Where are the Women?
Author: anne | Date: February 17, 2007 | Please Comment!Last week I participated in a discussion hosted by the Sheldon Chumir Foundation and the Famous Five Foundation. The topic was women in politics; questioning why there are so few women holding elected positions within Canada. It is shameful that a mere 20% of MPs are women, while only 17% of MLAs and 11% of elected officials in the federal governing party are women.
The night included a short skit poking fun at Stelmach’s choice of cabinet. They joked about a picture of the cabinet from 1921 where Irene Parlby,the first and only woman in the cabinet, was standing in the centre of the picture, surrounded by a sea of old, white, males. “Compared to today’s cabinet,” the actors said sarcastically, “we’ve made great advances! Now there are TWO women in the cabinet!” They were still surrounded by a sea of old, white, men!
The night mainly focused on roundtable discussion of three concepts for increasing the number of women in politics in Canada:
1. Forming a women’s party for the advancement of women (This was tried for a period of time, with success, in Iceland in the 1980s). I would (and did support this, here and now in Alberta!)
2. Setting gender quotas for nominated candidates in all parties (This apparently works best in a system with proportional representation – which Liberals support)
3. Taking a stance of “no taxation without representation” (This was the premise behind the Boston Tea Party – if the political representation does not exist, taxes should not have to be paid)
At the end of the night, each table shared the best new idea they had come up with, and political scientist Doreen Barrie picked the best one: a general strike by ALL women for one day to draw attention to the impoartant role women play in society.
Overall, I think the issue is a difficult one. There is no doubt in my mind that we need more women in elected positions.The difficulty lies in how we can eliminate the barriers to women, and encourage them to run for office. One group, working hard on this issue is In Balance International (IBI). They are attempting to have institutional, non-profit and corporate boards (as well as political parties) become more representative of the general population (i.e., increase the number of women in these positions). I encourage everyone to visit their website, www.inbalanceinternational.com, which will be launched March 8, 2007.
11:53 pm on February 17th, 2007
http://www.inbalanceinternational.com
can you check the link or maybe the site is down, or a temporary glitch in the net
7:32 am on February 18th, 2007
These ideas are interestingly old school especially the genreal strike idea. Massive organizational effort required and it wont work. The best idea I think is to combine “quotas” with the idea of no taxation without representation. Since federal political parties are now funded publically based on the vote they recieve, simply mandate that 35% of candiates this year in an election, 40% next year 45% in 2009 and 50% by 2010 have to be women, or the party loses money on a prorated basis for their election campaign. It is absolutely women funding parties through taxes without representation. It should stop and it is easy to accomplish it takes one bill in parlaiment.
11:58 am on February 20th, 2007
As I understand, the In Balance International site won’t be operational until the launch on International Women’s Day (March 8th). If it’s not working after that, I’ll look into the link to see if there’s a problem.
Anne
(David’s admin assistant)