Blogging Against Sexism -- and for My Candidate

Betsy McGregor got some got some awesome coverage in Peterborough This Week in conjunction with International Women's Day ("Lack of Women in Canadian Politics Lamented").

Kudos to Lauren Gilchrist, who wrote the article, and the rest of the Peterborough This Week staff for understanding why it's important to write about the gender imbalance in Canadian politics. (Only 20.8 of the 308 seats in the House of Commons are held by women.)

While it would be nice to think that the era of equality has arrived (and the Harper government would really like us to believe that, because it would make it easier for them to justify the fall harvesting of Status of Women Canada), the facts speak otherwise.

Canadian women have a long way to go to achieve anything even remotely resembling equality, and pretending that the age of equality has already arrived isn't going to change the very real challenges faced by Canadian women.

Canadian women voters may only be making 71 cents on the dollar, but that doesn't mean we're oblivious to 71 percent of the facts, even if some people are gambling on the fact that we won't hold them accountable for their appalling record on women's issues. Let's prove them wrong the next time we have the chance to go to the polls -- for our own sakes and for the sakes of our mothers, daughters, and those women who don't have the ability to exercise their right to vote as easily as many of us. Let's make our vote count for ourselves as well as those marginalized, invisible women that the Harper government seems to have forgotten entirely when it has declared that equality has arrived.

And as for equality:

Whose equality are we talking about, I ask?

And what generation's definition of equality are we talking about, I ask?

I don't know about you, but I'm not liking this 1950s Ozzie and Harriet trip down gender equality lane.

I've always hated wearing aprons.

Related:
Chatelaine: Harper's No Ladies' Man by Heather Mallick
WomensEquality.ca
Canada’s Statement to the UN Commission on  the Status of Women Misleading and Disappointing
The Mother of All Blogs: How Dean Del Mastro Turned Me into a Political Animal

Comments

[jen]

It's terrific when there is actually someone representing...and I agree - we can make our voices heard. (I can't in this specific case, ok, but i am inspired regardless.