Small P and Large P Politics and the F Word

From Five Thirty Eight in the U.S. this is an awesome exploration of sexism and women in politics. Please follow the link. When Women Run One hundred years after women were granted the right to vote, the U.S. has more women in political office than ever before. Yet gender has been a major theme of the 2020 campaign, as candidates, voters and the media debate whether a woman can win the presidency. To better understand what it’s really like to try and win an election as a woman, we spoke to women from every state who have done it — 97 women in all. These are their stories, in their words. Each chapter contains highlights from our interviews. Interviews have been lightly edited for clarity. https://fivethirtyeight.com/audio-features/when-women-run/?s=09#af-chapter-3 (Picture August de Richelieu, Pexels)

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...

London On 1919 or 2019: The State of the City:  Bounding into the twentieth Century* or a vision of the future a generation behind. While some were relieved that the Mayor’s agenda was not as “right-wing” as they feared it could be, it certainly was avowedly conservative. And by conservative, I mean, old-fashioned; an elegiac reflection on issues and concerns that drove us a generation ago. It’s all about old-fashioned debt reduction, savings, and any job as an “honest” job. What was notably missing was any reference to or mention of the issues driving today’s feelings of uncertainty, i.e., climate change and work precarity. As a result, the Mayor’s priorities were devoid of any real vision of and for the City’s future. In fairness to the Mayor, it can be said that he was tailoring his speech to the particular audience. The Chamber of Commerce is characterized by its dogged commitment to status-quo business stability, so statements of radical progressive egalitar...

Last term my have been one of the most busiest I've encountered, although it has been said I say that every term. It did mean that I didn't really get a chance to write any blogs, and the writing I did do did not lend itself to easy conversion into blogs. But, now I'm on sabbatical until July. I'm still catching up on some projects I couldn't complete last term, but the office is set up in the basement and I can work in my pajamas (or at least the ones the dog hasn't eaten).

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...