Au Revoir, “Mademoiselle” January 27, 2012
add a comment
Feminists in the French town of Cesson-Sevigne have abolished the use of the word “Mademoiselle” on official forms. Women will be addressed as Madame from now on, regardless of age or marital status. This is nothing new to American, Canadian and British women, many of whom opt to be called Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.
The idea is that women do not want to be defined by their marital status, a freedom which men have always enjoyed and sometimes take for granted. While this might seem like a minor change, it is actually an important step toward dismantling institutionalized sexism.
As the Los Angeles Times points out:
Before the French Revolution, the use of “Mademoiselle” had little to do with whether a woman was married; a laywoman or commoner was always called “Mademoiselle” to indicate she was of lowly status. Only women of high birth were addressed as “Madame.” “Damoiseau,” meaning “squire” and serving as the male equivalent of “Mademoiselle,” was dumped in France decades ago.
This speaks volumes to the idea that women are treated as second class citizens. Arbitrary differences such as this, based on nothing but gender, constitute discrimination. Identifying women based on their marital status or age when men are identified by neither is just one piece of the massive gender double standard. (more…)
Reflecting on Women’s Worlds July 29, 2011
add a comment
Thanks to Sussanne Skidmore for writing this reflection on her week at the Women’s Worlds Conference earlier this month. Sussanne is a BC GEU activist, feminist, and lesbian from Prince George, BC. You can find her on Twitter at @SussanneS.
I consider myself very lucky to have been able to attend this year’s Women’s Worlds Congress on behalf of BC GEU component 12 Administrative Services Component. The conference theme was Inclusions, Exclusions, Seclusions: Living in a Globalized World. Each day brought us a new sub-theme – Day 1: Breaking Cycles, Day 2: Breaking Ceilings, Day 3: Breaking Barriers and Day 4: Breaking Ground.
The Conference was attended by over 1800 women from all over the world. It was inspiring and motivating to be surrounded by women from all over the world, women from unions, universities, women’s organizations, business women, women of color, radical feminists, anarchists, lesbians, students and women with disabilities.
There were three priority areas of the conference: facilitating intergenerational discussions, honouring Aboriginal women’s knowledge and culture, and rendering the event accessible to women with disabilities. Through in-focus sessions and concurrent sessions these issues were critically looked at, discussed and debated by the congress delegates. As a feminist lesbian woman I tried to reach out and participate in a wide variety of sessions to expand my knowledge and understanding of women’s issues through out the world.
I participated in the following sessions: Transnational Lesbian Feminist Activism and Globalized LGBT Rights discourse, Profile This! Muslim Women and Trans People’s Resilience through Art, Smashing through the Old Boys Network: Effective Lobbying for Women’s Rights, Combining our Strengths: A Partnership between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Women, Redefining Political Spaces: A Global Conversation on Women’s Rights, Political Participation and Representation, Bloggers without Borders, Ethics of Responsible Travel Blogging, The Loveliest Girl in the World, Social Media: Responsibilities and Opportunities for Women, and Connecting Indigenous Generations through Oral Stories and Performance. The long list of options of sessions that delegates was so full and diverse that it was very hard to pick which ones to go to and they all offered so much that it was hard to choose.
Women’s Worlds has left me with so many great experiences and so much knowledge but there were definitely a few things that stuck in my mind. One of those things was that it is so important that as feminists, as women to come together and recognize our differences and diversity. We need to celebrate those differences and use them to work together to reenergize the feminist movement so that we can move forward and build a world where women’s rights are taken seriously and women all over the world can know freedom. The other thing I really took from this was that we must build bridges, we must recognize our differences amongst women and find our commonalities so that we can work together as a united force of women all working towards common goals.
-Sussanne
Note from Jarrah:
In case you missed it, you can catch E. Cain’s re-caps of Women’s Worlds here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.
And for critical analysis of the conference’s problems, including it’s anti-sex work focus, I recommend the following articles posted at the Shameless Magazine blog:
- Young Women’s Representation at Women’s Worlds
- Recommended Reading: “Hostile Clashes Dominate Women’s Conference”
Women’s Worlds Report: Day 2 July 6, 2011
2 comments
E. Cain continues her coverage of the international feminist conference Women’s Worlds, being held this week in Ottawa.
On second day of the conference, the sessions I attended centred on one of the issues I am most passionate about – women in politics.
First up, I attended a session on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities which was led by several city councillors from across Canada, including trailblazers Pam McConnell and Marianne Wilkinson.
Despite the common misconception that women are more likely to participate at the municipal level, the reality is that only 24% of elected councillors/mayors are women and we would need to elect a whopping 1,414 more women municipally across Canada to reach 30% (a critical mass)! Clearly, there is much work to be done and the FCM is a great starting place. They run a variety of programs to encourage women to get more involved politically: they will be rolling out a National Mentorship program across the country; and they offer scholarships for female college, university, and also high school students interested in politics.
Next up, as this is an international conference I seized the opportunity to learn about women’s political representation in other countries.
In a presentation by Dr. Parvathy Appaiah from University College (India), she pointed out that in India, the world’s largest democracy, women’s representation stands at a dismal 10.8%. However, I was interested to learn that Indian women have been organizing for over a decade to pass the Women’s Reservation Bill, legislation which would reserve one-third of seats in government for women. The Bill was first introduced in 1996 and was reintroduced several more times until 2010. Over this time it received much opposition from male Members of Parliament; the following are actual quotes from debate transcripts on this Bill:
“The women who involve themselves in politics are those with short hair cuts, women with short hair aren’t women at all.”
“Once the Bill passes, it will be mothers in the Lok Sabha (translation: Lower House) and fathers in the kitchen.”
Despite this opposition, the Bill finally passed the Upper House in 2010 with an overwhelming majority. However, it has yet to be implemented as the Upper House holds fewer seats and has much less clout than the Lower House. It also seems somewhat counterintuitive that is has taken so long to pass this Bill as similar legislation has already been implemented for local councils where at least one-third of the seats are reserved for women.
The next presentation by Dr. Kabahenda Nyakabwa focused on women’s representation in Ugandan politics where women occupy 35% of seats in government. To me, what was most interesting in this analysis was her observation that women’s electoral success has not contributed to the empowerment of women at the grassroots. For instance, there has not been increased attention to issues that impact Ugandan women, like maternal health, access to contraceptives, safe abortions, etc. In addition, this increase in women’s representation has exacerbated the urban-rural divide, with female politicians coming mostly from the urban centres.
This last presentation reminds me of Jessica Valenti’s quote: “A woman candidate isn’t always a woman’s candidate.” But, I must say that coming from a Canadian context where gains have been painstakingly slow, I admire the progress India has made in pushing for a concrete solution; as well as the achievement which Uganda has made in reaching such a historic high for women in politics – it stands as an important symbol for women of the next generation that politics is an area they can (and should) pursue.
-E. Cain
