Race, Ethnicity, Indigenous Peoples and Politics

L00(e) - Women In Political Science Leadership Program - Concurrent Workshops: Mid-Career Mentorship

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 12:30pm to 02:00pm | Location: ESB 2012/1012

This event will take place in either room ESB2012 or ESB 1012 (TBD by the organizers).
Cet événement aura lieu dans la salle ESB2012 ou salle ESB 1012 (à déterminer par les organisatrices).

Although 40.9% of all Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) members identify as women (Abu-Laban, Sawer and St. Laurent, 2017: 7), women are still underrepresented in key leadership roles. For example, CPSA has only had 11 women presidents since its establishment in 1912 (Ibid: 9). While important strides have been made to address gender and diversity concerns -- most notably through the establishment of the Women and Politics Section in 2000, concerns about gender equity in the professional abound. Every year, discussion at the Women, Gender and Politics workshops reveal that many female political scientists experience incidents of gender discrimination, which run the gamut from being underpaid to facing gender discrimination in the criteria used for tenure and promotion (e.g., student teaching evaluations, citation indices), to experiencing sexual harassment and assault. The situation is direr for black and Indigenous women of colour. Although CPSA does not collect data disaggregated by race, by indigineity, and by gender, the experiences of racialized and Indigenous women in the profession have been documented by scholars such as Malinda Smith, who, in her groundbreaking co-written book, "The Equity Myth," highlights how diversity initiatives have done little to improve the everyday working conditions of Indigenous and racialized faculty members, and in particular, racialized and Indigenous women (Kobayashi, et al.: 2017). The purpose of this one-day pre-conference leadership program, to be held on June 3, 2019, the day before the 2019 CPSA Annual Conference starts, is to provide women in political science a dedicated space to build community with each other and to identify ways to improve the situations of women and BIWOC in the academy. By having individual workshops related to professional development (e.g., addressing issues related to career options, research, teaching, and navigating the 'academy'), and to work-life balance (e.g., parenting while 'professoring,' working as activist-scholars), this leadership program will provide both junior, mid-career, and senior scholars the opportunity to learn from each other. Junior scholars will also have the opportunity to be paired with senior scholar 'mentors' who share similar research interests and who can help 'demystify' the ins and outs of political science. Please note: this is a preconference workshop, which will take place the day before the start of the 2019 CPSA Annual Conference. References: Abu-Laban, Yasmeen, Marian Sawer and Mathieu St. Laurent (2017). IPSA Gender and Diversity Monitoring Report. Kobayashi, Audrey, Car James, Enakshi Dua, Frances Henry, Howard Ramos, Malinda S. Smith and Peter Li (2017). The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigneity in Canadian Universities. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.

Participants
Susan Henders (York University)
Lois Harder (University of Alberta)
Kathyrn Harrison (University of British Columbia)
Cheryl Collier (University of Windsor)