UBC study suggests B.C. Liberal's stimulus plan is sexist
Georgia Straight
By Carlito Pablo
March 26, 2009

The director of the UBC Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies, Gillian Creese, says she objects to casual references to “shovel-ready projects” in discussions about the economy.

While government funding for these ventures may be an antidote to recession, Creese, a sociology professor, believes that the phrase is “gendered” language that perpetuates the marginalization of women in public policy.

“They’re unconscious that some of their language is, in fact, gendered, and that their policies are highly gendered,” Creese told the Georgia Straight, referring to policymakers at both the federal and provincial levels.

A study principally authored by Creese noted that the projects to receive $14 billion in stimulus money from the B.C. Liberal government in the current fiscal year should raise flags about the “decidedly masculine conception of shovel-ready infrastructure projects…that disproportionately benefit men”.

The paper, Still Waiting for Justice: Update 2009—Provincial Policies and Gender Inequality in B.C., stated that these involve jobs in construction trades, and transportation (93 percent male jobs), engineering (78 percent male), manufacturing (69 percent male), and primary industries (79 percent male).

“Where, we might ask, is equivalent additional funding for education and health care, or the creation of much needed provincial and national child care program[s]?” Creese and her coauthor, UBC education professor Veronica Strong-Boag, asked.

The report also traced the equally significant disappearance of gender equality as a concern in the provincial public-policy realm.

It cited the elimination of the Ministry of Women’s Equality, whose residual responsibility was transferred to the newly created Ministry of Community, Aboriginal, and Women’s Services in 2002, a year after the B.C. Liberals came to power….

The study also recalled that the B.C. Liberal government cut more than 20,000 jobs in the public sector during its first term of office. Seventy-five percent of these lost jobs were held by women.

The Straight sent a copy of Creese’s study to the office of Premier Gordon Campbell but no comment was offered by deadline….

 “They think it’s gender-based and we would agree with them,” McDougall told the Straight.