K'jipuktuk (Halifax) - As the date of the 2013 Nova Scotia election approaches, candidates from all parties are trying to reach out to diverse groups with the message that they want to make people’s lives better. They claim to care about education, families and our economy, and each party projects a vision of a Nova Scotia in which all can prosper.

What about women?

Constituting roughly half the population and thus half the voter base, women are an important constituency for any party vying for power. Yet issues impacting women and girls are often left out of public policy discussions in Nova Scotia and across the country.

When pressed for information, each party claims to be committed to improving the lives of women. During the NS Election Town Hall on Women’s Equality and Social Justice held on September 19 in Halifax, representatives from the provincial Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties had a chance to outline their positions on issues ranging from poverty, health and childcare to bullying and sexual violence.

In a nutshell, the NDP claims to have made some progressive steps toward gender equality – such as raising the Income Assistance rate, adding new child care spaces and increasing funding to women’s centers and transition houses – but in the words of provincial finance minister Maureen MacDonald, this is “not enough.”

The Liberals say they will invest in women’s services and work on a sexual assault strategy, while the Progressive Conservative approach is to reduce spending (with a vague reference to ‘earmarking’ funds to address sexual violence) while dealing with issues like bullying through tougher laws.

Is our political system in Nova Scotia really responsive to women? According to a diverse group of women interviewed in Antigonish for this story, the status quo is simply not working.

Democratic deficit

It’s not just about the issues – it’s about how our political process functions. This was a common theme among the women interviewed, who expressed that politicians are not doing enough to connect with the communities they are supposed to represent.

“I feel like politics needs to move beyond this ‘I will do this, I will not.’ That’s what we get on the campaign trail and that’s completely divorced from the reality of how we live. Where we’re living things are messy and complicated and contradictory,” said dancer, facilitator and doula Liliona Quarmyne.

Local artist Pat Foote echoed these sentiments, saying “It’s rare to find somebody who cares and who wants to take an office … [because] they want to see some changes. We need to put pressure on our political leaders and educate them.”

This is possible, according to feminist and anti-poverty activist Katherine Reed. “You can always book an appointment; you don’t have to go alone – you can go as a group,” she said.

Using local MLA Moe Smith as an example, she suggested this approach: “You educate yourself and then you bring to him a condensed form of what you’ve learned and tell him what you want. That’s how politicians get influenced from the grassroots.”

Struggling to survive

When it comes to talking with politicians, there are numerous issues that women would like to bring to the conversation. None seems more pressing, however, than poverty. In a province in which 7 per cent of the population is considered low-income and in which poverty accounts for 5 to 7 per cent of our province’s GDP, poverty reaches into every aspect of life.

Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre and Sexual Assault Services Association director Lucille Harper has observed the impact of poverty in rural communities for decades and sees its disproportionate impact on women. She stated that “more women than men are living in poverty and women are living in deeper poverty and … living in poverty for longer.”

In her view, provincial policies related to poverty – such as Income Assistance and legislation around education and childcare – are “not working.” She notes structural barriers to women’s social and economic advancement, saying that: “The fact that women are still paid 70 per cent of what men are paid means that a woman who requires a higher level of education in order to earn a decent living is coming out with substantial amounts of debt and yet is only making 70 per cent of men’s wages.”

Local yoga instructor and single mother Meghan Delorey told a story that illustrates the shortcomings of our province’s approach to poverty. Her cousin, a nutritionist in Halifax, tried living on “what a person on assistance would have left over for food after they paid their rent and their bills and she documented it. … She ran out of food. I think if we made a couple of government officials do those sorts of things … it might shed a little more light on what’s going on.”

Antigonish resident and tenants’ rights advocate Brenda MacIsaac sees things moving in the wrong direction: “The rich are getting richer and the poor [are] getting poorer.”

MacIsaac and Reed agreed that reducing this disparity in Nova Scotia is an urgent matter. “The priority should be to address poverty,” said Reed.

Culture of violence

For women and girls, economic inequality is compounded by sexual inequality that plays out in cultural messages around female sexuality and the persistence of gender-based violence.

“A huge issue that is never … on anyone’s radar is the influence of the media and hypersexualization,” said Liliona Quarmyne, who added that the issue is “affecting our children of all genders.” Although the mothers interviewed want to protect their children from negative cultural forces, they recognize that misogynistic messages are everywhere. “You cannot keep young people away from these things,” said Quarmyne, who recently immigrated to Canada.

Indeed, according to Lucille Harper, for women and girls to even recognize the violence of our culture is like “fish describing water. … The levels of sexual violence, I think, are higher than they’ve ever been and yet it’s increasingly difficult for young women to even recognize what it is that’s happening.” She described the situation as a “colonization of women” where “the boxes in which women are expected to fit are smaller and smaller … in terms of appearance and cultural or social norms … while the expectations that women succeed in very male-dominated streams is higher than ever.” The effects of this colonization begin during girlhood and continue into adult women’s lives, observed Harper.

As far as government’s role in addressing this issue is concerned, the resounding message is that a more proactive approach is needed. “Government knows about bullying; look at Rehtaeh [Parsons’] case,” said Brenda MacIsaac. “Everyone’s just trying to push it under the rug; it should be more out there,” she added.

For Liliona Quarmyne “it’s also about feeling that our political leaders are not part of dialogue.” She thinks that our leaders need to better support parents, youth and society as a whole in having conversations about hyper-sexualization.

While addressing the root causes of hyper-sexualization and gendered violence is a long-term project requiring political will, Katherine Reed suggested that it is possible to help youth in the short term. “The only defense is to give them critical thinking skills,” she said.

Doing things differently

Effecting real and lasting change on issues like poverty and hyper-sexualization – or other priorities identified by women such as electoral form and the environment – requires a transformation of the way we approach politics in Nova Scotia.

According to Lucille Harper, “We need to stop doing things the same way we’ve always been doing them.” As part of this paradigm shift, she asserts that “we need to genuinely trust the people.” This means really listening to communities when it comes to designing policy.

To illustrate her point Harper gave the example of a guaranteed livable income, a policy she thinks would particularly benefit women and girls. She posited that “if we had a guaranteed livable income we would be able to sustain our rural communities in ways that we can’t now. One of the arguments against a guaranteed livable income is that people would just sit around and do nothing. Well, I don’t think that’s true. I think people would be extremely creative in what they’re doing.”

Harper feels that the status quo approach of reducing provincial debt and expecting the trickle-down effect to improve Nova Scotians’ lives is misguided. In her view, truly improving people’s lives “requires a complete revamping of our thinking,” citing the words of feminist scholar and activist Angela Miles who has called for a reordering of society based on values of “caring, sharing and nurturing.”

“If we really put those [values] at the center of what we’re doing, our environmental policies would be different … our economic policies would be different … our health care, the way we treat our seniors, all of that would just really change,” said Harper. “[It] would make us all healthier. And if all of us are healthier, this province becomes an incredibly desirable place to live.”

Her sentiments were echoed by other women, who expressed the need for a fundamental change.

“Be the first one to break the mould. Be the first one to actually do what you say you’re going to do,” said Meghan Delorey when asked what she would like to tell our province’s political leaders.

Liliona Quarmyne took this idea further, offering the following reflection:

“You’re trapped in a political system that is deeply flawed and problematic. How are you going to navigate that? How can you convince me that you are really going to be able, within the political system that we’re in, to make any change?”

Maybe the answer will become clearer after October 8.

Betsy MacDonald is a freelance writer based in Antigonish. She has worked with the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre & Sexual Assault Services Association and Women’s Centres Connect

Note: an earlier version of this article stated that the NDP raised the Income Assistance rate by 22%.  This is incorrect, only the Personal Allowance component was raised.  The Shelter Allowance and Special Needs components were not changed.  Many anti-poverty advocates argue that with inflation people on Income Assistance have actually gotten poorer over the last four years.