by In the midst of running what seems to be an endless sequence of statistics demonstrating persistent gender differences in political engagement in Europe (read: what dissertation research will do to you), I must admit to deliberately avoiding local Canadian stats on women’s involvement in the current federal election.
In the midst of running what seems to be an endless sequence of statistics demonstrating persistent gender differences in political engagement in Europe (read: what dissertation research will do to you), I must admit to deliberately avoiding local Canadian stats on women’s involvement in the current federal election.
That is, until today: Equal Voice, a multi-partisan advocacy group dedicated to increasing the number of women in politics, released the final tally of female candidates today. Here’s the good news: two parties, the Liberals and the NDP, are running over 33% women candidates, meaning that over one-third of their candidates are women. Two other parties, the Bloc and the Greens are just under 30%.
Here’s the not-so-good news: the Liberals have never run so many women, arguably because they’re electoral fortunes have been rosier in more recent elections. If Donald Savoie’s view of most Canadian politicos is correct, one of the only reasons why women’s numbers are up with the Liberals this time around is because men don’t want to play the political game if they’re not guaranteed a win. Many of the women the Liberals are runnings are sacrificial lambs.
The NDP’s numbers aren’t a surprise as they’ve had a gender parity clause in their nomination procedures for a number of years. When competitive ridings are examine, the NDP does better than the Liberals, with nearly 40% of the New Democrat women candidates in winnable ridings compared to 28% for the Liberals.
The most depressing numbers come from the Conservative (quel surprise), who are running just under 20% women candidates and only 15% of those women are in winnable ridings.
Why does all of this matter? It depends on one’s view of representation. Those who argue that MPs are just delegates from their constituency would suggest that a man could represent the views of the women in their constituency as well as any woman could. Fair enough, I suppose, though this representation view forgets that the plurality of political opinions found in Canada are often replicated at the local level.
What matters more, in my view, is the fact that women tend to hold significantly different policy positions than men. Women, on average, prioritise the welfare state over tax cuts and are more dovish in foreign policy than men. Vicariousness matters as well: women tend to be more engaged in politics when they see other women doing politics at the elite level.
Who’s in government also matters: the Harper government completley eliminated many Status of Women Canada programs, ignored policy recommendations for immigrant and at-risk women stemming from SoW funded research, and completely eliminated the section of the Statistics Canada website relating to women. This all directly relates to how well I can do my job, and I thank my lucky stars I learned what StatsCan collects on women before Harper was elected.
What does this all mean? I must admit, as someone paying attention to gender differences, I cannot help but conclude that 1) gender representation matters and 2) some parties do this WAY better than others. Do I think right-wing parties in Canada represent me as a woman? They might have, back in the old Flora MacDonald days of the Progressive Conservatives, but they certainly do not now. Do the Liberals? Not when they think they can win/only when they think they can’t. The NDP does OK, as long as they enforce what’s on paper, and I honestly don’t think the Greens or the Bloc have really given this issue much thought.