Can you imagine living at a time when an injustice was so prevelant that people accepted it? That only over time a few began to recognize this irregularity and spoke up against it? It is hard to imagine, but you don't have to, that is the situation today. Women are being treated as inferior and that has to stop.
Gerard Kennedy For Liberal Leader: Reason 5
He Is One Of The Strongest Advocates For Female Equality
Among the Eight Leadership Candidates, Gerard Kennedy has the strongest policies aimed at greater equality of women. With acknowledging Martha Hall Findlay in advancing women's leadership roles in the Liberal Party, Gerard Kennedy uniquely offers his own strategies devoted to solving root causes of inequality between men and women.
In August Gerard Kennedy brought forth his platform directed to bring "the earning levels of women in line with those of men, which has the potential to increase the personal incomes of women currently working in Canada by up to 21 per cent or $174 billion and employing 1.6 million more working-age women." For an extensive review of the case studies and motivation behind this plan you may click here.
The three-point plan consists of:
1. A commitment of 0.7 per cent of GDP to childcare and early learning programs in Canada by 2012.
- In Canada, the share of GDP devoted to total public expenditures on
formal daycare and pre-primary education is 0.3 per cent compared to the OECD
average of 0.7 per cent.
- Denmark spends 2.7 per cent of GDP, which is considered one reason it ranks
among the top-three OECD countries with the highest female workforce
participation rates.
2. Review the tax rate that is charged on second-earners relative to single earners in Canada, thereby discouraging female labour force participation. Canada ranks near the top of all OECD countries with one of the highest disincentives to two-income couples. The ratio of tax rates between a second earner and a single earner is 1.4 in Canada compared to an average of 1.2 across the OECD. We will look at reducing this disparity in marginal tax rates or eliminating it entirely.
3. Create a workplace issues forum that brings together business, labour and government to address:
- Flexible and adequately paid maternity leaves, including job sharing, reduced hours, optional leaves of absence, secondment programs between large and smaller employers, and co-op work arrangements with post secondary educational institutions
- Father-mother parity in early childcare programs to encourage greater participation of fathers in leave programs
- The need for more family-friendly workplaces
- Promotion of apprenticeship programs in the skilled trades to women to achieve greater participation: According to 2001 data from Statistics Canada, men accounted for 91 per cent of total registrations in formal apprenticeship programs. This figure includes food and service trades, such as hairdressers, aestheticians and cooks, plus the "other" category. When these categories are excluded, the share of males jumps significantly higher to 98 per cent of total registrations.
Women are 51% of the Canadian population and they deserve to have the same opportunities as men. If anyone considers the current situation as satisfactory, I will venture to assume that they themselves, or know someone who has been affected by the practices that are perpetuating female inequality.
Can you imagine living at a time when an injustice was so prevelant that people accepted it? That only over time a few began to recognize this irregularity and spoke up against it? It is hard to imagine, but you don't have to, that is the situation today. Women are being treated as inferior and that has to stop.
When I was younger, I heard grumblings of this injury and I knew it was an injustice, but it became so normalized that eventually I accepted it even though I knew it still affected my mother.
I grew up in a single parent home, my mom had to work two jobs; one was delivering newspapers at four in the morning, the other was a secretary at Sun-Rype Ltd. She worked extremely hard at both. At Sun-Rype she quickly advanced, from secretary to Customer service, and from there she became manager of Customer Service and Sales. Currently she has a staff and a secretary of her own. The thing is, however, that in all this advancement, in all this positions, money was tight, and there was one fact that kept constant; if she was a man she'd have been making 20% more. As a boy I'd hear my mom refer to this, not as often as she was justified to do. After a while though, she gradually stopped and I never really grasped the effect this has.
This inequality in treatment is a mark on Canadian society. We may not be endorsing this inequality but we are not doing anything to prevent it. Allowing the imposition of monetary differences for the same work not only objectively standardizes inferiority but influences psychological injury that is hard, if not impossible to correct.
This mark will continue to exist, but we can stop it from continuing to grow. We must adopt policies that acheive equality for women today, something that was the intent years ago. Gerard Kennedy has put forth those policies and as such he is one of the strongest advocates for Female equality.
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