During the first International Women’s week presentation we saw, I have learned that indigenous men were taught how to abuse their women by European colonizers. This violent and aggressive characteristic is demonstrated in Kilmartin’s definition of “adventurous and aggressive” men. There were more examples of these aggressive men when the protests happening in the Wet’suwet’en territory. Men are ripping down the red dresses hung for murdered and missing indigenous women as well as arresting indigenous people who are non-violently defending their territory. As stated in the text, these men are “taking risks” and “becoming violent if necessary”.

From the second presentation we viewed I learned that Muslim women often are oppressed for their beliefs as many misinformed people are under the impression that Muslim women are dependant and submissive to men. In reality, these women are independent and choose to wear a hijab for their faith; they are not being forced to perform any religious acts. Our society is still one that views a wife as her husbands possession in many cases. Many men feel that they must have a wife or girlfriend to prove that they are not gay as there is a strong sense of homophobia amongst men today. They also feel that they must dominate these wives as they are worried about seeming feminine. This means that the assumption that Muslim women obey their husbands orders is rooted in the beliefs of our society.

Overall, these presentations have taught me that women are still viewed as lesser in many cases in our society and we must work toward improving this. As is stated in Kilmartin’s men in relationships, men feel more comfortable expressing their feelings and thoughts to female friends as they are less afraid that they will be judged for it. This insinuates that men still believe that women take on the role of caregivers and nurturers which can lead to the idea that women are inferior to men. Whether it be because they are not as physically strong in some cases or that they are not as intense and aggressive. This relates to the presentation in that all the women in these cases have been treated as lesser than man and it is not their fault. It is the fault of our society.

Yesterday’s conference really made me emotional. I am an arabic muslim woman, so I could really relate to everything Miss Naqvi said. Her message was about the law 21, and she explained how it affected her and why she is against it. Her speech affected me, but I didn’t learn anything new. The experience of her dad getting beaten up made me realise how people are ignorants.

I am born in Quebec too, and I find it really sad that the place that I’m born doesn’t even accept me. I am seen as a stranger everywhere I go, and it shouldn’t be like this. At the end of the day, we are all humans and we all deserve to do what we want in life. Muslim women are limited in their choice of carreer because of what they have on their heads, and it’s discrimination. I asked one of my friends who assisted to the conference and she has the same opinion as me and Miss Naqvi. We are supposed to evolve, and this bill makes us regress.

What touched me the most is when she said at the end that we should not let it go, and we must fight for our rights. I don’t understand why can’t we just live how we want to and respect the others among us. A veil on my head does not define who I am, because it is simply a piece of fabric and it is certainly not that which should prevent me from doing what I want in life. I would totally recommend this event to my friends because this law is something that affects us all. Mostly religious people obviously, but it creates hatred between us and it really should not be like this…

During both presentations, I attended during international women’s week I learned a lot. During the first presentation, I learned a lot about climate change and how it’s affecting the indigenous peoples of our land but especially how it is affecting the indigenous women. Indigenous lands are being exploited for resources by those who have no right to do so. Indigenous communities are fighting to protect there land as well as each other. These types of situations are leading to poverty and other terrible outcomes for the indigenous peoples however it is especially affecting women due to there low socio-economic power.

During the second lecture, I learned a lot about the terrible bill 21 and how it is affecting the female Muslim community. One of the presenters shared there story of being a Muslim teacher who wears a hijab and the constant threat of bill 21 threatening her every move. She talked about how it was her choice to wear a hijab and it’s not because she’s” stupid” its just her choice. We also covered how just because she wears a hijab she is professionally stuck and is unable to receive any sort of promotions because of her hijab.

Both of these lectures relate to what we’ve covered in class especially Kimmel’s view of gender as an institution. Kimmel talks about how we expect certain genders to bring certain attributes of there gender into otherwise gender-neutral institutions which I believe to be especially true in the case of female Muslim teachers. It is not fair to assume that a female who happens to be Muslim is teaching our kids that they will teach our kids Muslim values and be biased towards people of there own culture. Another theory that relates to International women’s week would be Kimmel’s idea of “Doing Gender”. Kimmel states that gender is less of a component of our identity and more of a product of our interactions. Inequality is taught. In the case of indigenous women, it is a consequence of how people of non-indigenous backgrounds view them

The first thing i learned from those presentation is that women feel inferiors. It is not only a feel but a reality. In many case the people in place of power are a majority of men. They tend to take decision without taking in consideration women. For example law 21, restraining people in place of power from wearing religious symbols. The main group that is target are Muslims women who were the hijab. seeing the political situation, I would say that this law was put because of the Muslim terrorist group (which are the opposite of what Islam teach) and the government what to show that they are against them by targeting Muslim women. Showing that they don’t care about what women think and are only focus on themselves.

I’ve also learned that women know how to stand their ground. Its been more that three decades since the feminist movements started and they accomplish a lot. I didn’t even knew their were a international Women’s day. Which reinforce my incomprehension of why women want to be more like men and why men don’t respect more women. There is a old movie (sadly I don’t remember the name) with a quote that marked: “Yes, the father is the head of the family, but the mother is the neck of which turn the head in the right direction.” It says everything, why would women want to be men when they are already in control. Probably because both gender don’t realize it yet.

The third think I learned was that men (and people in general) are not smart at all. They pollute like crazy, destroy homes, vote laws that doesn’t make sense, and all for their personal gain. The funny part is that the laws that actually make sense, they can’t even respect them. For example the law about indigenous’ right is one of the most logical one in Canada, and it is past over again and again. They also make studies to be sure what they are doing is right, but if the results go against them they just ignore the results.

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. 

International Women’s Week is a week of celebration, education, and awareness surrounding women’s and gender issues. During this week there was two Muslim women shared how Law 21 has created new realities for them that have affected their sense of belonging and ability to thrive in Quebec. Their presentations were very impressive, especially Nadia Naqvi’s speeches made me interested in Bill 21 and the Islamic veil.

Bill 21 is a controversial law as the arguments in the news Quebec women’s rights group defends Bill 21 in montreal.citynews.ca. On one hand, supporters say the Islamic veil is a symbol of sexism and doesn’t belong on public school. Marie Claude says the group’s stance is a defence of secularism, and democratic society is secular…they are defending the neutrality of institutions…it’s important for the province to be neutral and democratic. On the other hand, opponents say PDF hurts the women and the ban prevents a muslim woman from becoming a teacher or prosecutors.

It seems that it is obligatory for some muslim women to wear the Islamic veil. The majority of Muslim scholars and exegetes agreed that the believing women must cover their hair by putting on a Khimar and leave only their faces and hands uncovered in the presence of men who do not have a direct family relationship with them. (Asma-Lamrabet.com) Asma Lamrabet says the essence of Hijab aimed, mainly, to educate Arabs of that time to respect the privacy of people and good manners, but women were separated from men and society, in the name of Islam, by replacing the Khimar with Hijab means to confuse different and opposing semantic and conceptual fields in order to endorse, in the name of Islam, the exclusion of women from the sociopolitical space behind a curtain! Gender difference was produced in the same way as Kimmel stated in gender as an institution, the differences between women and men are reproduced, and in this way the inequality between women and men is legitimated.

The question of Hijab or the veil is currently one of the most controversial issues both in the Muslim country and the West, but beyond the question of the right to claim the “veil” and its religious legitimacy, it is helpful for women to aware more about women’s and gender issues through international women week.

During the International Women’s Week, our class visited to presentations under the theme of Backlash. On Monday, we listened to the “Climate change, pipelines and violence against women presented by Lucy Everett and Jen gobby. The main focus of the speech was about indigenous women who struggles to maintain theirs rights and territory. On the other hand, on Thursday, we learned about “Living in the shadow of Law 21” presented by Nadia Naqvi and Laïty Fary Ndiaye. This presentation talked about stereotypical views on muslim women, islamphobia and other social injustices.

In the first seminar, Lucy Everett started the presentation by mentioning that climate change is an issue that affects various factors such as political, social, economical and environmental. She also mentioned that “climate change tends to target population that are already vulnerable by different firms and institutions.” These people are indigenous community, also known under the name of native people. These people survive based on the natural environment and resources that their land and territory provide to them. However, many institutions and organizations neglect their existence and wants to extract them from their home. As an example, the guest speaker mentioned that “FSC organization forced more than 80% of the indigenous women to move away of their territory.” These people are already vulnerable and miserable due to the different consequences of climate change. But, organization such as FSC forced them to move while their survival needs depend on the natural resources.

In the second seminar, Nadia Naqvi introduced the topic by giving a general background of herself. Her story was emotional and it helped the audience to better understand her experience and position. She mentioned that she has faced islamophobia ever since she was in kindergarten. At the age of 6, her dad got beaten up by some strangers. The citizen saw his dad in his car and forcefully pulled him out and beat him. Additionally, while this tragic incident happened, his little brother who was 4 happened to witness the whole situation. Apart from that, she also shared many stories that were related to discrimination, racism and some terrorism related statements. On the other hand, Laïty Fary Ndiaye supported the speech by emphasizing on Bill 60 where governmental institutions showed pictograms in which it limited religious people from wearing specific clothing or symbols such as the hijab, kippah…

These two seminars really helped me understand that everyone is facing their own challenge no matter their “identity”. Relating to our class material, we have read different readings, watched documentary, etc… about how masculinity plays a major role in men. However, it is the same thing for indigenous people and muslim women. They are all facing different expectations and injustices due to the social labels that society have forced on them. We’re in 2020. We’re considered as the most open-minded and rights protective generation. However, why does gender, race, religion and status injustices still remain present? Did we really try to stop and help the different victims to stand up and live their lives freely?

This year’s international Women’s week covered interesting and controversial topics such as Bill 21, islamophobia, violence against women and the government’s aid/hindrance on these issues. The class attended two different seminars: a panel talking about the fight of indigenous women and a panel talking about their fights against islamophobia as Muslim women. We learned the pain and the disadvantages that these women have to go through on a daily basis.

As I was not present for the first seminar, I did some research on the issues of the pipeline project controversy and the effects of the climate change on women via the web. First of all, the pipeline projects through indigenous lands requires for the government and companies to get approval of the indigenous communities to move forward and build on their land. The thing is that getting that approval from the communities is tricky and companies get approval from band councils and not hereditary chiefs that leads to numerous appeals and disputes over the projects. Cynthia Callison, a negotiator for agreements between the government and indigenous communities, said that “[…] projects have gone ahead despite the fact that not all Indigenous communities affected by the projects have given their consent. The consequences of building these pipelines are the destruction of the ancestral and traditional land of indigenous communities and the numerous terrible effects on the environment. Second of all, the climate change affects women more severely than it affects men because they don’t have the same resources as them. Women are most likely to be poor from disasters and environmental changes because of the lack of resources to adapt. From the information gathered from chatelaine.com, In a 25-year survey in India’s Andhya Pradesh, 44 percent of respondents who slid into poverty cited weather events as a cause.

The second seminar was focused on Islamophobia and Bill 21. We had a panel of two speakers: Nadia Naqvi and Laïty Fary Ndiaye, two Muslim women that were heavily touched by this bill. The seminar started with the experiences of Nadia and her hard experiences with Islamophobia starting as early as childhood with teachers telling her to “Go back home” and the frightening experience that her family experienced when a random stranger beat her father simply because of his religion and the way that he looked. Not just that but also with 9/11, countless Muslim men and women were struggling to get Visas to numerous countries such as Canada because the country that they were coming from was a Muslim country (Nadia’s husband had to wait 3 years when normally it takes 8 months). We learned that Bill 21 had an effect on her because she was a teacher at a school in the public sector and that it meant that she couldn’t advance with her career and had to stay where she was simply because she was wearing an hijab and Bill 21 didn’t allow representatives of the government (police officers, teachers, etc.) to wear religious symbols to preserve the laicity of the province. We also learn more from Laïty who an activist for Muslim women and she is shared some of her experiences as a non-visible Muslim because she decided not to wear a hijab. She talked about her experiences with friends and other people criticizing Muslims in front of her and not knowing that she, in fact, is a Muslim herself. We learned about the experiences that these women have to go through on the daily basis from directly getting abused physically to hearing someone talk badly of the religion.

To conclude, I learned a lot attending the seminar and doing research online about these issues and I am grateful to learn from these women and be part of the annual International Women’s week. Personally, I believe in that everyone should be treated equally no matter what creed, race, religion, sexual orientation or gender they have or are and hearing the stories from these women made me want to see a change in our society today. Finally, I understood in depth how much women go through on a daily basis (even worse for Muslim women & women of different race) and really helped me improve on myself by changing the way I think and act towards other people in the future.

Sources

https://www.chatelaine.com/news/gas-oil-pipelines-in-canada/

Without Indigenous consent for pipelines, more protests to be expected: experts

https://www.chatelaine.com/news/women-shoulder-the-burden-of-climate-change/

Last Week’s presentations were really interesting, it covered important topics and did it with professionalism. I did not assist to many conferencs in my life but those are for sure two of the best ones.

The first conference about the climate changes and its effects on Women was really something I’ve never heard about. Everyone knows that climate changes have an effect on population but the fact that it has even more effect on Women was something that I didn’t know. The conference also covered the atrocities made to Indigenous Women. she talked about The pipelines project that goes through indigenous territory, that destroys their environment and does not give them access to the benefits of a such project.It raised awareness amongs us the public, and sensibilized a lot of people for a noble cause. Those populations are ostracized, they are victims of hundreds of years of colonialism and assimilation.

The speaker really put an emphasis on how Indigenous women and Indigenous population and general have been impoverished and how this poverty lead to all the problems that they encounter nowadays. The parrelel that she made allowed me to put an example on what Kimmel wrote in the text ” Fathers and Fathering” when he pointed out that ” there is substantial evidence that children raised in impoverished circumstances are not only at greater risk of abuse, but also at risk of psychological maladjustement in a number of domains ” (Kimmel 187-188). This quote is directly illustratred by the example of the sisters in the religious school were the precarious conditions stopped them for developping her full potential and, at the end, never realize their value and ending manipulated and forced to do things. Every new generations is doomed and nearly always condemned to a poor future. Unfortunately, every new generation, for now, grows in a situation as bad and as precarious as the older generations due to Canadian’s politics and their decision to exploit them.

The second conference was about a subject that I knew much better. The question of the religion and the hate and racism towards the religious people especially women is more mediatized and has sparked more debates. The speaker, Nadia Naqvi, gave a good and precise image and definition of what it is to be a muslim in society where racism is present. The life of a muslim woman wearing the hijab is full of micro aggression, deliberate or not. Nadia and Laity Fary Ndiaye are openly against the Bill 21 as it restrain religious people, especially muslim women to pursue their career and live in harmony with their religions. This bill forces them to choose between professional success and the religious and personnal fullfilment. Nadia’s speech highlighted the discriminations agaisnt muslim communities and how her family suffered from all that, especially after 2001. Laity Fary Ndiaye has put the emphasis of the difficulty of being a muslim women in our society but also how being a woman of color added a new level of difficulty to the process. She said that one of the way to interfere with these racist conditions was to be united between discriminated women and discriminated communities in general.

What Nadia Naqvi and Laity Fary Ndiaye showed is that immigrants and people for a different religion than the religion of the majority will be put aside as they do not benefit from the privilege of the majority and therefore, are not in position to effectively defend their rights and revendications. This make a good parralel with Kimmel’s writting ” Mens at work” where he states that majority of the people exploited in society and in the work fields are the one coming from the minorities since it is the majority group that has the power over the standards and decisions.

In conclusion, The conference about indigenous women and the effect of climate changes on women taught me how inequalities, in numerous situation, affected women even more than men even if it is not evident to see at first sight. And the conference about the Bill 21 made me think about the repercussion of discriminatory laws on religious communities and especially women of those communities.

During International Women’s Week, our class attended two presentations. The first was entitled “Climate Change, Pipelines, and Violence Against Women” by Lucy Everett and Jen Gobby on March 2nd. These two women addressed issues that indigenous women face, how climate change affects women, colonization, residential schools, intergenerational trauma, current man camps, organizations, and more. The later was ‘Living in the Shadow of Law 21’ presented by Nadia Naqvi and Laïty Fary Ndiaye on March 4th. Both of the women are Muslim, Nadia chooses to wear the hijab, while Laïty, who is a woman of colour, decides not to wear it. Nadia spoke about how, as she is a visibly practicing Muslim, she has faced Islamaphobia in Quebec. Laïty also shared her anecdotes and opinions on Bill 21.

The women spoke about global warming, climate change and the effects that it has on indigenous people and their practices (i.e. hunting and fishing) in Canada. Canada is also a huge emitter, and it was mentioned that indigenous people should be included in the decisions that involve nature. Lucy and Jen said that 80% of people displaced by climate change are women (UN). They also discussed colonization as gendered oppression. They went over negative stereotypes that target indigenous people (i.e. addicts and incompetent), the Indian Act, residential schools, ‘child welfare’/the sixties scoop, forced sterilization, and policing and the criminal justice system. Lucy and Jen also shared images of indigenous women on the front lines of the climate crisis and of resistance to extractivism. By the end of the first presentation, the goal that came across was that indigenous men and women should be allowed to have a say in discussions that surround their lands and territories. 

In the second presentation, Nadia, a science teacher, went into depth regarding Islamophobia before and after 9/11. She shared personal stories from her childhood, events she had experienced and also acts of violence her father had gone through. Nadia got married a few days before 9/11, she was in Canada while her husband was not. The immigration process usually takes 8 months, but theirs took 3 years because her husband is a Muslim man. She made it clear that she is unable to move up with her profession due to her religion, while her other coworkers may achieve a higher status. She is a good teacher and doesn’t want people to judge her teaching by her religion. Laïty is a black woman and she chooses not to wear a hijab, which is a choice she’s allowed to make and it does not mean that she is less Muslim than women who wear it. 

Throughout all of our class readings, the theme of male stereotypes is present. Both of these seminars went over some stereotypes. Lucy and Jen mentioned some for indigenous men and women and how this excludes them from the table-making decisions. They are expected to be lazy drunks who don’t have anything to offer when it comes to serious issues. Nadia and Laïty went into detail about stereotypes for Muslim men and women. A common one that Nadia shared was how people assume all Muslims are terrorists, and her father even had to suffer from acts of violence. The readings are often about how men have to be and act a certain way in order to be considered a man, which are gendered stereotypes. The presentations consisted of racist stereotypes.