This text is part of the special Francophonie booklet
Women have come a phenomenal path in two centuries. But here’s the bad news: At current rates, it will take more than 200 years to achieve real gender parity, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
And it is to disprove this prediction that the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) and the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) are joining forces to create the Francophone Observatory for Inclusive Development through Gender (OFDIG) , which was launched on March 8 on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, with the ambition of making it the international benchmark in this area within a decade.
OFDIG’s first mandate will be to produce data. “We want to help with advocacy and action by providing reliable and scientific figures,” says Caterine Bourassa-Dansereau, co-director of OFDIG and professor in the Department of Social and Public Communication at UQAM.
“The absence of real indicators desensitizes us to the issue of inequality,” adds Marie Langevin, co-director and professor in the Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility at ESG UQAM.
Existing data, which comes from the UN, the World Bank or national statistical institutes, is difficult to compare. “We know things about the wage gap, but here it’s the median hourly wage, there it’s the annual wage,” argues Marie Langevin.
We’ve made great strides [pour l’égalité des genres] in Quebec between 1990 and 2022, but the last stretch of the road will be very tough. It won’t fix itself.
The two colleagues want to fight against invisible discrimination, which remains important, even in Quebec. Women are very present in solidarity economy, for example, but in terms of data, nothing. Ditto in the Quebec university environment, where the wage differences are still around seven dollars an hour. “A majority of female students attend Quebec universities, but we have no differentiated data on directions, rectorships, research chairs, on graduate studies,” says Marie Langevin.
The means of his ambitions
Global Affairs Canada has pledged $300,000 per year and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO will support women researchers from the South with scholarships. “It provides us with recurring structural funding. We will be able to hire a coordinator, researchers, a team,” says Caterine Bourassa-Dansereau, who explains that OFDIG will focus on the economy, education systems and higher education and research.
The project has been germinating at the AUF since 2018, in particular at the Americas Office and the Francophone Network of Responsible Women in Higher Education and Research (RESUFF). UQAM responded under the impetus of the Institute for Research and Feminist Studies (IREF) and Community Services, which are very active among women’s groups.
Things fell into place very quickly. The regional offices of the AUF launched a call for researchers, and the co-directors received dozens of applications. Work has already begun with an initial core of four academics from Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco and Ontario. “It’s a fine example of Francophone regional mobilization,” points out Caterine Bourassa-Dansereau, who explains that the team will also work on OFDIG’s other mandate, which is to list actions and study them.
The case of international relations
Several examples of achievements came out the same day during an online round table organized by the General Delegation Wallonia-Brussels in Quebec on the theme of “the place of women in international relations” which brought together several female personalities who came to give an francophone perspective.
The Consul General of Switzerland in Montreal, Line Marie Leon-Pernet, recounted her participation in a new network of Swiss female diplomats for the peace process. Former Brussels deputy and federal senator Simone Susskind, founder of the organization Actions en Méditerranée, came to talk about an exchange program between Tunisian parliamentarians and Belgian deputies and mayors.
The Liberal MNA for Hull, Maryse Gaudreault, as President of the Network of Women Parliamentarians of the Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie, spoke about her efforts to extend the National Assembly’s anti-harassment policy to all other French-speaking parliaments .
She made a lot of hair stand on end by recounting the conclusions of a study produced by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 2016 among elected women from 39 countries: 82% of respondents had suffered psychological violence; 44% had received threats of death or physical violence; 33% had been victims of economic violence and 26% of physical violence. “Regardless of the country situation, what women parliamentarians experience is remarkably similar from one country to another,” she points out.
Marie Langevin is also delighted that the OFDIG is in Quebec, because Quebecers have nothing to brag about when it comes to gender equality. “We made great strides in Quebec between 1990 and 2022, but the last bit of the road will be very hard. It won’t fix itself. »