Jane Taber, in feminist mode:
It is striking to sit in the House of Commons during Question Period and watch how the big issues of the day are divvied up along gender lines.
Consider two of the significant stories of this fall – the H1N1 crisis and the allegations of torture of Afghan detainees. When it came to dealing with H1N1, women MPs asked the questions and the female Health Minister answered. This changed dramatically, however, when the story moved on to guns, war and torture. That’s when the guys took over. For the most part, the women sat quietly in their seats.
Quite. Silly old gender stereotypes. Imagine, in 2009, assigning portfolios according to outdated sex roles:
As a leading expert on women in politics, the University of Toronto’s Sylvia Bashevkin says this is not uncommon – women traditionally deal with the butter issues (social spending, health and the arts) and men with the gun issues.
“What cabinet positions women historically were offered were portfolios that were seen as a logical extensional of a traditional maternal role: health, education, welfare, culture,” Ms. Bashevkin said.
There is a gender bias, too, when the issue is the economy. The Finance Minister is male (and always has been in the federal government) and so are his opposition critics.
So we’re agreed: everyone thinks this is wrong. Everyone, that is, except … other feminists. Or sometimes even the same ones: when it suits them, they will invoke exactly the same stereotypes, only with a feminist twist — how women are more caring and compassionate, while men are confrontational and macho; how if women ran the world, there would be no more wars; how women lead in different ways, by consensus and relationship-building, while men win through brute force. You only have to Google the word “testosterone” to see how often this line of argument is invoked.
Indeed, you can see this same whip-sawing between equality-seeking and difference-invoking going on just in the course of Jane’s story:
Anita Neville, a Winnipeg MP and chair of the Liberal women’s caucus, doesn’t entirely buy in to the women-are-butter-men-are-guns theory…
“I think there tends to be some stereotyping of it, but I don’t think it’s universal,” Ms. Neville said.
She said that she has asked a question about torture in Afghanistan; she sits on the Commons Defence committee and has been to the special parliamentary committee examining the torture issue.
So gender is beside the point; men and women are on the same intellectual and moral plane, right? Uh, no:
Despite their numbers, Ms. Neville remains positive about the impact of women in the House. She said female MPs can play a big role behind the scenes. For example, she said that the Liberal women’s caucus pushed former prime minister Jean Chrétien to resist sending Canadian troops into Iraq.
Sigh. The boys wanted to play with their guns, until the nurturing, peaceloving Gaiawomen stayed their hands. Of course.
The only way to approach this subject is to accept that there is no logic or consistency to it whatever. Sex differences are irrelevant; sex differences are all-explanatory. Women are equals; women need special treatment. Don’t call me a waitress, I’m a waiter; I’m a Mistress of Arts, not a Master; my title is chairperson/chairwoman/chairman/chair. It’s utter chaos out there, and it’s not going to get any better.
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Hobgoblins. Small minds.
Come on Coyne, everyone knows males are incapable of understanding the ethereal heights of feminist
logicthought.It's sexist of you even to attempt to think about it.
You just confused the domains in which women ought to be participating in, with the attitudes we would bring to them. Not your fault: Jane Taber did the same thing.
Of course, Taber also forgot the party with the woman deputy leader/house leader who regularly leads off question period in the leader's absence on all issues of the day, and which used to have a female defence critic until she retired.
Anyways, it's not the end of the world if you get a bit confused about what women want. Think how confusing it was for women to figure out how to move into and fit into a world not designed by them. Contradictions should be embraced, because we learn from them.
Thank you for giving new meaning to the word "patronizing."
Edit check: "You just confused the domains in which women ought to be participating, with …"
Dear Mr. Coyne,
This might be the most painfully dim thing I've read here yet…and with Colby Cosh on board, that's really saying something!
Mr. Coyne, you are clearly a smart man, which is why it's painful to read something that would garner a Pity C in 1st year university. Feminism is not monolithic, never has been, never will be. What you are highlighting in your inimitable way is the tension between the feminisms of Luce Irirgaray and Judith Butler…even I, with my woefully superficial understanding of feminism, was able to spot that right away. Frankly, your preconceived notions on this topic say much more about you than feminism.
(Wikipedia is your friend sir, use it.)
Why this is a problem for you is mind-boggling. Can you find an example of ANY thought/belief system whose adherents believe the exact same things and on the methods to best achieve them? I can't. Why is feminism not given the same latitude?
Sincerely,
Disappointed.
What is ridiculous is that there even is a complex belief system built around feminism. Why can't we just assume that for the purposes of governance, all PEOPLE are equal and will advance on the basis of merit?
Well obviously you've thought long and hard about all of this…
I stand corrected.
I have not\”thought long and hard\” about feminism; I just assume that the Charter of Rightsand Freedoms should be goodenough to ensure equality, which it is.
From: notifications@intensedebatemail.com
To: jsrobinson@live.ca
Subject: Richard_S_Argent replied to your comment on Would you please make up your minds?
Jane Taber is a terrific example of why women's views aren't taken seriously or pursued. She's got national print and TV platforms, yet conducts herself (and her "news") like a giddy, giggly gossip. I can't think of her male equivalent in political writing — possibly best comparison is Perez Hilton, just kind of mean and sensationalistic, unburdened by dealing with facts, just spin. ____So trying to write a serious analytical column about a silly superfluous woman is an act of futility. It would be if about a silly superfluous man too.____Of all the women journalists working on the Canadian political scene, why not talk about Kady O'Malley, or Susan Delacourt, or Tonda McCharles? While they are all intelligent and curious journalists with terrific writing skills, they are none of them shills for any party, nor are they stymied by being seen as either women or feminist journalists. They're just plain good. ____Actually the more I think about it, the angrier I feel that Jane Viper is put out there as a political woman journalist — perhaps there’s an agenda to giving her such prominent play over top of other, smarter, better women journalists.__
Would you please make up your minds?
Your headline says it all. Women are so flighty, aren't they?
I'm surprised we still put up wit them at all.
Women need to decide that either they are different from men, (and therefore can't be trusted to run things like wars, or the economy), or they're exactly the same as men (and therefore they should just shut up already about being underrepresented in the corridors of power, because it doesn't matter, we're all the same anyway). They can either be marginalized because they're different, or marginalized because they're the same, but they need to decide which and stop pretending that being marginalized is somehow a problem in and of itself.
If women are different from men then we need to recognize that and only let them do certain things. If they're the same as men, then it doesn't matter if they don't get to do certain things because a man would do the job just the same anyway.
Women hold fully 22% of the seats in the Parliament, men only hold the other 78% of the seats. When will Canadian women be satisfied???
"His study comes as the proportion of male teachers is at its lowest level in 40 years. Roughly 80 percent of teachers in U.S. public schools are women."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...
I can't find similar numbers for Canada but I know it's about the same. Do you think it's a problem when more females than males make up a profession or is it only an issue for you when it's male dominated field? How about sports. Black males dominate American sports – should there be quotas to help the laggard white guys?
I do think it's a problem that such a huge percentage of our teachers are women (particularly in elementary grades) but no, I don't support any sort of quota to address that situation. (I also think that just maybe "women aren't as involved in the democratic governance of our nation as they could be" is a different and more serious issue than "women (or men) aren't as well represented in profession X as they could be". Member of Parliament isn't just another job. Parliament isn't just another workplace. Mind you, I'm not suggesting a solution to these complex problems here, just suggesting that we look at these (large) disparities as actually being problems (or at least POTENTIALLY problems).
I agree that maybe women just aren't interested in joining the freak show that is Parliament. So, if we have a system in place that seems like it might (speaking in generalizations) tend to disincentivize more than half of the population from fully participating in the democratic process, maybe that's something we should be looking in to. If the system seems to keep women from wanting to participate, perhaps we should look at changing the system, rather than just shrugging off their under-representation, or trying to change women to fit the system. Is our current system of governance really so super awesome that we can't discuss possibly changing the system to no longer discourage women from participating?
It makes me weary when I think of what type of people who I wish were attracted to politics and the type of people we end up with. There has to be some kind of paradox about the best people for the job of MP would not touch it with ten foot pole.
I think it would be great if we could change what kind of person tries to become MP but I don't like idea of tinkering with system to favour one group over others because other identity groups will want their own representation quotas as well.
I don't like idea of tinkering with system to favour one group over others because other identity groups will want their own representation quotas as well.
I agree with this in broad strokes, my only caveat would be that arguably our current system ALREADY favours some groups over others (men over women for instance). I don't so much want to tinker with the system to make it favour women more, I'd like to tinker with the system to make it favour men less (or not discourage women to the extent that it does). Perhaps one can argue that that is a distinction without a difference, but I don't think so. My goal would be to eliminate barriers, not to erect new or different barriers, and CERTAINLY not quotas.
They already comprise 60% of the federal civil service. Another hundred seats in the House would do what exactly?
Another hundred seats in the House would do what exactly?
I'm not really certain, but I'd like to find out.
I'm also not sure 100 more seats are really necessary, but I can't get my head around the idea that women only holding 68 seats in a 308 seat Parliament is no problem whatsoever.
…I can't get my head around the idea that women only holding 68 seats in a 308 seat Parliament is no problem whatsoever.
I can. Given the repugnant blood-sport that is politics in North America, why would we expect more than 22% of MPs to be women? Women tend not to aspire to be a part of that sort of hyper-aggressive environment. Note the use of the word 'tend'. There are of course numerous individual exceptions to such generalizations.
Yes, but if we have a system in place that seems like it might (speaking in generalizations) tend to disincentivize more than half of the population from fully participating in the democratic process, maybe that's something we should be looking in to.
I do think it's a problem that such a huge percentage of our teachers are women (particularly in elementary grades) but no, I don't support any sort of quota to address that situation. (I also think that just maybe "women aren't as involved in the democratic governance of our nation as they could be" is a different and more serious issue than "women (or men) aren't as well represented in profession X as they could be". Member of Parliament isn't just another job. Parliament isn't just another workplace. Mind you, I'm not suggesting a solution to these complex problems here, just suggesting that we look at these (large) disparities as actually being problems (or at least POTENTIALLY problems).
I agree that maybe women just aren't interested in joining the freak show that is Parliament. So, if we have a system in place that seems like it might (speaking in generalizations) tend to disincentivize more than half of the population from fully participating in the democratic process, maybe that's something we should be looking in to. If the system seems to keep women from wanting to participate, perhaps we should look at changing the system, rather than just shrugging off their under-representation, or trying to change women to fit the system. Is our current system of governance really so super awesome that we can't discuss possibly changing the system to no longer discourage women from participating?
Feminism: The demand that women be treated as equals because they are superior.
"So gender is beside the point; men and women are on the same intellectual and moral plane, right?"
when it comes to corruption, us menfolk are number 1, as there exists an inverse correlation between the percentage of women elected to high office in a country and that country's proclivity towards corruption.
Yeesh, did you read the Globe story this weekend about Gloria Arroyo in the Phillippines, journalists murdered for exposing Arroyo-related corruption, etc.? I guess you're gonna argue that Arroyo is just an exception to your rule? BTW, do you have any statistics or evidence to back up that assertion of yours?
All of this doctrine is just an excuse for "pay equity" and all that other bull. This type of feminism proposes that women are "separate, but equal" from men. There are fewer women than men in Parliament only because more men choose to run. Many successful women would (understandably) prefer to make more money in the private sector, with the result that when parties introduce gender quotas on their candidate pool, there are just fewer qualified candidates.
Sorry, that was my reply to jolyon. Don't know how it got here!
It always goes back the The Simpsons:
Lisa: Assistant Groundskeeper Skinner, don't you think it's wrong that I can't get the best math education because I'm a girl?
Skinner: [sighs] I don't have any opinions anymore. All I know is that no one is better than anyone else, and everyone is the best at everything.