Amidst all the hoopla over Helen Guergis resigning from caucus and cabinet, John Snobolen raises a good point: why do we even have a status of women ministry? He says in the Toronto Sun:
“This government has proven through its actions, time and again, that women in Canada simply do not matter,” [NDP women’s issues critic Irene] Mathyssen said.
This is, of course, complete and utter nonsense. Worse yet, it assumes women gauge the sincerity of a government by the appointment of a minister to a ministry that should have ended long ago.
It is the tokenism of the position of minister of state for the status of women, the meaningless political pandering of questionable women’s groups and the ghettoization of some important social issues that offends many of my female friends.
A female friend of mine in college used to say that there were no women’s issues because every man has a wife, sister, mother, daughter or female friend and the issues that touch those lives touch theirs, too. Furthermore, it is wrong to think of women as a block of people with uniform interests. Who speaks for women? REAL Women/Concerned Women for America or the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (are they still around)/National Organization of Women? Women are much more diverse than the binary division of male/female acknowledges, at least when it comes to politics.
