Many of us have been so preoccupied with the daily reality of the war on COVID that we haven’t had a chance to pause, step back, and consider how much the country has been changing around us.
Think back to 2015. The federal election that year resulted in a dramatic – some would say traumatic – change in national direction. Under Stephen Harper, the country had had its most conservative government in decades, while today’s Liberals are staking their claim as our most progressive government in memory.
But here’s a question. Is Justin Trudeau, who styles himself as Canada’s first feminist prime minister, truly the author of change, or is he simply hitching a ride on public opinion? Is he a latter-day Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, a leader of the 1848 French Revolution, who is reputed to have declared, “There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.”
Let’s consider one issue among the many facing the prime minister. Gender equality has become a watershed issue. Trudeau took a real risk when he declared himself to be a feminist in the 2015 campaign. It was a calculated risk. Yes, his stance might attract young women voters, but would it repel equal or greater numbers of males?
A new opinion survey of 2,000 Canadians released last week by Independent Group Senator Donna Dasko is instructive. Dasko, who was a prominent pollster before becoming a senator in 2018, commissioned the poll, which was conducted by the Environics Institute, a non-profit research organization. As a co-founder of Equal Voice, the women’s advocacy group, Dasko had a longstanding interest in issues of gender equity.
The survey tracks changes in public attitudes over a stretch of 30 years. The percentage of women who self-identified as feminists sat at 32-34 per cent in polls taken from 1992 through 2001. By 2021, that minority turned into a majority (57 per cent). Dasko believes that, although the growth of women’s movements worldwide, including #MeToo from its inception in 2006, was largely responsible for the evolving attitude of Canadian women, it took the arrival of Trudeau and his appointment of the nation’s first gender-equal cabinet in 2015 to make opportunities for women a top-of-mind issue.
Perhaps more revealing is the change among Canadian men. Pre-Trudeau, 28 per cent of voting-age males were prepared to call themselves feminists; by 2021, the figure had risen to 40 per cent, reaching 47 per cent in the 25-34 age cohort. Not a majority yet, but heading that way. It would be fair, I think, to credit the prime minister with making feminism a respectable label among men.
Men and women alike agree (in the 80 per cent range) that the women’s movement has made life better for women in Canada – and the percentage of men (86) who believe government should do more to promote equality of women is edging close to the percentage of women (93). As noted in last week’s column, the Liberals’ introduction of universal affordable day care is game-changing step in that direction.
There is more to be done. Although a record number of women candidates (103) were elected in last September’s election, they still account for only 31 per cent of the 338 MPs. That’s better than the 27 per cent in the U.S. House of Representatives, but it is it good enough for a prime minister who has a mandate to make change happen, and who, unlike our French revolutionary, knows where he intends to lead his forces?
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens is a former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail. He is the co-author of Flora! A Woman in a Man’s World. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com