International Women’s Day: After many gains, still work to be done

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This article was published 08/03/2024 (619 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today, on International Women’s Day, Kelly Saunders will stop and think about the advancements that have been made for women, while acknowledging there is “work that still needs to be done.”

“More and more women are becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers and politicians, and that’s a wonderful thing,” said Saunders, a political science professor at Brandon University.

“So is joining the job market, whatever areas they choose, getting more education, but there are still battles that have to be fought.”

Saunders is a born, raised and educated Manitoban. She received her doctorate from the University of Manitoba, with additional studies at McGill University in Montreal, and has been teaching at BU for the past 18 years.

“I grew up in a really great household in the sense that my parents always talked about current events and things that were going on in the world,” Saunders said.

“And my grandparents on both sides were immigrants from Ukraine, so I heard about some of the political challenges they faced and why they had to leave, much like the story of so many people that come to Canada.

“So, growing up in that milieu, it sparked my interest. I realized that these conversations were really important, and they shaped my world, so I wanted to learn more and be a part of it,” she said.

After attaining her master’s degree, Saunders said she worked in politics for several years, including being part of Kim Campbell’s election campaign in Montreal.

Kim Campbell was Canada’s prime minister from June 25 to Nov. 4, 1993, and was the country’s first and only female prime minister.

That’s when, Saunders said, she decided to go back to university and pursue her PhD.

“I remember being in my poli-sci classes in graduate school, and even doing my PhD, women were very, very rare in political science. We’re catching up now — there are more and more women getting PhDs, and that’s great. But when I was starting several decades ago, women were very underrepresented,” said Saunders.

Women have protections in law, with equality rights spelled out in the Canadian Human Rights Act and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, added Saunders, but there’s a gap between what the law says and what actually happens in society.

“There’s still a lot of structural discrimination against women,” she said. “While it’s called International Women’s Day, I think we’re also getting a much larger sense of other gender minorities and the battles still being fought that have not yet been won in terms of non-binary folks and trans people.

“We need to listen to other people, value different opinions, and try to make the table bigger instead of just putting up barriers, and I think that’s something that we as women tend to do a little bit more than men do. And I think that’s a great quality that we all need more of in the world,” Saunders said.

When Treena Slate was growing up on a farm in rural northern Manitoba, she said there was “complete equity in the responsibilities of work.”

Slate is about to take over as the new CEO of Prairie Mountain Health, replacing the retiring Brian Schoonbaert, who has held the job since 2021.

“In a rural upbringing on the farm, there isn’t a hierarchy in terms of the girls in the house doing all the cooking,” Slate said. “It was equal responsibility in terms of what was required, helping shingle the roof or driving the machinery. There were no differences in that way for sure.”

But there came a time, Slate said, when she noticed that boys were treated differently than girls.

“If a girl stood up and spoke her mind, she might be considered bossy. Whereas in a boy, those characteristics were valued and encouraged.

“So certainly, I think it’s sort of a gradual awareness of those differences that impacts women,” said Slate.

During her medical career, Slate has been a staff nurse, educator, public health nurse, manager of nursing and director. She was chosen as CEO from more than 200 applicants.

When the selection committee was asked by the Sun what qualities Slate possessed that stood out, they said she helped guide the health region through the COVID-19 pandemic and “she’s smart, articulate, a strong leader and built on practical experience.”

Slate said it has always been in her to be a leader, that she felt it was important to speak up, voice her opinion and have a place at the leadership table.

“When you look at leadership tables around our province and around the country, we’re still seeing more of an older white male presence, and I think that’s starting to shift slowly — we are seeing more women, more diversity, in terms of cultural backgrounds with those tables, and that is so empowering to see those differences,” Slate said.

“I think what women bring to the table is just that ability to be more caring and compassionate to their populations and to the people that they serve — in general, of course.

“Having a more well-rounded approach to leadership tables, and not just having one group represented at those tables, is very important for all of us in society,” she said.

The first International Women’s Day took place in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911, according to the Government of Canada website. That day, more than a million women and men gathered to support women’s equal participation in society.

In 1975, the United Nations recognized 1975 as International Women’s Year and began celebrating March 8 as International Women’s Day.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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