Equity Matters

Mar 21

Privilege vs. Complicity: People of Colour and Settler Colonialism

Beenash Jafri, York University
Guest Contributor

This entry is part of the Equity Issues Portfolio’s series on Indigenizing the academy and Indigenous education.

March 21st marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It is a day to commemorate lives lost during the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre, and to reflect on our contemporary efforts to challenge racism and colonialism. In the spirit of this day, I would like to contribute to the ongoing Equity Matters discussions – for example,...

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Mar 14

LGBT Struggles for Human Dignity and Equal Rights in Uganda

Val Kalende, Episcopal Divinity School

Guest Contributor This entry is part of the CFHSS’s VP Equity Issues series on issues related to LGBTQI2-S (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning, intersex and Two-Spirited) peoples.

The influence of the Christian Right on LGBT rights continues to spread beyond the United States. It is productive to examine the nature and impact of this influence on the African continent. As a Ugandan lesbian who grew up in an evangelical Christian household, I think it is productive to examine the role and activities of...

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Mar 8

Status of Black Women in the Academy on International Women’s Day

Njoki N. Wane, University of Toronto
Guest contributor

“Despite some notable progress in the past decade towards greater diversity, the Canadian academy remains largely white and male,” according to a recent CAUT Educational Review. Further, the 2006 “Census data shows an ongoing underrepresentation of women, First Nations, and visible minority professors, as well as significant earnings and unemployment gaps for many of these groups.”

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Mar 2

Resisting Invisibility: Black faculty in Art and Art History in Canada

Charmaine Nelson, McGill University
Guest Contributor

This entry is part of the VP Equity Issues series on Black History Month in Canada.

As Black History Month draws to a close and Women’s History Month begins, I am reminded of the importance of my identity as a black female scholar. More specifically, I am a rare breed of Canadian academic, a black female art historian. At the most recent meeting of the Universities Art Association of Canada (UAAC) annual conference in Ottawa in 2011, I found myself again...

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Feb 29

Homonationalist Discourse, Queer Organizing and the Media

Fatima Jaffer, University of British Columbia
Guest Contributor

This entry is part of the CFHSS’s VP Equity Issues series on issues related to LGBTQI2-S (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning, intersex and Two-Spirited) peoples.

Media stories build on tropes and themes familiar to readers. Such tropes and themes act as a shorthand or ‘common sense’ of what we, as readers, are assumed to believe or are likely to accept. I would argue that in Canada these tropes haven’t changed much since Confederation, although they have varied in form over time and space. Historically these tropes – of white superiority versus the racial inferiority of...

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Feb 24

Indigenous Peoples, Colonialism and Ballet-Slipper Socks: Telling Stories and Storytelling

Jocelyn Thorpe, Memorial University
Guest Contributor

This entry is part of the Equity Issues Portfolio’s series on Indigenizing the academy and Indigenous education.

Our daughter rarely wore the pink ballet-slipper socks she received when she was born. My partner couldn’t stand them, finding in those socks every limitation ever imposed upon a girl. But I hung onto them, unable to give away newborn socks that actually stayed on newborn feet. Two-and-a-half years later, those socks have made a reappearance, this time on the feet of our baby boy. Suddenly, my partner can’t get enough of...

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Feb 16

Black History Month and Paradoxes of Narrating the Nation: Black-Mi'kmaq Relations

Paula Madden, University of Sussex
Guest Contributor

This entry is part of the VP Equity series on Black History Month in Canada.

Black History Month is an interesting time of year. All across the country African Canadians celebrate their achievements. They assert their belonging and an equal claim to the project that we call Canada based on their many contributions to building Canada and also for their length of tenure. The stories of Black Pioneers are shared and Black participation in wars such as the War of 1812 is told and retold. As well, the story of...

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Feb 10

Teaching With Conflict and Controversial Issues in Diverse and Multicultural Classrooms

Christina Parker, OISE/University of Toronto Guest Contributor

This entry is part of the collaborative series on education and equity between the CFHSS’s Equity Issues Portfolio and the Canadian Society for the Study of Education.

At its core, multicultural education is about facilitating inclusion among diverse students. It equitably engages diverse students in its content and pedagogy and it is reflective of students’ own perspectives, histories, and identities. Multicultural education critically acknowledges race, gender, sexuality, and power. Thus, in diverse and...

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Feb 8

Gender Equality 40-Years after the Royal Commission on the Status of Women

Malinda S. Smith, Vice President, Equity Issues Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

This past Saturday’s Globe and Mail included a story by Jane Taber entitled “Re-paving the way for women on the Hill…yet again.” In the article, Laurin Li, a 21-year old McGill University joint major in History and Cultural Studies student and recently elected parliamentarian who swept in to office in the Orange Wave in Quebec, states: “I think it will last throughout my lifetime and throughout the lifetime of my kids,...

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