Backlash Against Employment Equity: The British Columbia Experience

Employment equity policy in the province of British Columbia has undergone a corrosive, back door backlash, compared to Ontario's more classic, or front door, backlash under a similar neoliberal government shift. Using interviews and policy analysis, we document the process. Understanding local variations in the backlash phenomenon is important to strategies to combat oppression and systemic discrimination.La politique sur l'équité en matière d'emploi de la Colombie Britannique a passé par un contre-coup de derrière corrosif, comparée à la politique plus classique de l'Ontario, ou le contre-coup de devant sous un changement de régime néolibéral similaire. En nous servant d'entrevues et d'analyse de politique, nous documentons ce processus. Comprendre les variations locales du phénomène de contre-coup est important aux stratégies pour combattre l'oppression et la discrimination systémique

Going Flat: Breast Cancer, Mastectomy and the Politics of Choice

Breast cancer, if it advances, is life threatening. It is also widespread. My life was changed when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. There was much that I did not expect, including a hegemonic culture of “breast conservation.” I opted to “go flat” after bilateral mastectomy, resisting reconstruction plastic surgery. A politics of choice—like that demanded for reproductive rights—has yet to find similar resonance in the world of breast cancer treatment. This article considers reconstruction hegemony and the emerging movement to advance the choice to be, in words coined by a pioneering Facebook group, Flat and Fabulous.Le cancer du sein, s’il se développe, est une menace de mort. Il est aussi très répandu. Ma vie a été transformée lorsque j’ai été diagnostiquée avec un cancer du sein. Il y avait beaucoup de choses auxquelles je ne m’attendais pas, en particulier l’hégémonie d’une culture de la préservation du sein. J’ai choisi d’adopter l’”option platte” après une double mastectomie et de résister à la tentation de la chirurgie plastique de reconstruction mammaire. Une politique du choix—comparable à celle qui s’applique aux droits de reproduction—n’a pas encore trouvé d’écho dans le domaine du traitement du cancer du sein. Cet article considère l’hégémonie de la reconstruction mammaire ainsi que l’émergence d’un mouvement promouvant le choix comme étant—selon les termes inventés par un groupe de pointe sur Facebook—“plat et parfait”

Sexism and the Left: Three Case Studies

Many Left organizations pride themselves on their commitment to women’s liberation, and socialist feminism is a real and important current of Left praxis. Nonetheless, there is also a long history that demonstrates a remarkable persistence of sexist practices within socialist organizations. This article suggests that sexist practices, as well as feminist analyses of and responses to sexism, have been epistemologically minimized, dismissed, distorted and ultimately forgotten, enabling a normalization of patriarchal hegemony on the Left, and producing what the late Charles Mills termed an “epistemology of ignorance.” To demonstrate this, the article draws on three case studies, spanning recent and distant history of socialist organizing: the crisis of the International Socialist Tendency and Socialist Workers’ Party UK (2010-13); the founding period of the International Socialists in Canada (1975-6); and the Bolshevik-Menshevik division in Tsarist Russia (1902-3). The argument is based on extensive original research including four decades of personal archives from socialist and feminist praxis