Women and Politics in Canada

Abstract

A distinctive feature of women’s political power is its ghost-like quality. Often unacknowledged, but also strongly resisted, its existence, effects, and potential are evident in the vast array of structures and practices that have been devised to reinforce its obscurity. The phrase “women and politics” thus has a peculiar ring. It asserts that women have a role in the shaping of our collective well-being, thereby not only acknowledging the realm of domesticity and reproductive labor as sites of politics, but also claiming that women have a role in public power. Further, the relationship between women and power is not simply one of subjection. In fact, different groups of women at various times have reinforced, resisted, and reshaped the forces that work to structure the gender order (understood as the structures and norms that give meaning to masculinity and femininity (Orloff 1996) as well as the broader conditions of social life).