Dominique Anglade denounces the double standard imposed on female politicians

(Quebec) The life of a politician is not easy, even less if you lead a party. In politics, women are judged more harshly, on their appearance or their state of mind, feel obliged to be perfect at all times, in all respects, have no room for error or anger, and have to constantly prove themselves. Dual standards. Two weights, two measures. Still today, in 2022.

And if as leader of the official opposition we also have to face Prime Minister François Legault every day in parliament, it does not get better.

This feminist outing, like a cry from the heart, comes from the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), Dominique Anglade, convinced that being a woman is far from unrelated to the setbacks encountered by her party, in fall free in the polls, and the Prime Minister’s attitude towards him.

“He’s a paternalistic person, that’s for sure,” she said of Mr. Legault, during a long interview with The Canadian Press, in a cafe in Quebec City, after a week. difficult for his party, following the by-election in Marie-Victorin on Monday, when the PLQ had to settle for a fifth place and a humiliating 7% of popular support.

M^me Anglade did not at all appreciate Mr. Legault’s comment, the evening of his party’s victory in Marie-Victorin, when he said that Quebeckers did not like to see her “throwing mud” in the file. of the CHSLD Herron, where dozens of seniors died in atrocious conditions during the first wave of the pandemic. “We are in the sewers! “, had said then Mr. Legault, visibly annoyed by the questions of the leader of the official opposition, day after day.

The latter finds that the Prime Minister has exceeded the limits, not reserving “a fair treatment of the facts”. Is it therefore paternalistic, condescending, even sexist? “Absolutely,” replies M.^me England.

There are “how many opposition leaders in the last 20 years who have been treated as whiners? “, whereas if she allows herself to criticize the government “firmly, [on dira] either she is aggressive, or she is complaining,” instead of firm or determined.

“There is the bias”, in the different, harder, negative look, if it is a woman, she says, refusing for all that to pose as a victim.

This attitude upsets her a lot, especially since she feels she is still in control of herself in the National Assembly, convinced that she will not be forgiven for the slightest misstep, a clumsy word, a burst of anger .

However, he does sometimes feel angry when he hears certain thoughts from the Prime Minister, such as when he said in the House in February, on a closed microphone, that the President of the National Assembly, François Paradis, was a Quebecer since he was a caquiste. That day, she says she let out a few swear words, but swallowed her anger, decided in front of the media to “not let anything show”, sure to pass for a hysteric if she had delivered the bottom of her thought. At the slightest increase in tone, she will pass for aggressive, which annoys her.

She believes that Mr. Legault treats men and women differently around him. “It’s clear that it passes the towel more easily for men”, she judges, referring to the three women packed into the Council of Ministers since the beginning of the mandate, MarieChantal Chassé, Sylvie D’Amours and Marie -Eve Proulx. No male minister has suffered the same fate, while some have struggled.

She cites the case of the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, repeatedly snubbed by the Ethics Commissioner, but still in office. “Me, I could never have done what Pierre Fitzgibbon did” and remain a minister, said this former Minister of the Economy in the Couillard cabinet, sure that she would “not have gone through it”, because ‘we do not accept that a woman politician can find herself in troubled waters.

“I have much less room for error” than a politician, believes the liberal leader, sure that women, unlike men, have no “passes”.

To reverse the trend, she maintains that it would be necessary to make “all the room” for female political leadership, and that this should snowball, being reflected in all spheres of society.

The Perfect Woman Syndrome

Knowing that they have no room for manoeuvre, women politicians strive to be nothing less than perfect, notes the Liberal leader.

She says she suffers, like so many other women who have tried to make their mark in politics, from the “syndrome of the one who must not make mistakes, that I have it”.

Hence his caution in his interventions.

Except that this reflex, “it limits you in everything you can be, in everything you can say, in the way you express yourself”. In short, it “prevents you from being what you are naturally”.

She also says that she observes “a dichotomy between the person I am and the perception” people have of her. A gap between the public image and the real person.

“It’s still not totally normal that every time I meet someone”, the person’s comment is as follows: “it’s not at all how I perceived you”.

As the election deadline approaches, the one who has been leading her party for almost two years intends to be much more present on the ground, to introduce voters to the “real” Dominique Anglade.

The regions massively shunned the PLQ in 2018. It relies in particular on its Charter of Regions to win back the vote of Francophones, by pleading for increased decentralization of powers. A first announcement on this subject will be made Thursday in Trois-Rivières.

The Liberal leader says she wants to return to the fundamental values ​​of the party, including economic development. Its vision will be to integrate economic development, wealth creation and the fight against climate change into a coherent whole.

She is well aware that she only has a few months ahead of her to recover. “The challenge is huge, but exciting,” she says.