No one knows what she is thinking about the upheaval in her country.
No one even knows for certain where she is.
The elegant wisp of a woman who the Myanmarese call ''the Lady'' is at the centre of her people's struggle for freedom. Aung San Suu Kyi is revered by her people and renowned all over the world for her selfless two-decade struggle against tyranny in Myanmar.
In a week that saw the National Association of Women and the Law forced to close its doors because of funding cuts and the announcement of drastic funding cuts at Environment Canada that threaten environmental monitoring programs and the Canadian Wildlife Service,
"Thursday's announcement is one more example that shows the Harper government's budgetary policy is out of touch with the views of Canadians, including the members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. We all want more services not less," says John Gordon, National President of the PSAC. In the face of such a huge surplus it seems only fair to question this government's history of program cuts, including:
Increased spending is part of the solution not part of the problem. This fact becomes clearer with each passing day as government neglect of its infrastructure puts the health and safety of citizens at risk.
The situation is no better when it comes to Canada's social infrastructure. Here too, the federal government can and should do more to meet the legitimate needs of its citizens. Rather than offering piece-meal tax cuts, the PSAC says the government should be taking on national priorities like publicly-funded pharmacare, childcare programs, literacy and more resources - not less - directed at levelling the playing field for Aboriginal peoples.
LINK: PSAC
This week, the Quebec Council on the Status of Women, seeking to strengthen the principle of sexual equality against a perceived assault by religious groups, issued its own set of "reasonable-accommodation" rules. And rules is the operative word.
Today's Conservative admission that their child care policy is unworkable isn't news to child care advocates - but it is an opening to press for change, says CUPE National President Paul Moist.
Forget baking cookies and sewing skirts. Today's home economists have turned their attention from caring for the family to tackling community issues such as poverty, obesity and food safety
Welcome to the new world of home economics. Baking cakes and sewing pillowcases are out; reducing childhood obesity and developing community-based solutions to poverty are in.
Ms. Rudd graduated from the University of Alberta last spring and now works for Vibrant Communities Edmonton, where she's run a variety of projects from financial literacy classes for teens to a tax-preparation program for low-income workers. "I absolutely fell in love with it," Ms. Rudd says. "It was aligning with what I believed in life."
While many university-level home economics programs have disappeared in recent decades, cast aside as relics from the 1950s, the programs that did survive are thriving under various new names. In Canada, it's called human ecology; in the United States, it's now family and consumer sciences. Both name changes happened in the 1990s.
LINK: TorStar
The Good News Is:
7.5 million dollars is going to early learning and child care in Saskatchewan by the provincial government. That includes 500 new licensed child care spaces, funding for an additional 21 prekindergarten programs and enhanced training opportunities. The expansion combined with the 550 spaces announced in May totals 1050 new spaces this year.
The Bad News Is:
The Conservatives are now saying their promise to create 125,000 new child-care spaces over five years may not be realistic. Harper sold Canadians a fraudulent bill of goods, and it is children who will lose out.
As the old adage goes, you can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
Women lose as advocacy organizations close
NDP stands with women’s groups and so do the Liberals
Families gather in Edmonton against violence directed at aboriginal females
Young Canadian Aboriginal women are five times more likely than other women to die as a result of violence, according to government statistics
Despite what backlash has claimed, feminism is nothing more than the powerful notion that women and men deserve to be treated equally.
The view of polygamy as just another lifestyle choice has been countered by the growing evidence of communities rife with abuse.
Study finds that wives who don't express themselves increase risk of illness.
Mainstream porn has come up with more ways than ever to humiliate and degrade women. Why then, is porn more popular? Includes an excerpt from Robert Jensen's new book, Getting Off.
Girls Gone Mild: Are Feminists and Prudes Rebelling Against Slut Chic? Wendy Shalit's new book suggests there's anti-slut rebellion in the making.
Apparently, women who get tattoos are tramps, and tattoos on the lower back are "tramp stamps." Jesica Valenti at Feministing writes: It's so charming when a wannabe conservative pundit uses frat boy misogyny to get male approval.
A profile of the women who are Mexico's top environment-defenders. They've been at this since long before climate change became a prominent issue.
Rebecca Traister on TV's new gender order.
Women say they feel patronized when pink gadgets are marketed exclusively toward them? I'm shocked!
Extreme rich/poor divides - photos of poverty next to wealthy neighborhoods.
Following a pair of recent, vicious sexual assaults on campuses, and as a new threat appeared at a third school, Canadian universities are beefing up their security measures.
Ms. Helen Fotopulos, member of theExecutive Committee responsible for the Status of Women, is pleased to announce the city will hold public consultations in September and October on the draft policy Pour une participation égalitaire des femmes et des hommes à la vie de Montréal (For Equal Participation of Women and Men in the Life of Montréal).
Canada has been a leader in creating critical international standards and institutions for the protection of women’s human rights. However, Canada has failed fully to implement those standards at home. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women has cited Canada for not implementing its obligations under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The sad consequence is that Canada is failing adequately to protect the human rights of women in this country. Government programs and policies for the protection of women’s human rights have been fragmented and shortsighted. Last year’s significant decrease in the budget of Status of Women Canada and the imposition of restrictions on the activities of organizations that receive funding from Status of Women combined to drastically curtail the work of a range of local and national organizations dedicated to defending the human rights of women and challenging existing barriers to the full realization of those rights. When it becomes more difficult to defend rights and challenge barriers, the risk of violence and discrimination inevitably increases.
The fact that the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) has been made to close in the face of funding cuts is a stark illustration of what is at stake. NAWL has played a critical role in demanding domestic compliance with the international human rights standards that Canada helped to create. NAWL has provided important support to women and women human rights groups, to address and change the systemic causes of violence and discrimination.
NAWL and other women’s human rights advocacy groups play an essential role in challenging the gaps and failings of government policies, both federally and provincially, and proposing recommendations for reform. NAWL will be missed. Without that expertise and attention, Canada fails women in this country.
Opposition parties decried the demise of a leading women's group today, calling the Conservative government ``Neanderthal" and "misogynist" for cutting off federal support for advocacy and research on women's issues.
The latest organization to close its doors is the 33-year-old National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), which lost a critical $300,000 a year after Status of Women Canada changed its funding rules last fall.
The government announced last fall that groups that do advocacy and research work would no longer qualify, in favour of groups – including for-profit ones – that provide direct services.
Not true, said board member Louise Riendeau. She said NAWL relied almost entirely on government money, and fundraising amounted to a few thousand dollars a year.
Riendeau added that the group has exclusively done research and advocacy on law reform, making it a pointless exercise to try and get cash unless its entire mission is changed.
However, Vernor spokesman Andrew House said the group has applied for non-advocacy funding in the past and could do so again. He said NAWL got $290,000 in 2006 for a non-advocacy project called Strengthening Canada Through Poverty Reduction and Enhanced Security for Women.
Several women's groups have also been reduced to a few volunteers on cellphones, such as the New Brunswick Coalition of Transition Houses and the National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women. Some expect to grind to a halt within the year, including the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women and the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action.
The Conservative government also shut down the Court Challenges Program, which helped fund minority groups who wanted to mount constitutional challenges.
It's position has been that there is a large enough body of research and statistics out there about obstacles to women's participation in society – now is the time to put money into direct services such as job training assistance for new immigrants. It beefed up the funding envelope for such projects by $5 million in the last budget, bringing it to $15.3 million.
"The way our government decided to work is to make sure that concrete results will be achieved for women in difficulty," Verner said.
LINK: Toronto StarAlmost a year ago, the federal government announced changes to the rules for funding women's groups in Canada. Now that the dust is settling, it's time to start assessing the damage.
Behold a sad state of affairs. The losses are mounting among local, regional and national non-profit organizations dedicated to fighting discrimination and injustice.
After twenty years of valuable efforts on behalf of women and children victims of domestic violence, the New Brunswick Coalition of Transition Houses has no money left to pay for a phone line or a staff salary. The formerly-paid Coordinator is volunteering her time and her cell phone.
Crumbling infrastructure and lost community-based expertise are part of the price we pay for the federal government's decision to weaken SWC.
Just this week, the National Association of Women and the Law, a thirty year veteran of research and advocacy on pay equity, maternity and parental leave and family law, announced that it has been forced to lay off all staff and shut down its national office. The NAWL Board will keep the organization alive on a volunteer basis, but notes its capacity to consult with women's groups and advocate for feminist law reform will be greatly diminished.
This past June, the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women — a promoter and clearinghouse for research and action to advance social justice and equality for all women — laid off most of its small staff, including its dynamic and dedicated Research Coordinator.
Crumbling infrastructures and the scattering of community-based expertise are part of the price we are paying for the federal government's decision to weaken the mandate of Status of Women Canada.
For years, the SWC sought "to support action by women's organizations and other partners seeking to advance equality for women by addressing women's economic, social, political and legal situation."
Under the new mandate, the grant program aims "to facilitate women's participation in Canadian society by addressing their economic, social and cultural situation through Canadian organizations."
So actions to advance equality are out. The new funding criteria are quite explicit: organizations seeking grants can not be involved in advocacy and lobbying of municipal, provincial or federal Governments.
Are they kidding us? Inequality still plagues women in many aspects of their lives. For certain groups, notably women with disabilities and Aboriginal women, the inequalities are soul-crushing.
Women need non-governmental organizations in their corner working for bigger social change, because they are chronically under-represented at all three levels of government. How else will politicians and policy-makers be forced to take women's issues into account?
So what kind of work is now eligible for funding? Try small projects providing direct services to individual women. That includes projects run by religious and for-profit organizations.
This means, for example, "no" to funding groups that lobby for fairer salary systems for traditionally female jobs, but "yes" to programs that outfit women with clothing for their job search. Clothing programs are fine, but women's jobs must also be fairly paid so that they can afford to feed and clothe themselves and their families and put some money aside for a decent retirement.
The Harper government has tried to make advocacy a dirty word. But most of us would agree with Jackie Matthews of the New Brunswick Coalition of Transition Houses, who says, "Advocacy is part of democracy — it's a catalyst for change for the better."
Advocacy organizations work for the rights of citizens who belong to groups that experience systemic discrimination. Society as a whole is poorer when lobby groups do not have the time, resources and freedom to speak up about the needs and reality of citizens too vulnerable to be heard.
Governments that mainly deal with service delivery groups and ignore advocacy groups — as is the case in Canada to a much greater extent than in other developed countries — can be accused of maintaining problems, rather than solving them. Efforts to reduce the suffering of victims do nothing to change the conditions that create victims.
Here in New Brunswick, a handful of groups — like the Coalition of Transition Houses, the NB Child Care Coalition, the Urban Core Support Network and the NB Coalition for Pay Equity — previously shared in a modest pot of federal funding. All relied heavily on volunteers and partnerships with community, business and government organizations to stretch their meager grants.
The work of these groups has helped raise public awareness and contributed to some important policy and program improvements. Were it not for the pressure put on the provincial government by the NB Coalition of Transition Houses in recent years, for example, there would not be full funding now for the basic operational budgets of the shelters for abused women and children.
The undervaluation of women's work and the lack of quality, affordable early education and child care services have been moved up on the public reform agenda by the provincial child care and pay equity coalitions. The Urban Core Support Network, active in Saint John for more than a decade, has played a role in improving some of the social assistance benefits and increasing understanding of the impact on community development.
But of these, only the Urban Core Support Network has received some new project funding to date. Others are getting by on what's left of their grants under the old rules, or are limping along by relying on already-overworked volunteers.
The situation is particularly dramatic for groups in our province, since the New Brunswick government, unlike some others, does not provide support to advocacy groups.
Contrast New Brunswick's situation with the Newfoundland and Labrador government, for example. Since 1998, Newfoundland has funded that province's transition house coalition and eight women's centres, which help mobilize community action around women's concerns and conduct consultation and research on issues affecting the status of women in their region.
So is this the end of women's organizing for change? Hardly. The Harper government has landed some blows, but we're not out yet. Watch this space.
Ginette Petitpas-Taylor of Moncton is Chairperson of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Her column on women's issues appears in the Times & Transcript every Thursday. She may be reached via email at the address below.
Related addresses:
eMail 1: acswcccf@gnb.ca
URL 1: www.acswcccf.nb.ca
Report from the Canada Election Study examines the “modern gender gap” in voting, including finding that two-thirds of women surveyed favoured publicly funded child care over money paid directly to parents.
Inglehart and Norris (2003) have argued that a process of gender realignment is pushing men to the right and women to the left. This paper uses data from the 2006 Canadian election study to assess their argument that the "modern gender gap" is rooted in cultural differences between women and men rather than in structural and situational differences. While there is some evidence that public sector employment and higher education help to explain why women are more likely than men to vote for the NDP, their impact is offset by religiosity. Women tend to be more religious than men and this helps to explain why many women remain attracted to the Conservatives. The most important factors in explaining why men are more likely than women to vote for the right-wing party and women are more likely than men to vote for the left-wing party are clearly cultural. Women are more skeptical than men of market-based arguments, less ready to embrace closer ties with the US, and more liberal when it comes to social mores and alternative lifestyles. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of gendered patterns of voting for electoral politics in Canada.
Questions from the post-election survey:
What should the government do: fund public daycare or give the money directly to parents? (If interviewer is asked, by government we mean the federal government.)
Finding:
Almost two-thirds of the women interviewed in 2006 favored a publicly funded day care system; only 30 per cent preferred the Conservative policy of paying money directly to parents to spend as they please.
LINK: Gender and vote choice in the 2006 Canadian election
It's time to end pay discrimination for all Ontario women regardless of where they work. With the gender pay gap still at 29%, many women electors continue to receive less pay for their "women's work" than men do for comparable work. That is why the Equal Pay Coalition is launching this week its province-wide Campaign. The Coalition aims to ensure that the gender pay gap is not forgotten in election debates, meetings and canvassing.
The Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) had its early beginnings back towards the turn of the century, and today it still promotes its cause of improving the life of women and children.
In 1919 a voluntary, non-profit, self-funded organization formed to procure the betterment of women. The Edmonton area had a founding hand in the organization because back in 1909, the Edmonton club along with help from the United States and Britain formed what is known today as the International Federation of University Women (IFUW).
Today, Canada is one of 78 members of the international organization and has 122 clubs, including the one here in Strathcona, in every province.
Shirley Reid, chair of issues and advocacy for CFUW’s regional Alberta council and an avid member of the Edmonton and Sherwood Park clubs, passionately attests to the positive benefits of being a part of such a group.“We promote education and social change that would improve the lives of women and children,” she said.
The local club doesn’t just listen to discussions on change, but actively participates in changing the community any little bit that they can, such as providing books to a womens’ shelter’s library, presenting Christmas presents to the women from the shelter and providing hot lunches for Habitat for Humanity.
“We expect to vote on continuing involvement with A Safe Place (womens’ shelter) and Habitat for Humanity,” Reid said, detailing some of this year’s hoped-for plans.
For more information about CFUW, visit http://www.cfuw.org/
LINK: Sherwood Park News
On Wednesday, September, 5, 2007, Judith Siers-Poisson was pleased to participate in a panel discussion on The Agenda with Steve Paikin on Ontario Public Television in Toronto, Canada. (You can view the debate by going to this page and selecting the tab that says "Gardasil, Morality and Medicare" and then clicking on "view video" to the right.)
The impetus for the panel was the start of mass vaccination of 8th grade girls in the province of Ontario at the start of the school year. In March 2007 the Canadian federal government announced CA$300million in funding to help provinces vaccinate their girls against HPV, and in August, the premier of Ontario announced a provincial investment of CA$117 million. But then, the August 27, 2007 cover story of Maclean's magazine announced, "Our Girls Aren't Guinea Pigs" and the public debate heated up significantly.
While most of us on the panel agreed that the Maclean's piece did not do the issue a service by focusing primarily on injection reactions, we differed on what we thought the real focus should be. Anne Rochon Ford laid out concerns about the speed with which this was approved, funded and implemented. In addition, she noted, as was very well addressed in the paper written by the Canadian Women's Health Network, that the objectives of this vaccination campaign is not even clear. Is it to eliminate HPV? Is it to eliminate cervical cancer? Will possible elimination of the strains covered by Gardasil increase occurence of other strains against which there is no vaccine? Without answering these questions, the start of a mass vaccination campaign seems ill-advised.
LINK: PR Watch
LINK: Judith Siers-Poisson's blog
Fewer women are running in this fall's Northwest Territories election than in 2003, and past female candidates say it's difficult to get elected.
Across the territory, 10 women are vying for seats in the Oct. 1 territorial election. There are 19 seats in the legislative assembly.
"I think the bar is set higher for women. For me, I felt that I needed to answer far more questions than the men candidates,"
LINK: CBC
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minister of democratic reform, Peter Van Loan, are demanding Canada's chief electoral officer ensure that veiled or burka-clad women who come to vote expose their faces to returning officers -- even though the law, which Harper's government passed less than three months ago, has no such requirement.
It is with great sadness that I must inform you that because of the Conservative government’s changes in funding policies to women’s groups, the National Association of Women and the Law is forced to lay off all staff and shut down its national office. NAWL’s Board will keep the organization alive on a volunteer basis, but our capacity to consult with women’s groups and advocate for feminist law reform will be greatly diminished.
We will be holding a press conference on September 20th on Parliament Hill to denounce the silencing of NAWL and other advocacy and research organizations by the Harper government.
…(One of Danny Gordon’s duties) has been, for the past 5 years, to count the number of visitors to Bryant Park (New York City). …
The first Women’s Studies course was taught in Paris, France in 1902. Marguerite Souley-Darqué taught “feminology” at Collège libre des sciences sociales.
Take the quiz at - www.athabascau.ca/wmst/quiz.htm
"It's a lot of practice," says Power, a former University of Alberta Students' Union president. "We want to be pretty tight. We have a few friends who have been cheerleaders before to teach us how to do those types of things."
But Power and Co. aren't practising for the next sporting event. You're more likely to see them in front of the legislature or marching down the streets with fellow protesters.
A decade ago, "radical cheerleaders" were rallying the troops by dancing and singing in unison, often wearing red and black garb (anarchist colours) and brandishing pom-poms made from shredded garbage bags.
Radical cheerleading may have faded over time, but this high-energy form of protest is now making a comeback in Edmonton, fuelled by global warming and the affordable housing crisis.
FULL STORY: Edmonton Journal
Attorney General Wally Oppal says fighting domestic violence is a priority in B.C.
Alfonso Cuarón, director of "Children of Men", and Naomi Klein, author of "No Logo", present a short film from Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism." http://www.shockdoctrine.com (more)
In a Vancouver Sun feature article, UBC’s Hillel Goelman reviews evidence on early childhood education and makes the case for universal pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds. Dollar for dollar this is probably the best investment would could make as a society. But progress has been slow, as it has been framed as a family issue by both sides.
Members of Quebec Native Women Inc. led a protest Friday in Montreal to call on the federal government to support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
On Wednesday, the Free Press reported on allegations a provincial respite worker sexually abused her disabled client in acts that included a threesome that impregnated the Winnipeg woman, who has a mental capacity of a six-year-old. The worker is currently on trial and denies the charges.
The killing of a young sex trade worker in Winnipeg has prompted aboriginal groups to call for the creation of a task force dedicated to the cases of murdered and missing women in Manitoba.
The Southern Chiefs' Organization and two grassroots native groups are pressing the government to create a police team like Project Evenhanded in British Columbia and Alberta's Project Kare. Those task forces are looking into the deaths and disappearances of dozens of people, many of whom were sex-trade workers.
For the first time in Canada's labour history, more women than men are joining unions, according to a recent Statistics Canada Labour Force survey.
A new Statistics Canada study says women now hold a majority of jobs in core federal government employment, a dramatic shift over the past decade.
Marc Lee picked up Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine:
"It is something I’d been hearing about for some time, as I work with her brother, and Naomi gave a teaser with the keynote at our annual fundraising dinner this past February (video here). I’ll leave the summary to what is on the website, and point only to an interview on CBC’s The Current from yesterday and a feature on her in the Globe from the weekend. This is a book you will be hearing a lot about this Fall, so just go to your local bookstore and get a copy. Now."
LINK: Progressive Economics
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decided to delay the opening of the fall session of Parliament to Oct. 16, setting up the possibility of a fall election if the opposition parties vote against the government's throne speech.
Parliament was scheduled to resume on Sept. 17.
That gives us more time to reread Canada: Fifty-two Important Reasons to Drive Out Harper's Tories
As the Harper Conservatives shuffle the deck and polish their image in preparation for a federal election (or perhaps hoping to stave off a trip to the polls), People's Voice wants to remind Canadians why it's so crucial to drive the Tories out of office. Here are 52 important reasons, in no particular order, raised by a wide range of groups, from the Canadian Islamic Congress to anti-war groups to Xtra.ca to the Communist Party. No doubt many readers have other equally valid reasons to dump this wretched gang of ultra-right, warmongering, corporate toadies. Email your favourite reason to defeat Harper's Tories to pvoice@telus.net, and we'll print more in a future issue.
The NDP issued an “equality challenge” to political leaders today in Ottawa. Recently, women have been losing ground in their fight for equality as the Harper Conservatives and Liberals in Ottawa have dramatically cut programs and moved backwards on women’s issues.
“After decades of progress towards equality, ordinary women in Canada are now under attack economically, socially and politically,” said Irene Mathyssen, NDP critic for the status of women.
“Many women in Canada are still not safe in their homes or on the streets. One in four women in Canada is the victim of sexual violence in her lifetime.”
Mathyssen also pointed out that in the workplace, women today only make 70% of men’s salaries, and for university graduates, the situation is only getting worse, not better. Poverty affects almost half of single, widowed or divorced women over 65, and more than 40% of unattached women under 65.
“The World Economic Forum ranks Canada in 14th position, behind Sri Lanka, the Philippines and most European countries. And it will get worse if Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe and Stephen Harper don’t act on our challenge,” said Mathyssen. “Successive governments have stalled progress, and the outright opposition to women’s equality from the Harper Conservatives is threatening to turn the clock back.”
The NDP Caucus’ action plan addresses six major areas of concern for Canadians women:
“This is a much-needed, very comprehensive action plan for equality in Canada,” added NDP caucus chair Judy Wasylycia-Leis. “The NDP is showing leadership by fighting for Canadian women to ensure they are treated fairly. This plan offers effective guidelines and steps, which if followed, can stop the destructive backlash we’ve experienced on women’s rights. We are working towards building a truly equal society.”
The NDP’s challenge is being launched coast-to-coast today with events in Halifax, Vancouver and Ottawa.
Chief executives of American companies made an average of $10.8 million last year, more than 364 times the average pay of American workers, according to a new study by two groups advocating changes they say would lessen the disparity.
Like to see something added to these pages?
Email by clicking here:
