Today I’m taking time to reflect on and appreciate the women in my life: my mother, who shared with me her passion for music, language and public service; my grandmothers – two “Jills”-of-all-trades and veritable forces of nature; I’d even like to take a moment for my father, who has always matter-of-factly called himself a feminist, and aptly manifested what that means.
These positive role models in my life have, in some ways, enabled me to take feminism for granted; so today I’d like to take time to gauge where we are in terms of gender equity, here in Calgary and in Canada. What is Calgary’s outlook for women?
The City of Calgary has recently published Calgary’s “Social Outlook”, which provides an overview of our recent past and projected trends, focusing on everything from employment, to cultural diversity, fitness, housing and safety.
The Social Outlook tells us that Calgary’s women have been developing strategies to become more resilient in a faltering economy, and that overall women have weathered the recession slightly better than men. It maintains, however, that women may experience some challenges more acutely than their male counterparts – often, though not always, due to women’s still predominant role as primary caregiver to children.
For example, women are at a higher risk of experiencing poverty than men in Alberta. They earn much less on average, even when they have the same levels of education, and account for 60% of minimum wage earners; as a result, they experience more difficulty saving for retirement. Because women tend to be the primary caregivers to children, their employment options can also be more limited – particularly given the low numbers of regulated childcare spaces, which accommodate only 17% of children 0-12 in Canada. With less stable employment overall, women thus tend to receive more limited employment insurance for shorter periods of time. Compounding this issue, Alberta is one of the only provinces that provides the bare minimum under federal law in terms of maternal and parental leave. It is no surprise, then, that female lone parent families are among the most vulnerable individuals in Canada; they are even at higher risk in Alberta, however, where 24% of working female lone parents are low-income, in contrast with 16% in the rest of Canada.
These disparities go beyond just wage disparities, which are significant in and of themselves; they encompass disparities in social services and workplace environments, which fail to recognize and support the diversity of contributions that individuals make to their families and communities. As such, they fail to be equitable – focusing instead on being equal. Equity is about recognizing that similar levels of well-being can be achieved in different ways, by and for different people.
Both women and men should be free to negotiate their contributions to their families and communities. Whether contributing paid work, other forms of family/community care, or both, each is immensely valuable – not only to families but to the stability of communities, cities, provinces and the country. In an equitable society, the implication is that individuals will not be penalized for these choices: when they find themselves in vulnerable situations, their level of social security should not hinge on the kind of value they provide to society.
At the moment, social security favours those in paid work; and workplaces, particularly low-wage workplaces, tend not to encourage work-life balance. Thus, our social services and workplaces still don’t fully account for the challenges that women in particular – and their children – face in maintaining financial resilience, and in participating fully in their communities and society at large. And this, after all, is the driving force behind gender equity – equalizing the power differential among men and women, and providing equal opportunity for expression and for well-being, while recognizing that this can manifest itself through different means. As it is, some women are falling through the cracks.
The last several decades show us that feminism is alive and well – and still well needed. We have witnessed milestones in diminishing economic, political and legal disparities among men and women, and we continue to see progress. The women and feminists in my life have helped pave this road, but their work is far from over – gender equity is far from a reality today in Calgary and in Canada.
I would like to see the discussion on gender equity encompassed in a broader effort to render social services equitable. It is increasingly recognized that similar levels of well-being are achieved through different means for different people, but universal services – while providing a critical function – are not equipped to cater to diversity; and in an ever-diversifying social landscape, this challenge will only intensify. Efforts to account for diversity in social services have sprung up across Canada among non-profits working in partnerships with governments, and I encourage continued and increasing support for these partnerships.
