Demeaning treatment, online abuse driving women away from politics, expert says
Despite gains in 2019 election, women only make up 29 per cent of MPs in House of Commons
As people gather in Ottawa on Parliament Hill this morning for an International Women's Day march, one expert says the demeaning treatment many female politicians receive is keeping other women from entering politics in the first place.
"Women are disproportionately targeted," Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair in children's mental health and violence prevention at the University of Ottawa, said in an interview airing today on The House.
"Not only are they targeted by men, they're also targeted by women. And that breaks my heart because I would love it if women could support each other in this area. We want more women in politics. We want our voice represented, our ideas represented."
Won't be chased out: McKenna
Sometimes that representation comes at a cost.
Days after being re-elected in the October 2019 election, a vandal spray-painted a vulgar slur on the window of Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna's Ottawa campaign office.
McKenna said at the time that the incident — which followed years of threats and verbal abuse online and in real life — did not make her second-guess her decision to enter politics.
"In fact, it makes it just so clear why it's so important to go into politics," she said last October. "Some people clearly want to chase women out of politics. That's not going to make politics any better."
Record number of female MPs elected in 2019
Canadians sent more women to the House of Commons in last year's election than ever before. But even so, those 98 female MPs make up only 29 per cent of the seats in the chamber.
There was a time, about seven years ago, when Canada had female premiers in six provinces and territories, including the four most populous provinces — Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta.
But next week, when premiers gather in Ottawa for a First Ministers meeting, Premier Caroline Cochrane from the Northwest Territories will be the only woman at the table.
South of the border this week, Elizabeth Warren — a one-time front-runner for the U.S. Democratic Party's presidential nomination — ended her campaign after failing to capture a single state in the primaries.
She didn't mince words when a reporter asked her Thursday if her gender was a factor.
"That is the trap question for every woman. If you say, 'Yeah, there was sexism in this race,' everyone says, 'Whiner!' And if you say, 'No, there was no sexism,' about a bazillion women think, 'What planet do you live on?'" Warren said.
Empowering the next generation of women
Vaillancourt said she worries about the future of women's representation in politics if only a small segment of the population has the "fortitude to weather this type of abuse."
"I want to see people from different socioeconomic brackets represented, different ethnic and cultural groups represented, gender expression represented, and I want to see more women in politics and women in politics who aren't being abused simply because they're women," she said.
"We're trying to empower our next generation of girls and women and all they see are our most powerful women being debased online, over and over being attacked personally."