Femmes, genre et politique



N14(a) - Gender Based Violence and Secrecy

Date: Jun 13 | Heure: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Salle: Zoom (see details/voir détails)

Chair/Président/Présidente : Christina Doonan (Memorial University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Christina Doonan (Memorial University)

Zoom Meeting Link | Meeting ID : 830 9354 3916 | Password: 755773

Et Tu, Brute? Self-Induced Extreme Intoxication and Gender-Based Violence: Caroline Dick (The University of Western Ontario)
Abstract: On June 23, 2022, Bill C-28 received royal assent, despite having been introduced in the House of Commons only 6 days earlier. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Brown and after more than two decades of championing the rights of women to protect them from gender-based violence, Parliament relented and recognized self-induced extreme intoxication as a defence to violent crimes - with one caveat. The defence would not be available to individuals who became extremely intoxicated in a negligent manner. Less than one year later, the Senate’s Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs issued a report on the new legislation, criticizing the consultation process used to enact the expedited legislation and questioning the balance struck between the rights of the accused and those of female victims. This paper pursues two avenues of inquiry. The first involves an examination of the jurisprudence in which extreme intoxication has been offered as a defence. In what kinds of cases has the new defence been raised? Has extreme intoxication been advanced in cases involving gender-based violence? How have Canadian courts drawn the boundary between negligent and non-negligent extreme intoxication? The second line of inquiry takes up the Committee’s call to review the legislation. Should self-induced extreme intoxication be recognized as a legal defence? If yes, is there a legislative approach that would provide a more equitable balance between the rights of both the accused and victims of gender-based violence?


How do Canadian Political Parties Respond to Allegations of Sexual Violence: To Sanction or Not to Sanction?: Claire Mountford (16cim1@queensu.ca)
Abstract: Sexual violence in politics is a pervasive and unfortunately increasingly relevant issue, particularly as it pertains to women’s comfort in politics. Political parties are important, though unelected, institutions, largely driven by self-interest and re-election aspirations, making their role in holding politicians to account in cases of sexual violence complicated, though pivotal. How and why do parties’ responses vary when their candidates face allegations of sexual violence? To answer this question, I created an original dataset made up of all instances of sexual violence committed by Canadian provincial, territorial, and federal politicians that was reported on in newspapers. Quantitative analysis of this dataset provides insight into the frequency of party responses to sexual violence allegations (i.e. choosing to sanction or not), as well as the significant variation in frequency of allegations and sanctioning amongst different parties. Additionally, wisdom from violence against women in politics (VAWIP) literature is applied to Canadian politics to support this research on the role parties have played in accountability for sexual violence. This research contributes to literature on Canadian politics, political parties, and gender and politics. The relevance of this research extends past academia - the #MeToo Movement has demonstrated that sexual violence is all to prevalent in many facets in society. Close examination of institutional responses to sexual violence reveals broader themes of what is deemed acceptable and unacceptable. This communicates to politicians and the public how parties view survivors and the issue of sexual violence broadly, improving this response will have widespread implications for the comfortability of women in politics, and standards of institutional responses to sexual violence.


Women leaders' roles in disaster management: Fatima Nasser (American University of Beirut)
Abstract: Disaster affects men and women differently. Some research shows that women are more vulnerable than men in disasters. Due to gender inequality, women are more affected disproportionately by disasters. Although that, women show their capability to respond and recover from crisis through building community resilience and participating in disaster risk reduction. Some theoretical approaches indicate the possibilities for Women’s grassroots and non-profit organizations to adopt self-protective action in disasters based on their community work. In addition, some research indicates that women describe themselves as transformational leaders which have effective and impacted roles in disaster response plans. Even though, there is still a lack of research on women and disaster, particularly women leaders' roles in disaster management. This research explores women's leadership in disaster management in Beirut Blast 2020 focusing on disaster response, mitigation, and recovery phase. The importance of the research is to broaden the literature on women’s leadership and disaster management and to identify the significance of women’s leadership and building its resilience in disaster risk reduction and social change. Data were based on different resources mainly the UNDRR - Regional Office for Arab States’ Publication. The present research will benefit researchers as a testimony to the crucial role of women leaders in disaster management in the Beirut Blast. Furthermore, the information generated by the interviewees allowed us to get a comprehensive picture of the status of Lebanese women leaders in Beirut Blast (roles, challenges, motivations, and actions). Revealed findings provide a specific roadmap for conceptualizing and enhancing Women's Leadership.


The Stereotypical Media Representation in the Context of Combating Gender-Based Violence Related to Refugee Women: a Study Through the Newspaper Le Monde.: Gabriela Rabello de Lima (Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM))
Abstract: Feminist media framing studies have been conducted to examine how stereotypes created by mass media contribute to popular understandings of rape culture (Durocher, 2020). Because of a lack of empirical research on gender violence in the context of migration, this article seeks to understand how the representation of refugee women in media may reinforce stigmas associated with immigration. Based on the researches of media framing (Benedict, 1992) and coverage of violence against women (LeBlanc, 2021 ; Sampert, 2010 ; Zaccour & Lessard, 2021), we focused on examining the stereotypes present in this area of research, adopting the principles of intersectional feminist media analysis (Harvey, 2020) and feminist critical discourse analysis (Lazar, 2018). In order to achieve this goal, this study used the method of discourse analysis, focusing on enunciative techniques (Turbide et al., 2019). The study is based on a news article published by the French newspaper Le Monde on September 18, 2023. The findings revealed a dichotomy in the representation of women, highlighting the importance of the active voice of French workers, as opposed to the tendency to portray refugee women as passive victims of violence. Furthermore, the functions of the discourse reported in the news, with emphases on nationality and the violence suffered by these women, contribute to the construction of a certain portrait of these women while ignoring the centrality of their condition as asylum seekers in France. As its main contribution, this article focuses on how media produces stereotypes (Amossy & Pierrot, 1997/2021), using intersectional dimensions.