To dare to speak
March 11, 2026 8:45 PM
Last Tuesday, the Globe and Mail published an article, written by Margaret Wente, that claims the 21st century “belongs to women”, and that “The war for women’s rights is over. And we won.”
This purposefully ignorant argument hardly deserves a response. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be an uncommon opinion. The Chronicle Herald published an article on the same day that began with the phrase “[This 22 year old] grew up in the post-feminist era”.
Shoot, maybe I should reconsider my career path.
I don’t disagree with Wente’s statement that as a white, middle class, educated woman I am tremendously lucky and I do owe this to the strong women who came before me. However, if I decided to leave it at that, I think that those same women would simultaneously roll in their graves.
It’s lovely that white, middle class, educated women have achieved some degree of parity, but we are the extremely small minority. Indeed, if we all benefitted from the advantages that come with being white, middle class and educated, then perhaps the fight for equality would have proceeded further.
What these writers seem to be ignorant of is the way that economics, politics, religion and every other social institution come together in extremely complex ways to make women the poorest of the poor, the most oppressed of the oppressed.
A few simple facts, among the many injustices women still face help illustrate this, taken from a pamphlet passed out by the Antigonish Women’s Resource Center:
“Women do two thirds of the world’s work and earn one tenth of its income.
Girls and women comprise almost 80 per cent of displaced persons.
Three quarters of the world’s illiterate population are women.
On average, women receive between 30 and 40 per cent less pay than men for the same work.
Rape and domestic violence are a significant cause of the disability and death among women world-wide.
In Canada, women from aboriginal communities, women with disabilities, women from visible minority groups, and immigrant women have the highest poverty rates.”
This goes on and on. In reality, facts like this are so easy to find that I must question Wente’s understanding either of Google or all but the most simplistic and bounded definition of equality.
Unfortunately, our education doesn’t protect us from feeling unsafe on streets at night, or from sexual assault, or from the enormous social stigma upon receiving a difficult-to-obtain abortion. It doesn’t help that women claim sexual autonomy. And it sure as hell doesn’t make me feel any better about the fact that I have met individuals who think I am less of a human being due to my unfortunate possession of a pair of ovaries.
Education can help the privileged few think critically about the ways in which Western women are oppressed. Wente has allowed herself to be caught up in the very wrong notion that feminism has run its course, and I’m critical of that.
Wente argues that International Women’s Day doesn’t mean much to the West any more. I would counter with this issue of The Xaverian, within which you will find many stories written by women and men who do care about the injustice that occurs every single day within our borders and throughout the world.
The ease with which she separates the experience of women in the developed world with those in other parts of the world serves only to further erase our colonial history, absolving the white, middle class educated folk from any worry. But it’s called International Women’s Day for a reason.
The goals of feminism seek to make the world a better place for humanity, not just women. We are all feminists if we care to think critically about our relationships, our society, and our world. In the words of French writer and feminist Helene Cixous, “...to sing, to write, to dare to speak, in short, to bring out something new.” That is feminism.
