Small P and Large P Politics and the F Word

I came across this article while doing research on another project. As a woman who tries to be a bike commuter to and from work I am "into biking" and haven't properly considered the gendered nature of the activity. This article is from Interface: a journal for and about social movements  Action Note Volume 3 (2): (November 2011) 180 - 186  Please check the Journal out at http://www.interfacejournal.net/ Bike Babes in Boyland: women cyclists’ pedagogical strategies in urban bicycle culture  http://www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Interface-3-2-Hoffmann.pdf Bike Babes in Boyland: women cyclists’ pedagogical strategies in urban bicycle culture Melody L Hoffmann Abstract “Where are the women?” is one of the most common questions asked by those dedicated to expanding the number of cyclists on the road. Some common answers are: women do not like to ride on busy streets, are concerned with their appearance, do not feel strong e...

Listening to "As It Happens" this evening, there was an interview with Minister for Democratic Institutions, Karina Gould (pictured below left, source Hill Times), who has taken flack for breastfeeding in the House of Commons. It seems there is a distinction between being a Minister and a plain old parliamentarian in the back benches or opposition. Here's another call-out box I've written for the chapter on women representatives for the book. It gives some background on the breastfeeding in parliament issue and how the House of Commons is adapting to the increasing number of younger women in the House. Babies in the House Parliamentary tradition holds that anyone not a Member or an officer of Parliament is a ‘stranger’ in the House of Common, in other words, not really supposed to be there. Today a convention is taking hold that would have babies and young children exempt. In 1980 Liberal MP Sheila Copps was the first woman to bring her baby into Parlia...

A news report from CBC at 11:25am June 7, 2018 states, “Voters at a few polling stations in Toronto, Ottawa and London, Ont., reported problems with new machines being used to check voter lists and tabulate votes on election day. The glitches were causing long lineups, slowing down the election process, voters said. There were reports of electronic vote tabulators not working, errors in electronic databases, internet connectivity outages, and staff who were not well versed in the new machines giving long explanations on how to use ballots.” Does this sound familiar? I posted a blog a day after the New Brunswick provincial election in 2014, called “Panic in the Midnight Hour,” recounting the response to …. breakdown and glitches in the electronic voting machines. As elections go Monday night was rather exciting not because of some very tight races, but because of the growing hysteria fueled by the on-air media coverage about the tabulation. “Glitches” wit...

Between the election and doing revisions to the Canadian Women's Politics book, I'm rocking the blog this month. This is a departure from my election commentary and is a synopsis of the Atlantic Monthly article I tweeted out earlier this week which I am using as the basis for a call-out box in the chapter on women's representative politics. BTW: Thanks Mum for bringing the article to my attention! Damned If She Does   In April 2018, Atlantic Magazine ran an article clearly illustrating the problems of being an effective and ambitious woman with considerable political power. Democratic congressional minority leader Nancy Pelosi, the article argues, is “the most effective congressional leader of modern times” However, the Democratic Party’s most effect member is now considered the party’s biggest liability. The problem is she is the most vilified politician in the United States. This vilification started in 2003, when a “twisted” version of her face was used in a Re...

It's late Wednesday May 6th and a fuller survey regarding Guelph showed up in my twitter. There is no indication what the source is, but it looks like it might be from the survey released earlier in the election reported in the Tribune Mercury on May25th. It has the Greens in the lead with 31%, but the NDP is close behind with 29%. PC's sit at 25% and Liberals at 14%. The more recent poll, reported on Monday has the Green up at 32.7% so it would be really great to know where that gain has come from. However, the upshot is that this is a close race between the Greens and the NDP. It really is going to come down to where Liberal voters go or if they decide to sit it out at home. A bit of a nail-biter here.

Checking the LISPOP (Laurier Institute for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy, http://maps.lispop.ca/ontario_projections/ ), it lists the riding of Guelph as too close to call. Guelph is interesting because it is where the current leader of the Green Party of Ontario, Mike Schreiner, lives and is running as a candidate. Given collapse of the Liberal vote and the rise of an Any Body but Ford mood in Ontario and the nature of the riding itself, Schreiner has a good chance of becoming the first Green Party Member of the Ontario legislature. In 2014, Liberal Liz Sandals won the riding with 41.5% of the vote, followed by the Progressive Conservative candidate, Anthony MacDonald with 20.8%, and then Green Mike Schreiner with 19.2%. The NDP came fourth with 17.7%. That Schreiner out polled the traditional third party in Ontario politics certainly shows that he has personal popularity and recognition in the riding. So, the indication is the Green Party has reasonable traction in Guel...

At some point in my life while discussing voting with my father he recounted that prior to our immigrating to Canada in the 1970s, in UK elections he would go into the booth and scrawl "bollocks" across his ballot. It was his way of expressing his disillusionment with the politics in England at the time, which probably played a part in his and my mother's decision to leave the UK for Canada in 1974. For many years, I've argued that declining rates of electoral participation might not necessarily be a sign of apathy and disinterest in politics, for some non-voting might be a political choice -- it might very well be an act of protest. However, this is impossible to measure, as there is no indication you are "acting" politically or you are just uninterested and apathetic. How then does one "actively" display one's disillusionment or contempt for the process, candidates or parties? There is my father's solution, to walk into the pollin...

I started this blog back in 2014 after the Ontario election by discussing the number of women who ran and their success. This time I'm ahead o the ball, so today I'm giving you the lowdown on how many women are running, for which parties and where. Earlier this week, in honour of Mothers' Day, Andrea Horwath announced that more than 50% of the NDPs candidates were women (69 of 124 or 55.6%) ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ndp-liberals-pcs-women-election-voters-1.4661203 ). She praised the NDP for insuring that gender equity principles are part of the nomination process. To their credit the other mainstream parties have all increased the number of women running, this is even with the addition of 17 new ridings in this election. The percentage of women running for the Liberals has increased by 10% and the Progressive Conservatives have increased their number by 8%. The Greens come closest to the NDP running women in 64 of 125 ridings, according to a count of their w...