An International Women’s week held in the auditorium where four great women spoke mostly about Indigenous and Muslim women. It separated into two days of conferences. They taught me a lot of things that I didn’t know about and heard their stories.
Indigenous people are the first ones who have settled here in Canada. I found out that Indigenous women are 12 times more likely to be murdered than non-Indigenous women and that 90% of visible sex workers are Indigenous. Also, Indigenous people has an intergenerational trauma and has a colonization as gendered oppression and have experienced genocide. These facts relate to the masculinity that men are likely to sex assault women. They abuse their power to these things because for men, it’s okay to do it. Just like in the episode of Fifth Estate: Lone Wolf, one woman said that her boss will pay her double if she sleeps or have sex with him. And it’s the Status & Achievement, a sexual conquest for them. Furthermore, two indigenous siblings, Aamjiwreaang and Sarnia, have taken an action against climate change and other indigenous women on the front line. “We are not defending nature we are nature defending itself.” This shows that men are not the only who can do things. It’s not just by biological sex differences because in Kimmel: Masculinity, “gender is not an emanation of identity rather than it is an emergent property of interactions, coerced us by others”. It’s the person’s will to do such things.
On the 2nd day, the topic was about Living in the Shadow of Law 21 where were two incredible women in front of us shared their stories. First woman named Nadia Naqui who was born and raised in Quebec. Nadia is proud to be Muslim, and when she was young until she grew up, she witnessed the islamophobia of other people and it has been present all along. Fortunately, she has a father who was there to guide and discipline her. It’s a kind of father who is a “Good family man” providing economical and emotional support for their family. Furthermore, in 2019 the Bill 21 became a law, Nadia campaign the rights of every Muslims with the Bouchard-Taylor Commission and wants to keep her rights to wear hijab while teaching. Apart from it, Laïty Fary Ndiaye, she is a black Muslim who talked about more of the Law 21. She said that the Law 21 supposed to respect the laïcity. She joined a collective group. A collective group who recognizes different women like different religions. She is a part of it, and it shows that they have emotional or social support from each other by helping one another when they need help, and it’s a relationship basic for everyone.
The one thing in common for Indigenous women and Muslim women is that they have been harassed, people have been sexist and misogyny. For Indigenous women, a lot of them got raped and went missing. For Muslim women, they get harassed and people have been racists because of their religion. We think that in Canada, there are less racial stereotypes and an equality of gender roles, but the sad part is that it’s still there invisible in our society. It’s rare, and yet institutionalized (or systematic) racism persists (Omi and Winant, 1993). Therefore, I’m hoping that this racialization will disappear little by little and hoping that the government will act.
Lovers and Fighters | Section 22 