Gender Equality Mainstreaming Digest – October 2020 Issue
Here are the highlights of this month’s Gender Equality Mainstreaming Digest! Click HERE for the full version.
Autumn foliage. Photo courtesy of D. Ceplis.
Highlights:
Opportunities and Upcoming Events:
Many events are being cancelled or re-scheduled at the last minute due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Please check each organization’s website or its social media site for up to date information.
October is Women’s History Month in Canada
An education guide to Women’s Suffrage in Canada is available at the link. This Guide complements Canadian middle-school and high-school curricula. It invites students to deepen their understanding of gender equality and democracy through research and analysis, engaging discussion questions, and group activities. It asks students to examine issues of identity, equity, activism and justice in historical and contemporary contexts.
The significance of October 18 is that, in 1929, the Imperial Privy Council of England ruled that women are legally “persons,” reversing a Supreme Court of Canada ruling. Some women can now hold seats in the Canadian Senate.
Virtual Conference: Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation
2020 CRRF Virtual Conference with the theme of Supporting Rural Recovery & Resilience.
October 1, Keynote: The Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development, 8.15-9.00AM PDT/11.15AM-12.00PM EDT/12.15-1.00PM ADT
This session will be followed by a special Q&A session. Make sure to submit your questions in advance via social media.
Spur Change is hosting a series of practical, hands-on and peer-to-peer learning opportunities to strengthen the capacity of Canadian SMOs to integrate a gender/feminist approach into their activities. Sector champions will share Gender-adapted tools and practices and explore with participants how they could be adapted to the needs and realities of SMOs. These 90-minute interactive sessions will be held monthly starting this October.
- Session 1: Putting Feminist and Gender-sensitive Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) into practice. October 7, 2020. How to apply feminist principles to monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) practice? How does the empowerment of women translate to project monitoring? Using feminist approaches to MEAL could increase access to knowledge and consequently, it could be a powerful tool to transform unequal power relations. Organizations can achieve it by developing tools that incorporate feminist principles into their project management. During this webinar, Oxfam-Canada and Plan Canada will share concrete tools and resources to help SMOs aiming to adopt a gender-sensitive and feminist lens to their MEAL.
- Session 2: Testing Innovative Solutions with a Gender Lens. October 14, 2020. Integrating gender equality throughout an initiative, from design to evaluation, is essential to fostering sustainable gender equality results. Many organizations, however, lack the resources, time or capacity to effectively mainstream gender in their development work, especially in a dynamic testing environment.
Ag Women’s Network Mentorship Program Virtual Events
Building Confidence & Effective Communication, Tuesday, October 20, 2020, 8-9 PM EST
- Building leadership excellence is what they do; empowering women in their belief to make an impact is who they are!
Keynote Event: We are Wired for Connection. November 16, 2020 at 8 pm EST.
- The 3rd and final event in the AWN Mentorship Program Virtual Event Series: We are Wired for Connection will be inspirational & empowering. Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsd-qorj4uHtwXKah48FHlAKOU92EeseTS
This Month’s News:
Studies in soil science, ag practices earn national scholarships
A University of Manitoba PhD student has earned a national scholarship toward her work on struvite — a naturally produced mineral found in wastewater — as a source of phosphorus fertilizer in organic cropping systems. Joanne Thiessen Martens was announced Aug. 27 as the recipient of the Canadian Foundation for Food and Agricultural Education’s (CFFAE) Karl C. Ivarson Soils Scholarship for 2020.
The CFFAE also announced Chelsea Sutherland, a masters’ student at the University of Saskatchewan, as the recipient of the Douglas McRorie Memorial Scholarship. Sutherland today is involved in a large crop-rotation survey of farmers in Saskatchewan to document changes in management and production practices over the past 25 years.
A recent report from the University of Regina’s Hill and Levene schools of business shows that while more women have joined the agriculture industry in recent years, gender parity is still a long way off.
The report found women account for only 25 per cent of farm operators in Saskatchewan, and approximately 30 per cent nationally.
Christie Newton — a graduate student with the Levene Graduate School of Business and one of the authors of the report — acknowledged that women have always been a part of farming. But now, their contributions are getting more recognition.
Conservatives appoint new ag critic
Ontario MP Lianne Rood was recently named by Conservative party leader Erin O’Toole as Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Agri-Food for the Official Opposition. She represents Lambton-Kent-Middlesex and replaces John Barlow from Alberta. Rood has a varied background that includes politics and small business as well as farming. She grew up on a 1,000-acre vegetable farm, obtained a degree in criminology and sociology, and worked for the Stephen Harper government for six years.
Reports Publications and Resources:
The Ag Women’s Network explores important topics related to gender equality in agriculture through online discussions and events.
- Wielding the Power of Words
- Speed Mentoring Excellent to Inspire & Motivate
- How to Choose an Ag Education
- What Can We Do to Get More Women on Board?
- Demystifying the Board of Directors
- 9 Tips do Deal with Sexism & Combat Unconscious Bias
- Mental Health in Agriculture Why Aren’t We Talking About It?
- Rural Counselling & Mental Health Support Services
- Balancing it all Without Burnout Takes Us Back to Math Class
Safe@School is a project launched in 2007 by the Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF) and the Centre ontarien de prévention des agressions (COPA). Their website offers teaching resources, including lesson plans, on Gender Equality.
Gender Equality – Tools and resources from Government of Canada
Find assistance and support for developing gender equality approaches in the digital world.