Federalism In Canada

The discourses surrounding human rights has been mobilized from multiple political environments with varying results by the constituents of the post-war nation-state. Post-war social liberalism, indigenous peoples, and gender scholarships have all become vehicles in ascertaining claim to immigrant, women, indigenous and minority identity. The articulated agendas for social justice can be observed in Joanne Barker’s, “Gender, Sovereignty, and the Discourse of Rights in Native Women 's Activism”, Janine Brodie’s, “We Are All Equal Now: Contemporary Gender Politics in Canada”, and Jill Vickers’, “Is Federalism Gendered? Incorporating Gender into Studies of Federalism”. Vickers set out to conceptualize questions, concepts, and hypotheses that …show more content…
Canada’s post-war state was conceived within the philosophy and notions of social liberalism. Social liberalism prescribed that all citizens of the nation-state had a right to make a claim to a degree of social security, equality, and collective provision. It was this ideology and discourse around post-war social liberalism, and the structures of the nation-state, that reared the emergence of gender equality as an important entity to inform and underpin the second wave of feminism. Brodie echoes Vickers’ perspective that feminist scholarship progressively viewed the post-war nation-state as a regime with a doctrine of a gendered nationality, which constricted the formation of unique identities by invariably casting women as dependent, disciplined, and marginalized citizens. Social liberalism was a foundational promise to destroying this doctrine, achieving citizen equality, and evicting gender roles from the political sphere. In other words, social liberalism provided a voice to women who had been systematically wronged, a voice that could talk back to, and stand up to the state as equal citizens who have been denied their full and proper human rights. This mentality evolvement uncovered the existence of the welfare state because “…it assumed …show more content…
This never-ceasing and often unapparent form of ostracism is present in every social sphere. Historically, Indigenous female involvement in decision-making exemplifies this neglect of interests because it possessed an elevated level of gender bias. Women’s opinions, appeals, concerns, and political agendas were not only rejected on the grounds of being insignificant but even considered dangerous to Indigenous sovereignty. This view suggested that Indigenous women promote an ideology that is ‘anti-Indian’—a crime against their identity—by their motivation to force Indigenous peoples into compliance with a suggested selfish ideology. The social dismissal and prosecution of Indigenous women and their ideas create another reproducing masculine model that fosters discriminatory, sexist, and violent practices against Indigenous women within their