Political Mavens, Laurie Blakeman

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Political Mavens

A feminist since the age of fourteen, MLA Laurie Blakeman has 40 years of activism under her belt. She is an unrepentant, some would say “militant” feminist and social advocate who has worked to make changes both inside and outside the political realm. She was first elected as a Liberal to her home riding of Edmonton Centre in 1997 and since that time she has served on House committees, as a Shadow Minister for Environment and Culture & Community Spirit, and as both the Official Opposition Deputy and House Leader. She has also performed the duties of Executive Director for the Alberta Advisory Council on Women’s Issues. It is no wonder that she received the 1999 YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, an early distinction for a long career of creating change for women and all citizens. You can learn more about her here. MLA Laurie Blakeman graciously agreed to chat with me. When we managed to connect and here’s what she had to say:
Q: How and why did you get involved in politics?

A: Anyone who’s interested in changing the world they live in will eventually get involved in a number of different things. I got involved in several organizations, walked in a lot of marches, wrote a lot of letters, made a lot of speeches, but at a certain point, I felt that I wasn’t about to move my issues any further without getting involved in organized politics. So, I did the research, found a party, and joined a young campaign team that worked to elect a new female representative. At that point, I was asked to join the constituency board for that party and ran for that riding four years later.  I now know that running and winning that first time is pretty special. A lot of great politicians fail many times before they win and it’s very important that they stuck with it.

Q: Why do you think women should get involved in politics?

A: People are still active in changing public policy, but I see an abandonment or mistrust of organized politics.  This is a mistake. Maybe because they are impatient, wanting a bigger voice sooner, there’s an increase in women participating in special interest groups instead of politics. It also used to be the politics were one of the only places that women could change their world and now women are able to be leaders in other fields and industries. Now politics have to compete to get the bright women into the field and right now they aren’t doing well attracting them. However, while you can affect some changes in legislation outside organized politics, you’re working one ring out. More women need to be involved in politics and if the structures don’t work for you, change it. To me, not having women on committees was not acceptable. No women with economics degrees for committees? No. Go out and find them. I raise the issues, ask the questions and put in the work to make system changes. There’s a lot of people remaining one circle out from actually changing policy. Yes, it’s a male set up, adversarial, and combative. Women can be combative. I’ve been very successful in changing policy, and from the opposition the whole time. There’s less hooplah when it happens, but that doesn’t mean it’s not success.

Q: What issue do you see as particularly important for women?

A: We’re continuing to seek choice, access and opportunity. Ultimately, we’re trying to get women to participate fully in our province, and our country. That happens in a social, legal, and economic way. For example, we’re not going to have full participation if many women are working minimum wage jobs, but the province refuses to increase minimum wage. In fact, too much time is spent on the social issues as opposed to legal or economic. Equal legal and economic access and opportunity are crucial. If women can’t earn the same amount, you have less access to full citizenship.  You have less access to buying power, higher education, positions of power, etc. Pay attention to women’s economic status. That’ sabout choie as well. That’s about being about to stay at home and be respectd ffor that and making that economic choice.

Q: Have you ever experienced any discrimination as a woman in politics? If so, describe your experiences and how you handled them.

A: I never know how to response; it’s kind a “Duh”. Of course I’ve experienced it. You have a public profile so that other people can throw stones at you and I am still a minority in my workplace. Others have the advantage of making more money and having fewer expectations about their time. In reality, every politician could do with a wife, but I don’t get that, so I’m still doing the work at home that my colleagues don’t do.

Specifically, I have had a member attempt to assault me in the House in front of other members, without consequence. There was also no help from the Speaker or Sergeant-at-arms, and that allowed for a long period of targeted verbal harassment that went on over a year. No one did anything to help until I went back into the community and explained what had happened. Women’s organizations rallied around me. Neither the structures that were in place within government nor the officials designated to deal with this helped me, but the women who were running events and organizations worked to create a place where I could work safely and even triumphantly. I would be surprised if something like the assault happened today, but then I was surprised that it happened then.

Q: What is your Dream for Women?

A: The full and equal participation of women in the life of… fill in the blank. The city, the province, the country. Everything aspect.

Women have to come a lot further in their economic and legal status. The Charter [of Rights and Freedoms] allows for that, but if we hadn’t had women working to make those changes in the Charter, we wouldn’t have section 15. That’s about a legal standing and you need that legal standing before you can enforce these equalities. We’re been able to do that, but we’re still behind. Political representation is part of that legal heading and we haven’t reached that critical mass yet. I started in a caucus that was 50% women and have been in one where I’ve been the only one, and I can tell you it’s a lot easier when there’s 50% women.

Q: What advice do you have for young women?

A: Just do it. Politics, it’s a busy life. There are more things to do than you have time for, but in reality there’s only a few people between you and what you want. If you want to do it, you can. If you’re waiting for someone to show you a way or help you out or organize until it’s perfect, you’ll wait a hell of a long time. No one has time to tell you how, and there’s never a perfect time. Just do it. If you’re trying to change the world, go out and start changing it. If you really want to do something, you say I’ll do it, you do the work, and you’ll get it.  Look to yourself. Go back to your roots. You have to change the structures that led to problems. I did that.

Finally, anger is a great energizer, and I recommend it. Anger is a great energizer, and I recommend it. I think women are often too nice and we do get angry, and we some see anger as not a quality that women should have, but that anger can be energizing to action and if we embraced our inner anger more often we’d get more done. We also have to embrace the inner joy, of course. However, how do I keep going? Outrage is a great energizer. We need a lot of energy and we have a lot of things to be done. I thought there’d be a lot more done by now, but we have far to go still.

MLA Blakeman also happens to have a Youtube channel where citizens can watch politics in action. Check it out an example!

Here she’s a talking about gender reassignment surgery issues in Alberta and its funding in the province through healthcare. However, she has a number of videos on a broad spectrum of issues, from censorship to human rights. They’re definitely worth a look.

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The Feminist Freethinker: The December 6th Edition

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December 6, feminism, Montreal Massacre, Violence against women

Image © Sandy Kowalik, Purple Ribbon Campaign Coordinator
PEI Advisory Council on the Status of Women

On December 6, 1989, at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, a man name Marc Lépine entered a classroom with a gun in his hand. He ordered the male and female students to stand at opposite ends of the room. “I am fighting feminism,” Lepine said, “You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.” He then shot the women from left to right, killing six and injuring three. He then moved quickly through the rest of the school, looking for more women to shoot. In total, fourteen women were killed, ten more injured, and four men were injured. Finally he turned on the gun on himself and ended his own life. His suicide note accused feminists of ruining his life.

The Montreal Massacre dramatizes the ideological war against feminism. Problematically, most demonizations of feminism rely on a misunderstanding of what feminism actually is. Lépine was motivated by the belief that feminism was oppressive, and that, in culture, it is women who oppress men. This is a gross skewing of the most essential facts of feminism. While feminism encompasses a wide range of ideological positionalities, the uniting definition of feminism is distinctively anti-oppression: feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of sexual equality” (OED). That’s right: feminism is anchored in the ideal of equality. Feminism seeks to eliminate oppression, not to be the hand that administers it. As for Lépine’s belief that it is women who oppress men in society, just think on the fact that there were fifty men in that engineering class that day, but only nine women, and think of the Montreal Massacre as one of the countless acts of violence targeted disproportionately at women by men. Lepine’s war against feminism was saturated with a dreadful irony: he attacked feminism by re-establishing the patriarchy that was already ripe in the scene.

We at Antigone remember the women who were killed and the men and women who were injured with solemnity, sadness, anger and love. And we ask that when you encounter someone who demonizes feminism, that you invite them to think critically about their beliefs and to learn more about feminism at Feminism 101.

The Feminist Scholar: The Performance of Feminism Issue 3

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equality, feminism, Masculinism, NeoLiberalism, patriarchy, The Feminist Scholar, Women's Movement

“I’ll be Post-Feminist in a Post-Patriarchy”:

The Boundaries of Privilege between Wo(men)

This week’s entry is, I think, rife with debates which I struggle with in my advocacy and I am therefore going to draw upon the words and experiences of some of my inspiring fellow feminists in Vancouver to discuss the problem of privilege.

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To my mind, one of feminism’s greatest strengths is its insistence on self-reflection as the cornerstone of any ethical inquiry into the lives and experiences of others. In other words, it insists that we examine privilege. One of the greatest struggles for me personally is my position of privilege within the movement itself as a white woman. I cannot and should not to presume to speak for others unless I can situate myself in a manner which neither appropriates nor collapses the processes of representation by which other women make their voices heard–the means to which, I’ll admit, still escapes me.

While I certainly agree that we can no longer use woman as a category–and certainly not as an additive position from which all women can speak, since indeed white feminists have a legacy of that kind of thought–there is a part of me which still buys the necessity of difference. This is not to say I seek to revive the second wave, but rather that there are many injustices and oppressions still suffered by many women at the hands of colonialism, imperialism, racism, heteronormativism, and perhaps the most insidious ism of them all neoliberalism. But enough with the ‘isms’: what do I mean you ask? Well, I’m going to cite the current debate within our feminist community at UBC as to whether the “women’s centre” should remain the “womyn’s centre” and the political ramifications of changing a single vowel within an admittedly loaded word.

The deconstructionist in me prefers “women” because it maintains the interrelatedness of the genders and the inextricable-ness of one sign from an’other.’ Nonetheless, I also sympathize with the statement made in claiming the ‘y’ in the word. To resignify ‘womyn’ is to rebirth the category as a safe space distinct from the systemic oppression inherent in the very patriarchal nature of language itself. I quote from the current debate on the topic within their group’s website. Anoushka Ratnarajah sums up the debate quickly and efficiently:

As for the womyn thing, it comes from a legacy of feminism that seeks to challenge privilege within the construction of language. It’s not because we want to banish all thoughts and evidence of men by reworking the word; we simply seek an eye catching way to make people think about the connotations of power inherent within language. And Woman or women are words that can and have been reclaimed by feminists from their patriarchal legacy. To use women, womyn, wimmin interchangeably, is a way of pointing out the ways in which language is steeped in legacies of sexism, and show how the reclaiming or reworking of language can be an empowering experience for the oppressed.

She continues on to explain the rationale behind maintaining the ‘y’ form of the term and equally the need for spaces which do not erect boundries:

Women’s only spaces exist because they need to. Safe spaces for marginalized people need to exist, because the rest of world is very often a place where they experience personal and political violence. By encroaching on this space, folks with more privilege will create more anxiety and anger in marginalized people. There is an equal need for allied spaces, for only if we work together, can we defeat systems of oppression. However, until systematic and personal violence against women ends, we will need places and spaces where we feel safe and accepted. Many women on campus have experienced violence at the hands of men, and therefore feel like they need JUST ONE ROOM in which they feel safe. A group of marginalized people coming together to support each other is not about the exclusion of privileged groups. It is about making a space in which we feel safe to support each other, to vent, to cry, to get angry, to celebrate our successes and work together to challenge our oppressions. We need that. We need to be able to speak freely, without fear of being shut down, for being called angry feminists, or angry colored people, or angry homos. We need people around us who know what we’re going through, because we have a similar embodied experience of oppression, our struggles and victories. Spaces exclusive to marginalized people ARE problematic, but they are only problematic because the reason they need to exist is because patriarchy, colonialism and heteronormativity have excluded marginalized people from participating in many spaces in the world.

In such a view a womyn’s centre takes on the task of edifying a boundary in order to create a safe space within which those who are too painfully familiar with the oppression of the current system can begin to examine their experiences. These sorts of spaces are very necessary and I think create very self-reflexive boundaries. They seek, in other words, to erect a wall in order to break it down. Trauma is usually conceptualized as absent from the conscious minds of its sufferers; it needs to be symbolized in order to be worked through. I speak here not of the systemic violence which we all regardless of gender, race, sexuality, class etc… are subject to in a patriarchal culture, but of rape or violence as an ‘exceptionally’ embodied violation–exceptional as both outside of and singularly violent. The centre quite literally excludes in order to include: to give victims back a sense of their self which we normally take for granted.

One of the comments made by a very self-satisfied commenter regarding the debate annoyed me. He claims:

You can rehash all your college lectures on women[‘]s studies that you feel have put you in a place of authority on the subject, and you can give me textbook tirades on how tough you have it, but the fact remains that no issue is one sided. This idea that a dominating male perspective is overly pervasive in everything one ever does takes the onus of responsibility away from the individual and instead places them in a category of victim, where one can repeat “I’ve been wronged! I’ve been wronged!” without actually changing anything. I feel like the stance you take is so polarizing that it eliminates any prospect of the progressive movement you’re trying to advocate for.”

All I can say is: you’ve entirely missed the point buddy. The fact that the individual carries the burden of responsibility for his or her difference, violation, victimization, and experience of oppression is patriarchy at its very best. Feminism works to break down the idiotic and harmful illusion of individuality which we cling to and which results in the mind-boggling policy decisions made by the likes of Sarah Palin in making rape victims pay for their own rape kits.

One of the most insidious and likely enduring facets of neoliberalism is its edification of the individual through the misnomer of choice. That is, capitalism reinforces the individualism which Western society embraced in the 18th century by offering ‘choice’ as a means to self-definition. In a consumer society, continued consumption and thus the success of a market economy depends on the ability of the consumer to gain something unique from his or her transactions in society. We gain some sense of uniqueness or individuality through the way we ‘style’ or choose our manner of consumption. Of course, the very illusion of choice is only a front designed to get us to continue consuming under the pretense that we can find our authenticity through exercising that age-old tokenism of democracy ‘free will.’ Forgive my sarcasm, but, in such a system anyone who claims, like our oh-so-honourable PM Harper that women’s equality or those who pursue it comprise a left-wing fringe group, is off their bloody rocker!!! We will not be equal unless and untill we start to examine the need we have to assert this very authenticity. What is it? What does it mean? I tend to regard it as another form of privilege in disguise, but that is a discussion for another time.

When young women my age ask me if “I hate men” or why I think feminism is still necessary, I groan inwardly every single time. Feminism is as much about interrogating how patriarchy and all other forms of oppression work against women and men alike as it is about the history of women’s oppression. Masculinism, as a discourse which paints feminism as reverse sexism misses the point. Working toward equality as I’ve said before discriminates against no one. Sexism is a discursive apparatus which effects men and women. Feminists don’t engage in reverse discrimination in attacking what are usually predominantly white-male dominated institutions, they are simply asking that we reflect on how patriarchy reproduces and reinforces itself. I may be born white, but that doesn’t mean I can’t effect change, I just need to acknowledge my position.

Thus, I come to my opinion on the debate between e and y. I personally feel that while safe spaces are very necessary and valuable undertakings, and that we should continue to protect them, we are at a crossroads in the feminist movement and in order to sustain the kind of inquiry which Women’s Studies departments undertake we need, as Ratnarajah notes, to create “allied spaces.” If I were a young woman seeking to learn more about feminism and who had no knowledge of the movement, as is likely to happen because Gender studies are commonly excluded from highschool curriculums, I would feel alienated by and likely unsure of my ability to contribute and participate in a group which used a ‘y.’ This could of course be mediated by community education and aggressive ‘marketing.’ But frankly, we have reached the crest of what could be a very fast downward spiral into the grave of gender studies. We just don’t have the resources to do that kind of re-education unless and until we break down the walls within the movement itself. At this point, we need to bring people together more than we need to divide them. Perhaps, then, it should be people like Ratnarajah leading the charge so that these allied spaces do not reproduce the very systems which they seek to challenge.

Sexism sells, but we’re not buying it

Media companies may think that sexism sells, but I’m not buying it! The Women’s Media Center is calling on national broadcast news outlets (CNN, FNC, MSNBC and NBC) to “stop treating women as a joke; to stop using inherently gendered language as an insult or criticism; and to ensure that women’s voices are present and accounted for in the national political dialogue.” Tucker Carlson and Marc Rudov, shame on you. Do I see a ‘Most In Need of Enlightenment’ Award nomination in the future?

Sexism isn’t a partisan issue.

What if Belinda Had Been Bob?

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Belinda Stronach

I have always been fascinated with how much ire, and spite that mentions of Belinda Stronach occasion. I first became interested in her when she ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party. At the time, I was shocked by how badly she was treated and ridiculed by the media and the general public. Apparently, because she was blonde and good looking, she was also necessarily stupid. After her break up with Peter McKay and her subsequent move to the Liberals, we also found out that she was essentially what boiled down to being a useless prostitute. Excellent. Lovely. Wonderful. And here I thought we were in the 21rst century. My apologies, shall I get out my apron now and get back in my place?

Think what you like about Belinda, but I strongly believe that the way in which she was treated in public life is indicative of a problematic gender bias within politics that is simultaneously disavowed even as it is perpetuated. Whenever I hear people talk badly about Belinda they like to contend that it has nothing to do with her gender… even when they are attacking things that have everything to do with her gender. They then, of course, go on to attack other prominent women in Canadian politics like Kim Campbell, Rona Ambrose and Martha Hall Findley claiming its not ‘women’ per see that are the problem but just these women. Uh huh. Okay. Keep believing that.

In the recent Chatelaine, Kim Campbell mentions Belinda saying: “She would have had a better ride if she were not a woman.” I think that’s something very interesting to consider. What if Belinda wasn’t a woman? What if Belinda had actually been born ‘Bob’ and Bob Stronach had suddenly appeared on the scene to run for leadership of the Conservative Party? Would the media or anyone else have been so concerned about calling him a ‘Silly Heir'(And can someone please tell me why Heir is not nearly as derogatory as ‘Heiress)? Would his experience at being CEO of one of Canada’s largest companies have been discredited as Belinda’s so often is? Would he have simply been called Daddy’s Boy, a silly, stupid creature who has had everything given to him and who has no hope in politics?

Or would people have said that he had ‘balls’ for running for leadership in 2004? Instead of you know… those icky ‘ovary’ things that Belinda has… as if anyone possessing those could be gutsy or a good leader! Because having ovaries and, even more offensive, having blonde hair and being attractive means that you’re an idiot. Life is, after all, the punchline of a dumb blonde joke.

In my interview with Kim Campbell, what I really appreciated was her comment on how women’s successes just don’t ‘stick’ to them in the same way men’s do. Of the 18 men that preceded Kim Campbell as Prime Minister, only 8 had more cabinet experience than she did. But that didn’t stop people, and the media, from characterizing her as someone who had never done anything before!

So, I want to take this moment to consider exactly what Belinda has done in her career in business and politics, so that maybe the next time someone immediately tries to characterize her as a good for nothing ‘woman’ (Ewww!), they perhaps think twice and actually look at her accomplishments and whether they think they are good or bad at least take them for what they are. Its time that women’s accomplishments start to have staying power!

Belinda Timeline: (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

• A member of the board of directors of Magna from 1988 until 2004.
• Became a vice-president of the company in 1995 and executive vice-president in 1999, until her appointment as president and chief executive officer.
• Has chaired the boards of Decoma International Inc., Tesma International Inc., and Intier Automotive Inc., all in the auto parts sector.
• Was a founding member of the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council and served on the Ontario Task Force on Productivity, Competitiveness and Economic Progress.
• Is a director of the Yves Landry Foundation, which furthers technological education and skills training in the manufacturing sector.
• In February 2001, she was appointed chief executive officer of Magna. While CEO, the company added 3,000 jobs in Canada. Under her leadership Magna had record sales and profits each year.
• In 2001, the National Post named Stronach as the most powerful businesswoman in Canada; and, in the same year, the World Economic Forum named her a “Global Leader of Tomorrow.” Fortune Magazine ranked her #2 in its list of the world’s most powerful women in business in 2002.
• She was also named one of Canada’s “Top 40 Under 40.” In April 2004, Time Magazine ranked her as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.
• In 2004, she contested the leadership of the newly formed Conservative Party, finishing a strong second to Stephen Harper.
• In the 2004 federal electionn, she was elected Conservative MP for the riding of Newmarket—Aurora in the Greater Toronto Area.
• On May 17, 2005, she crossed the floor of the House from the Conservatives to the governing Liberals and entered cabinet as minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and minister responsible for Democratic Renewal.
• During her time as MP Stronach chaired the Liberal’s Women’s Commission and was instrumental in launching the Liberal’s Pink Book, which contains policy suggestions for issues that affect women.
• Stronach was targetted for defeat in the 2006 election as part of Conservatives’ larger goal of a breakthrough in Ontario, especially in the Toronto suburbs (popularly known as the 905s). However, while the Conservatives won a minority government, Stronach defeated her Conservative challenger, Lois Brown, by an eight-point margin.
• She was a strong voice for women in politics and for liberal renewal.
• In 2006 She co-chaired the Millennium Promise Convention in Montreal with Canadian Television personality Rick Mercer. This event was a national campaign to enlist Canadians to help protect children in Africa from the ravages of malaria.