Rex Murphy’s column was maddening

This letter is in response to Rex Murphy’s recent National Post article, “Who else would have the empathy to interrogate our feminist PM?”

Murphy’s article is infuriating and reminds me of when my (well-meaning) dad announced at the dinner table “I don’t know why it’s such a big deal, aren’t women equal to men anyway?”

Murphy deliberates on the fact that there will be five professional women moderating the first federal leaders’ election debate: “There are all sorts of ways to constitute a panel that have nothing to do with the modish and now quite tiresome fascination of putting ‘women’ as a qualifier.”

As a newly elected member of the provincial legislature in Newfoundland and Labrador, I can assure both my dad and Murphy that professional women are not yet seen or treated as equal to men.

Women in Canada make, on average, $18,200 less a year than their male counterparts. I take particular offence to Murphy, a powerful and influential man, telling Canada that feminism isn’t needed at the top.

“This is a great moment for feminism in journalism. And it is good to see it starts at the very top, where it is almost certainly least needed.”

I’d recommend Murphy read Justin Wolfers’ 2015 New York Times article “Fewer women run large companies than men named John.”

In my four months in office, I routinely get mistaken for a partner or assistant of my male provincial and municipal elected colleagues. Even while standing next to them, and after I have introduced myself as the member of the House of Assembly (MHA). I have encountered this twice in the last week.

The first and only words said to me, by a very powerful individual, was “lookin’ good on camera!” And my favourite was a call two months into my new role, suggesting that I was being “too aggressive.”

Other examples I choose not to mention in a newspaper this early in my career.

Murphy rightfully calls out women working in traditionally low paying roles as needing priority and change. I could not agree more, but don’t they need everyone as champions, especially professional women?

I’m sure Murphy and the women and men I encounter in my newly elected role have good and innocent intentions. The suggestion that the fight for equality in Canada has progressed to the point where having a panel of only successful women is beneath us, is ridiculous.