Women are still languishing far behind men when it comes to political office-a problem that was the subject of a panel held at Massey College last Wednesday.
Four prominent women spoke on the panel entitled “Missing: women in politics” about the lack of women in political office. Jane Pepino discussed structural obstacles to increasing the participation of women, Rosemary Speirs emphasized the importance of electoral reform, and two serving female politicians-NDP MP Peggy Nash and Waterloo counsillor Jane Mitchell-shared their experiences.
Canada ranks far behind other countries such as Germany, Norway, and Rwanda when it comes to the proportion of women holding political office. Indeed, Norway (their parliament is 45 per cent female) and Rwanda (48 per cent female) are far ahead of Canada when it comes to equitable gender representation in politics. For years, the Canadian government has maintained its glass ceiling at 20 per cent.
Peggy Nash spoke about her experience in the NDP, where she was elected for the first time as an MP in the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park. “I cut my teeth on movement politics in the Canadian Automotive Workers’ union,” said Nash. She said she considers the CAW just as much of an “old boy’s club” as Ottawa politics.
Pepino outlined what she sees as the four big problems preventing women from becoming political candidates. “Lack of cash, child care, committed parties, and coaching in the political process all hamper women,” said Pepino, who headed a task force in the 1980s to study women’s lack of participation in politics. Even though the problem of having insufficient money to run for a nomination and election has eased, Pepino still singles out party riding associations for their lack of support.
“There’s a sense that the party headquarters wants to see more women candidates, but the riding associations often don’t follow through on this,” she said.
Rosemary Speirs, a journalist and the founder of Equal Voice, a multi-partisan action committee devoted to getting more women into every level of Canadian government, stressed that some kind of proportional representation reform is needed in the electoral system.
“We are losing ground in terms of the number of women elected to office,” said Speirs. “Only 12 per cent of Conservative candidates in the last election were women and only six of the 27 cabinet ministers are women,” she continued. Paul Martin’s government was not much better: the Liberal cabinet had 23 per cent women versus the 22 per cent in the Conservative cabinet.
The media was also blamed for being “complicit” in excluding women. “Women want to run but the gatekeepers prevent them, are biased against them,” Speirs said. “Most journalists in the National Press gallery in Ottawa are male and they just don’t see the problem.”
“The language of politics is male,” said Jane Mitchell, a municipal politician in Waterloo. “The problem of child care just does not occur to men.”
“Proportional representation is really the key to getting more women into political office,” said June McDonald, a representative of Fair Vote Canada, after the panel.
“Ontario is having a citizens’ assembly to review electoral reform and it is likely to lead to a referendum next fall.”
