Women Talking: An Alchemy for Feminist Alternative Dispute Resolution

Abstract

Over the past decade, a growing number of women who have experienced sexual violence have turned to alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and have filed sexual harassment claims in human rights tribunals instead of pursuing sexual assault charges. Using ADR processes, such as mediation, was once considered inappropriate for remedying domestic or sexual violence because of the assumed power imbalance between the parties and the risk to the survivor/victim’s personal security. These presumptions are now changing, and, in certain circumstances, survivors/victims of domestic and sexual violence are voicing their preference for ADR solutions over criminal or civil court procedures. However, this shift has also exposed challenges in the ADR system when dealing with issues pertaining to women’s rights and violence against women, such as the perpetuation of gender-based stereotypes. Addressing these challenges calls for a feminist restructuring of ADR. Relying upon Miriam Toews’s 2019 novel Women Talking and Sarah Polley’s 2022 film adaptation of this novel as a central framework, this article proposes principles for a feminist-oriented ADR practice. The authors explain how Women Talking embodies a feminist ADR practice and what the common law and traditional ADR models can learn from the dispute resolution techniques in Women Talking. A feminist ADR practice prioritizes the voices of women, meaningfully considers the interests of the women who are parties to the dispute, enacts substantive procedural justice, and positions women as active agents in structuring the dispute resolution and decision-making process. The article concludes by suggesting seven preliminary propositions for a feminist approach to ADR in practice