During the international women’s week, we had the chance to see the presentations from Indigenous and Muslims women vis a vis their experience with gendered problems. These presentations were really eye opening for me –a man coming from a white Canadian family. We are sometimes too caught up in our routines to noticed what is happening to others, and I’m very thankful to have had the chance to sit in those presentations and hear more about these women’s experiences .
Firstly, the first presentation on Monday was really interesting because a lot of the information presented was unknown to me. For example, I learned that indigenous women are more likely to get murdered, more likely to get sexually assaulted and more likely to be reported as missing than women from other ethnicities. It also talked about how big Canadian projects like the pipeline Energy-Est and others are perceived by indigenous communities. It is really unrespectful and despicable for the Canadian government to step on the land of these nations and act like it is theirs without even acknowledging the fact that it is not. Women and children are, often in those cases, the first ones to suffer. The protest with the red dresses on the bridge is, yes without a doubt, to protest the disappearance of women from their nation, but also to protest of a nation losing their ways to the menacing giant that is Canada.
Secondly, the first presentation on Wednesday really helped me to understand the law 21 and his impacts on teachers practicing their religion, especially for women wearing the hijab. It is easy for a Muslim man to appear unnoticed or labelled as non-religious, but for a woman wearing the hijab it is not so easy. This has been an issue throughout the life of Nadia Naqvi. To live with the racism, suppression and injustice to be different is a thing, as she mentioned in her presentation, but to be professionally stuck because your own government does not approve your portrayal of your own religion is another thing. With the law presently in order miss Naqvi, as a practicing Muslim woman, doesn’t have any chance of going forward in her professional life she is stuck because the government does not see a future where educators and teachers are in a position to practice their religion during class hours.
thirdly, the contrast between the life of two Muslim women, when they are not portraying their religion the same way. This was the statement of miss Ndiaye, sociologist and community organizer during her presentation on Wednesday. She was telling us her experiences facing gendered problems when it comes to religion and especially the Muslim religion. Being a Muslim black woman not choosing to not wear the hijab, she sometimes faces situation that are unknown to other Muslim women. For example, it is not rare for her to witness people misspeaking about the Muslim religion in her presence because most people don’t know that miss Ndiaye is Muslim herself. She also mentioned that People of black skin color are not well represented in the Muslim religion even though they are forming a big part of its population. The lack of representation in your own religion is regretful when it’s concerning something that make up for a big part of your identity.
In conclusion, Vanier’s international women’s week, was a really good eye-opening week for me. Showcasing problems and issues that I, personally don’t experience or even see in my day to day life. As humans it is always good to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes for a moment, it allows us to empathize and to further understand other’s lives and problems. And in today’s world, we should do it far more often.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 