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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: Poverty Is A Feminist Issue

By Zachary Volkert
Published on: 08:24 PST, Aug 25, 2016

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has been earning high marks from feminists for his inclusive government, and, furthermore, proudly pronouncing himself as one of them.

Time and time again, the North American nation’s top official has unabashedly gotten behind the global movement’s efforts to eliminate gender inequality. It’s no surprise, then, that Justin responded positively to a letter from African poverty and disease eradication non-governmental organization (NGO) ONE. Trudeau was the first world leader to declare publicly that he was on board with the group’s message: Poverty is sexist.

Additionally, Justin highlighted the ways that Canada was already seeking to fight the issues that ONE addresses. Trudeau’s government recently increased, by 20 percent, its donation to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; its contribution now totals $785 million.

“Young women account for a shocking 74 percent of all new HIV infections among adolescents in Africa. Canada’s increased investment means more mosquito nets and medicine, and greater access to treatment and therapy, all of which will help the Global Fund meet its ultimate goal of saving an additional eight million lives and averting an additional 300 million new infections by 2019.”

Far from the first boldly feminist move of his nascent term, Justin’s stance won’t be news to anyone who has been following the prime minister. Despite fierce criticism on social media, Trudeau has consistently denied to distance himself from the word “feminist.” He’s also been outspoken on mobilizing women in Canada’s workforce: His own cabinet is the first in the country’s history to feature an equal number of men and women.

Justin has also been a vocal advocate of exporting this kind of equal representation to the rest of the world. Discussing the matter with other heads of state, the prime minister has been met with a number of excuses, none of which, Trudeau says, are viable, reported the Telegraph. If Canada can bring feminism to politics, so can everyone else.

“Any world leaders who tell me ‘I’d love to, I just can’t do that with the current configuration of our parliament or of my party’, I say: ‘Well, what are you doing to change that configuration and draw out those extraordinary women who can be leaders that we need?’… For my generation and younger, it’s all sort of a ‘duh.’ The fact that [it] gets such a reaction from the powers and the authority structure that surrounds us really shows how much work we still have to do.”

ONE’s campaign to highlight the inherent sexism that underlines poverty has become a focal point of the group’s advocacy to politicians like Justin Trudeau. In March, the NGO released a lengthy report highlighting many of the ways that women are disproportionately affected by poverty. One of the unifying aspects of its message was that, while these issues hit women the hardest, they actually work to keep both genders in poverty. For instance, women have much lower access to education, lines of credit and the internet — all of which work together to exclude them from becoming active members of a country’s workforce.

“In too many places there are barriers blocking women’s access to quality paid work, from legal restrictions on employment to inadequate opportunities to lack of childcare. These barriers are keeping women out of the workforce: globally, only 50% of women participate in the labour market, compared with 77% of men… When girls and women are given the same opportunities as their male counterparts, they… have the opportunity to participate in the formal economy, they will reinvest their earnings into their families and communities, building human capital which will fuel future economic growth.”

What do you think of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s comments about poverty and feminism?

[Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images]

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