Feminism Applied: Four Papers

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French studies at the University
of Guelph.

Feminism Applied: Four Papers is the seventh publication of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women; like all CRIAW publications, it is bilingual. The first article, “Women’s Lives in Athapaskan Narrative,” by anthropologist Julie Cruikshank, shows how Athapaskan oral traditions have given northern Native women a means of interpreting the physical and social conditions of their lives and of developing their own strategies. Cruikshank emphasizes that “any social sciences theory used to explain women’s lives, should begin with, or at least take into consideration, a women’s experience” instead of approaching “a problem from a set of conceptual models and theories developed from western tradition.” Her article opens the gate to more sophisticated approaches to the cross-cultural study of gender.

Ruth Rose-Lizée, professor of economics at the University of Quebec and a director of Relais-Femmes, discusses the question of action-research and describes a number of Montreal action-research projects, stressing, of course, the necessity of a collaboration between researchers and activist women’s groups. She points out that the Quebec Women’s Association for Education and Social Action has 35,000 members and undertook, in collaboration with university researchers, a major study on the situation of women working in their husbands’ enterprises. The 221-page report led to far-reaching legal changes.

Another example of action-research is that of the three studies on which the demands of the Quebec Day-Care Movement are based. Rose-Lizée advises how to establish ties between women researchers and the women’s movement, bringing theory and praxis together in order to allow research to have an impact on the “real world.” In 1982, UQAM and Relais-Femmes signed an agreement with the purpose of creating ties between researchers and union and popular groups. Such collaboration is one of the elements that make feminist research in Quebec particularly forceful. An example to be followed in other provinces?

Rosette Côté, a secondary school teacher, contributes an article on women in teachers’ unions and feminist studies. Her article is not translated into English, which seems regrettable as an exchange of information on the subject would be most useful.

And Sharon Batt’s paper on “Our Civil Courts: Unused Classrooms for Education about Rape” appears in English only. Batt argues that as in France, where the lawyer Gisèle Halimi has used rape cases to educate the public about rape through what she calls proces-spectacle, Canadian courts could become discussion forums. With Halimi, French courts have become stages for public debate and cases have brought feminist issues to the attention of the nation, leading eventually to legal changes. Bats argues that in spite of difficulties, the same could happen in Canada. Feminism Applied thus presents issues that, if taken seriously, could bring about important social change in Canada.