Women, Gender, and Politics

N02(b) - Feminist and Intersectional Critiques of Policies and Institutions

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Leonard Halladay (Carleton University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Anna Esselment (University of Waterloo)

Making Cyberwar Safe for Women: Gender in Canadian Cybersecurity Policy: Hannah Bacon (University of Waterloo), Veronica Kitchen (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: In response to emerging technologies and cyberspaces, many states have adopted a National Cybersecurity Strategy (NCSS) as part of their security policy ecosystems. However, in doing so, many states have neglected to transition their achievements in gender mainstreaming from their Women, Peace and Security Agenda (WPS) National Action Plans (NAPs) into cybersecurity frameworks. Though there has been a rise in critical security scholarship on cybersecurity research, little literature exists specifically on feminist approaches to cybersecurity. What literature does exist on technology and gender often fails to conceptualize online violence or technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) as a security issue and, instead, limits the scope of analysis to domestic legal and criminal justice frameworks. This neglects the major role that security policy and international frameworks play in shaping norms and practices around gender and security. Using a feminist security theory (FST) approach, this paper examines interdisciplinary literature from feminist security studies, sociology, legal studies/criminology, global governance, and international relations to explore the future of gender or Women, Peace and Cybersecurity (WPCS) in Canadian security policy. Then, using thematic content analysis, this paper offers insights and analysis into how gender is, or is not, presented in current Canadian policy. Overall, the evidence presented in this paper concludes that the current gaps in gender-responsivity found in Canadian cybersecurity policy could threaten the efficacy of Canada's WPS NAP and NCSS. By ignoring gender-specific threats and outcomes in cyber policy, states are, once again, leaving women and gender-diverse individuals behind.

Men and Gender Equality in the CAF: Sandra Biskupski-Mujanovic (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: The Department of National Defence (DND) and Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) are in a crisis: in the past few years, numerous high-ranking leaders have been accused of sexual misconduct, which has been rampant in the military for decades; racism, discrimination and extremism have been well-documented and continue to harm many CAF members; and, there is a member shortage in the thousands with recruitment and retention challenges persisting. Further, there are hundreds of recommendations to address CAF harms, with varying degrees of progress. “Culture evolution,” led by Chief Professional Conduct and Culture (CPCC), has been seen as a way to address the bulk of CAF culture problems, with the goal of achieving an inclusive and welcoming work environment, that will ultimately contribute to CAF’s operational effectiveness. However, men, who make up the majority of CAF members (83%) have not had their voices heard on current culture change initiatives, namely in relation to gender equality and gender equity. It is impossible to create an inclusive and welcoming culture in the CAF for all without the “buy-in” of CAF’s majority. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 57 men who are current of former members of the CAF, I will examine how culture change or “culture evolution” has been understood, whether it is believed to be a worthwhile goal, and men’s perspectives on how the CAF can better achieve its goals and priorities.

Feminist Green Politics: Rethinking Environmental Policy Through a Gender Lens: Joshua Butler (York University)
Abstract: Feminist and environmental movements around the world have been instrumental in altering how gender and environmental policy is discussed, leading to a tangible shift in how topics of security, gender, and climate change are addressed in policy discussions. Gendered language employed within environmental policy is used to address pre-existing structural inequalities, such as access to resources, that are exasperated by climate change. With this general context, it is imperative to problematize how gendered language is not only co-opted by states within environmental policies, but how the policies themselves are inherently gendered based on their essentialization of sex and what it means to be a ‘woman’. Specifically, this paper compares environmental policies such as the European Union’s European Green Deal introduced in 2020, and the African Union’s Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan introduced in 2022. This paper aims to understand the gendered discourse used in these policies by asking key questions such as: How is gendered language incorporated into environmental policy? What is the role of grassroots initiatives within the policymaking process? To achieve this analysis, this paper employs an interdisciplinary policy-tracing approach to analyse who is behind these policies, what their key problematic is and how it is framed, and what these policies set out to achieve and how the policy aims to achieve them. This approach will allow for an organic analysis of top-down and bottom-up approaches to policy making and will facilitate a connection across the fields of gender, international relations and environmental politics.

“Ultimately it was not a genetic disease that took me out, it was a system”: A Feminist Disability Critique of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Expansion: Siobhan Saravanamuttu (Toronto Metropolitan University), Cynthia Spring (York University), Dani Magsumbol (York University)
Abstract: Feminist disability (Garland-Thomson, 2002) and feminist-of-colour disability (Schalk & Kim, 2020) theorists have offered critiques of the mainstream reproductive rights paradigm. This politic remains steadfastly pro-abortion, building off the reproductive justice movement, while seeking to challenge the eugenicist roots and contemporary ableism of many aspects of reproductive healthcare (Piepmeier, 2013; Jarman, 2015). We propose that there is much to learn from these perspectives regarding Canada’s Medical Assistance-in-Dying (MAID) legislation. Disabled activists and community members have called attention to the eugenicist nature of MAID and the various expansions to eligibility leading to the inclusion of disabled people without a terminal diagnosis (‘Track 2’) in 2021 via Bill C-7 and people with psychiatric diagnoses in 2027 via Bill C-62. Subsequently, in October 2024 a Charter challenge was launched against Track 2. Drawing on the groundwork laid by feminist-of-colour disability theory and conceptions of desirability to critique neoliberal imaginations of choice, this paper offers an analysis of Canada’s MAID policy paradigm and its eligibility expansion to those without terminal diagnoses. We argue that a feminist disability justice approach towards MAID is an explicit decentring of the ideology of choice — understood in this analysis as a neoliberal, capitalist ideology that conceals the treatment of particular groups of people as expendable — and put forward an alternative course of action. This proposed model would call for continued access to MAID for people with terminal diagnoses, alongside ensuring universal access to adequate social and economic resources to support those who are outside the constructed bounds of desirability.