Feminism of the FUTURE!

Forbes Magazine says the future of feminism is flexibility. By Elana Lyn Gross, March 8th 2017.

Elana Lyn Gross from Forbes magazine recently interviewed women entrepreneurs Anna Auerbach and Annie Dean about the creation of their company Werk. Werk is a consulting firm which advertise and advocates for flexible work positions in the top job market place for women. Anna says, More than 30% of the most talented women leave the workforce entirely after having children, but 70% would have kept working if they had flexibility. And yet, there is no job platform today that focuses on flexible, career-building work.” (Gross 2017) Annie adds that when her son was born she was feeling like she was never able to commit the energy to both areas of responsibility in her life, the professional and her family, This left her feeling like a failure at work and a bad mom at home. When Annie and Anna got together they asked the question what the workforce would look like if it was designed by women. This is how Werk was born.

Forbes is calling this idea the future of feminism because it recognizes that there is a whole area of labour which is removed from the economic market which has value but is not being supported. The future of feminism is not just bringing women into the market place and admitting they can do the same jobs men can. The future of feminism is recognizing there is work out there that needs to be recognized and valued as a contributor to the market economy.

My husband Dan and I have two children and we coparent for the majority of household labour however he is unable to stay home with the kids if they are sick or take time off to take them to their appointments. It is up to me to take mat leave, to use my entitlements, and to take time off because my work is unionized and my entitlements are protected. This is not win/win however. I have been employed with the government of Saskatchewan for 6 years and only actually worked for 4. When I got back from my second mat leave a male coworker with less seniority than me was assigned to temporary assignment of higher duties in a position I had been trying to build towards since I started. I am returning to fulltime work and I do worry about my children and their wellbeing when I am apart from them. To compensate we pay a large amount of money each month to secure a loving and responsible care taker.

In our course text Sheila Neysmith, Marge Reitsma-Street, Stephanie Baker Collins, and Elaine Porter coauthored the chapter called Provisioning: Thinking about All Women’s Work, women’s labour is discussed. What we do know is that women are busy. They are busy in the market place and they are busy at home. Women contribute the most to partime, contract, and insecure jobs. Women contribute the most to household and domestic work, caring work, and volunteer and community work. The term Provisioning for this team of women conveys the multiple tasks, time required, and relational dimensions of women’s work in the context of the purpose for which the work is done. This research aims to identify what work women do, what the value of the work is and who benefits. (Neysmith Et al. 2004)

          When we recognize the need for flexible positions of meaningful work for women we recognize that the other labours they do is valuable and we all benefit from them. I think we should take it one more step and have both male and female workplaces be more pro-family and flexible so that Fathers can participate more in caring roles. Research has proven that children benefit from active fathers and my husband is an active father and is there for us anytime he can be. If his work was more flexible he would take time to stay home with the kids and take care of the home, however he says that in construction since it contract to contract you can be easily replaced or left behind. We require both our incomes to maintain our lifestyle and if he is not working even for a while we would not be able to take care of our responsibilities.

          The future of feminism for me is not just recognizing that women are equal to men and therefore should be included in all levels of the economy. The future is recognizing the types of work women participate in most are valuable. They are valuable enough to be compensated. They are valuable enough for men to participate in. It is not enough to simply remove women from the domestic labour to work in the economy because then who will do the important roles of caring? Raising families is important work and if we do not invest in this we risk squandering human capital and potential. The care, raising and nurturing of humans must be balanced with the advancement of the economy. I mean, who will work and who will buy?

Redefining Gender: This is what a Correctional Officer looks like!

A subject on my mind this week is the fact that I am leaving correctional service behind and moving in to The Ministry of Social Services when I become a social worker on the 21st of April, 2017. This move has been 3 years in the making since I began upgrading from my bachelors of Arts in Sociology. In truth the move has been on my mind since I began my career in corrections almost 6 years ago. The reason for this is I have never been treated like I belong. As a female if I work on my core correctional practices which mean I role model to, spend productive time with, and complete programs along with my clients I am called a series of derogatory labels. “Inmate lover”, “She’s fucking him”, “Not good staff”, “This is why women should not work at a correctional centre”, “They will just come back, why even bother?” From the moment I walked through the sally port in May of 2011 I could feel it. The very first shift in the centre I was in a medium security unit working with a pair of men who had worked in the centre for over 30 years. Within 15 minutes of working one of them said to me, “You gotta wonder about the mental capacity of a woman who wants to work in a place like this.” The Saskatoon Correctional Centre work environment made me feel like I was not a corrections worker and no matter the hard work I do, the training I undertake, or the years of experience I will never be a corrections officer.

      When the average person thinks of a corrections officer they think of a large, assertive male capable of taking physical control of another person and respond to aggressive offenders with equal aggression in order to teach them the lesson they came to jail to learn. I am a 5 foot five adorable young women who uses her mouth, charisma, and a mutual respect to achieve the same outcome.  Teaching moments and open conversation with offender lends itself well to my style. I commit to the duty of my profession by using the most recent research on correctional service which confirms that program do work when tailored appropriately the offender and their needs. Restrictive programming (confining and beating of offenders) actually increases the likelihood that an offender will reoffend and return to the correctional centre.  In none of the research does it say that corporal punishment, restrictive control or domination helps to protect our communities by rehabilitating offenders.

      The Canadian Correctional Service conducts and published research about various topics of importance to the profession. In 1993 researcher at the University of British Columbia, M.I. Cadwaladr published the paper, Breaking into Jail: Women Working in a Men's Jail to document the challenges women face working in corrections. Among the challenges are being sexualized by staff, inmates, and supervisors, and being the subject of rumours about their sexual orientation, sexual partners, or promiscuity. (Cadwaladr 1993) This type of fascination with female officer’s sexuality undermines their professionalism and ability to complete their job. In my first year I was linked sexually with several staff, rumoured to be a lesbian because of my short hair and/ or pregnant. My perception of this is because I am an assertive, intelligent, and competent person and it appeared to me that my efforts were undermined at every opportunity. It was this general feeling of unease which caused me to make deliberate steps to move into another ministry which is public and has a greater reputation for professionalism.

      Women are seen as not being able to perform their duties as well as men because we are physically not as big or strong as men.

“Physical prowess and a willingness to enter into physical confrontations are also a way of generating esteem and peer acceptance. When women are kept out of crisis situations, they are denied a crucial means of gaining peer acceptance - female correctional officers reported that in emergency situations some men adopt a protective, chivalrous attitude toward them. The women resented this treatment, feeling that they are seen as a liability and that the male officers place themselves in danger by not concentrating fully on the situation at hand.”(Cadwaladr 1993)The gender bias is ingrained in the culture of the profession. I was constantly denied access to areas in which I could prove my tactics and skills as an officer by supervisors whom had less than one hours contact with me because of hearsay and reports from other male officers who had never worked with me because I was never allowed to work with them. Despite my background in self-defense and tactical communication I was denied time after time the ability to prove my ability to perform the duties for which I was trained.

      I get that anyone reading this could say that I am not strong enough to be a corrections worker, that I am too sensitive, or that I am just not the right material to work in a jail. To that I say: I am a proud women; I am assertive, powerful, compassionate, and intelligent. I will not work in a place which does not respect or utilize my experince and training. Being a women is not an acceptable basis to judge my ability to perform my job professionally and there are skills which women possess which prove successful in a crisis situation and high stress environment. Our ability to empathize, negotiate, and verbalize with offenders are very successful skills in deescalating situations as well as teach offenders during day to day interactions.

M.I. Cadwaladr (1993) "Breaking into Jail: Women Working in a Men's Jail," M.A. thesis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The University of British Columbia, 1993. Retrieved on April 5, 2018. http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/research/forum/e061/e061l-eng.shtml

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Sexed Up Sexuality and Disabilities EXPO

When I was researching women, sexuality and disability for my Metablog post I asked my husband, “Is my epilepsy unsexy?” He looked at me confused and said, “No, I don’t even notice it, to tell you the truth.” Well this is mostly true, I do take medication he sees me take everyone morning, though he is not paying any attention really. I do not drive unless I have to and when we are together he always drives. This is not even really noticeable to him because he likes driving, his Dad never let his mom drive and we usually drive his car. I have never had a seizure in front of him that he knows of because you cannot see one of my simple partial seizures, and I take medication to make a grand mal seizure impossible.  I call myself invisibly disabled, all the fun self-care without any of the embarrassing attention or sympathy. People do not treat me disabled even when they know I am because they have never seen me seize. Visible disability appears to be very isolating and I am grateful that I do not have to give up my sexuality because of my epilepsy.

In the readings we reviewed on disability and ableism the discussion also talks about the invisibility of disabled women but in when the disability is a visible one being invisible means existing without acknowledging. Women with disabilities are not seen as sexy because their sexuality is not seen at all. “Construed as dependant, these “eternal children,” women with disabilities are often presumed to be asexual beings, with no desires, no sexual needs nor capabilities.” (Pinto 2008) Women with disabilities are sexual, even if they are not seen as sex by all members of society. Just because they are challenged in their every tasks does not make them any less human with very ordinary and real desires that any other person should have. Can we turn off our sexuality just because someone else does not think we should be sexual?

Paul Pinto talks about gender- based violence in her chapter on Women, Disability, and the Right to Health. Though not physical violence, the exclusion from sexuality and sexual expression can be seen as neglecting a natural part of human health. The attempts of care givers, concerned family members, or the community to intimidate, isolate, confine, or intimidate disabled women into abstaining from sex should be considered a violation of their human rights. (Pinto 2008) She includes examples of forced sterilization, or shaming women with disabilities into not being mothers, as well as denying sexuality to women who others may perceive to be not mentally mature enough. Women with disabilities are more vulnerable because of the gendered segment of this equation. Women often rely on the support and care of others so are more likely than men to be dependent on someone else for their care or income. These persons or institutions which are intimately involved in their lives out of necessity may attempt to force their attitudes on their wards.

Flare magazine recently printed an article on flare.com called, Sex & Dating While Disabled: Three Women Share What It’s Really Like by Katherine Laidlaw which shares the story of 3 women with disabilities and their stories trying to date and be sexual. One of the women is Canadian Olympian Stephanie Dixon, a Paralympic athlete who has won 17 medals and is anything but invisible. She has been on TV, in the news, and competed internationally but despite her fame and confidence as an athlete she talks about how difficult she found it to discover her sexuality. “I wanted to have sex. I just didn’t think anyone would want to have sex with me,” she says. Because she is missing her leg, she also has only half a bum and half a pelvis, and she was worried that her vagina was disfigured—she’d never compared hers to anyone else’s.” (Laidlaw 2017) Women with disabilities have to deal with more than your average insecurities when they wonder how their stark physical, functional, or behavioural differences will be perceived by a potential partner.

There is a social component to dating and mate selection which emphasizes the choosing of an ‘ideal’ date, someone you think is worthy of spending time with. Both Dixon and the second women interviewed for the article Kaleigh Trace, author and sex educator, talk about disclosure and soliciting potential partners. When do you tell a partner something so intimate when you have not decided to become intimate yet? Stephanie wears a prosthetic leg and spoke about worrying about what her partner would think when it would come off. Kaleigh, who was paralyzed from the waist down still feels like a sexual being and wants to express herself sexually and likes to use online dating sites like any other 30 year old. She talks about the time to tell someone she is in a chair. You can take a picture of yourself doing all types of things from the waist up. You or I would not think twice about taking a pic which show off my hips and lips, but hides my butt. I would not think that once I got out on the date any of my other redeeming qualities would not be a hit.

The article paints a very complex picture of an already dynamic situation where even the most average person feels completely vulnerable. Dating is complex at the best of times and when meeting someone new or trying decide how to act on an attraction we all struggle with our insecurities. I was glad to see this article on dating and disability because it at least means these women are not completely invisible and there are at least three brave women ready to stand up and tell their story.

PINTO, Paula. 2008. Women, Disability, and the Right to Health. Toronto, ON. Women’s Press. Chapter taken from Gender and Women’s Studies in Canada edited by Margaret Hobbs and Carla Rice

LAIDLAW, Katherine. Sex & Dating While Disabled: Three Women Share What It’s Really like. Flare Magazine, Rogers Media, Toronto, Ontario. February 14^th, 2017. Reviewed on: March 31^st, 2017.

http://www.flare.com/sex-and-relationships/dating-while-disabled/

Indigenous Knowledge - Aboriginal Midwifery in Canada

https://dawnbramadat.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/the-native-art-4v1j99.jpg

Aboriginal Women Reclaiming the Power

I have a dream…

…of attending a birth in my own community at Nipissing, I will go to a woman’s home where her

extended family is there for support. Perhaps even my own daughter will accompany me to help

with younger children. Perhaps the woman’s mother is there to help prepare food and greet the 

baby in the Nishnawbe language. The father will light a fire outside and offer tobacco. We will

boil cedar for the postpartum bath. …Nishnawbe women are the guardians of their culture,

families and communities. They will want to be a leading force in the future development of

midwifery on their homelands. The professional practice of midwifery reflects their traditional

values. That is the compassionate and respectful care of the newly emerging mother and baby.

This is the very future of our Nations” (Couchie & Nabigon, 1997).

The Aboriginal Health Organisation recalls the tradition of midwifery in their report, Celebrating Birth – Aboriginal Midwifery in Canada, published in 2008.  This unique experience was shared with all community members as traditionally nomadic peoples any person in the community could be called upon to assist with birth if necessary. The wisdom to support pregnant mothers was passed from Grandmother to daughter throughout time where women were the holders of both the physical, mental, social, and spiritual aspects of the birth experience. In many different Indigenous languages the name midwife did not exist, but instead several titles existed depending on the language of the peoples:

"woman who can do everything" "watch and care" "A woman who's hands assists a child coming into this world" "the helper" "the one who waits for birth" "women's helpers" "the woman who catches the baby" 

In 2017 it is time to make a bold and definite move to support Aboriginal women in Canada. By recognizing the experience and knowledge which has survived for countless generations of sharing and training our communities will be strengthen through the participation of these women. Through the heartiness and success of these peoples throughout time we can see evidence that these methods were successful as evident through the Aboriginal population today. The knowledge and experience these women possess will rebuild relationships and establish health and vitality to their communities through respect and support of their practises.

http://aboriginalmidwives.ca/sites/aboriginalmidwives.ca/files/styles/large/public/IMG_2723_Rachel_Olson.JPG?itok=HV9tgitp

“Inuit midwives have been practising it for thousands and thousands of years. Why not continue it? Why should we have to be so dominated by this Western system and not practice our own ways? We have survived for over five thousand years. Why not learn from the Inuit midwives?" (Melanie Paniaq, Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada).

National Aboriginal Health Organization(NAHO). 2008. Celebrating Birth – Aboriginal Midwifery in Canada. Ottawa: National Aboriginal Health Organization. Accessed on March 27th, 2017:

http://www.naho.ca/documents/naho/english/midwifery/celebratingBirth/Midwiferypaper_English.pdf

   On February 10th, 2017, Aboriginal Midwife Ellen Blais announced that the government is establishing 6 Aboriginal Midwifery programs in Ontario. The Dilico Family Health Team has hired 2 aboriginal Midwives to work in their clinic. The midwives will travel out into the 13 communities they serve and provide prenatal, birth, and 6 weeks post care for Aboriginal women in the program using Aboriginal practises. The announcement includes 2 million dollars in funding to establish 5 additional programs other Aboriginal communities in northern Ontario. This initiative is an important landmark in Canadian history as it recognized the inherent worth and dignity of Aboriginal women in Canada and publicly declares to support their knowledge and experience. The oppression and marginalization of Aboriginal women throughout Canadian history is a catastrophe. After recognition the next step is empowering and building. Funding for Aboriginal Midwifery is a direct action to give back maternal power and wisdom to these women. Supporting their purpose and practise will assist them to better serve their communities.

In further discussion is it interesting to note that the article did not speak as to where or how the Aboriginal midwives were trained. In Ontario to be certified as a midwife you must attend a 4 year degree program at Ryerson University, be registered in another province, or have your international certification transferred. In the article it was not mentioned if the Aboriginal Midwives also became certified in the way. Requiring an Aboriginal student to study in a westernized program is arguably still an oppressive practise as it fails to recognize the unique ownership of the knowledge and the experience of Aboriginal Midwives passed doing through generations. As Melanie Paniaq stated above Aboriginal midwives have been practising and passing down their knowledge for thousands of years. An important discussion to furthering the practice of Aboriginal Midwifery would be to establish a certification board headed by experienced Aboriginal midwives who train and pass down their own practises and indigenous ways of knowing. They should decide if a person is experienced enough and has demonstrated commitment to their community similar to the training of other elders and leaders.

      The best way to support Aboriginal women in Canada is to recognize their strengths and compensate them for their practise. From recent media stories about missing and exploited women in Canada it has become startling how appalling Aboriginal women have been treated throughout the history of colonization and how devalued they are today. Moving into the future it is important to be just as aggressive in our approach to supporting these women to establish safe and healthy futures for their families and communities. An interest in Aboriginal midwifery is an extraordinary opportunity to take the incredible strength, and generations of knowledge and experience, of these women and use it to support their communities. 

    The National Aboriginal Health Board links Aboriginal Midwifery with the health of all members of the nation. The community and family centred approach to birthing encompasses the mother and new child in the centre of the community creating powerful relationships from the moment of birth. From when the child first hears their native tongue and are welcomed by their people on their land a solid relationship is formed. In contrast the thought of as Aboriginal child being born in the sterile, cold environment of a city hospital in which western doctors deliver them in western ways and receive them in western language appears cruel and barbaric. Proof that Aboriginal midwifery is successful is in the large pre colonial population which was welcome entirely through Aboriginal practice. The whole community is strengthened through participation in the birthing even and the bond to the mother and child and will provide support to them throughout their lives. Being born on their land and in the folds of family and community is the centre of the goals for Aboriginal Midwifery (NAHO 2015)

Alex, Cathy. "Ontario restores 'beautiful ceremony' of birth by funding 6 Aboriginal midwifery programs" February 10th, 2017. CBC News, Thunder Bay. Accessed on April 1st, 2017.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/thunder-bay-dilico-aboriginal-midwifery-1.3974972