Last Saturday was International Women’s Day.
The Women’s Contact Society celebrated the day with an event at TRU which saw June Streigler honoured as the “Woman of Heart.”
Mrs. Streigler has a long history as a teacher of both children and adults, and she is, without doubt, the Cariboo Chilcotin’s number one educator. Also on Saturday, nationally known award winning filmmaker Helen Haig-Brown showed her new documentary, My Legacy, at the Gibraltar Room.
Ms. Haig-Brown is from the Yunesit’in (Stone Reserve) community in the Chilcotin.
There are some who wonder why, in this day and age, we need an International Woman’s Day. Women in B.C. were given the right to vote in 1917, and were accepted as persons under the BNA Act a few years later. Women have certainly come a long way since then, but there are still issues on the gender scene. Most of our Canadian business leaders and politicians are men. I don’t know if the world would be a better place if women ran things, probably not, but I am surprised that so many women politicians are silent on the subject of the hundreds of Canadian women who have been murdered or gone missing.
A federal committee looking into Violence Against Indigenous Women recently came up with 16 recommendations for action, but a national inquiry was not one of them.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay says further studies would be a mistake. I can’t help wondering if it would make a difference to him if the missing people were men. B.C. has its share of missing/murdered women, including the Pickton victims and those lost on the Highway of Tears. Along with concern over the victims, shouldn’t there be some worry about the perpetrators? Who are they? Pickton was caught, most are not. Why not? A national inquiry might shed some light on that question.
Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.