Summary Of Theryn Meyer's Ideal Worker

Theryn Meyer identifies as a South African Canadian, though she expresses hesitancy about which aspect of this identity ought to be given precedence. In the summer of 2011, her family decided to move to Canada from Paarl, a city in the Western Cape province of South Africa where she had been raised. She was in high school when she immigrated with her mother, father, and younger brother to Dawson Creek, a small town in northern British Columbia. While the decision to move was not easy, she regards immigrating as having had a largely positive impact on her family, and herself personally as a transgender woman. Her story illustrates how Canada is often perceived as a place of opportunity for immigrant families, economically as well as socially. Although employment prospects are a primary motivator for potential immigrants, Canada's …show more content…
The “lifestyle” that Theryn refers to is one which normalizes a division of labour within the family between a man who provides for his family through engagement in the workforce as an “ideal worker” and a woman who accomplishes the same task through her work within the home (Christopher 75). The fact that the Canadian government paid for the plane flight for Theryn's family to Canada and, essentially, paid for Theryn's father to join the Canadian labour force indicates an immigration policy that views immigrants as valuable primarily in terms of their potential to contribute to the economy. As noted by Christopher, this dominant “ideal worker model requires that workers put in as many hours of work as their employer deems necessary, regardless of family demands” (82). Happily, in the case of Theryn's family, her father was able to successfully conform to this ideal while simultaneously finding time to participate more fully in family