“Femme Fiscale Brings Women’s Voices
 to the Legislature”

Jennifer deGroot and Lorna A. Turnbull

A review of the activism of UNPAC to bring the issue of gender responsive budgeting to public and government attention in a way that is meaningful and accessible and includes the voices of a diversity of Manitoba women. A particular focus on the visual/performance art of Femme Fiscale shows new ways of engaging in public discourse from a feminist point of view.

Feminist activism is alive and well in Manitoba, and some groups are willing to try new strategies to ensure that longstanding feminist messages are heard. One example of a group with some fresh ideas, working with women in all their diversity, is UNPAC Manitoba. The United Nations Platform for Action Committee Manitoba grew out of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Forty-five women from Manitoba attended the UN conference itself and the parallel conference for NGOs and were inspired to form the committee to help ensure the implementation of the Platform for Action in Manitoba and globally. Working with its own broad membership, as well as with other community-based organizations, UNPAC Manitoba has undertaken two major projects.

In 2000, shortly after the Beijing +5 meetings in New York, the “Women and Economy Project” was initiated. A foundation for the second major project, the “Women and Economy Project,” brought together women from throughout the province to hear from them and to educate them about women’s place in the economy. A video was produced which features local women and is available to community groups to continue the education and empowerment process.

By the time of the Beijing +10 meetings in New York in 2005, the second major project was underway. The “Gender Budget Project” aims to empower women to take interest and participate in the provincial budget process, and to educate women and the general public about the disparate impact of budgetary measures on women and men. In particular, the project was designed to promote women’s equality through influencing the government to take women’s specific needs into account in the annual budget process. This work is taking place within a broader context of gender budget work across Canada and around the globe (see Bakker; Yalnizyan; CCPA), but is uniquely focused on the particular concerns of Manitoba women and on building their economic literacy and ability to participate in the political process.

Eighteen months into the two-year project, UNPAC has met with close to 400 women through a series of day-long workshops conducted around the province, including in the sparsely populated North. Most of the workshops were hosted by local community groups, such as women’s resource centres; and some were designed to reach specific communities of women, such as women living with disabilities, immigrant women, or senior women. Aboriginal women were also well represented. The workshops attracted women of diverse age, ethnicity, class, and geographic backgrounds and provided the opportunity for UNPAC to hear what the women had to say and to educate the participants about the provincial budget process.

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Numerous activist methodologies flowed from the workshop meetings. Draft letters for participants to send to their Members of the Legislative Assembly as well as to the Minister of Finance and the Minister responsible for the Status of Women were provided and many participants sent such letters with strong personal statements stating their own particular concerns. After each workshop an article was run in the local newspaper outlining the unequal impact of the provincial budget on women when their particular needs and concerns are not taken into account. Members of the gender budget advisory group also met regularly with representatives of Treasury Board and with the Ministers of Finance, Status of Women, and Housing to keep them informed of the results of the ongoing consultations; and to discuss the implementation of gender-based analysis in the budget process. UNPAC also participated as part of a coalition with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (Manitoba) that produced an Alternative Provincial Budget that was released to the public and the media a week before the Provincial Budget was handed down on March 6, 2006 (Investing in Tomorrow, Today). Buttons proclaiming “Proud to be a Taxpayer” were made and worn by many members and supporters during the weeks leading up to the budget. These buttons provoked many conversations about how tax cuts benefit men more than women and impair the ability of the government to provide the services on which many women rely.

The most dramatic and unorthodox activism that has been part of the “Gender Budget Project” so far has been the creation of the “Femme Fiscale” who was brought to life by a local performance artist, Shawna Dempsey, and attended the media scrum following the March 6th budget. She went a long way to bringing the issue of women’s economic equality to the attention of politicians and the broader public.

Femme Fiscale was created by UNPAC Communications Coordinator, Becky Thiessen. Her dialogue was generated by the advisory committee based upon the feedback from women around the province that was gathered during the workshops. A series of postcards has been created where Femme Fiscale discusses a variety of issues including women’s poverty, transportation, tax cuts, and housing with the Golden Boy — Manitoba’s provincial symbol of economic prosperity, a 17-foot golden statue of a cherubic boy with a sheaf of wheat who stands atop the dome of the Legislature. New cards in the series will highlight the issues of affordable childcare, safety, and income support through increased minimum wage and assistance levels. It is hoped that the accessible format and information as well as the personal connection created by Femme Fiscale will generate ongoing interest and even a desire to “collect them all!”

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Femme Fiscale has contributed significantly to getting the concerns of Manitoba women heard by political actors in the province. The government has committed to using gender-based analyses across numerous ministries and UNPAC is hopeful that next year’s budget will incorporate at least some gender budgeting principles. The concerns of rural, Aboriginal, immigrant, and many other women have been given voice in Manitoba as part of a broader global context through education, grassroots action, academic engagement, and visual arts. This is Canadian feminism in action.

Jennifer deGroot is the Project Coordinator for UNPAC and co-facilitated workshops throughout the province. In her other life, she grows food and is actively involved in a variety of grassroots organizations.

Lorna Turnbull is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba and a member of the Gender Budget advisory committee of UNPAC. Her work concerns how women’s economic inequality is created by the caregiving work of women. She is the author of Double Jeopardy: Motherwork and the Law. She wore her “Proud to be a Taxpayer” button when teaching Income Tax Law and Policy and shook up the thinking of some of her students.

References


For more detailed information about the two projects or about UNPAC more generally, please visit our website at www.unpac.ca.

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