PANEL: “There, but not Here:
differing perspectives on gender rights”

Human Rights & Social Justice Conference

Global College

PRESENTER: Jennifer deGroot, UNPAC Project Coordinator
  Friday February 23, 2007

• Women are budget experts. We are good at doing more with less, making a little go a long way. In the home women make many — and sometimes all — of the decisions about how the money is spent.

  However around the world women are virtually excluded from economic decision-making at the larger level. Despite all our gains, in Canada we have never had a female Minister of Finance at the federal level. Winnipeg’s own Judy Wasylycia-Leis is the only Finance critic. In terms of women’s representation in government in general, only 20% of Canadian MPs are female (a number that has been stagnant since 1993). Of the (Conservative) party currently in power, only 11% of MPs are female.

  Provincially, the situation is slightly better though frankly still embarrassing. Across Canada the numbers range from 10% to 32% (Quebec). Here in Manitoba women make up less than 25% of MLAs.
• So there is a large discrepancy between the private and the public purse. Women are expected to find ways to raise families on incomes that are frequently inadequate and criticized severely when they don’t. Consider the kinds of comments made against “those single moms on welfare” who don’t know how to budget. (In my opinion, single moms on welfare are some of the best budgeters around!) And yet when it comes to the public purse, women are in many instances barred from any control over budgets at governing levels.
• At the same time, women around the world see their governments making commitments to women’s equality at international fora. And yet little changes. Canada has signed on to many comprehensive documents that protect women’s human rights including CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Platform for Action that came out of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

  Yet when our governments return home from these conferences, it is business as usual. The organization I work for formed after 45 Manitoba women attended the Beijing Conference and returned home with a commitment to making the promises we’d seen our governments (federal and provincial) make, real, right here at home.

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• There is a gap between stated commitments and on the ground progress. And so women around the world started to make links between this, and government budgets. And thus began the process of gender budget analysis.
• Budgets are essentially annual statements of a government’s priorities. They are a government’s strongest policy document. There is no fudging in a budget. Either the money’s there, or it’s not.
• Gender budget analysis does not mean creating a separate budget for women. It also does not mean making sure a budget allocates equal amounts on women and men. Rather gender budget work is a way of analyzing government budgets and looking at their impact on women and girls vs. men and boys, and within that the impact on different groups of women and men such as seniors and persons living with disabilities and indigenous peoples. For example, gender budget analysis of pensions recognizes that women generally live longer than men and women generally have less money than men. In fact, the poverty rate for unattached senior women in Canada is close to 50%. So gender analysis demonstrates that government pensions are much more important for women and that strong pensions help to create more equality for women.
• Gender budget analysis assumes that budgets are not gender neutral. Because women and men have different life experiences and occupy different social positions, budgets will impact them differently. Therefore budgets have the potential to create more equality between the genders, or to exacerbate existing inequalities.
• Gender budget analysis contributes to greater equality between the sexes but also benefits whole communities by providing greater transparency, accountability, and efficiency in government spending and revenue. Transparency, accountability and efficiency are all big buzz words in budget discourse.

  Gender budget analysis has also made budgets more participatory. For example, work in Uganda contributed to the creation of the Budget Law and Budget Act which have increased involvement in the budget process by both civil society and parliamentarians (who are not necessarily involved in the process). This work also provided increased access to government budget documents that would previously have been inaccessible.

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• The process of gender budget analysis began in Australia in 1984. But it is in the so-called “non-Western world” where the process has really been exercised. South Africa still produces a separate women’s budget every year as a collaboration between parliamentarians, NGOs, and other researchers and advisers. In the Philippines 5% of government department spending is allocated to projects that fit under the theme of gender and development. In Uganda gender budget analysis has provided unique insights into the effects of structural adjustment programs on women particularly in the areas of health and education.

  Since 1995 there have been more than 60 gender budget initiatives worldwide.

• Gender budget analysis has in many cases demonstrated lack of real government commitment to gender equality. For example, in Korea, women discovered that some of the Korean government’s women-related policies included sponsoring beauty contests (over 100 held nationally), courses for girls in make-up, skin care, and etiquette and the “A happy wife and a successful husband’ lecture held at a Women’s Fair. These women recognized that government so-called equality measures actually reinforced stereotypical notions of femininity.

  Although it might seem that we’re way beyond that in Canada, I’m guessing we could come up with a few similar examples. One not-so-funny example is the way Canadian expertise on gender analysis is exported to other countries where we’re known as gender experts and yet this expertise is virtually ignored in federal policy development at home.

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• Here in Canada, gender analysis of budgets is badly needed. We’ve done relatively little work in this area. One initiative was a 2005 report by economist Armine Yalnizyan, commissioned by FAFIA, which examined ten federal budgets between 1995 and 2004. The report revealed that in the 10 years following the Beijing conference there was a huge discrepancy between Canada’s human rights commitments to women and federal budgetary decisions. For example:
  • Between 1998 and 2004 the federal government allocated $152 billion to tax cuts (mostly for the wealthy), $61 billion to paying down the debt, and only $34 billion in net new resources for health care and child care transfers to the provinces [repeat #s]. Women generally have lower incomes than men so tax cuts benefit them less. And women tend to recognize that paying down the debt at the expense of badly-needed social programming is like paying down your mortgage instead of feeding your kids.
  • The report also showed that the government’s biggest anti-poverty measure, the Child Tax Benefit, left the poorest families out in the cold. This is because most provinces claw back the benefit from families on social assistance.
  • In terms of Employment Insurance, the report revealed that women’s eligibility for EI dropped from 39 to 33 per cent — 6 percentage points — whereas men’s dropped a single percentage from 45 to 44 per cent. This is because women make up the majority of part-time workers.
  • Finally the report showed that federal program spending shrank from 15% of GDP to 11.6%. Provincial transfers dropped by 8 billion dollars. As a result, funding was slashed for affordable housing initiatives, childcare, and social assistance — all programs which are essential to women’s equal participation in society.
• The report concludes that: “Federal budgetary initiatives of the past 10 years have increased the constraints faced by women and the most vulnerable in their daily lives, and conferred greater resources on those most privileged… This turns the [equality] commitments made at Beijing 10 years ago on their head.”

  There is no question that gender analysis of budgets can provide helpful insight into government policy and programming in Canada too.

• So this is what gender budget analysis looks like here in Manitoba. We at UNPAC have spent the past almost two years holding workshops with women about the provincial budget. So far we’ve met with over 450 women from a wide variety of backgrounds: Aboriginal women, senior women, women living with disabilities, immigrant women, young women, farm women, women in the North, in rural areas, in small towns, in the inner-city. We offer our workshop in French and English. I actually just came from facilitating a workshop with Aboriginal women in Winnipeg’s North End.
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• We use a popular education methodology that makes our workshop fun and interactive. A favourite activity is our pie charts in which women guess which piece of the pie goes with which area of government spending or revenue.

  We use the assumption that if a woman can understand her household budget, she can understand the government budget. There is a certain mystique around government budgets. It’s as if they’re made in a different realm in some large stone building. They seem inaccessible. But really, they’re not a lot more complicated. They’re just bigger. And the goal is the same as with a household budget: to do more with less. As I said when I started, women are experts at this.

• So we educate women and then we listen to women’s budget priorities. And guess which issue comes up repeatedly as number one: lack of affordable, quality housing. We’ve heard stories of three or four families living together in one home, of couch surfing, of mould growing on walls and ceilings leaking, of bed bugs and rodents, of unsafe neighbourhoods, of doors that can be easily kicked in, of families forced to relocate every few months because they can’t afford the rent, four-year-long waiting lists, and of women staying in abusive relationships because they can’t find a house they can afford. No matter who we’re talking with or where the housing issue is what we hear about most. This is not the basis of an equitable society. How can women think about, let alone participate in anything else, when such a need is not met? This is a basic infringement of human rights.
• We help women recognize their rights in government budgetary decision-making. Women see that budget decisions that happen at the Legislature have a direct impact on their daily lives. And we give women strategies in how to realize their rights. Through our work women who’ve never communicated with an elected leader before (indeed, women who did not believe that they were allowed to talk with an MP or an MLA), have an opportunity to do so. Through our workshops, close to 200 Manitoba women have written letters to their MLAs naming their budget priorities. My colleagues are at this moment working with another dozen women on Selkirk Avenue who are adding their voices. Our Minister of Finance (who receives a copy of each letter) and staff at Treasury Board assure us that this is not an insignificant number. We also provide time for role-plays for women to practice talking with the media and meeting with politicians.
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• Our work hasn’t so far led our government to stop cutting taxes and start building subsidized housing. However, we believe we are having an impact on government. For example, the Province of Manitoba has recently initiated work on the development of a gender and diversity analysis process. This work is taking place at the highest level, Treasury Board. We expect this process will make sure government budgets help make women more equal. Efforts are being made to make the process sustainable and meaningful. This government initiative comes directly out of our work, both as an organization and through the women who write letters in our workshops.
• We’ve also found creative and fun ways to challenge government and to get media attention. Dressed in spandex and a purple cape Femme Fiscale, Manitoba's own superheroine, flew into the Manitoba Legislature for her first public appearance on Budget Day 2006. Using her POV (point-of-view) goggles Femme Fiscale examined the budget for its impact on the province’s women and asked our Finance Minister some pointed questions. Before she left the Legislature she had a chat with the The Golden Boy who has promised to remove his head from the clouds and fight for women’s rights alongside her. With her toolbelt of women’s rights implements Femme Fiscale continues her mission to hold government accountable for their commitments to women’s human rights. The stolid Golden Boy may be the economic vision of our province, but Femme Fiscale is the spirited conscience with her feet firmly planted on the ground.
• We are pleased that we have a very good relationship with our Minister of Finance and this is not predicated on having to schmooze him. Although on Budget Day he didn’t appear thrilled to see us, several days later he agreed that we’d done a “nice job”.
• But the impact of our work is not just at a government policy level. We believe that we are also having a significant impact on women as well. Think about it: Budgets. Most women (myself included) consider this a topic too intimidating or overwhelming or boring. So imagine spending a whole day talking about budgets and how you can influence them, and walking away feeling like you have knowledge that can lead to change.

I’ll close with a few quotes from our workshop participants:

From an immigrant woman who had only been in Canada a few months: “Every woman should know about the budget. I had no clue. Now I know more and am confident to mention it to others.”

From a single mom earning minimum wage in Northern Manitoba: “I thought it would just be us sitting here and being lectured about how the government spends our money and how we couldn’t do anything about it. I didn’t think it would be this interactive and interesting.”

From an immigrant from Africa: “J’ai appris que ma voix peut être entendre et peut changer quelque chose.”

“The thing I found the most interesting was the similarities in the issues women face. Many times I felt I was alone in the situations that were discussed in the workshop.”

“I learned about things I don’t usually think about or am concerned about.”

“The workshop helped me understand the changes we women can make in the budget.”

These are women realizing their human rights and demanding that governments do the same.