We are all equal now

Abstract

This article examines the Canadian case, focusing on the ways in which the political rationalities that have informed the Canadian variants of post-war social liberalism and neoliberalism have opened and then closed spaces for the articulation and institutionalization of gender-based equality claims-making. The article recounts how the Canadian welfare state underwrote a unique gender equality infrastructure inside the state and a thick field of gender organizations in civil society and later how this potent political and symbolic node of social liberalism became a critical field of contestation for those promoting neoliberal political rationalities. The article describes a protracted war of position in which the gendered politics and identities of the 20th century have been displaced and marginalized, but not fully consumed by neoliberal idioms, representations and policy interventions.

Spaces of Power: Feminism, Neoliberalism and Gendered Labor

“…Welfare states, while looking to curb benefits paid to 'dependent' women, had to invest in development, empowerment and training and to launch a multiplicity of 'social' programmes in order to enable women both to contribute to the economy and to manage care work. It is not the case, then, that women were included in policy and economy in ways that left the social order unchanged (Brodie, 2008): neoliberalism had itself to adapt and flex to take account of feminist projects.…”

The Harper Government's New Right Neoliberal Agenda and the Dismantling of Status of Women Canada and the Family Violence Initiative

“…As stated on its 'Who We Are' webpage (SWC 2013b) when Harper was in power, Status of Women Canada existed to advance equality for women through sponsorship and coordination of efforts focused on 'increasing women's economic security and prosperity; encouraging women's leadership and democratic participation; and ending violence against women and girls'. These aims remained consistent with the work of Status of Women Canada from the 1970s forward, during which it functioned as a site through which feminists and feminist-sympathetic individuals and groups networked and strategized to enhance support services for women, conduct research, and lobby federal, provincial and municipal governments and the international community on a range of issues salient to gender inequality (Brodie 2007(Brodie , 2008Gabriel and MacDonald 2005;Jenson 2008;Kantola 2010;Kantola and Squires 2012;Mann 2008Mann , 2012Morrow, Hankivsky and Varcoe 2004;Rodgers and Knight 2011;Shaw and Andrew 1995;Weldon 2002).…”

“…As has been the case with women's policy machineries in Europe and Australia, Status of Women Canada has been subject to what is now a more than two decade-long succession of reductions to its funding and authority, reductions that ironically coincided with cross jurisdictional acceptance of gender mainstreaming as a policy goal (Bacchi and Eveline 2003;Brodie 2007Brodie , 2008Dobrowolsky 2008;Gabriel and MacDonald 2005;Hankivsky 2008 In Canada, the 'pinnacle' (Rodgers and Knight 2011: 573) Canada-funded projects demonstrate that they contributed to the economic wellbeing of women. As part of this, it began imposing measurable outcomes and associated indicators of innovation and performance upon competing grant applicants and, for the first time in Status of Women Canada's history, extended funding eligibility to for-profit agencies (Knight and Rodgers 2012: 267).…”

“…This has undermined the capacity of the Initiative to meet its mandate (Brodie 2007(Brodie , 2008Mann 2008Mann , 2012Morrow, Hankivsky and Varcoe 2004;Weldon 2002 Initiative agencies faced increasing pressure to acknowledge, to measure, and even to foreground men's victimization. Clearly, a discursive shift towards a more degendered perspective on intimate partner abuse and other aspects of family violence was in evidence prior to the coming into power of the Harper government (for example, Lupri and Grandin 2004;Tutty 1999).…”

“…Clearly, a discursive shift towards a more degendered perspective on intimate partner abuse and other aspects of family violence was in evidence prior to the coming into power of the Harper government (for example, Lupri and Grandin 2004;Tutty 1999). This demonstrates that, as in the US, the UK, Australia and beyond, the Government of Canada was bending to demands that it rethink its commitment to prioritize research into the gendered determinants of family violence and funding for women's shelters and other feminist influenced protections for women and girls (Brodie 2007(Brodie , 2008DeKeseredy and Dragiewicz 2014;Dragiewicz 2008Dragiewicz , 2011Girard 2009;Mann 2005Mann , 2008Mann , 2012Morrow, Hankivsky and Varcoe 2004;Rosen et al 2009 (SWC 2014b(SWC , 2014c(SWC , 2014d. Rather than minimize or deny, these recent additions highlight that, with respect to sexual violence broadly (SWC 2014b(SWC , 2014c, and with respect to the emergent issue of cyberbullying and internet luring (2014d), 'women [and girls] represent the vast majority of those who are sexually assaulted and that gender is a fundamental determinant of sexual violence' (SWC 2014b(SWC , 2014c.…”