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International Women's Day, first commemorated almost 100 years ago, is a time to celebrate a century of achievement and advancement for women in Canada. But it also serves as an annual reminder that pride in this progress cannot make us complacent before the issues that affect women in their everyday lives.
Women with young daughters know the mixed emotions that can stem from conversations about the rights and relative status of women. So many young people today hold the belief that the battle for equality has been well and truly won. This is encouraging because it means they themselves are encountering few obvious systemic obstacles or barriers. But it is also unsettling because it means they may be unaware that too many are still subjected to discrimination and disparity.
Taking stock of the state of Canadian women in 2009 means taking a hard look at the inequalities that remain, and taking action to help eliminate them. There is much we can do as individuals.
First, we need to understand that the price of our century of achievement is the need for vigilance. The recent decision of the federal government to weaken provisions relating to pay equity for Canada's federal public servants demonstrates how tenuous some of our victories may be. If we are silent on this issue, it will become easier for governments to ignore the voices of women.
Second, we need to encourage policies and build institutions that help to empower the equal treatment of women. Among other things, that means stepping up the pressure on governments to make a priority of implementing quality and affordable child care right across our country. It is distressing that at a time of massive government spending in the name of stimulus, there has been little public pressure on Ottawa to fund a system of child care and early learning, an investment that would create jobs in the short-term but would pay off again down the road in the form of better educated children and more successful women in the workforce.
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We haven't achieved the kind of progress that so many Canadian women seek in advancing social justice and improving the tone of political discourse in the House of Commons and beyond.
As women, we owe much to those who over the past hundred years struggled for and aspired to a Canada in which true equality is a reality. The most fitting way to celebrate these past achievements is to help forge new ones.
- reprinted from the Toronto Star