Canada has had one of the most successful women’s movements in the world. From legal abortion and constitutionally guaranteed women’s equality, to a wide range of feminist services like rape-crisis centres and shelters, to the creation of a multiracial movement, Canada’s feminists have achieved extraordinary change in a single generation.

But the march to women’s equality has all but stopped under the federal Liberal government. The once powerful voice of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women has been silenced — the victim of the right-wing shift in civil society; a 10-year campaign against NAC itself, led by right-wing forces in the country; and government cutbacks.

The triumph of neo-liberal/neo-conservative politics has dealt a mortal blow to a feminism that seeks economic and social equality. The gains we have made are threatened by the increasing impoverishment of women, even as a few climb the heights of corporate, professional and political success; by the shocking degradation of women in international sex slavery; the overwhelming burden of the double day; longer, rather than shorter, work times; the rise of racism, militarism and the security state; the monopoly of men on power; closer ties, especially military ties, with the United States; and the continuing scourge of war and violence against women and children.

There is some light in the darkness, however. Now that many people are questioning the corporatist agenda, a new opportunity has opened for the women’s movement.

My generation, or what scholars call second-wave feminism, made women into actors in history. We turned ourselves from passive observers of the world into active agents of change. In the process, we changed a lot of laws that were holding us back, and we changed workplaces, organizations and movements where women and feminist men are now in the lead.

What we failed to do was uproot the patriarchy that we identified in the beginning as the root of the problem. Male power continues to dominate in war, in politics, in corporate boardrooms and in too many families.

Patriarchy is a big word that means the rule of the father — or as feminist elder Ursula Franklin pointedly defines it, “Do what I say, or else.”

Outside of war, it is hard to find a more obvious example of it than in Prime Minister Paul Martin’s relentless campaign against Chrétien supporters in the Liberal Party. How many women could, or would want to, put up the kind of fight that Sheila Copps is waging against attack after attack?

My generation of women, like Copps, put on armour to enter the battlefields created by patriarchy, and we won some battles. But to achieve the goal of changing the relationships of power, we have to follow the lead of many young women, who call themselves third-wave feminists. They refuse to be combatants in the way that powerful men have defined the fight. We need new ways of doing democracy, and many men will be our allies.

Feminism, above all, is about relationships of equality and co-operation rather than relationships of domination and competition. Women’s equality is only possible in a world that values the traditional women’s roles of nurturing and caring as important roles for both men and women to play. Gloria Steinem has said that our generation of feminists has allowed women to do what men traditionally did; now it is time for men to do what women traditionally did.

More men are taking responsibility for parenting and nurturing those around them, but not nearly enough. Just as important, our social policy has lagged far behind the changes going on in families and the workplace.

Women with children have suffered most in the neo-liberal reality. A new cross-country Network on Women’s Social and Economic Rights has formed to defend parental leave. They agree that Quebec has led the way, with its five-dollar-a-day universal child-care and its family law that recognizes the need for generous government support to working parents.

What we need is a new strategy for feminism in Canada and in the world. The Quebec women’s movement has initiated and leads an international movement of women in the World March of Women, an integral part of the global social-justice movement, which is planning a world charter on women for 2005.

In 1972, feminist legend Laura Sabia organized a conference called Strategy for Change. It founded NAC, which then provided a space to debate strategies and policies, as well as providing a powerful voice for women. It’s time for a Strategy for Change II, to bring together feminists from every walk of life, every part of the country, every community, every organization and every generation. Let’s call it Feminism in Globalization: FIG. I can see the poster now.

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....