Justin Trudeau, perhaps on behalf of many of us, is
discovering that being a feminist is hard.
In 2015, our Prime Minister, on being asked why half of his
Cabinet members were woman, answered, “Because it’s 2015!” The remark was heard round the world and
many of us who think ourselves progressive
woke allies for women, smiled, sat back, sighed and thought, ‘There you
go… mission accomplished.”
It’s now 2019 and the famous “Because it’s 2015” is
beginning to sound a little too much like the old Virginia Slims Cigarette tag line: You’ve
come a long way, baby.
To be fair, I think that Trudeau was sincere then and I
think that he remains desirous of being a feminist, but as I have mentioned in
a previous post, Patriarchy is a very addictive drug and it is hard to get
clean and sober. I won’t try to
mainsplain feminism to anyone (look, I’m learning…) but I will say that Trudeau
appears to have imagined that the best way to be a feminist is to be an
ally. The “Catch-22” of such a
hope is that being an ally requires one to
hold onto power so that it can be shared with the one you are supporting. I suspect that truly being a feminist means
relinquishing power and a cessation of practices that continue to provide you
power at the expense of women.
The other day, while speaking to the “Daughters of the Vote” (
female representatives from every Federal Riding in Canada ) Prime Minister
Trudeau said, "Nobody in here wants to have to pick who to believe between
Jody Wilson-Raybould and Chrystia Freeland. Nobody wants to know that one
person has to be right and another person has to be wrong between Jane Philpott
or Maryam Monsef." That’s what I
would call one of the practices that keeps men in power – creating tension
between women for the sake of maintaining authority and control. As
dated a technique as the “You’ve come a long way baby” tagline, it actually sounds
a little more like, “I can’t be a racist, just ask my black friend.”
I am not defending Jody Wilson-Raybould as Attorney General,
she has received what I think is some valid criticism for her actions and inactions
in that role well before SNC-Lavalin was on the public radar. She may or may not have been a good Attorney
General. I think that secretly recording
phone conversations provides objective evidence of nothing, but I also have no
idea what options were realistically at Wilson-Raybould’s disposal or how grave her perception of threat. In a peculiar way, the whole SNC-Lavalin
incident has not made me lose faith in our democracy, but rather it has given
me some faith in it, because the whistle was blown and the spot light turned
on. Governing in a democracy is a messy business.
But for me, that’s not the point. If our Prime Minister wants to truly be a
feminist, then it may well cost him electoral support, because in 2019 there
are voters who wish that those bitches knew their place; who feel that “snowflake
women” just have to grow up and understand that’s how politics works. That’s how it HAS worked perhaps (we can
debate later if it has ever actually worked), but if we’re going to do
something new, then things are doing to have to work differently.
Not that it matters what I think, but I feel that with the
exception of her first address, Julie Payette has been a terrible Governor
General. When the cries went out for the
Prime Minister to oust her, I thought that he would. And I would have agreed. I don’t know why he didn’t do it, but not
doing it suggested to me that he just might be able to be a feminist and stay
off the patriarchy. Payette was clearly
saying and doing things that the Prime Minister didn’t like, but he was letting
her define the role without his interference. (A small token perhaps when one
considers that the role has been defined by a colonial monarchy, but something.).
I have been impressed by Trudeau’s relationship with
Chrystia Freeland. He would appear to
have let her define her portfolio; supporting her as requested and largely staying
out of her way as she has gone about the business of advocacy for Canada.
Our Prime Minister appears to have taken child poverty
seriously, which (for me) is a feminist concern and I have been impressed by
his small move towards embracing feminist economics (recognizing that such a
lens exists is leaps and bounds beyond many).
But all of these things were happening when the election was far off on
the horizon… now that his electoral future is at risk, our Prime Minister seems less likely to put his
ideal of feminism ahead of his desire to maintain power. I suspect that he tells himself that with
power he can be an ally, without it he will have nothing to offer. A true feminist, in my view, is one who is
willing pay the price for the principal and is prepared to tear down the system
that requires allies for people to be heard.
I'm not saying that our Prime Minister has entirely failed as a Feminist, instead I am saying, "You've come a long way baby... " Surely that's not enough for 2019.
