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This collection of essays explores the often antagonistic relationship between women and political life in Canada. While women make up little over half of the total population in Canada, they are in many ways conspicuous by their absence from the Canadian political scene.
Women have reached the highest levels of public office in Canada’s provinces and territories, but what difference – if any – has their rise to the top made? Have they changed the content, tone, and style of politics? What role has gender played in their triumph and defeat? In Doing Politics Differently? leading researchers from across the country assess the track records of eleven premiers, including their impact on policies of particular interest to women and their influence on the tenor of legislative debate and the recruitment of other women as party candidates, cabinet ministers, and senior bureaucrats. Canada stands out for the variety and number of women who have reached the top in subnational government. By evaluating the performance of women premiers across the country and comparing their records with those of men who preceded and succeeded them, this innovative volume probes how important demographic diversity is to government decision making.
From the days of the fur trade through the contemporary period, women have played important roles in the public life of Canada. Until the 1970s, however, these contributions were generally overlooked. This book focuses on two questions: are the doors to participation presently open wider than they were in the past? How can these doors be opened wider, both in terms of real-world participation and our scholarly understanding of public engagement? These tightly argued essays shed new light on the public involvement of women. Sophisticated discussions of both solutions and problems make this book an indispensable resource for students and practitioners of politics at all levels.
Canada is often held up as an example of a healthy democracy. However, the Canadian public is less enthusiastic about the way our democracy works. This first-of-a-kind book approaches the “democratic deficit” from the perspective of everyday Canadians and assesses the performance of Parliament and the media in light of their perceptions and expectations. In doing so, a number of chapters highlight the disjuncture between perceptions and performance. Canadian Democracy from the Ground Up is essential for anyone who would like to learn how to build a better democracy – one that meets the expectations of the Canadian public.
Electing a Diverse Canada presents the most extensive analysis to date of the electoral representation of immigrants, minorities, and women in Canada. Covering eleven cities, as well as Canada's Parliament, it breaks new ground by assessing the representation of diverse identity groups across multiple levels of government. Electoral representation is an important indicator of a democracy's health, and this book provides both a baseline for future research and an outline of the key challenges facing Canadian democracy.
Feminism’s Fight explores and assesses feminist strategies to advance gender justice for women through Canadian federal policy over the past fifty years, from the 1970 Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women to the present. The authors evaluate changing government orientations through the 1990s and 2000s, revealing the negative impact on most women’s lives and the challenges for feminists. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated misogyny and related systemic inequalities. Yet it has also revived feminist mobilization and animated calls for a new and comprehensive equality agenda for Canada. Feminism’s Fight tells the crucial story of a transformation in how feminism has been treated by governments and asks how new ways of organizing and new alliances can advance a feminist agenda of social and economic equality.
The first book-length treatment of the political representation of women in countries with parliamentary systems based on the Westminster model. Written by a major international team of authors, this new study features twelve chapters on both new and established parliaments, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It tests the latest theories about women's political representation within Westminster style assemblies and is organized into three key sections that: examine the extent to which the descriptive representation of women in the ‘old’ Westminster parliaments has progressed in recent years, and the factors which have enhanced or impeded development. explore...
Both yesterday's suffragists and today's feminists have battled for women to vote and hold office, and their successes have made it possible for countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Iceland, Liberia, and the United Kingdom to have female heads of state. Despite these notable advances, women are still largely underrepresented in parliaments and governments around the world. Why, after so many years of feminist struggle, are women still obstructed from full political citizenship by a glass ceiling? Manon Tremblay's 100 Questions about Women and Politics discusses electoral politics in Canada and abroad, focusing on women's rights to vote and run for office in legislative elections, po...
Born in 1907, Ida Martin spent most of her life in Saint John, New Brunswick. She married a longshoreman named Allan Robert Martin in 1932 and they had one daughter. In the years that followed, Ida had a busy and varied life, full of work, caring for her family, and living her faith. Through it all, Ida found time to keep a daily diary from 1945 to 1992. Bonnie Huskins is Ida Martin's granddaughter. In Just the Usual Work, she and Michael Boudreau draw on Ida's diaries, family memories, and the history of Atlantic Canada to shed light on the everyday life of a working-class housewife during a period of significant social and political change. They examine Ida's observations about the struggl...