first jobs in Canada, at no cost to the participants.

Anahita Thukral, founder of Lumen and media organization Hear Her Stories, says that skilled professional newcomers, like Ms. Nair, face “structural inequalities” when it comes to securing employment after arriving in Canada. For example, their international credentials may not be recognized, employers may pass them over due to a lack of “Canadian experience” and there may be language barriers.

“Networking, as a valuable mechanism to build connections and seek opportunities, is not prevalent in countries where most people are coming to Canada from, and is another skill that people need to acquire and be comfortable with,” Ms. Thukral says. “Lastly, juggling family responsibilities with a new career can be a complex task, especially due to the shortage of affordable and accessible child care options.”

These barriers can result in diminished opportunity for newcomer women. A 2022 Statistics Canada report showed that 62 per cent of recent immigrant women with a bachelor’s degree or higher were employed full-time in 2021, compared with 80 per cent of Canadian-born women with equivalent education.

Restoring confidence

Ms. Thukral says she started Lumen as a way to provide support for visible minority immigrant women in tech and tech-adjacent fields. “It enhances employability and prepares them to succeed.”

The first Lumen cohort (which included Ms. Nair) launched in May 2023 with 12 women, mostly from China, India and Latin America, with backgrounds in tech-adjacent fields like project management and communications. Ms. Thukral and a team of advisers conducted training sessions and analyzed digital media and communications job postings to help program participants get hired. The next cohort, which launched in September 2023, focuses on women in robotics and AI.

Lumen participants attend virtual bi-weekly group sessions to share their progress, gain tips on skills like interviewing and brainstorm ideas for job hunting, in addition to one-on-one sessions with Ms. Thukral and her team of advisers.

Ms. Nair says these sessions were invaluable in her job search.

“The resumé reviews, interview prep and mentoring sessions helped me throughout my job search. [My] mentor offered suggestions to enhance my resumé, [such as] considering the context of each job role,” she says. “With a few tweaks, I noticed an increase in interview callbacks.” One of those callbacks led to Ms. Nair securing a position in June 2023 as the marketing and communications coordinator for the Victoria Film Festival.

“I’m part of an amazing team, and it has played a vital role in restoring the confidence I had started to lose,” she says.

Ms. Thukral notes that Lumen addresses both the hard and soft skills that are required to succeed. For Lumen’s first cohort of digital media professionals, the team identified top skills required in media and communications roles, such as creating social media posts, writing articles and proficiency in Adobe Photoshop 5. Then, participants indicated which skills they already had and which skills they were interested in gaining for a personalized experience.

While Lumen has received and will continue to seek government funding, Ms. Thukral says that they are also in the process of partnering with employers to train participants and equip them with in-demand skills.

“We’ll provide them with hands-on, employer-led training projects to enhance their skills and bridge the gap between education and employment,” she says. For example, experiential learning platform Riipen has joined Lumen as a project partner to provide internship opportunities to program participants.

Longer outlooks for more impact

Rahila Ansari is well familiar with the challenges faced by newcomer women in finding employment in Canada. She has been working as a case manager and employment counsellor for the Immigrant Services Society of B.C. (ISSofBC) for over a decade. She says that settlement agencies like the ISSofBC can help professional women navigate their local job landscapes.

“We have a career paths program for skilled immigrants where a career practitioner sits with them and goes through their resumé,” Ms. Ansari says. The practitioner helps the newcomer identify what skills they’re lacking and recommend institutions that provide the courses or qualifications they need. ISSofBC also hosts skills-specific training, such as the Gateway to Tourism and Hospitality program, she adds.

Ms. Ansari hopes that governments at all levels will continue to fund skills training programs for newcomers with longer outlooks to create more impact, not just short-term solutions.

“Ensure [that] program funding spans between two to three years,” Ms. Ansari says. “You cannot see results right away.” She also encourages governments to provide newcomer women with pre-arrival information like labour market conditions, costs of living in each city and province and access to career planning programs.

With the right connections and assistance, career experts like Ms. Ansari and Ms. Thukral are hopeful that every newcomer woman can find a job that suits their interests and experience. Ms. Thukral says her goal with Lumen is to help participants find employment within six months of starting the program. So far, results have been promising.

“We’ve been able to help women secure mid- to senior-level positions at technology, finance, consulting and telecommunications companies in Canada,” she says.

Employment aside, Ms. Thukral also says it’s rewarding to foster connections between newcomer women. “They can see they’re not alone in this journey,” she says.

Source: Newcomer women often struggle to pursue their careers in Canada. These programs are helping them succeed

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Girard: L’intégrisme religieux, une menace aux droits des femmes

2023/09/20 Leave a comment

A reminder:

De nombreux récents événements démontrent, sans équivoque, que l’intégrisme religieux constitue une menace à l’égalité des sexes ici et dans le monde. En voici quelques exemples : « À travers plus de 50 édits, ordres et restrictions, les talibans n’ont laissé aucun aspect de la vie des femmes indemne, aucune liberté épargnée. Ils ont créé un système fondé sur l’oppression massive des femmes qui est à juste titre et largement considéré comme un apartheid de genre », déclarait la directrice d’ONU Femmes, Sima Bahous, le 15 août 2023.

Nulle part ailleurs dans le monde, il n’y a eu d’attaque aussi généralisée, systématique et globale contre les droits des femmes et des filles qu’en Afghanistan. Tous les aspects de leur vie sont restreints sous le couvert de la moralité et par l’instrumentalisation de la religion. Les politiques discriminatoires et misogynes des talibans nient le droit des femmes à l’égalité.

Le 14 août 2023, on apprenait que le premier ministre d’Israël, Benjamin Nétanyahou, négociait, dans le cadre d’un accord avec des alliés ultraorthodoxes, des concessions qui pourraient transformer radicalement le visage d’un pays où l’égalité des droits pour les femmes est garantie dans la déclaration d’indépendance de 1948. Bien que les lois israéliennes n’aient pas encore été modifiées pour refléter ces concessions, d’aucuns craignent que ces changements soient déjà en cours, aux dépens des femmes.

Les médias israéliens ont ainsi fait état, ces derniers mois, d’incidents jugés discriminatoires : des chauffeurs de bus ont refusé de prendre de jeunes femmes parce qu’elles portaient des hauts courts ou des vêtements de sport ; des hommes ultraorthodoxes ont arrêté un bus public et bloqué la route parce qu’une femme conduisait ; le service national d’urgences médicales et de catastrophes a, pour la première fois, séparé les hommes des femmes pendant la partie théorique de la formation paramédicale entreprise pour répondre à une exigence du service national israélien.

Rappelons que lorsqu’il y a ségrégation basée sur le sexe, pour répondre aux souhaits des ultraorthodoxes, les femmes soit sont assises à l’arrière, soit ont accès à moins de financement, soit ont un choix de carrière limité. Les défenseurs des droits des femmes s’inquiètent également des efforts que fait le gouvernement israélien pour affaiblir la Cour suprême, qui, elle, a soutenu l’égalité des droits pour les femmes dans plusieurs domaines.

Le mouvement iranien « Femme, vie, liberté », commencé en septembre 2022 à la suite de la mort d’une jeune Iranienne de 22 ans, Mahsa Amini, dans le cadre de son arrestation par la police des moeurs pour « avoir mal porté son voile », a permis de mettre en relief les affronts aux droits des femmes perpétrés par la République islamique d’Iran.

Sa constitution même part du principe que la femme est une citoyenne de seconde zone, est légalement la propriété de l’homme et doit se conformer à une multitude d’interdits sous peine de sanction allant jusqu’à la mort. Interdits économiques, interdits d’aller et venir, interdits empêchant chacune d’elles de disposer d’elle-même. Selon le Code criminel iranien, la valeur d’une femme est égale à la moitié de celle d’un homme lorsqu’il est question de dédommagement pour un meurtre, lors de la séparation d’un héritage familial ou encore lorsqu’il est question du poids à accorder aux témoignages dans un cadre judiciaire ou dans un contexte de divorce. De plus, la République islamique d’Iran impose une ségrégation systémique entre les sexes dans les écoles, les hôpitaux, les transports, les sports et autres.

En 2022, aux États-Unis, les fondamentalistes chrétiens, très influents auprès de la droite américaine, obtenaient l’invalidation par la Cour suprême de l’arrêt Roe v. Wade, qui protégeait le droit à l’avortement à l’échelle nationale. Selon le juge dissident Stephen Breyer, cette décision aura pour conséquence de restreindre les droits des femmes et leur statut de citoyennes libres et égales.

Entré en vigueur en 2021 en Pologne, un arrêt de la Cour constitutionnelle, contrôlée par le parti conservateur nationaliste et catholique au pouvoir Droit et justice (PiS), interdit tout avortement sauf en cas de danger pour la vie ou la santé de la femme enceinte ou si la grossesse découle d’un viol. Dans la pratique, il semble cependant impossible d’obtenir un avortement, même légal. La Pologne devient ainsi l’un des pays européens les plus restrictifs en matière de droit à l’avortement.

Ici aussi

Le Canada n’est pas en reste concernant les dangers de l’intégrisme religieux. CBC News révélait, en juin 2023, l’existence d’un document stratégique de la Liberty Coalition Canada selon lequel elle veut recruter 10 000 nouveaux candidats politiques chrétiens afin de pouvoir aligner les lois canadiennes sur les « principes bibliques ». Or, le droit à l’avortement, qui fait consensus au sein de la population canadienne, fait partie de ses cibles. Après le succès obtenu par les lobbys religieux aux États-Unis, la vigilance est de mise ici aussi, au Canada, à l’égard du respect du droit des femmes à l’égalité.

Comme le disait si bien Simone de Beauvoir : « N’oubliez jamais qu’il suffira d’une crise politique, économique ou religieuse pour que les droits des femmes soient remis en question. Ces droits ne sont jamais acquis. Vous devrez rester vigilantes votre vie durant. »

Source: L’intégrisme religieux, une menace aux droits des femmes

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Women are poised to make up 50 per cent of federally appointed judges in Canada 

2023/04/10 Leave a comment

Of note. Numbers have also increased for other groups: visible minorities from 2.0 to 9.7 percent, Indigenous peoples from 0.8 to 3.1 percent:

Women now make up nearly 50 per cent of full-time judges on Canada’s federally appointed courts, a milestone achievement that until recently seemed a distant dream.

Of 913 full-time judges in the country, 438 are women, according to data from the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs. That amounts to 47.97 per cent, or just 19 judges short of the historic mark.

And the remaining disparity could soon be erased because more men than women are nearing retirement.

Legal observers say the milestone is deserving of celebration, but that courts have further to go to truly reflect Canada’s diversity.

Ellen Anderson, a lawyer who wrote an authorized biography of Bertha Wilson, the first woman named to the Supreme Court of Canada, said Ms. Wilson would have been happy, but not satisfied.

“I am sure she would be delighted but she would also be rooting for representation for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and persons of colour] candidates, Indigenous candidates, gay candidates, the whole diversity of human experience,” Ms. Anderson said in an interview.

Federal data show that those groups still lag behind their numbers in the community, though they have made strides in the past few years.

It was Ms. Wilson, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1982, who gave a speech eight years later titled “Will women judges really make a difference?” The answer, says Justice Michele Hollins of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench, is yes, they have.

Justice Hollins was a single mother of two-year-old twins when she studied law in the early 1990s at the University of Saskatchewan.

“I do think it’s incredibly important to have all kinds of perspectives,” she said in an interview. “You’ve got a much better chance of having someone who will understand you.”

Her personal experience “gave me a different perspective than a lot of my classmates, and even my colleagues now, on parenting, finances, employment, education – what it really took to get through those years.”

Beverley McLachlin, who in 2000 became the first woman to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, said: “I think it’s been a huge difference.” Part of that difference was in how the public viewed the judiciary: “They saw it as approachable, as representing them to some extent, and not just a uni-gendered, monolithic-like body of middle-aged, middle-class white men.”

The authority to appoint judges is one of the least-discussed, least-transparent exercises of government power. Non-partisan committees across Canada screen applicants and create a pool of qualified candidates. But it is up to the federal cabinet to choose from that pool.

The federally appointed courts include the appeal courts of provinces, the top trial courts (which go by names such as the Court of King’s Bench, Supreme Court or Superior Court), Federal Court and the Tax Court of Canada.

Since the Liberals came to power and began appointing judges in 2016, with the stated goal of increasing the representation of women and minorities, women have received 56.48 per cent of the 370 judicial appointments, or 209 in total. During that period, women made up 47.8 per cent of the 2,511 applicants, according to data from the judicial affairs office, an agency that provides support services for the judiciary.

The figures represent a sea change from the 10 years of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, 2006 to 2015, when women made up just 30 per cent of applicants and appointments.

As recently as 2014, 63 men were appointed (including promotions of sitting judges to higher courts), compared with just 26 women. Under the Liberals, men exceeded women in appointments just once, from October, 2021 to October, 2022, by a margin of 30 to 28.

Ms. McLachlin said that when she started out as a judge in B.C. in 1981, “there was a real sense of hope in the air.” Someone sent her a bouquet of flowers from their garden (security had to check out the bouquet). Male colleagues were helpful and supportive.

“I had a wonderful career for a very long time being a judge. It was absolutely the best thing that could have happened to me.”

By contrast, Bertha Wilson found the Supreme Court of Canada a boys’ club when she joined in 1982.

Male judges lobbied one another on the golf course or in other sports arenas, from which she felt excluded. It was one reason she pushed to expand the number of intervenors in Supreme Court hearings, to broaden the court’s knowledge of the social context of the cases before them, Ms. Anderson said. (In one hearing last month, there were 29 intervenors.)

Also, there was no women’s washroom for judges at the appeal court or the Supreme Court when she joined.

Ms. Wilson told Ms. Anderson that she felt “doomed to failure,” because no one could have lived up to the expectations placed on her by her well-wishers.

“Change in the law comes slowly and incrementally. That is its nature,” Ms. Wilson told her.

Still, the difference she made was striking. In Lavallee, a 1990 case, she wrote a judgment for the court recognizing battered women’s syndrome in how self-defence is understood in Canadian law. In Morgentaler, in 1988, she was the only judge to declare that a woman has a fundamental right to choose.

Under Ms. McLachlin’s leadership as chief justice, ending late in 2017, the Supreme Court established a right to physician-assisted dying, struck down prostitution laws as heightening the dangers faced by sex workers, and restored voting rights for federal prisoners.

In Justice Hollins’s view, change on the bench has been slow, given that her law-school class three decades ago was 54 per cent women.

“On the one hand, I’m elated,” she said, referring to women nearing 50 per cent of the federal judiciary, but “it’s sometimes hard not to be discouraged by how slow progress seems to be.”

She said women still face barriers in creating top-notch applications: They are not equal at the partnership tables of law firms, or in terms of assignments, opportunities and seats on corporate boards. And those with children tend to do more of the household work.

“It’s just that much harder for women to advance in their careers at the same pace,” Justice Hollins said.

Rosemarie Davis, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers, said more work remains to be done.

“There are more women, yes, and that’s laudable, but what we’re looking for even within those numbers is more diversity, more women of colour and more women who identify as Black, more women who identify as Indigenous.”

Source: Women are poised to make up 50 per cent of federally appointed judges in Canada 

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Khan: The downfall of Quebec’s Bill 21 could come thanks to women

2022/11/30 Leave a comment

We will see:

The notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter is no longer an obscure legal term. Thanks to Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s recent use of Section 33 to prevent job action by education workers – he has invoked the clause, or threatened to do so, three times in four years – ordinary Canadians now know that their basic human rights can be suspended at any time. We aren’t talking about emergency measures here, nor are we discussing reasonable limits through democratic mechanisms; ours is the only constitutional democracy that potentially allows for the gutting of basic rights in the name of what a parliamentary majority deems a matter of governance.

Who could have foreseen the consequences of this clause?

Well, Canadian women, for one.

When the Charter was being drafted, women demanded equality rights – but they were derided at committee hearings for doing so. In 1980, Senator Harry Hays derisively countered by suggesting special rights for babies and children, since “all you girls will be out working and we’re not going to have anybody to look after them.” A year later, more than 1,300 women descended on Parliament Hill to assert equality rights in the Constitution, by affirming Section 15 on general equality and proposing Section 28, on gender equality rights.

Initially, the notwithstanding clause could have been used on Section 28, too. But women fought for its exclusion, having had the foresight to ensure that gender equality rights could not be denied by the potential whims of future governments. We owe them a great deal.

And yet, today, we see the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause leading to disproportionate damage to Muslim women in Quebec.

François Legault’s government has pre-emptively used the notwithstanding clause twice since 2019, to ensure the passage of two bills. One of them, Bill 21, bans some public-sector workers from wearing religious symbols, but lawyers have provided evidence at the Quebec Court of Appeal – which heard a legal challenge to the bill this month – that only Muslim women who wear the hijab have lost their jobs as a result of it.

Indeed, Quebec’s religious minorities have felt increased alienation and despair in recent years, according to the Association for Canadian Studies. Its survey found that the situation is particularly dire for Muslim women: 73 per cent of them said they’ve felt less safe in public since 2019, while 83 per cent said their confidence in their children’s future has worsened.

The Quebec government touted Bill 21 as a “feminist” law, but it has only reinforced prejudices, and given license to bigots. I know this firsthand: During a visit to Montreal, I was berated by a middle-aged francophone Uber driver for wearing the hijab. At the end of the ride, he asked me not to file a complaint. (Of course, I did the opposite.)

This all illustrates Bill 21′s egregious violation of Section 28 of the Charter – namely, that the law disproportionately affects women, and thus violates gender equality. Since the notwithstanding clause cannot override Section 28, Bill 21 could be seen by the courts as invalid – an argument that University of New Brunswick law professor Kerri Froc raised years ago, and is now gaining traction.

Quebec Muslim women are not wilting. They have protested alongside allies who believe in a Quebec where all individuals can thrive. Take, for example, Institut F, a Montreal-based organization that seeks to ensure Muslim women’s personal agency. Its programs provide resources so that each woman knows that she belongs, her voice matters and she is a valued member of society – even if the Quebec government thinks otherwise. At a recent Institut event, I met talented Muslim women in STEM fields such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology and data science – talent that Quebec needs to remain economically competitive. Yet, many of those women expressed doubts about thriving in a society that overtly discriminates against religious minorities.

Something may have to give on this front, too. The labour shortage is so acute in Quebec that the town of Hérouxville – infamous for issuing a code of conduct for immigrants warning them not to stone or burn women alive – is now actively courting newcomers. Today, neighbouring towns are helping migrants find halal food. Economic reality will force the realization that attracting workers means making all feel welcome – not just a select few.

Bill 21’s damage has been done – abetted by the notwithstanding clause. The women who fought to exclude Section 28 from the clause knew its dangers. As Canadians, we must continue that fight to guarantee basic rights for all, be they religious and linguistic minorities in Quebec, education workers in Ontario, or anyone threatened by the notwithstanding clause.

Source: The downfall of Quebec’s Bill 21 could come thanks to women

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , , ,

Proportion of women civil service leaders improves internationally – but only one G20 country [Canada] has achieved gender parity in top jobs

2022/11/25 Leave a comment

Of note. When I last looked at EX breakdowns a number of years ago, there was, as one would expect, greater representation at more junior levels (directors and DGs EX1-3) than at the ADM level (EX4-5):

Less than one in three senior civil servants across the governments of G20 countries are women, new research from Global Government Forum has found.

The latest Women Leaders Index found that only one G20 country – Canada – has reached gender parity in the top five grades of its public service (at 51.1%), and just four more are within 10 percentage points of doing so.

However, there has been improvement – the G20 mean (29.3%) has increased by 1.6 percentage points since our last Index in 2020 and by 6.0 points since our first 10 years ago.

The long-running Women Leaders Index is a league table ranking G20, EU and OECD countries on the proportion of women in senior roles within their national civil services. As well as tracking progress over time, it includes comparisons with women in government, women politicians, and women on private sector boards, alongside interviews with public service leaders in two of the top performing countries – Canada and South Africa.    

Those leading the G20 pack behind Canada, are Australia and South Africa – which tie in second place – the UK, Brazil, and Mexico and the European Commission, which tie in fifth place. Mexico has increased the representation of women in civil service leadership positions the most of all G20 nations, by a dramatic 24.3 percentage points over the last decade, while South Africa has made the most improvement in the two years since the last Index – a jump of 7.2 points.

Bringing up the G20 rear are Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, China and Turkey, in which representation of women in the senior civil service is between 2.5% and 11.7%.

Countries including Germany, Italy, France and the US reside in the middle of the G20 ranking, with women accounting for between 32.0% and 38.0% of top roles in each.   https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rr33B/4/

EU and OECD countries faring better than those in the G20  

Though the G20 has traditionally been the main ranking in the Women Leaders Index, it also analyses representation of women in the highest grades of national civil services in EU and OECD countries.

The Index found that overall, EU and OECD countries are doing better on representation of women in senior positions in government departments and agencies – for which the mean proportions are 42.7% and 36.2% respectively – than those in the G20*.

The mean across the European Union’s member states has improved by 0.8 percentage points since 2020, and by 7.5 points since 2012, with nine of the EU’s 27 member states having reached gender parity in the top two tiers of their civil services. Bulgaria tops this ranking, with women accounting for 59.5% of those running government departments, followed by Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Finland, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania, and Portugal.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GU3A7/4/

Read our Canada perspective from seasoned public service leader Yazmine Laroche, including transferable lessons on how to make progress towards gender parity

Croatia has made the most improvement of all EU nations since 2012 – a rise of 21.1 percentage points, while Bulgaria has made the greatest improvement since the 2020 Index, of 7.8 points.

Latvia, where women account for 56% of the top tiers of its civil service, tops the OECD ranking, while six more – Sweden, Iceland, New Zealand, Greece, Canada and Slovakia – have reached or exceeded gender parity.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/wpOb5/2/

Regression in some countries – but public services performing better overall

While most G20, EU and OECD countries have improved the representation of women in the highest grades of their civil services in recent years, some have regressed.

The G20 data shows that in Russia and Argentina there are fewer officials in senior positions now than in 2020, while China, Turkey and South Korea have regressed since 2012.  

Six EU countries – Sweden, Poland, Cyprus, Italy, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg – perform worse in terms of representation of women in the top two tiers of the civil service since 2020, while Hungary is worse off now than 10 years ago.  

However, on a positive note, when looking at the means across the G20, EU and OECD, it is clear that civil services are doing better on representation of women in leadership roles compared with ministerial cabinet appointments, elected politicians and the boards of publicly-listed private sector companies.

Read our South Africa perspective from Zukiswa Mqolomba, deputy chairperson of the country’s Public Service Commission, on why making real and positive change isn’t just a numbers game

“Many governments have made impressive gains on representation of women in leadership positions in recent years as a result of concerted efforts to make change and should be applauded,” said Mia Hunt, author of the Women Leaders Index report and editor of globalgovernmentforum.com. 

“However, while it is widely accepted that civil services with diverse workforces that resemble the populations they serve turn out better policies and better outcomes for citizens, the mean proportion of women in top civil service positions across G20 nations is still less than 30%. Clearly, there is much more work to be done.

“We hope this Index gives the countries that have made progress the recognition they deserve, whilst serving as a wake-up call for those most in need of improvement. Let us see what’s changed when we publish the next in this Women Leaders Index series.”

*Please note that grade definitions vary between the G20, EU and OECD datasets. Caution should be exercised when making comparisons – see methodology here.

Source: Proportion of women civil service leaders improves internationally – but only one G20 country has achieved gender parity in top jobs

Filed under Government Tagged with , , , ,

Paul: The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count

2022/07/05 Leave a comment

A plague on both their houses:

Perhaps it makes sense that women — those supposedly compliant and agreeable, self-sacrificing and everything-nice creatures — were the ones to finally bring our polarized country together.

Because the far right and the far left have found the one thing they can agree on: Women don’t count.

The right’s position here is the better known, the movement having aggressively dedicated itself to stripping women of fundamental rights for decades. Thanks in part to two Supreme Court justices who have been credibly accused of abusive behavior toward women, Roe v. Wade, nearly 50 years a target, has been ruthlessly overturned.

Far more bewildering has been the fringe left jumping in with its own perhaps unintentionally but effectively misogynist agenda. There was a time when campus groups and activist organizations advocated strenuously on behalf of women. Women’s rights were human rights and something to fight for. Though the Equal Rights Amendment was never ratified, legal scholars and advocacy groups spent years working to otherwise establish women as a protected class.

But today, a number of academics, uber-progressives, transgender activists, civil liberties organizations and medical organizations are working toward an opposite end: to deny women their humanity, reducing them to a mix of body parts and gender stereotypes.

As reported by my colleague Michael Powell, even the word “women” has become verboten. Previously a commonly understood term for half the world’s population, the word had a specific meaning tied to genetics, biology, history, politics and culture. No longer. In its place are unwieldy terms like “pregnant people,” “menstruators” and “bodies with vaginas.”

Planned Parenthood, once a stalwart defender of women’s rights, omits the word “women” from its home page. NARAL Pro-Choice America has used “birthing people” in lieu of “women.” The American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime defender of women’s rights, last month tweeted its outrage over the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to several groups: “Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the L.G.B.T.Q. community, immigrants, young people.”

It left out those threatened most of all: women. Talk about a bitter way to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

The noble intent behind omitting the word “women” is to make room for the relatively tiny number of transgender men and people identifying as nonbinary who retain aspects of female biological function and can conceive, give birth or breastfeed. But despite a spirit of inclusion, the result has been to shove women to the side.

Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations. They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own.

But, but, but. Can you blame the sisterhood for feeling a little nervous? For wincing at the presumption of acquiescence? For worrying about the broader implications? For wondering what kind of message we are sending to young girls about feeling good in their bodies, pride in their sex and the prospects of womanhood? For essentially ceding to another backlash?

Women didn’t fight this long and this hard only to be told we couldn’t call ourselves women anymore. This isn’t just a semantic issue; it’s also a question of moral harm, an affront to our very sense of ourselves.

It wasn’t so long ago — and in some places the belief persists — that women were considered a mere rib to Adam’s whole. Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts, was an important part of the struggle for sexual equality.

But here we go again, parsing women into organs. Last year the British medical journal The Lancet patted itself on the back for a cover article on menstruation. Yet instead of mentioning the human beings who get to enjoy this monthly biological activity, the cover referred to “bodies with vaginas.” It’s almost as if the other bits and bobs — uteruses, ovaries or even something relatively gender-neutral like brains — were inconsequential. That such things tend to be wrapped together in a human package with two X sex chromosomes is apparently unmentionable.

“What are we, chopped liver?” a woman might be tempted to joke, but in this organ-centric and largely humorless atmosphere, perhaps she would be wiser not to.

Those women who do publicly express mixed emotions or opposing views are often brutally denounced for asserting themselves. (Google the word “transgender” combined with the name Martina Navratilova, J.K. Rowling or Kathleen Stock to get a withering sense.) They risk their jobs and their personal safety. They are maligned as somehow transphobic or labeled TERFs, a pejorative that may be unfamiliar to those who don’t step onto this particular Twitter battlefield. Ostensibly shorthand for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” which originally referred to a subgroup of the British feminist movement, “TERF” has come to denote any woman, feminist or not, who persists in believing that while transgender women should be free to live their lives with dignity and respect, they are not identical to those who were born female and who have lived their entire lives as such, with all the biological trappings, societal and cultural expectations, economic realities and safety issues that involves.

But in a world of chosen gender identities, women as a biological category don’t exist. Some might even call this kind of thing erasure.

When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes. The formula on the right we know well: Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the “Don’t mind mes.” The unanticipated newcomers to such retrograde typecasting are the supposed progressives on the fringe left. In accordance with a newly embraced gender theory, they now propose that girls — gay or straight — who do not self-identify as feminine are somehow not fully girls. Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are “masculine” and others “feminine.”

Didn’t we ditch those straitened categories in the ’70s?

The women’s movement and the gay rights movement, after all, tried to free the sexes from the construct of gender, with its antiquated notions of masculinity and femininity, to accept all women for who they are, whether tomboy, girly girl or butch dyke. To undo all this is to lose hard-won ground for women — and for men, too.

Those on the right who are threatened by women’s equality have always fought fiercely to put women back in their place. What has been disheartening is that some on the fringe left have been equally dismissive, resorting to bullying, threats of violence, public shaming and other scare tactics when women try to reassert that right. The effect is to curtail discussion of women’s issues in the public sphere.

But women are not the enemy here. Consider that in the real world, most violence against trans men and women is committed by men but, in the online world and in the academy, most of the ire at those who balk at this new gender ideology seems to be directed at women.

It’s heartbreaking. And it’s counterproductive.

Tolerance for one group need not mean intolerance for another. We can respect transgender women without castigating females who point out that biological women still constitute a category of their own — with their own specific needs and prerogatives.

If only women’s voices were routinely welcomed and respected on these issues. But whether Trumpist or traditionalist, fringe left activist or academic ideologue, misogynists from both extremes of the political spectrum relish equally the power to shut women up.

Source: The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count

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She’s trilingual, has a PhD and loads of work experience. So why was getting a job in Canada an ordeal?

2022/03/31 Leave a comment

Ongoing barriers of note:

With a PhD and eight years of project management experience, Hala El Ouarrak didn’t expect finding a job would be that hard in Canada.

Before the Moroccan woman arrived in Toronto in 2019, she took part in all the pre-arrival settlement services and employment counselling that were available to soon-to-be newcomers. She was assured her skills and experience were sought after in the Canadian job market.

“I did everything to the letter to make sure that I’m not missing anything when I get here. The feedback was I wouldn’t have any problem finding a job, and all I would need would be a Canadian phone number for employers to reach me,” said El Ouarrak, whose doctoral degree is in applied math and automatic control engineering.

Instead, the 31-year-old worked as a sales account manager at a shoe store and teaching statistics on a side as a private tutor, while “upgrading” her CV by acquiring four additional Canadian project-management credentials. (Some of El Ouarrak’s struggle came during the pandemic’s disruptions, but she says the number of job postings wasn’t affected.)

“It actually took me two years to get back to my field,” said El Ouarrak, now an IT consultant and part-time lecturer in project management and data analysis at Northeastern University’s Toronto campus.

A new study suggests this sort of problem has been an issue for years — that many highly skilled and educated female immigrants in Canada are facing immense disparities in employment outcomes due to employer biases, gender-based barriers and other factors.

“Immigrant women face distinct challenges in entering and advancing in the Canadian labour market. They encounter downward career mobility and underemployment relative to their education and professional backgrounds,” says the study by Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC).

“Data also shows that the earnings of immigrant women, especially those who are racialized, lag behind those of immigrant men and Canadian-born women, and their unemployment rate is higher.”

Based on an online survey of 365 immigrant women in Greater Toronto — two-thirds with at least a master’s degree — and subsequent interviews, researchers found that 83.8 per cent of respondents had taken at least one of the following measures to “fit” the culture or expectations of Canadian employers:

  • 57.5 per cent had downgraded their stated educational achievements and/or experience to not appear overqualified for a position;
  • 43 per cent had accepted unpaid work or internships in a role related to their field of expertise to gain “Canadian experience”;
  • 21.9 per cent said they had changed or shortened their name to sound “more Canadian”;
  • 15.3 per cent sought training to help change their accents;
  • 13.7 per cent of respondents changed their appearances to make their looks more acceptable to “Canadian culture.”

“The compromises some immigrant women have to make to start their careers in Canada is in contrast to the high value Canada’s points-based immigration system places on their skills,” said report author Sugi Vasavithasan, TRIEC’s research and evaluation manager.

“Having to downplay their qualifications or change aspects of themselves to enter the Canadian labour market can be demoralizing for immigrant women. It hurts their dignity and self-esteem.”

Immigrant women’s jobless rate, at 12.2 per cent, is much higher than their Canadian-born peers (4.9 per cent) and immigrant men (6.4 per cent), said the report. Among principal applicants admitted in 2009 under various skilled immigration programs, women made $17,400 less than their male counterparts after 10 years.

Maysam Fadel settled in Toronto in 2019 after working for the United Nations Refugee Agency as a community service co-ordinator and for UNICEF as emergency officer in Syria for a decade.

The 36-year-old applied to more than 500 jobs posted in the not-for-profit sector but didn’t receive one single reply. She finally found a survival job working as a sales associate in retail while volunteering at different organizations, including the Canadian Red Cross.

“Employers all ask for Canadian experience and don’t consider any of the experience you had back home,” said Fadel, who has an undergraduate degree in English literature from Damascus University.

“I was very depressed and I lost my hope of ever finding an appropriate job in alignment with my experience.”

The husband of a friend’s friend helped her polish her resumé and she dropped her last name, Allah, on her CV, to avoid any potential biases she might face from prospective employers. Then response started trickling in and she finally was hired as a volunteer co-ordinator at a community service agency.

While she needed to learn about the operations and work culture at the organization, she said she’s simply applying the same skills she acquired from back home to her new job in Canada. 

“I didn’t get a new skill I didn’t have before. It’s just transferring my skills from one context to another. You need to learn and adapt whenever you change jobs even in Canada. That’s normal,” said Fadel, who last year got a promotion to be a manager at the same agency. 

El Ouarrak, who speaks fluent Arabic, English and French, said immigrant women shouldn’t have to downplay their credentials just to get their foot into the door.

Rather, she said, Canadian employers should adopt blind hiring practices to focus on seeking out candidates with the right skills and block out personal information that could bias a hiring decision. 

“Hiring managers are looking for unique profiles of candidates who qualify but to get to the hiring managers, you have to go through recruiters, the gatekeepers who are checking the boxes. If you don’t check 80 per cent of the boxes, they don’t even look at your profile,” said El Ouarrak. “I think that’s where the disconnect is.”

The study calls for improvement to generic employment support programs to reflect the unique needs of highly skilled immigrant women, as well as further education of hiring managers and recruiters in looking past stereotypes and recognizing the value of foreign credentials brought by female immigrants.

Source: She’s trilingual, has a PhD and loads of work experience. So why was getting a job in Canada an ordeal?

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

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