The progress should be celebrated, but a gender gap remains
Vancouver Sun
By Daphne Bramham
October 29, 2010

Canadian women are fortunate. Equality and fairness were legislated nearly 30 years ago when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in the Constitution, and three years later when the Employment Equity Act was enacted in 1985….

In the 21st century, Canadian woman are past the “first” stage. However, it’s still true that for many, when they reach the highest levels in their chosen fields, they are the “only.”

It’s worth remembering that the reason Canada strove for equality in the 1980s was due to the belief that if women — the neglected majority — were able to reach their potential, everyone would be better off.

That view is echoed by the World Economic Forum, which has been tracking the gender gap in 134 countries and charting it against economic achievement for the past five years.

“Low gender gaps are directly correlated with high economic competitiveness,” Klaus Schwab, the forum’s founder and executive chairman, said last week when the annual gender gap index was released. “Women and girls must be treated equally if a country is to grow and prosper.”

Schwab went on to say: “We still need a true gender equality revolution, not only to mobilize a major pool of talent both in terms of volume and quality, but also to create a more compassionate value system within all our institutions.”

Despite legislated promises and guarantees, the revolution that Schwab talked about has yet to be fully accomplished in Canada. The country ranks 20th on the forum’s index — one spot lower than the United States.

Reflected in that ranking are indicators such as these….

• The gender wage gap remains. The average woman working full-time in 2008 earned 71.3 cents for every dollar the average full-time male worker received. In 1980, it was 64 cents of every dollar men earned.

A recent TD Bank study suggested this is partly explained by women falling behind in raises every time they take time off to have children. However, unless there is some extraordinary revolution in reproductive technology, the question must be asked: Where is the fairness in this?

When it comes to political representation, Canada dropped one spot in 2010 to 51st in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s ranking of 186 countries.

Women still account for only 22.1 per cent of the seats in Parliament, even though it’s been 80 years since Agnes Macphail was the first woman to be elected. Women are no better represented in provincial and municipal governments….

The recession has hit men harder than women because it’s been an industry-specific meltdown, and the sectors worst hit are those with the most male workers.

Women are clustered in some of the so-called “recession-proof” jobs, in sectors such as health care and education. They’re also more likely to be entrepreneurs running their own businesses. And young women are better educated than young men.

In 2007, nearly three-quarters of degrees, diplomas and certificates awarded by Canadian universities went to women. More than half of all master’s degrees went to women and 44.5 per cent of the doctorates.

More than half the students on university and college campuses are women. They form the majority not only in education, nursing and arts — which have traditionally had more female students — but also in the medical and law schools….