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Canadian Women Gap Analysis

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Statistics Canada shows that women make up of 50.4% (2010) of Canada’s collective population, however, only 25.3 % of those women are situated in the House of Commons (Women, 2015). Why would this be the case? Canadian women have suffered for a long time now regarding the concern that not only dictated history but has also harshly influenced today’s society, which is the social gap between men and women. It is arguable that this gap has prevented women from the ability to seek their highest potential due to the lack of recognition they would receive, mainly because of their gender. Women have been stigmatized in society as being inferior to men in many aspects of life, such as, “not being as intelligent or as strong as men” even if they are. …show more content…

They also have the ultimate power to decide what is newsworthy and what is too ordinary to even be considered as news. This power also tends to scrutinize women on the basis of their behaviour or their appearance instead of merely focussing on their platforms. In the 2015 election, the media covered the “Leaders Debate” (Munk Debate) that consisted of political leaders disputing on public issues asked by Canadian citizens. It is likely that within a debate one will see their political leader act in a competitive manner, however, those leaders are men (being Justin Trudeau, Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair) and because they are of that gender, it is justified for them to act as so. Although, if the media were to cover the same leader’s debate with a change, in that it consisted of all female politicians acting competitively, this debate would then instantaneously become newsworthy and/or viral. The central reasoning behind this is that it is “unexpected” or “surprising” for a women to behave in such a way because if they “acted combatively, they would then be violating deeply held notions of how women should behave” (Gidengil, 2003, p. 567). The media also focuses on the fashion sense of female politicians much more than their political platforms and their stances on current issues, which would not be the case for men. This is because the media generates stereotypes which shows men to be “effective, aggressive and strong leaders, while women are represented as “gentle, warm, stylish and weak leaders” (BLIGH, 2012, p. 565). The media is also inclined to present women as being incompetent in comparison to their male opposition simply because of the stereotypes given to both genders by society, for instance, saying that women are not the ideal leaders that are capable of running a nation. The view of women “not being ready” is because

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