Politics as if Women Mattered: A Political Analysis of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women 9781487574079

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Politics As If Women Mattered A Political Analysis of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women

The National Action Committee on the Status of Women marked the twentieth anniversary of its founding in 1992. Today, it is the umbrella organization for roughly six hundred women's groups in Canada. The authors of this study argue that, if women's movements are to achieve their equality goals, they must develop enduring institutions that allow women's efforts to be organized over the course of several generations. The authors examine the process of institutionalization through an in-depth study of the National Action Committee. In the belief that women's movements in Canada have become more or less permanent features of the political system, operating parallel to its official structures, the authors argue the need for a feminist political science that can accommodate the study of both women's politics in their autonomous movements and women's conventional activities in official politics. Indeed, this book undertakes political analysis 'as if women mattered': it focuses on women's interests and draws on feminist theory while remaining connected to the broad framework of political science. The book documents NAC's evolution as a 'parliament of women.' It shows how the organization moved from a fairly narrow status--ofwomen focus in its policies to a broadly conceived policy framework that linked such apparently sex-neutral issues as free trade, federalism, and taxation to feminism. Although the more comprehensive feminist approach to public policy proved dangerous for NAC in a conservative era, it also solidified its role and reputation as a major player in equalityseeking politics in Canada.

Jill Vickers is

Professor in the School of Canadian Studies, Carleton University. Pauline Rankin is an instructor in the School of Canadian Studies, Carleton University. Christine Appelle is a psychotherapist in private practice in Ottawa.

Politics As If Women Mattered: A Political Analysis of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women

Jill Vickers, Pauline Rankin, and Christine Appelle

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 1993 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018

ISBN 0-8020-5850-7 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-8020-6757-9 (paper)

Printed on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Vickers,Jill, 1942Politics as if women mattered Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-5850-7 (bound). - ISBN 978-0-8020-6757-9 (paper) National Action Committee on the Status of Women. Women's rights- Canada. 3. Women -CanadaSocial conditions. I. Rankin, Pauline. II. Appelle, Christine. III. Title. 1.

2.

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

To the women ofNAC, who have made women matter in Canadian politics

Contents

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments Abbreviations

xm

xv

Introduction 3

NAC and Women's Politics in Quebec 7 NAC and Women's Politics in the First Nations 9 NAC and the Politics of the 'New Force'

IO

NAC as the Coordinating Institution of the English-Canadian Womens Movement I 1 Highlights of NAC's Development

12

Notes 14 I The Intellectual and Political Context for the Development of NAC IS

An Overview of Women's Movements and the National Action Committee 17 Canadian Political Culture and Canadian Womens Movements 30 Radical Influences on Feminist Political Culture 41 NAC's Political-Opportunity Structure: The Canadian Political System 51 Summary 61 Notes 63

viii Contents

2 NAC in the Shadow of the Royal Commission: The Founding Era, I972-I978 65

'Social' Movements and the Political Process 66 The Founding of NAC 73 Summary 90 Notes 92 3 The Struggle for NAC: The Transitional Era, I979-I982 94

The Issues in Conflict: Grafting On a Radical Grass Roots 94 Two Coalitions Competing for the Future of NAC 106 Notes 130 4 A New Parliament of Women: Institutionalizing NAC, I982-IC)88 IJ2

Getting NAC 'Back on Track' 135 The Great Leap Forward: The Expansion Examined 142 opposition on the Right 146 Organizational Review 148 Conclusion 152 Notes 153 5 Agency, Leadership, Representation, and Democracy in NAC I55

A Revolution of Rising Expedations: NAC Member Groups 158 Leadership and Accountalnlity: Is Anyone Here in Charge? 171 Representation: The Heart of the Matter 194 Process and Democracy in NAC 198 Notes 203 6 The Policy Process: Structures for a New Parliament of Women 205

Changi,ng Conceptions of the Policy Process in NAC 208 Evolving Policy Structures in NAC 215

Contents ix NAC's Ability to Deal with Short-Term Policy Issues 234 NAC's Approach to Long-Term Policy Issues 236 Summary 242 Notes 242

7 Feminist Ideology and Policy Making in NAC 247 In Search of a Framework: Understanding the Ideologi,cal Trends in NAC 249 The Deuewpment of a Feminist Ideologi,cal spectrum in NAC: Some Benchmark Issues 255 From a Status-ofWomen Approach to a Feminist Politics 268 Notes 278

8 Conclusion 282 lVhat Is Success? 283 Can NAC's Rnk as a Parliament of Women Continue? 284 Is Radical Liberalism Outmoded as a Cultural Basis for NAC Politics? 289 Will NAC Survive? 291

Afterword 293

Appendix A 297 Appendix B 305 Glossary 321 References 329 Index 341

Preface

In this book, we offer a fundamental challenge to conventional, malecentred ways of understanding politics. At the heart of this challenge is our belief that the current crisis in public confidence in the 'official' politics of parties, elections, and legislatures is attributable, in part, to the narrow focus by the media, politicians, and academics on those political events that most resemble gladiatorial combat. We argue that understanding politics 'as if women mattered' requires a new framework, one that comprehends the many diverse strategies people employ to gain more control over their lives and to influence public policy. Politics as reconceptualized in woman-home groups could be linked to those in political power. At both the provincial and federal levels, their councils and federations provided an arena in which women could establish priorities, set agendas, and debate policy (Vickers 1989:23) . Such organizations, which proved far more accessible and meaningful for many women than political parties, were also conduits for political pressure on governments. The first local women's church and community groups were formed in English Canada in the early nineteenth century (Armour and Staton I 990); provincial and national councils and federations followed in the latter half of the century. Canada's developing state did little in the areas that concerned many women, such as health and public

34 Politics As If Women Mattered welfare. Specific issues of concern included high infant and maternal mortality rates, alcoholism, and the lack of clean milk and water. The tactics used by these women's associations were fairly constant: In addition to organizing services locally, they included 'formulating resolutions on policy within their own groups, urging the adoption of their policy at all appropriate levels of government through the presentation of submissions and delegations to the legislatures and to individually elected representatives, while at the same time influencing social attitudes through public education about the issue' (Canada, Secretary of State, Women's Program 1974:4). The structure of these first-wave associations deserves some comment. At the local level, group activity demanded relatively little of each individual. Offices were rotated, and meetings were often moved from one woman's home to another's. At the local level, therefore, these groups resembled the loosely structured local groups that exist today. Each of the major associations, however, was also organized hierarchically, with local, provincial, and national levels. Policy issues would rise from the local to the provincial level and would eventually be decided at the federal level. The various associations were also loosely federated 'at the top' under the umbrella of the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC). But local councils, which allowed coordination (and sometimes competition) at the local level, were equally important. The structure of these associations enabled them to engage governments at all levels. The membership of these associations should be characterized, in general, as white, middle-class, and, for the times, well educated. The rural Federated Women's Institutes of Canada (FWIC), founded in 1919, came to be the model that was adopted by many other countries. Few of the English-Canadian associations took root among francerphones in Quebec, although the Cercles des fermieres were similar and, in fact, were among the founders of the FWIC (Dumont et al. 1987; Prentice et al. 1988:269). Finally, all of the activity undertaken by these groups was either self-funded or funded through raffles, bakesales, and the many other devices women had to raise cash. From 1919 through the 1950s, women's associations undertook extensive activity in the attempt to improve the status of their sex: They consistently presented resolutions and briefs to government on such issues as education and vocational training for women, the right of equal opportunity to work and for equal pay, taxation and pension reform, laws

The Context for the Development of NAC 35 pertaining to marriage, divorce, family planning and citizenship. They made continual requests for proportionate representation of qualified women to governmental boards, commissions, and agencies, to the Senate, the judiciary and the diplomatic corps. They made periodic requests for commissions where women faced discrimination ... [and they] did so in relative isolation from the main currents of national thought. (Canada, Secretary of State, Women's Program 1974:6, 7)

Women's movements underwent dramatic changes after the Second World War. The post-war concern for human rights provided a new intellectual and moral framework within which women's rights would come to be accepted as a credible issue. Canada became a member of the U.N. Status of Women Commission in 1958, and women's groups seized on the implications of such affiliations for the government's obligations to its own female population. To summarize, women's political culture before the 19(,os constituted a practical reflection of the nature of existing opportunities for women (beyond voting) to participate in decision-making roles in the formal political system. Although women did not reject that system, there remained some distaste for political parties. The women who did participate in political parties, however, were generally limited to support roles (Kealey and Sangster 1989; Sangster 1989) . Until the 1960s, then, women were both part of and apart from the dominant political culture. Radical Liberalism

In this section, we examine the values of the political cultures that influenced the contemporary English-Canadian women's movement. In addition to the general historical women's political culture discussed above, the political environment of organizations such as NAC included what we have called 'radical liberalism.' This set of values about politics is heavily influenced by the characteristics of the general political culture. We identify this set of values as the operational code of the English-Canadian women's movement. Much current scholarship posits a sharp break between the concerns of the so-called first and second waves of women's movements for change. But an approach that discounts continuities between periods of mobilization in Canada makes an analysis of NAC extremely diffi-

36 Politics As If Women Mattered cult. With its hybrid political culture and its coalitions of old and new forces, NAC's very existence constitutes a repudiation of such a view. The role of U.S. feminism in this account is complex. There is little doubt that U.S. feminist ideas had an impact in Canada. Certain key books by U.S. feminists were influential, and television, dominated by U.S. sources, projected the feminism of the U.S. movement to Canadians. Furthermore, the women of the 'draft-dodger generation' who came to Canada played a part in the formation of certain types of grass-roots groups in the larger cities in which they located. We will argue that their ideas about how to conduct politics within feminist organizations had a considerable influence on the values that were shaped in those groups. By contrast, we observe that the values of U.S. radical feminism pertaining to women's relationship to the politics of the state had far less influence on the English-Canadian movement. As we have suggested, then, women's movements in English Canada inherited a set of ideas about how to conduct politics to which we refer as 'radical liberalism' (Richardson 1983; Vickers 1992). 1 In brief, this operational code embodied a commitment to the ordinary political process, a belief in the welfare state, a belief in the efficacy of state action in general to remedy injustices, a belief that change is possible, a belief that dialogue is useful and may help promote change, and a belief that service or helping others is a valid contribution to the process of change. The acceptance of this code gave the movement its ability to work and be effective in coalitions. It also limited the influence of ideas from the United States that rejected the ordinary political process and tended towards anti-statism. Certainly, the commitment of Canadian feminists to the welfare state put them strongly in conflict with this U.S. anti-statism, as our examination of NAC policies in Chapter 6 will demonstrate. Two major forces for the transmission of the values of radical liberalism were the Royal Commission on the Status of Women and the women's peace movement. Both contributed to a revitalization of women's organizations from 1950 to the late 196os. But while many groups became more or less feminist in their purposes, they remained traditional in their views of politics and organization and adhered to a reformist, rather than radical, analysis of women's situation. Self-defined liberationists claimed the 'grass-roots' label, believing that their movement 'differs greatly from the middle