7. Canada’s Feminist International

According to Jacqueline Potvin, pictured, making the final goal of female empowerment the participation of women in economic sectors ultimately creates a limited understanding of gender equality. CREDIT: GINA SNOOKS

ALYSSA MARKS

In her Feb. 8 webinar, U of G postdoctoral researcher Dr. Jacqueline Potvin presented her findings and analyses on the evolution of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) and how the frameworks embedded in FIAP influence the pursuit of reproductive health and rights.

Potvin completed her PhD in the department of women’s studies and feminist research at Western University. She conducted doctoral research that investigated Canada’s Maternal, Newborn and Child Health policy under the Muskoka Initiative. She has taught at Western University and at King’s University College, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at U of G.

“My research interests combine global development studies, gender studies, and sociology. I use the lenses of medical sociology and feminist theory to examine how global development policies and programmes can reinforce certain ideas about gender, motherhood, and reproduction,” Potvin told The Ontarion.

Her analysis of the FIAP and its prescriptive limitations were the main focus of her recent webinar.

The FIAP was developed in 2017 under Justin Trudeau’s government, positioning Canada as a world leader in gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. According to Potvin, the FIAP is an “advent of feminist foreign policy.”

The FIAP defends reproductive rights and access to safe abortions, with Canada vowing to invest $650 million in improving reproductive and sexual rights, health, and justice for women and girls across the globe. According to the Government of Canada, this fund has been allocated specifically to pursuits that involve increasing access to family planning, contraception, sexuality education, safe and legal abortions, post-abortion care, and the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections.

Potvin noted that previous international projects, namely the Muskoka Initiative Partnership Program, excluded many important elements regarding reproductive, maternal, and child health. For instance, the Muskoka Initiative mainly focused on service delivery rather than the social barriers in accessing reproductive and sexual health. Potvin also highlighted that reproductive health and rights need to be viewed as more than solely a maternal health issue, and incorporate access to abortions.

“The Muskoka Initiative focused on providing people who are pregnant and giving birth access to healthcare, which is great. But what was missing were the social determinants of health, that we now know play a huge role in maternal and reproductive health,” she said.

“For me, it's less about saying that the Muskoka Initiative or FIAP are all good or all bad. Both policies have funded many programmes that have undoubtedly helped people—but neither of them are perfect.”

In her research, Potvin critically analyzes the discourses surrounding reproductive and sexual rights, health, and justice in the FIAP, and whether they adopt a neoliberal feminist approach.

In this case, neoliberal feminism is referred to as the promotion of “market citizenship as the primary path to achieving gender equality,” as outlined in a 2020 Foreign Policy Analysis paper by Canadian researcher Laura Parisi. In other words, neoliberal feminists believe that the main way to empower women and girls is by facilitating their participation within global and local markets. It is thought that doing so will lead to more economic independence and prosperity for women and girls, their families, and their communities. Essentially, neoliberal feminism is the belief that women and girls who become economic agents are then universally empowered.

“[Neoliberal feminism] relies on a narrative where the goal of gender equality or empowerment is participation in the economy–but again, this is a narrow understanding of what equality means,” Potvin said.

She also noted that the FIAP adopts an individualized approach to internationational assistance. This means that it is more focused on developing the capacity for individual women and girls to overcome socio-economic and political barriers rather than on removing the barriers themselves.

“By framing it as a problem of individuals, the systemic and political aspects of gender inequality can be missed,” she said.

Neoliberalism and individualism, among other assumptions about global gender development, form the basis of Potvin’s analysis.

Specifically, there are two dominant discourses in Potvin’s FIAP analysis: First, the push for averted birth, and second, the Girl Effect.

First, one of the FIAP’s primary goals is to increase access to contraception and safe and legal abortions. According to Potvin, this aligns with the global development initiative of population control. The FIAP reports that smaller family sizes allow women to participate in the workforce more easily, thus providing their families with more economic stability and their countries with national prosperity.

Potvin takes issue with this approach—namely the fact that it does not take women’s individual decisions into consideration.

“[I]f the goal of allowing women and girls to access contraception is so that they can align to reproductive norms established by development experts, that’s a limited approach. The goal of allowing women to have fewer children oversimplifies a) what it takes to end the cycle of poverty and b) what it means to ensure all people have access to bodily autonomy and reproductive rights.”

This population control model reinforces the concept that what is good for development, is good for women. So-called “empowered” women are expected to comply with these prescriptions, Potvin said, which can ultimately have a disempowering effect.

Second, Potvin noted how the Girl Effect is embedded in the FIAP’s framework. The Girl Effect refers to a campaign proposed by Nike that made girls the focus of global development initiatives. The Girl Effect works to empower both women and girls by providing them with the tools necessary for participation in the workforce. These tools can include increased access to education or delayed birth.

According to Potvin, the issue with this is that it assumes that participation in the workforce and avoidance of early pregnancy yield empowerment.

“The averted birth and Girl Effect model rely on women making particular reproductive choices. Because these choices are positioned as good for economic development, it begs the question of what happens when people use their reproductive freedom to make different choices?”

Again, Potvin pointed out that the Girl Effect highlights the individualistic approach to international assistance, where girls are the solution and primary focus, rather than the roots of socio-economic barriers.

The Girl Effect campaign, as Potvin explained, can also be exclusionary and problematic. It excludes mothers and those who are already pregnant from their advocacy campaign.

Moreover, it pushes women and girls into an exploitative market, without questioning or attempting to address the existing inequalities and abuses in workforces. The Girl Effect assumes that any participation in the market is empowering, regardless of whether or not it is exploitative.

Potvin suggests an alternative approach to the FIAP that abandons the neoliberal feminist dominated framework. She poses the concept of reproductive justice as the best way of moving forward with feminist international assistance and development.

Reproductive justice refers to the right to have children, the right not to have children, and the right to parent one’s children, said Potvin. It is based on long histories of advocacy and aims to disrupt dominant discourses on reproductive and sexual health, rights, and justice. It also goes beyond solely addressing access to reproductive rights and health by discussing contexts where reproductive choices can and cannot be made, and how poverty and racism affect these choices.

“In talking about reproductive rights and activism, reflect on whose experiences and needs you are centering,” Potvin said.

“Mainstream reproductive health and rights movements tend to equate reproductive rights with contraception and abortion because historically, the women and people centered in these movements have identified them as their most pressing needs. But many marginalized women have seen their reproductive choices and lives constrained in very different ways.”

Potvin highlights the importance of adopting an intersectional approach to reproductive rights, health, and justice that situates the lived experiences of different communities. This allows us to realize the varying ways in which reproductive rights are encroached upon and what action needs to be taken.

“This means looking at the reproductive rights and needs of Indigenous peoples, people of colour, the LGBTQ community, for example—and letting these communities lead the way for defining what those needs are.”