Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
International Women’s Day Statement –
Canadians for Peace and Socialism
Forward To a 21st Century Full Emancipation of Women!
Defeat Prime Minister Harper’s Anti‐Women Agenda!
Canadians for Peace and Socialism
March 5, 2011
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca
The majority of Canadian women who rely on wages, salaries and contracts to live and to
support their families are defiantly resisting all attempts, overt and covert, by the right‐wing
minority Harper Conservative Government and its big business backers to roll back the
economic and political gains won by women in the past.
Women everywhere are determined to retain past gains and move forward into the 21st
century to challenge and overthrow all remaining barriers imposed on them by capitalism.
Women, not to be denied have become a powerful political force for progressive change in
Canada.
Women, young, old, married, single, mothers or childless, confront the fact that formal laws
proclaiming women’s equality are proving in practice to be inadequate to protect their
special health needs and vital economic, political, human and civil rights.
Women are justly demanding more than formal rights. They are insisting by all means on real
equality of rights to a full and independent life as workers, commanding a living wage
assured by first class government‐legislated universal child care. Women demand all gender
barriers to opportunities for education and training in occupations of their choice be
removed.
Women upon reaching retirement age, some of whom have been kept out of the work force
to care for children or aging parents, are fighting for decent pensions, free public health care
and pharmacare, affordable and fully subsidized seniors housing and recreational activities.
The Harper Government opposes the principle of full equality of rights for women. The
minority right‐wing Conservative Harper Government opposes the principle of universality of
social benefits for all Canadian people taking particular delight in opposing pay equity,
universal child care, decent pensions, and subsidized affordable senior care facilities for
women. The Harper Government by stealth encourages faith based charity and for profit
solutions to all social problems faced by women.
The Harper Government carries forward this anti‐women policy to win the votes of those
who support a hateful misogynist faith based 19th century stereotypical role of women in
society. Prime Minister Harper, plays to these narrow faith based right wing voters, but acts
on behalf of the profit motives of employers who derive maximum profits from the low
wage status of millions of working Canadian women.
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca International Women’s Day Statement Page 2 of 5
Eight millions (8.1 million) or 58.3% of all Canadian women of working age labour for wages
and salaries. 1 In 2009 72.9% of employed women had children under the age of 16 living at
home. The employment rate for women with children under the age of 3 was 64.4% in 2009,
more than double the proportion of 27.6% in 1976. Additionally, 11.9% of working women
were self‐employed in 2009, up from 8.6% in 1976.
The plight of part‐time women workers is severe. In 2009, 2.2 million women worked part
time, that is, fewer than 30 hours a week at their main job. The share of women working
part time rose from 23.6% in 1976 to 26.9% in 2009.
In 2009, nearly 1 million women, or 11.9% of all those with jobs, were self‐employed, up
from 8.6% in 1976. In 2009, 2.2 million women worked part time, that is, fewer than 30 hours
a week at their main job. The share of women working part time rose from 23.6%
in 1976 to 26.9% in 2009. In comparison, the rate for men in 2009 was 11.9%, less than half
that of women, although it more than doubled from 1976. What this means in practice is that
employers were provided with the cheap labour of millions of women without the
requirement of paying for benefits.
Women in Canada a Gender Report 2010 2 by Statscan reveals that women in 2008 earned on
average $30,100 compared to $46,900 for men or roughly 65%. Women with less than a
Grade 9 educations earned $20,800 compared with earnings of $62,800 for women with a
university degree in contrast to men who had less than a Grade 9 education earning $40,400
compared with $91,800 for those with a university degree.
In 1976 22.3% of women were in unionized jobs; by 2009, this had increased to 32.6%. Men’s
unionization has decreased, from 39% in 1976 to 30.3% in 2009. As a result, unionization rates
were slightly higher among women than men in 2009.
Women who were unionized had average hourly wages that were about 94% of men's in
2008 compared to 80% in 1998. The gap between women's and men's hourly wages was
larger if employees were non‐unionized. In 2008, non‐unionized women had average hourly
wages of $17.48 compared to $22.24 for men who were in non‐unionized jobs, however the
wage ratio remained largely unchanged at 78% in 1998 and 79% in 2008.
1
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89‐503‐x/2010001/article/11387‐eng.htm#a5
2
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/stcsr/query.html?qt=women+in+canada+2010&GO%21=Search&col=alle&ht=0&qp=%2
Btopic%3A113113165&qs=&pw=100%25&ws=0&la=en&qm=1&st=1&oq=&rq=0&si=0&rf=0&style=emp
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca International Women’s Day Statement Page 3 of 5
Temporary employees’ average hourly wages were less than the wages of permanent
workers at an average of $16.59 per hour in 2008 compared to $21.98 for permanent
employees. The hourly wage ratio between women and men who were temporary workers
was 92%, meaning that for every dollar earned by a man, a woman earned 92 cents. This ratio
was unchanged from 1998.
Such inequities fall most heavily on single women with children. In 2009, 68.9% of female
lone parents with children under the age of 16 living at home were employed.
The above statistics cannot begin to reveal the actual inequities faced by women workers as
they are experienced on a day to day, week to week basis.
The latest news on the cost of living is predicting a 5% hike in food prices in the coming
months. That is a wage cut for every working class family in Canada. On top of that, the
Harper Government is reducing corporate taxes and plans to cut transfers to the provinces
which will off‐load more costs for social programs to the provinces, municipalities and wage
earners. Women workers will be particularly hard hit.
Low corporate taxes means high cost of living for women. Women require subsidies to
partially overcome the triple burden they carry by holding down a job, paying for child care
out of wages, and providing for family needs in the home.
Underpaid and overworked women are a great deal for the employers and a bad deal for
Canadian working class families. What better way for Prime Minister Harper to assist the
profit motives of employers and big business than to use millions of low paid women to
subsidize low taxes for corporations and relieve the parasitical classes of wealth and
privilege from the responsibilities to provide women with pay equity and child care.
In 2009, the number of unemployed women rose to 608,000, compared with 487,000 in
2008 and 476,000 in 2007. The unemployment rate for women increased to 7.0% in 2009, the
highest since 2003.
In 2009, 67.0% of employed women worked in teaching, nursing and related health
occupations, clerical or other administrative positions, or sales and service occupations. In
contrast, 31.0% of employed men worked in these fields. Many of these women are
employed as civil servants and it is precisely in these areas of employment that will be
targeted for downsizing and wage freeze by Finance Minister Flaherty when he brings down
his made‐at‐the‐IMF low corporate tax anti‐working class austerity budget on March 22nd.
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca International Women’s Day Statement Page 4 of 5
This International Women’s Day, the attack by the right‐wing Harper Conservative minority
government on worker’s families, against women and young people and children is resisted
by the organized action of the left, labor, peace and democratic movements of the people.
There is a growing recognition among all progressive forces, that the struggle for the full
emancipation of women from all forms of double and triple oppression, inequality and
exploitation, for full economic independence, for an end to all forms of violence against
women is inseparable from the struggle of the working class as a whole to end the system of
wage slavery.
The struggle for women’s emancipation is unresolved. It has been going on since the advent
of class society. It continues today. All of the advances in the struggle for women’s full
equality have been achieved as a result of the organized and united struggle of men and
women together in full recognition of the fact, that when women are oppressed and denied
their full economic, political and social rights, all working people are diminished and
weakened in the struggle for a better life for all.
On this International Women’s Day Canadians for Peace and Socialism, greet the women of
Canada and join with them in their struggle for full equality of rights in all endeavors, in the
full knowledge that each partial victory for women’s emancipation moves the whole
struggle forward and brings us all closer to socialism.
www.FocusOnSocialism.ca International Women’s Day Statement Page 5 of 5