Women and Political Representation in Canada

Chapter 9: Who's Represented? Gender and Diversity in the Alberta Legislature

9 Who's Represented? Gender and Diversity in the AlbertaLegislature LINDA TRIMBLE, University of Alberta Introduction Who's represented when women are elected to serve in Canada's legislatures? Do legislators speak for women in all their diversity? Rosemary Brown, an MLA from 1972 to 1984, certainly had this goal in mind. In her autobiography, Being Brown, she recalled that, when giving her first speech before the B.C.LegislativeAssembly, she could feel "the presence of women, Black women, Native women, slaves, immigrant women, poor women, old women and young women" (Brown 1989, 140). Her view of representation was shaped by the belief that "all people depend on all people, and that unless all of us are free—none of us will be free" (Brown 1989, 87). But perhaps Rosemary Brown is exceptional. Can we realistically expect the few women who win political office to represent the realities, needs, and goals of all women? After all, female politicians are no more likely than their male counterparts to reflect the diversity of the general population; indeed, "the vast majority of female legislators are white, publicly heterosexual, [able-bodied], relatively well-educated middle-to-upper-class women" (Arscott and Trimble 1997,4). Will electing women in greater numbers merely represent advantaged women and perpetuate the underrepresentation of the most marginalized women? Since so few Canadian women were elected until quite recently, earlier studies of women in political life focussed on the reasons for women's exclusion (Bashevkin 1993; Brodie 1985; Megyery 1991). Now that women comprise 10%or more of the elected officials in all but two of Canada's provincial, territorial, and federal legislatures, political scientists have begun to ask whether or not female legislators are inclined to represent women (Arscottand Trimble 1997; Tremblay 1992; Tremblay and Boivin 1990-1991). Research on this question conducted in Canada, the United States (Carroll 1984, 1992; Saint-Germain 1989; Thomas 1989, 1994; Thomas and Welch 1991) and Norway 258 WOMEN AND POLITICAL REPRESENTATION IN CANADA (Bystydzienski 1992;Skjeie 1991) shows that female legislators are more likely than male legislators to support the goals of the women's movement and advocate policies that promote the status of women. Empirical analyses must now address a crucial point raised by feminist theorists—that women are not a monolithic group with a multitude of common interests (Butler 1990;Spelman 1988; Vickers 1997;Young1990, 1994). By employing categories such as "women," "representation of women," and "women's interests" without question or qualification,we falsely homologize women. As Iris Marion Young recognizes, "Saying that a person is a woman may predict something about the general constraints and expectations she must deal with. But it predicts nothing in particular about who she is, what she does, how she takes up her social positioning" (Young 1994, 833). Or, as Chantal Maille puts it, "what do an Anglo-Saxon, middle-class woman, a poor, Frenchspeaking Quebec woman, and an intellectual Native woman have in common as far as political priorities are concerned?" (Maille 1997,59). In my work on the impact of female legislators in Alberta(Trimble 1993,. 1997), I have focussed on the institutional and ideological constraints experienced by female MLAs and on the circumstances under which women can make a difference to the style, tone, and content of legislative debate. The issue of whether women in the Alberta legislature articulated women's various lived experiences, including the multiple discrimination encountered by disabled women, women of colour, aboriginal women, and lesbians, was raised but not explored in any detail. This chapter follows up on that earlier research by asking whether representation ofwomen in the Alberta legislature has included representation of women's diversity. In this study, I found that few Alberta legislators, male or female, discuss policy issues in ways that reflect the different needs and experiences of women, as shaped by ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, and official citizenship status. While the white, able-bodied, heterosexual woman, in the guise of "generic woman," has at times been represented in the Alberta legislature, most of her real-life sisters have not. Methodology The question considered here is whether the inherent diversity in women's experiences and policy needs has been represented inAlberta legislative debates by male or female representatives (in this volume, Fraud explores a similar question in relation to the ONDP).Relevant intervening variables include party competition in the legislature, the WHO'S REPRESENTED? GENDER AND...