Attack of the 5-foot woman

Standing on guard for thee

The BBC has a great article on the first female deputy commanding officer of a combat arms unit in the Canadian military, Lt Col Jennie Carignan who is stationed in Afghanistan.

The sidebars include some fascinating info on the evolving role of women in the military. I had no idea it was only a little more than 20 years ago that the Canadian Forces was ordered by tribunal to fully integrate women into the forces.    

Now women make up 13 per cent of the Canadian Armed Forces and are fighting alongside the men in prolonged missions like Afghanistan.

With more women willing to risk their lives to serve their country, the least we can do is make sure gender isn’t inhibiting their ability to rise through the ranks.

Punching their way in

Women boxers will be allowed to compete in the 2012 Olympics.

Boxing had been the only summer Olympic sport without women competitors. Women have been competing in boxing for almost 300 years and they were included in the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.

This puts the Summer Games way ahead of the Winter Games, where female ski jumpers will not be allowed to compete in the 2010 Vancouver Games.

A group of Canadian women ski jumpers tried to fight the discrimination with a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. But the British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Lauri Ann Fenlon said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is not governed by the Charter, and the organization does not fall under the court’s jurisdiction.    

“The IOC made a decision that discriminates against the plaintiffs,” Fenlon wrote in her 42-page decision. “Only the IOC can alleviate that discrimination by including an Olympic ski jumping event for women in the 2010 Games. There will be little solace to the plaintiffs in my finding that they have been discriminated against; there is no remedy available to them in this court.”

The IOC didn’t like being called sexist but is happy not to have to include the women in their 2010 Olympic plans.

“Our decision was based on technical issues, without regard to gender,” the IOC said in a statement.

Tell that to the women who have been dreaming of being in the Olympics for years and now, still in 2010, won’t be able to compete for no other reason besides their sex.

Working mothers being witnesses? Crazy talk

  Apparently busy working mothers can’t possibly remember things well enough to give reliable testimony in court.

Last week when Judge Douglas Cunningham ruled that Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien was not guilty of influence peddling, the judge totally discredited Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod’s testimony because she’s a busy politician with a young child and husband.

“The defence was able to demonstrate that there were a number of rather significant things going on in her life when she gave her statement to the police. ... She was commuting regularly to Toronto for her work, leaving her husband and child in Ottawa,”

He concluded that her evidence was not corroborative of the Crown’s main witness and said, “I must assign it little weight.”    

Awesome, because you know we just have too many women in politics. Women aren’t being put off enough by the crazy hours, intense scrutiny or “old boy’s club”.          

If a successful MPP can’t work and have a family and give reliable evidence, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Maybe all working mothers should be barred from giving testimony in court because our delicate lady brains just can’t be trusted to do all that at once.

We don't support your kind of tourism

Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy has had her wrist slapped after giving $400,000 to support the Pride Parade in Toronto.

Some hardliners in the Conservative party have their panties in a twist because of the funding that was used to help people with disabilities enjoy the parade.

“The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by – I think it’s safe to say by a large majority – of the MPs,” Trost (Saskatchewan Conservative MP Brad Trost) said in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, a website founded by the Campaign Life organization.

And now the cabinet minister has been disciplined for the controversy, losing her power to announce handouts from the $190 million Marquee Tourism Events Program and the decision is being reviewed to “make sure that we have value for taxpayer money”.

Funny that the decision to give $400,000 to the Pride Parade has to be reviewed for value but the $2 million given to the Calgary Stampede isn’t a concern. Wait it might not be funny, it could just be plain homophobic - I always get those two mixed up.

The one thing I’m having trouble understanding is if the “majority” of Conservative MPs would not support the gay pride parade, why did the party have a big float in the Toronto Pride Parade?

I only wish I’d taken a picture of the Conservatives participating in the parade that I could post here, but compared to all the elaborate floats and costumes it was pretty dull.

A woman of firsts

Today is the 25th anniversary of the first woman, Jeanne Sauvé, appointed Canada’s Governor General.

Ms. Sauvé was also the first woman MP from Quebec to be a Cabinet Minister and the first female Speaker of the House of Commons.

When she was a young girl her father, Charles Benoît, would take her to Parliament Hill. The two would visit the bust of Agnes Macphail, Canada’s first woman MP. Mr. Benoît would then tell his young daughter “you could become a Member of Parliament some day if you wanted to.”

That would have been in the 1920s or 30s.

In 1972, Ms. Sauvé was first elected to the House of Commons as MP for Ahuntsic, Quebec and later she would represent Laval-des-Rapides, Quebec.

She had a distinguished political career representing Quebec.

From her first year on the hill she was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of State for Science and Technology. Then in 1974 she became the Minister of the Environment. IN 1975 she was named the Minister of Communications. She was also an advisor to the Secretary of State for External Affairs for Relations with the French-speaking World.

From April 14, 1980 to January 15, 1984, Ms. Sauvé was Speaker of the House of Commons.

She was installed as the 23rd Governor General of Canada on May 14, 1984 until Jan. 29, 1990.

As GG, Ms. Sauvé was a staunch advocate for youth, peace and national unity. She also championed women’s sports and safety in the workplace.

The first female GG retired in 1990 and died in 1993, a year after her husband Maurice had passed.

Playing catch up

It’s Equal Pay Day in the U.S.

Equal Pay Day is a National Committee on Pay Equity public awareness campaign to illustrate the gap between men’s and women’s wages. It symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year.

So congrats, if you’re an average woman you’ve finally caught up with your male colleagues wages from 2008. 

It’s always held on a Tuesday, because Tuesday is the day women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the previous week.

We don’t have Equal Pay Day in Canada, that’s not because we don’t have a serious wage gap problem too.

We have miles to go before we reach pay equity and we are actually losing ground.

“Canada’s economy has a problem – it pays women less than men. It pays women less even when we are just as skilled, just as educated and work just as long. It leaves us with less to live on when our working years are over and it rewards us less when we invest in higher education or put career ahead of family. The bottom line is women are still not equal, not even close, when it comes to the bottom line,” says Barbara Byers, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress.

Those who need to fight for pay equity are on their own after the Conservative government tied some changes to the 2009 budget.

    "The new Public Sector Equitable Pay Act takes away the Canadian Human Rights
    Commission’s power to adjudicate gender-based wage discrimination and hands it to the
    Public Service Labour Relations Board. Only individuals can apply for review (and
    presumably pay the costs). Anyone who helps or encourages them to file an appeal faces
    a fine of up to $50,000.
   
    Equitable pay -- as opposed to equal pay for work of equal value -- for unionized workers will
    be sorted out at the bargaining table and for non-union employees by employers’ “periodic          
    assessments.”"

   

So I’m borrowing the American Equal Pay Day as a reminder of how far we still haven’t come in Canada.

Legal legacy

View this photo Today is the 27th anniversary of the first woman, Bertha Wilson, being appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Bertha was an amazing woman. She was a feminist, out-spoken judge who greatly impacted women’s rights in Canada.

She handed down rulings that let unmarried women claim an equal share of their partner’s property, and considered self-defence from a battered woman’s perspective. She backed a woman’s right to chose in her 1988 decision when the Morgentaler ruling struck down Canada’s ban on abortion. Wilson also chaired a Canadian Bar Association task force on gender equality in the legal profession in 1994.

When she passes away almost two years ago, there was some great coverage of her pioneering career.

Reimagining economic stimulus

The federal budget that came down this week missed a real opportunity to stimulate the economy by making it easier for parents, especially mothers, to work.

An amazing way to kick-start the stalling economy would be to bring in a national child care program.

If it was done well, it could create jobs for early childhood educators, and bring above board the thousands of unregistered home-run child care options parents use because they can’t afford registered day care.

It would give mothers that want to work, the opportunity to work full-time or even start their own businesses.

Spending money on the women who take care of children (their own and other people’s) may seem like a crazy way to battle a recession.

But why is it any crazier then pouring money into make-work projects in male-dominated fields, like building roads and bridges? Roads and bridges are not actually a one-time expense, they have to be constantly maintained and repaired and someone has to find the money to pay for that.

That money could just as easily, and maybe more effectively, be spent on supporting working families who need child care.

The push for a national child care program has been around since before my mother got pregnant with me, Unfortunately in recent years the debate’s been tainted by politicians. Now, if you want national child care you must support the Liberals and if you want $100 a month, you’re Torrie blue.   

But the fact remains wanting good, affordable child care, so that everyone can participate equally in the workforce, isn’t Conservative or Liberal. It’s just smart.

Expecting more for pregnant women

A B.C. woman who was fired after announcing she was pregnant was awarded a $26,000 compensation for discrimination after her case went to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal

The Tribunal ordered Traveland Leisure Vehicles to compensate Hailey de Lisser $21,000 for lost wages and maternity benefits and $5,000 for injury to her dignity and feelings.

It’s great that this woman was vindicated, but $26,000 seems a pretty paltry settlement.

I guess breaking the law by firing a pregnant part-time worker isn’t considered as serious as firing a pregnant full-time employee. Considering how many women work part-time while their children are young, that could leave a lot of women with less protection.

Canada's birth rate is increasing, but between bad employers, lack of affordable day care and the wage hit women take for spending time at home with a newborn, it’s amazing anyone is deciding to have children.

A few good women

I had a history professor who said Canadians rarely build statues and monuments to our heroes, the greatest honour a Canadian can get is to have an elementary school named after them.

I’m sure an arboretum is an equal honour.  

Local nature lover Minnie Pennell worked to make Cobourg beautiful for decades and this week she was recognized by the town for her effort.

Council decided to name the tree sanctuary at Elgin and Burnham Streets the ‘Minnie Pennell Arboretum’.

Minnie spent years trying to convince the town to create the arboretum and then was instrumental in choosing the types of trees planted in the park.

The town also considered naming the arboretum after Susanna Moodie, an anti-slavery English settler to Cobourg in the early-1800s who was an author best known for ‘Roughing It in the Bush’.

They decided to wait for something related to writing to bear Ms. Moodie’s name. Maybe we can look forward to seeing Susanna Moodie’s name on a new wing of the library.

While the town is naming places after bad-ass Cobourg women, I hope they consider Alice Wilson.

Ms. Wilson was a geologist born in Cobourg in on Aug. 26, 1881. She spent a lot of her childhood outdoors, canoeing and camping with her father and two brothers.

Her early interest in the fossils in the limestone formations around Cobourg turned into a career as an eminent paleontologist. In 1909 she became the first woman to hold a professional position at the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) labelling specimens and keeping records.

Back then women weren’t allowed to work in the field but through her persistence she was eventually assigned the Ottawa-Saint Lawrence Valley. She became known for her detailed studies of the fossils and rock of the lowland.

The Geological Survey gave cars to its male employees but would not give one to Ms. Wilson, so she bought her own.

The GSC gave employees paid leave to further their studies but it took seven years for Ms. Wilson to convince her employer to grant her leave to get her PhD. She was 48 when she earned her doctorate in geology.

In 1935 Ms. Wilson became a member of the Order of the British Empire. Then the GSC finally published her work for the first time and gave her a promotion.

In 1936 she became a Fellow in the Geological Society of America and in 1938 she was the first woman Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada.

At 65 she retired and five people had to be hired to replace her.