Feminism of the 21st Century

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201332510121757700.html#.UVhZ6xe9T_0.facebook

According to the above link, “A new trend is on the rise. Suddenly high-powered women are publically espousing feminism.”

Two women Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter are, according to the article, “quickly becoming the most visible representatives of US feminism in the early 21st century.” (You will recall the FLF had a post on Sandberg a few weeks ago, but if you don’t recall then click here for the post).

What are their philosophies? Well, “Sandberg urges women to reaffirm their commitment to work, while insisting that this will provide women more choice about how to carve out a felicitous work-family balance. Slaughter urges women to reaffirm their commitment to family, while asserting that this will provide women more choice about how to carve out a felicitous work-family balance.”

What the author of the article, Catherine Rottenberg, finds “particularly troubling about this feminist moment – especially since both women espouse liberal ideals – is exactly how little emphasis either Slaughter or Sandberg ultimately places on equal rights, justice or emancipation as the end goals for feminism.” What US women need according to Rottenberg is this: ” US women do not need to change their attitude; they need, first, job security, good childcare, livable wages for the work they do, and physical security.”

The article is great, so be sure to go read it!

Thank you to Stehpen Myher, a third year Law Student at Robson Hall, for the article!

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“Eric” v “Lola”

Quebec (Attorney General) v. A, 2013 SCC 5 (also known as “Eric” v “Lola”)

The SCC ruled very narrowly (and complicatedly) Friday that the fact that Quebec’s provincial law does not recognize ‘de facto’ (common law) marriages for the purposes of spousal support and property division following relationship dissolution is constitutional. While a majority of the justices found a breach of s 15 (McLachlin CJC, Abella, Deschamps, Cromwell, and Karakatsanis JJ — Lebel, Fish, Rothstein and Moldaver held that there was no breach), only 4 of the 5 found that all or part of the legislation could not be saved by s 1.

Quebec is the only province of Canada that does not recognize de facto marriages for these purposes. This is particularly interesting when you consider that 31.5% of Quebecois couples are in these relationships.

A major theme advanced by the Lebel J-led dissent (on breach of s 15), and by the Attorney General of Quebec following the release of the decision, was that keeping the law as it is a recognition and reaffirmation of freedom of choice. They point out that people in de facto marriages are free to make any arrangements they wish regarding what will happen to their property if they break up. This raises some questions, like

– “Whose freedom of choice are we talking about?”
– And “When and why do we give priority to freedom of choice over protecting vulnerable people?”
– “In this day and age, is the expected vulnerability or disadvantage of one partner still a common enough concern upon relationship break-up that a certain property division scheme should be mandatory?”
– “What reasons might couples in de facto marriages have for not making the kinds of formal arrangements mentioned in the decision?”

Undoubtedly, this decisions raises lots of other questions, too.

Thanks Margaret Hillick for pointing this out!

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Women Only Parking Spots

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/parking-spots-just-for-women-why-fredericton-is-considering-it/article5126349/

Thanks to Kamini Dee for this article!

Here are a few of the key paragraphs to this article: “the driving force behind Fredericton’s consideration is safety. Women should get the well-lit, closer-to-the-exit spot in a parking garage – or so the thinking goes….Even with its good intentions, the idea has many critics…. “The logical – let me repeat that – logical solution would be to address the lighting and security issues for ‘both’ genders and proceed accordingly….””

Thoughts?

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Shaming Women

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/shaming-women-174000961.html

The above article is courtesy of a FLF follower, Mary-Ellen Wayne. She found the article while on the Winnipeg Free Press website. The article does a good job of highlighting how many in society think it is okay to publicly shame women, and the author of the article is calling for this unhealthy trend to be stopped! The author uses many modern examples from the media to prove this point, from Rihanna to Jennifer Livingston (whose video we posted on the FLF blog a little while ago — well we posted a link to the video).

Comments FLF readers? And thanks again Mary-Ellen!

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Sexual Harassment in the RCMP, continued…

Check out this super-interesting episode of CBC TV’s The Fifth Estate that chronicles their investigation of sexual harassment in the RCMP.

Special thanks to Raelynn for the heads up!

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The Rhodes Case: Thirty Years of Law Reform Ignored

By Professor Karen Busby

In early 2011, a police officer in Toronto advised a group of law students that women who dress like sluts should expect to be victimized. Soon afterwards, Mr Justice Robert Dewar of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench gave sentencing reasons from the bench that invoked similar beliefs. He found that mitigating factors in sentencing in a major sexual assault included that the complainant provoked the assault because she wore high heels, heavy make-up and a tube top.  He found that “sex was in the air” and that the defendant was a “clumsy don juan”. The defendant and the complainant, a much younger and smaller aboriginal woman, had known each other for about 20 minutes before the assault occurred. She had rebuffed his sexual advances; picked up a stick to use in self defence; and asked him in the course of the assault if he was going to kill her.  She had bruises on her backside and legs as well as cuts from running through the forest half dressed following the assault. Yet even after making these findings and rejecting the defences of consent and mistaken belief in consent, Dewar was obviously of the view that the complainant bore some responsibility for what had happened.

As happens in most sexual assault cases, the reasons on conviction and sentencing were not issued as formal reasons and therefore would have escaped any public scrutiny except that a Winnipeg Free Press reporter happened to hear about them. (He may or may not have been in court–this is not clear to me.) When the paper published the story, it was picked up across the country in a wave of indignation. Three weeks later, the newspaper received the sentencing transcript and posted it to their website.

Complaints were made to the Canadian Judicial Council about Dewar’s comments in the sentencing decision by various individuals including the Manitoba minister responsible for the status of women. The Crown filed an appeal against sentence. In August an appeal date of November 30 was set.

LEAF monitored the proceedings and in mid-October, upon seeing the Crown’s appeal factum, realized that the sentencing appeal had been abandoned and that the Crown had conceded that a new trial was necessary because of WD problems. (The SCC has recognized that WD’s complex formula for assessing credibility is a fertile ground of appeal in mistaken belief cases.)  The defendant’s position was that a directed acquittal was required.  LEAF filed an application for leave to argue that

• There was no air of reality to the defendant’s assertion of mistaken belief that the WD credibility assessments did not need to be made.  The judge found an air of reality to the claim only because of his mistaken reliance on discreditable stereotypes.
• Expose how discriminatory beliefs operated in the case.
• Examine how these beliefs present additional barriers for indigenous complainants.

Like the sentencing decision, the conviction transcript(which LEAF received finally on October 21) reveals that the trial judge made his decision in reliance on stereotypical beliefs about women who alleged that they have been sexually assaulted.  In fact, the conviction transcript is in some ways more problematic than the sentencing decision. The opening line is “After a night of drinking when four people decide to climb into a car around 2:30 am to continue to party rather than head home to their own beds, something bad is bound to happen.”

The Winnipeg Free Press under a front page banner headline wrote an story outlining LEAF’s position. It also published a sidebar on Statistics Canada data on the dismissal prosecution of sexual assault cases in Canada and even more dismissal record in Manitoba—figures set out in the LEAF factum.    Only 31% of sexual assault cases on Manitoba result in a guilty verdict (Compared to 43% Canada wide) ad 67% if sexual assault cases in Manitoba are stayed before trial (compared to 46% Canada wide.) This paper then published an editorial calling for an explanation for the dismissal record. This story was picked up by other media including newspapers across the country. The Crown lashed back stating that the Statistics Canada figures were wrong. Its protestations are unconvincing–but the technical details of that story are for another blog.

The intervention hearing did not go well. The motions judge was critical of the media coverage and suggested that LEAF had activated its media machine. The defendant abandoned the appeal for an acquittal.

In mid-November, the CJC issued its decision. It found that Dewar’s conduct fell short of what was expected of a judge. However in light of his sincere apology and his willingness to take gender sensitivity training, no formal sanction was necessary. The CJC made no comments on the sentencing decision stating that this matter was before the Court of Appeal.  This assertion was, by the time it was made, inaccurate as the Crown had already abandoned the sentence appeal.  A few days later, the motions judge denied LEAF intervenor status on the ground that it was raising new issues.

It will be interesting to see what the Court of Appeal now does on November 30. In light of the Crown defence agreement that a new trial is necessary, it is possible–perhaps likely–that the court will simply issue a short decision making such an order.  One can only hope that they will take this case as an opportunity to comment on the trial judge’s appalling comments in the two Rhodes decisions and perhaps to acknowledge that judges, prosecutors and the police need to do more to address systemic discrimination in sexual assault cases in Manitoba.

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Karen Busby is a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba and is the Academic Director of the Centre for Human Rights Research. On Thursday December 1 from 12 -1, Prof. Busby will be joining the FLF to facilitate a roundtable discussion on the Rhodes case.

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Roundtable Write-Up: A Feminist Approach to Torts Law with Dr. Schulz

On November 2, Dr. Jennifer Schulz joined us to discuss “A Feminist Approach to Torts Law”. Sporting a very fashionable FLF t-shirt, Dr. Schulz encouraged the group of students in attendance to approach the law critically. This is of particular importance in mandatory courses, where many professors will unconsciously teach from a perspective of liberalism, a perspective that treats the law as objective and neutral, even where inequalities are rampant. Although torts law may be presented as fundamentally objective, Dr. Schulz challenged us to think about ways in which torts law can benefit from feminist analysis.

A first and perhaps obvious example is the notion of the “reasonable person”. Professors and students may accept this standard as simple – the standard is simply reasonableness. We may all assume that our perspective on what is reasonable is the same, in reality, the opposite is true. This notion is sharpened when we consider that the “reasonable person” is just the “reasonable man”, the “bloke on the Clapham bus” from England. This standard was changed to reflect modern day political correctness, but has the way it is applied really changed? Feminist scholars have critiqued this approach, and we learned that two lines of thought have emerged in the literature. One approach recommends accepting that men and women do view the world differently and it might be useful to take about care in a positive way, rather than a negative duty to not to harm. The other approach is more radical as it questions the efficacy of relying on objective standards, and calls for focusing on the actual tortious event and how someone with that person’s experiences would react in the circumstances. This approach recognizes that nothing is actually objective, even if we apply that label to the standards we use, and challenges an approach that allows for conflating the reasonable person with a normative standard of behaviour. As the student discussion suggested, taking this kind of subjective approach may be beneficial to balance out the racist, classist and sexist attitudes a person faces as soon as they enter a courtroom.

Dr. Schulz also highlighted the area of damages as another aspect of torts law that can benefit from feminist perspective. The principle of compensation (putting a person back to where they would have been had the tortious event not occurred) can actually perpetuate inequality. A thought-provoking example is that of lost future wages. Because pay inequity remains rampant, the damage awards women receive for lost earnings reflect this economic inequality. Damage awards are therefore structured along discriminatory lines. We learned that, to this day, courts routinely take a percentage off a damage award for contingencies to account for women bearing and raising children. 7 percent is routinely knocked off of the damage awards women receive simply because women shoulder a disproportionate burden for child bearing and rearing in society. 

Another topic in torts that cries out for feminist critique is the treatment of mothers. The case of Dobson v Dobson, where the Supreme Court held that a mother does not owe a duty of care to her fetus, is one example. While this case is heralded as a feminist victory, the result also meant that a mother who gave birth to a disabled son as a result of her negligence was unable to collect insurance money to help her raise her child. The tension in this case is clearly worthy of further discussion. Finally, Dr. Schulz pointed to so-called “wrongful birth” cases and noted that there is judicial reluctance to ever call the birth of a child damages or harm, therefore they don’t want to compensate for these damages or harm. Yet, the burden for child raising falls disproportionately on women, thus this is another very gendered example of not acknowledging women’s damages in the way that men’s would be.

The lunch-hour discussion wrapped up with some very thoughtful comments and questions from students in attendance. Certainly, there is much to consider around the notion of standard of care. Why not utilize a concept of actual care? As Dr. Schulz posited, why do we obsess over compensatory principles to “equalize” a person, when the law could actually care about an individual and seek to help them as much as possible in a given case. I think I can speak for all in attendance in saying that we left the room challenged and encouraged to approach doctrinal law courses with a critical perspective and to ask the difficult questions, beyond facts, ratio and holding: who does this decision benefit? Who is the law really helping? What is the actual result of this? Is it really true that this is neutral?

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Dayna Steinfeld is co-chair of the Feminsit Legal Forum.

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Winnipeg Free Press publishes FLF’s letter to Miss Lonelyhearts

Update on our earlier post about Miss Lonelyheart’s column, “He Didn’t Rape You; You Were too Lazy to Say No”:

The Free Press has published a letter to the editor from the FLF’s very own co-chair Meghan Menzies. A big thanks to Meghan for writing such a great letter, and thanks also to the Free Press for publishing it.

Here’s the letter:

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Offensive and callous

This is in response to Miss Lonelyhearts’ Oct. 14 piece, He didn’t rape you; you were too lazy to say no. We are embarrassed for any paper that would publish such an offensive and callous headline, especially with the stigma and stereotypes that currently pervade the issue of sexual assault.

In addition, Miss Lonelyhearts’ response was entirely inadequate because it totally disregarded the seriousness of rape and provided no information on crisis counselling or other sexual assault resources, information that could clearly have been helpful to a woman who is, it appears, confused and hurting.

Lastly, harassing someone into sexual activity does not equal consent. Consent must not only be active, but willing. In disregarding that, Miss Lonelyhearts’ response has actually contributed to rape myths.

Overall, this article demonstrates a clear lack in awareness, integrity and professionalism.

MEGHAN MENZIES

Winnipeg

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You can have a look at it on the Freep website here. We’ve already noticed a few (anonymous, natch) comments, and suffice it to say, they aren’t all favourable. But as Dayna so wisely wrote a few days ago, “you have to realize that the more vocal the oppostion is, the better you are doing at being an activist.” Amen!

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Harassers, not School Uniforms, to Blame for Harassment

          I came across a short article today and felt like I needed to share it. The article is a short response to a comment that a Toronto police officer made in reference to girls from private schools wearing their uniforms on public transportation. Apparently some girls, wearing their school uniforms, were being sexually harassed while riding the TTC and in response to the incident an officer made the comment that perhaps these girls shouldn’t be wearing their uniforms on public transportation.

     I think the article’s response to the officer’s comment is really well written because the commenter explains that though the officer’s words might have been well intentioned they do more harm than good, because we go back to this victim blaming frame of mind. Additionally, the author gives some good advice on what to actually do if you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, or see someone else in that type of situation.

Read Monica Bugajski’s article here.

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Raelynn Madu, a welcome addition to the Forum,  is in first year at Robson Hall.

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U of M SlutWalk Talk Podcast

You may recall our earlier post, announcing a discussion of feminism and SlutWalks, put on by U of M’s Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics on September 30th. Well, if you, like me, were sad to miss it, you’re in luck! The University has created a podcast of the event as a part of their Campus Cast series. Hooray! Give it a listen here. (I also found the musical interludes between speakers quite enjoyable.) 

It provides a really interesting array of perspectives (legal (our own Prof. Busby!), linguistic, philosophical and cultural academics) on the SlutWalk phenomenon, and the reclaiming of ‘slut’.

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A special thanks to our number one contributor, Brad Findlater, for alterting us to this!

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