Gender-based analysis remains relevant

By Cy-Thea Sand

Some people believe that women's studies programs marginalize women and are obsolete. The fact that women are already marginalized in contemporary Canadian society belies this assertion. Over 60 percent of university students may be female, but Parliament barely represents women, one in six women in Canada lives below the poverty line, and many women working full time in Canada still earn only 71 percent of what men earn. Documentaries such as Patricia Gabel's Her Brilliant Career (2005) demonstrate how seldom female faces appear in circles of power, dazed and concussed from banging their heads on the glass ceiling. Violence against women and the feminization of poverty don't disappear because theoretical debates suggest the issues are complex.

LINK: Cy-Thea Sand works at the McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women.