Attack of the 5-foot woman

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.

The price of harassment

An East Coast woman is suing the Halifax Bank of Scotland for sexual, racial and religious harassment.

When Mona Awad worked as a corporate banking manager in the branch in Nottingham “one boss taunted her by saying a colleague had been watching her on holiday wearing a bikini, it is alleged.”

She says he also told her he did not want to work with Asians and mocked her for fasting during Ramadan.

Then when she transferred to another branch in Derby, her new boss started to harass her.

‘He asked me in front of my colleagues in a meeting whether I was “s****ing” an employee of our customer. I was devastated.’

He once lifted up her pant leg in front of staff to show them her leg. 

Ms. Awad is suing the bank and her two former managers. Neither man works with the company anymore, but after she encountered such a hostile work environment in two branches it does raise questions about how the bank failed to protect workers from discrimination.

She’s suing for £16.7 million ($29 million in Canadian dollars) in compensation for loss of earnings, injury to feelings, aggravated damages and punitive damages.

If she gets that much, it could be one of the highest amounts awarded for sex discrimination in Great Britain.

I kind of hope she gets it. Companies can be really bad at handling harassment, reacting months after the fact or simply transferring the complainant or putting her on sick leave. 

Nothing will inspire companies to pro-actively tackle discrimination in the workplace like the potential to lose almost $30 million.

Military Women

Excuse the late post, but yesterday was incredibly busy. Yesterday was also Remembrance Day.

Women have been involved in Canada’s military for more than 100 years.

The largest number of women served during the World War II and many performed non-traditional duties.

When the Navy, Army, and Air Force again let women enlist in the early 1950s, they were restricted to medicine, communication, logistics, and administration.

The Royal Commission on the Status of Women began pushing for greater military opportunities for women and in 1971 the Canadian Forces lifted the ceiling of 1,500, and gradually expanded women’s roles into the non-traditional areas (vehicle drivers and mechanics, aircraft mechanics, air-traffic controllers, military police, and firefighters)

In 1989 a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the Canadian Forces to fully integrate women into all occupations by 1999, including combat roles. 

Today Canadian women can enlist in all military jobs, except for submarine duty (the Oberon Class submarines that the CF currently uses cannot accommodate a mixed-gender crew) and Roman Catholic chaplaincy.

About 7,100 women are in the Canadian forces today, 10.6 per cent of the regular force. In the reserves there are 15,544 women representing about 18 per cent of the reserves.

In 2003 Major Anne Reiffenstein became the first woman to command a combat arms sub-unit.

In May 2006, Capt. Nichola Goddard was the first Canadian female soldier to die in combat since World War II.

Remembrance Day is a wonderful reminder to honour our fallen soldiers. Let’s hope people remember more than once a year to be thankful for those women and men who have served their country and the women who fought for the opportunity to fight for us.

Clothes make the woman

Why is it we never seem to get tired of talking about female politicians’ clothing?

There are a number of things people can attack Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on.

While Mayor, she charged sexual assault victims for the cost of processing their rape kits.

She wants to ban all abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s health is at risk.

An employee quit over her horrible record of not hiring Alaskan Natives.

She keeps using her five kids as political props.

I really could go on all day.

Now Palin is drawing fire for spending $150,000 of the Republican party’s money on clothes for the campaign.

Let’s draw the line here.

While her clothing spending is incredibly high, it’s really unfair to talk about it because we have no point for comparison.

I haven’t seen a single article on what the men in the American election race are spending on their suits. For all we know Democrat VP candidate Joe Biden could be spending twice as much.

It’s infuriating that in this day and age, women politician are still more critically viewed for what they look like and what they wear than what they believe or how they do the job. 

The point the media was likely trying to make is that Palin would be fiscally irresponsible with government money, but there are much better ways to prove it.

Take the fact that she spent $50,000 in tax payer’s money to redecorate her office... twice, while she was Mayor.

May throws well... for a girl

When you have to fight like mad to get in the game, you better come ready to play ball.

And that’s exactly what Green Party leader Elizabeth May did last night in the first of the televised national debates.

It was May’s first national debate and it was in French, which she is still learning, and she did incredibly well.

She managed to get by with her basic French and got in more than a few scripted jabs at Harper’s environmental policy.

It’s rumored she spoke nothing but French for days leading up to last night to prepare.

Don’t let the tree-hugging fool you, May is a politician. Of course, she was going to go into the debates prepared.    

I don’t know why people seem surprised. Maybe they were expecting her to get up there, try to say two words in French and break down crying?       

The “didn’t she do well considering?” reaction to May’s debate performance could be seen as understanding but the cynic in me sees it as condescending. It’s the political version of throwing well... for a girl.

But, really we should be grateful. No one is talking about her cleavage, her outfit, or any knocked-up teenage children.