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The war on women: Gender-based citizenship rights and the Conservative Party of Canada

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Author: 
Arkles, Jill
Publication Date: 
15 Dec 2010
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This research formed the basis for a presentation at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, May 31st, 2011.

Excerpts from the paper:

Since the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) formed a minority government in 2006, gender-based citizenship rights have been eroded in favour of fiscal and social policies supported by the tenets of neo-liberal, neo-conservative, and theocratic ideology. The ongoing erosion of gender-based citizenship for women has occurred within the broader context of globalization, imperialism, and colonization. Canadian women's citizenship has specifically been eroded through changes to the Status of Women Commission, ongoing inequitable employment policies, challenges to reproductive rights, tax based incentives over public childcare, and issues specifically impacting Indigenous women. Thus, individual women and women's organizations have experienced a loss of agency and political power. The goal of my paper is to map out and connect the significant events that have contributed to this degradation of citizenship and agency for women in Canada as well as contextualize this loss within the ideological beliefs of the Conservative Party of Canada.

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Although this paper seeks to map out the erosion of gender-based citizenship rights in Canada since 2006, not all events related to the topic have been included. As a living document, this paper is intended to act as a tool to connect the dots between broad topics like employment, child care, reproductive rights, the experiences of Indigenous women, and loss of organizational funding through the Status of Women Commission. Consequently, each issue analyzed in this paper could be expanded on to act as a single topic for future research. The intent of this paper is to provide a snapshot of how these events are connected and create intersections rather than an in-depth analysis of any one issue. Due to the limitations of time and space, this paper includes a limited amount of discussion on events occurring after August 2010. Since completing the research for this paper, many significant events have occurred in Canada that have implications for gender-based citizenship rights. These events include, but are not limited to, the Group of Eight Summit, ending the long form census, attempts to end the Long Gun Registry, and an overall sense of increased policing and security within and outside of Canada. Future research in the connection between these events, gender based citizenship rights, and Canadian democracy would be useful for deepening the discussion presented in this paper.

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