The Rise and Stall of Canada's Gender‐Equity Revolution

Abstract

The growing symmetry in gender roles is a revolutionary change as consequential as technological advances and globalization. We illustrate how the social world in Canada has changed for women and men over the course of the last century, both in terms of greater gender equity and of policies supporting equity. However, some of the significant changes that occurred in the last 100 years have recently stalled, while the overall progress has been uneven for certain subgroups. We suggest reasons for both the stalling and the unevenness and make policy recommendations for reigniting the march to enhanced equality between the sexes.

Combining Gender, Work, and Family Identities: The Cross-Over and Spill-Over of Gender Norms into Young Adults’ Work and Family Aspirations

“…Moreover, differences between young males and females’ norm perceptions (top half Table 2 , last column) indicated that young females estimated men’s current career investment significantly higher than young males do, and they perceived prescriptive norms to indicate more strongly that men should invest in a career and that women should invest in a family. Thus, young females perceived gender norms to be even more traditional than young males, which could be explained by the fact that women experience more disadvantages from traditional gender divisions than men (Eagly et al, 2000; England, 2010, 2011; Gerson, 2010). …”

“…Moreover, societal changes lead women especially to increasingly consider “having it all,” that is, pursuing a successful career and family life (Hoffnung, 2004). Indeed, in the last decades, women’s career involvement has increased greatly (England, 2010, 2011), while at the same time women continue to have the main responsibility for family tasks (Hochschild and Machung, 2012; European Commission, 2014). …”

“…We predict that such relations will especially occur for women, since their roles have changed more toward those of men than vice versa (Eagly and Diekman, 2003; Croft et al, 2015). Moreover, matching their aspirations to male norms means an opportunity for self-improvement for women (Corcoran et al, 2011) since roles typically occupied by men tend to be higher in status and authority than roles typically occupied by women (Eagly et al, 2000; England, 2010, 2011). …”

Gender Bias in Canadian Politics: A Content Analysis of a Canadian Prime Minister’s Speeches in 2015

“…Men more often run in ridings where winning is likely and where their chances of getting re-elected remain high from election to election. Guppy's and Luongo's (2015) analysis of gender trends in politics suggested that the gender equity movement in Canada has "stalled" (p. 241). With less than one quarter of House seats occupied by women in 2014, Canada's parliament was ranked 61st in the world for gender equality in federal politics (p. 250).…”

“…Since a heavy majority of politicians in Canada are male (Guppy & Luongo, 2015) and this majority is carried into media newsrooms (Women's Media Center, 2015), messages pass through a double lens of male perspective before being presented to a general audience.…”