Do we need more women or feminists in office
If councillors can’t get behind LRT, can they truly represent women on other issues?
I attended the Women and Cities event hosted by the Useful Knowledge Society and I wanted to follow up my last column with some comments about the event.
Last fall, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released its third annual ranking of the best cities to be a woman in Canada. Out of 25 cities ranked, Hamilton came in at 13th place. It’s nothing special to be proud of, nothing so terrible to be ashamed of. In a word: Meh. It’s better than where we fared in 2015 when we came in at 20th place.
One of the categories measured in the ranking was leadership. With one in four city councillors a woman, our rate of participation falls at around 31 per cent. That’s the tipping point, or the critical mass of women needed to exert influence in an organization. Having women at the table is supposed to make a difference, but as the keynote speaker, Linda Peake, professor at York University and director of York’s CITY Institute noted, it’s not about the number of women elected or in decisionmaking roles, but the number of feminists in these roles.
It was interesting for me to note that there were no women councillors in attendance. There were no male councillors either, but you get to expect that sort of thing from the guys; if it says women in the title, unless it’s accompanied by “topless,” men generally aren’t interested. But from the women I guess I expected something more, some solidarity in issues, some common ground in understanding. Maybe they know it all already and there’s nothing new to learn. But I’ve been at this gender game for the last 30 years and even I learned something new, issues were illuminated that I hadn’t seen before. And then I think: if our women councillors know it’s all about women and the city how did they fall down so spectacularly on the LRT issue?
Only one of our five women councillors supported the LRT decision. There were five detractors on the LRT file and four of them were women, even with the improved plan to Eastgate Square. If there was ever an issue that screamed “it’s not the number of women elected, it’s feminists,” it’s the issue of LRT and transit in Hamilton. If our women councillors are having a difficult time with transit and the needs of women, can we be confident they can represent women in other issues such as poverty, safety, workplace issues, child care, or any other issue considered a “woman’s issue” and therefore not of widespread societal interest?
In addition to the keynote delivered by Peake, there was a panel of women advocates from the community who shared their experiences of being and working with women.
Lindsay Goddard, a member of Hamilton for Transit, spoke on the challenges our current transit system poses for women and their families as they use the system to “trip-chain” through their busy lives, using the system for multi-destination trips. While women are “superusers” of transit, there is no data on how women use transit. What informs decision-making then?
Katherine Kalinowski of Good Shepherd Hamilton, addressed housing for women. I’m an empty-nester, my children are grown and gone and this is supposed to be a liberating time for me, and it is. But for women who are on social supports their empty-nester years are plagued with instability as their new living arrangements could mean they are “overhoused” and forced to find smaller accommodations. Aging in place is the issue. Nazia Zeb, a community developer with the Social Planning and Research Council, shared the experiences of racialized women from finding employment to safe space. Susan Barberstock, director of the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre, spoke about the need for authentic engagement of Indigenous women, the importance of relationship building in creating change and suggested it’s time to move from cultural awareness to cultural competency. According to Sonja Macdonald, co-founder and principal at Civicplan, more than 60 per cent of downtown workers are women; professionals, administrators, clerks, cleaners. Is our downtown a space that is welcoming to women? Nope.
Closing remarks were offered by Sevaun Palvetzian, CEO at CivicAction and past senior executive with the Ontario government. She urged women to get involved in the democratic process. She stressed that public servants need to have a better understanding of the lived experience of diverse populations, particularly those marginalized by class, race, ethnicity, sexual identity etc. The Women in the City event was just that kind of event. And it’s not over, there is another event on June 27. I wonder what will it take to engage our women councillors? A silver invitation?
The event proceedings have been uploaded to The Public Record. If you couldn’t attend in person, you can watch online at your leisure.
Margaret Shkimba is a writer who lives in Hamilton. She can be reached at menrvasofia@gmail.com or you can “friend” her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter (@menrvasofia).