“For women, nothing has been and will never be won without analysis and without struggles. » This is how I finished the short biography of Idola Saint-Jean which was published in 1981 in My heroinea work which brought together the texts delivered during Women’s History Mondays.
The water has flowed under the bridges, progress has been made, but read in The duty articles on the concern of midwives about their future status in the Dubé reform and those of the vice-president of the Federation of Health and Social Services (FSSS), Judith Huot, I wonder about the future of the status that will be granted to these organizations composed mainly of women.
Let us remember that before the so-called quiet revolution, women managed our hospital services, our social services and traditional women’s colleges. They were then excluded from the new places of power and knowledge that were established. Several of them already had higher education and several years of experience. One day we will have to write in detail the history of this sidelining. The positions entrusted to new managers in the ministries of Education and Health have largely been occupied by men.
So I understand the concerns that are being expressed now. Thus, for example, the history of women’s access to higher education that I studied was a battle won by default, with religious authorities agreeing to respond to the demands of feminists of the time who threatened to send their daughters to a new secular establishment. This was the event which made it possible to obtain authorization from Mgr Bruchési to open the School of Higher Education for young girls in 1908, which would become the Marguerite-Bourgeoys college.
Midwives, who saw their practice legalized in 1999, after epic struggles, fear not being correctly represented in the new structures. I believe they are right to question and challenge. Will they be heard?
While for decades, women’s participation in education and health management structures was obstructed, while decision-makers continued to affirm their important role as mothers and educators of children, while by refusing them to put these skills at the service of our institutions, thus short-circuiting their possibilities for citizen participation in public life, we must now challenge everything which risks leading, under the pretext of good management, to exclusion and inequities.