Multidimensionality and the Matrix: Identifying Charter Violations in Cases of Complex Subordination

Abstract

The failure of the Supreme Court of Canada to give more than lip service to “context” when considering claims under s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms arises largely from the Court's analytic framework, which resists recognizing the social relations of power inherent in complex cases of oppression. The precise nature of the flaws in the Court's analysis is demonstrated in a number of thoughtful feminist critiques that received recognition in the recent decision in R. v. Kapp. While it is too soon to tell whether the Court intends to depart completely from the past decade of s. 15 jurisprudence, equality-seeking groups now have greater opportunities to advance alternative theoretical frameworks for Charter interpretation. This article discusses one such framework, multidimensionality theory, which focuses on the interaction of systems of oppression, conceptualized as an invisible matrix—a vast network of complex, overlapping, interactive, and mutually reinforcing systems. The operation of the systems obscures their effects, and their complexity renders outcomes difficult to predict when they interconnect at sites of subordination and privilege. One can expose the operation of the systems by looking at particular sites of oppression/privilege and considering the contradictions or “inexplicability” of the circumstances based on one system alone. The author argues that the failure of the Charter claim at the heart of the Supreme Court's decision in Native Women's Association of Canada v. Canada demonstrates the need for courts to employ multidimensionality theory in cases of complex oppression. In NWAC, multidimensionality theory reveals that the “dominant” Aboriginal groups were involved in the negotiation/performance of hegemonic masculinities within a racial/colonial context that provided them with justification to suppress NWAC's independent promotion of the interests of Aboriginal women in constitutional negotiations with the government, and that the government was complicit in this performance. By framing the freedom of expression issue as whether NWAC had a “special” right to a speaking platform, and the equality issue as exclusively one of determining whether NWAC could prove the other groups were “male dominated,” the Court fragmented considerations of patriarchy from those of racism and colonization, distorting the synergistic effect of the systems of oppression and reinforcing colonial ideology.

(Re)negotiated identifications : reproducing and challenging the meanings of Arab, Canadian, and Arab Canadian identities in Ottawa

“…The multi-scalar analysis of the vignette at the passport office 1 present above already gestures toward the multidimensionality of the processes through which national identity discourses are produced, interpreted, and negotiated (Crenshaw 1989(Crenshaw ,1991Fortier 2006;Froc 2010;Hutchinson 1999Hutchinson ,2001Hutchinson ,2003Hutchinson ,2004. For example, discourses of gender and nation give one another a specifically contextualized meaning within this moment: that the woman at the passport office enacted her gesture of erasure with me, a young woman, but not with my brother suggests that she was mobilizing a gendered interpretation of this tradition of naming which resonates with national and global discourses differentiating Canada and Lebanon.…”

“…The concept of multidimensionality emerged in the field of legal scholarship as an analytic tool which aims to "recognize the multiple and complex ways... all individuals experience oppression and construct categories of identity" (17). Multidimensionality theorists aim to extend the insights of (feminist) critical race theory which has been conceptualized in response to critical legal scholars (Froc 2010;Hutchinson 1999Hutchinson ,2001Hutchinson ,2003Hutchinson ,2004.…”

Exposing biases of omission : an explication of institutionalized heterosexism in public education

“…evidence for preferential treatment of these identities is important to consider in the material examined in this research, a comprehensive examination of these facets of identity is beyond the scope of this study. As argued by Froc (2010), though, it is important to consider not only how modes of identity (e.g. queerness, Aboriginality) intersect as categories, but also how systems of oppression interact.…”

“…queerness, Aboriginality) intersect as categories, but also how systems of oppression interact. In terms of the latter, Froc (2010) and other feminist theorists have likened the importance of interConnectivity theories of oppression to a birdcage:…”

“…As Froc (2010) claims, a "post-intersectional" framework is emerging among American scholars that accounts for both of these layers in critical analyses. This new framework has been referred to as "new complexity" theory, "multidimensionality," "symbiosis," "cosynthesis," and "interconnectivity," though it has not yet received much attention from Canadian scholars (Froc, 2010). For simplicity, I will use the term multidimensionality throughout this project.15…”