Social Policy in Ontario

Women replace high hopes with steely resolve

Posted on May 4, 2015 in Equality Debates

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TheStar.com – Opinion/Commentary – Twenty years after the Beijing Declaration on gender equality, women review what went wrong.
May 03 2015.   By: Carol Goar, Star Columnist

The world has become a more threatening place since women gathered jubilantly in Beijing 20 years ago to draft a global agenda for gender equality.

Extremism has risen, spawning deadly regional conflicts and mass migration. Climate change has accelerated, making parts of the globe almost uninhabitable. Energy and food prices have become more volatile. Globalization, trade liberalization and public austerity have shifted the economic power balance in ways that undermine women’s rights.

“The world is both wealthier and more unequal today than at any point since World War II,” says UN Women, the international agency created in 2010 to champion half of the human race.

Women have made some progress despite this hostile backdrop, the organization’s chief of research Shahra Razavi notes in a new report entitled “Transforming Economies, Realizing Rights.” More girls are in school. More women hold leadership positions. In most of the world, women can own and inherit property, run for public office and get married and divorced on the same terms as men. Domestic violence, once regarded as a private matter, is now recognized as a societal responsibility. Governments in every region have made legally binding commitments to respect and protect the human rights of women.

But legal rights are not lived rights. Market discipline still trumps equal opportunity. World leaders preach — and practise — austerity.

This leaves women trapped in undervalued, insecure jobs that pay an average of 24 per cent less than men’s wages (18 per cent in Canada). They do most of society’s unpaid work: caring for children, the sick and the elderly. The price they pay for stepping in when the state does not — which the UN report calls the “care penalty” — is exacerbated by cuts in public services. Despite the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action signed by 189 countries, gender equality remains an afterthought — if that — in macroeconomic policy, treaty-making, foreign investment and national priority-setting.

Even in privileged countries such as Canada, gender equality remains far off. Canadian women are doing better than their peers in most of the world. But the trends highlighted in the UN report are plainly visible:

– None of the major economic positions in the Canadian government is held by a woman. Budget-making, trade negotiations, job creation and cost-cutting are all considered men’s work. The prime minister’s chief of staff and senior policy advisers are all male. Only one cabinet committee — social affairs — is headed by a woman.

– There are no female bank presidents in Canada. Just 16 of the 171 corporate leaders in the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (9 per cent) are women. Only one of the country’s big national unions (the Public Service Alliance of Canada) is headed by a woman.

– Although Canada’s 18 per cent gap between men’s and women’s pay is below the global average, it is far from the best. In New Zealand, the gap is 5.6 per cent; Belgium 6.4 per cent; Denmark 7.8 per cent; Italy 11 per cent; France 14 per cent and Chile 16 per cent.

– The “care penalty” is pervasive in Canada. Women cut short their education, drop out of the workforce, reduce their hours, forgo promotions and give up their pension entitlements to look after young children and aging parents. This unpaid work is seldom acknowledged, let alone supported. Mothers, daughters and daughters-in-law are expected to sacrifice their economic security to care for their loved ones.

What is particularly demoralizing for Canadian women is that many of the gains they made in the 1980s and ’90s have been lost in the last decade. The guarantee of gender equality in the Charter of Rights has been weakened by the cancellation of the Court Challenges program,which allowed women to exercise their right to challenge sexual discrimination. Status of Women Canada has been slashed, its advocacy role eliminated. Aboriginal women, seeking justice for their murdered sisters, have been rebuffed.

Nothing is immutable, the UN report insists. The case for a new economic agenda is stronger now than ever, it argues. Increasing numbers of men realize they’re not well-served by the existing arrangement. They, too, need decent work, fair pay, reliable social services and income security as they age. Women’s rights have become human rights.

“This is not a pipe dream,” Razavi says. “The kind of change we need is far-reaching but it can be done.”

Canada could have been the forerunner. Twenty years ago, former status of women minister Sheila Finestone told delegates in Beijing: “As part of our contribution to this world conference, the government of Canada recently adopted a plan for gender equality. It sets out concrete measures aimed at eliminating gender discrimination. One of the key elements of the plan is a gender-based approach to policy development.”

Sadly, Ottawa never followed through.

< http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/05/03/women-replace-high-hopes-with-steely-resolve-goar.html >

Tags: economy, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living, women

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