feminism For the CAQ, intersectionality” is just as much a forbidden term as “racism systemic”? The government said this week that this is not its vision of feminism, but experts say it still appears to be exactly what the party stood for just months ago, even if it didn’t name it that.
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What is intersectional feminism?
Let’s go back to the story from the beginning. First, what is “intersectional feminism,” the vision that Minister for the Status of Women, Martine Biron, rejected in the National Assembly on Wednesday?
Intersectional feminism aims primarily to recognize that women do not form a homogeneous group and that some of them may face discrimination on grounds other than gender, explains Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ) President Melanie Ederer.
Like gender, sexual orientation, ethnic or cultural origin, age, socioeconomic status and the presence of a disability can affect people’s quality of life.
Some groups of women “live at the intersection of different oppressions and will face obstacles in their lives that others will never experience,” she continues. This is why we speak of “intersectional” feminism.
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What happened to the CAQ
In anticipation of International Women’s Rights Day on March 8, Quebec Solidaire MP Ruba Ghazal on Tuesday tabled a motion for the National Assembly to “promote gender analysis (GBA+) from an intersectional perspective” to protect the rights of all women defend Quebec,” as reported by Le Devoir.
ADS+ is an approach that helps identify the differentiated effects of policies and draft legislation to prevent inequalities from emerging.
However, the motion could not be debated in the plenary hall. The office of Minister for Women Martine Biron said they wanted to withdraw the section on intersectionality.
DIDIER DEBUSSCISSORS/JOURNAL DE QUEBEC
Minister responsible for the status of women, Martine Biron.
“This is not our vision of feminism,” Minister Biron’s office told Le Devoir.
Last June, the CAQ government presented its Government Strategy for Gender Equality 2022-2027. Among the guiding principles: the right to equal rights for all women, especially those who have been intersectionally discriminated against.
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“We can think in particular of immigrant or racialized women, aborigines, elderly, in a situation of poverty, in a situation of disability or of sexual and gender diversity. In order to propose effective measures, it is important to take an interest in the interactions between these different factors in women’s experiences’, reads the opening pages of the document.
Without mentioning the word “intersectionality,” the strategy unveiled by the Legault government nearly eight months ago introduced the precise definition of intersectional feminism.
Are we witnessing the same debate as that around systemic racism, a term that the CAQ categorically refuses to include in its vocabulary? That’s what Maria Nengeh Mensah, a professor at UQAM’s School of Social Work and the Institute for Research and Feminist Studies (IREF), raises.
A false debate that is violent
“Intersectional feminism is contemporary feminism. The performance is inevitable today,” she explains.
“You have to understand that feminism is pluralistic. For all we know about racial profiling or indigenous women, it’s not very strategic to rule out intersectionality. It’s a wrong debate.”
“But is it the word intersectional that really causes the CAQ a problem, or is it the word feminism?” Professor Mensah asks.
Be that as it may, this refusal to recognize intersectional feminism, even though the government claims to be pro-equality, “perpetrates violence on many women,” criticizes Marie-Andrée Gauthier, general coordinator of the Network of Regional Tables of Women’s Groups in Quebec.
“This means that the CAQ will not work to ensure that all women have access to equality, a life free of violence, security or decent living and working conditions.”
A striking example
A good example of intersectionality can be found in the gender pay gap.
In 2022, a woman made 89 cents for every dollar a man pocketed, Statistics Canada reveals. For racialized women, however, the gap is much larger: they earned an average of 59.3% of what white men earn, according to the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
“Intersectional feminism makes it possible to recognize that different oppressions are experienced simultaneously by people and that they are inextricably linked,” sums up Marie-Andrée Gauthier.