Sask. MLA fighting against negative perceptions of women in politics
Saskatchewan NDP MLA Vicki Mowat took to Twitter on Monday to raise awareness about the kinds of calls women in politics get.
She said she recently received a call telling her to shut up and go back to teaching.
While it's not uncommon for politicians to get angry calls from constituents, Mowat said the message had "a condescending tone."
"He perceived me as attacking what he called a 'grown man' and he said 'grown man' a couple of times," she told CBC's Saskatoon Morning. "So it really felt like a message that a male politician would not have received."
Mowat is the MLA for Saskatoon Fairview and the NDP's health critic. She said it's not her first encounter of this kind. She said she has "grown a thick skin."
She's worked in male-dominated fields before, she said, most notably in the military. Mowat is a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Mowat said speaking about this type of treatment is "a good way to raise awareness that it's still happening."
She said she gets asked questions that her male colleagues do not, such as how old she is and what her marital status is.
"There really is still this perception about women in politics that we need to be actively fighting against," Mowat said.
Researcher says women's qualifications often questioned
Erin Pilipow is a researcher at the University of Saskatchewan who is examining how members of Trudeau's cabinet — made up of half men and half women — are treated.
Pillipow said she was inspired to choose this topic for her thesis when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his gender-balanced cabinet in 2015.
"I was super excited for such a strong stance on diverse representation by the prime minister of Canada," she told CBC's Saskatoon Morning.
"But then in my classes ... I was really frustrated by the focus on the idea that these women who were being appointed were automatically lacking merit."
Pillipow said her research found that society has a "very narrow" idea about what experiences are valid for going into politics.
"You basically have to be a lawyer or a businessperson or a previous politician to not have your qualifications questioned," she said. "Those are all experiences that men are more likely to have."
Pillipow said caregiving and being a parent are not considered good experiences, and in fact can be a detriment to a woman's career in politics.
"They're explicitly talked about in a negative way, like it's going to take away from your ability to represent the country or your constituencies."
