Skip to main content

"25%" Documentary on getting young women engaged in politics

Here is a trailer for a documentary project I have been involved with over the past year: 25%. This is a joint project between the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, London City Council, and web.isod.es (a web-based documentary maker based in London), that has been spearheaded by Joni Baechler, our wonderfully activist city Councillor and current interim Mayor. This is part of the Head Start Progam undertaken by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. So far I've taken part in a consciousness raising meeting at King's University College, UWO, officiated by Joni and the three female student council presidents from (King's, Huron and Brescia) and an UnConference with female senior highschool students from London. Earlier this summer I was interviewed by the documentary crew for the final documentary. I hope some of it makes it into the final project. The whole process has been particularly gratifying in meeting enthusiastic young women who are keen to find ways to be active and have their voices heard.

Please check out the trailer at: http://25percent.ca/

About 25%: A Documentary

The United Nations has set a minimum standard for representation by women. in democratic governments at 30%. This was further expressed in the 2011 General Assembly resolution on Women’s Political Participation, which states “that the active participation of women, on equal terms with men, at all levels of decision-making is essential to the achievement of equality, sustainable development, peace and democracy.”
Despite this reasonable target, active participation by women as representatives in municipal, provincial, and national governments in Canada is only 25%.
The City of London is proud to be one of the six communities in Canada selected to participate in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) Head Start for Young Women program. As a part of this program, we are producing a documentary called “25%” which encourages young women’s participation in politics and civil society.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Mayors in Ontario

 Recently, I've been up-dating the information on women councillors in Ontario. The following table lists the women elected Mayors in the municipal elections held in October 2022. The list is organized in order of descending population of the municipality. It notes whether the Mayor is an incumbent or newly elected, while new position indicates that the Mayor is new to the position, but was an already incumbent member of council.  Of the 417 Ontario Councils which held elections, 101 are now led by women. (There maybe a few I've missed, as I have not included Reeves.) Mayor Incumbent or New Municipality Pop Acclaimed Bonnie Crombie incumbent Mississauga 717,961 Andrea Horwath new Hamilton 569,353 Marianne Meed Ward incumbent Burlington 186,948 Elizabeth Roy new position ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The State of Gender Parity in 2019

On December 16, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its Global Gender Index for 2020 based on 2019 country performance. Canada has dropped 3 places in the ranking since the last report a year ago.  Since 2006 the WEF has produced annual reports on the progress made toward gender equality using benchmarks based on four thematic dimensions: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. In the latest edition of Women, Politics and Public Policy: The political struggles of Canadian women, (Newman, White and Findlay, 2020, p. 389) we had this to say of the 2017 report:  According to the 2017 report, no country has fully closed its gender gap; four of the five Nordic countries, Rwanda (4th), and Nicaragua (6th) have closed more than 80 per cent of their gaps. And Canada? Canada does not crack the top ten; it ranks 16th out of 144 countries, which is 2 points lower than its first ranking in 2006. This d...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Low Voter Turnout Actually A Good Thing?

 [It's a provocative position. I hope my answer is a bit more nuanced. Thinking with a pen, so the views are my own and likely to change as I think about it a bit more.] The big talking point regarding yesterday's municipal election in London is the free fall debacle in voter turnout. Only 25.5% of eligible voters cast a ballot, a significant plunge from the 40% turnout in 2018 (the BRT election) and from the 2014 high of 43% (the get rid of Fontana and the Fontana 8 election).  This low turnout is seen as the reason for the rather surprising outcomes in some of the words, namely the defeat of three "incumbents."* Incumbents are considered safe bets because they have name recognition and represent the status quo for voters. Generally, the mass of voters in municipal election have little to guide their votes other than name recognition and a desire not to change things up. However, when that "mass" of voters decides not to show up, that generalized support fo...
Post a Comment
Read more