SASKATOON – The new president of the Saskatchewan Women’s Institutes wants to keep leading her group into a more relevant role for today’s women.
Doris Pattison said she would be continuing the activity and concerns of the past president and board. This year the SWI has worked on legal rights of farm women, held workshops around the province with the women’s entrepreneur centre, done public awareness of osteoporosis as well as its usual activities of crafts, discussion and fund-raising projects.
“We know we still need knitters and quilters but we also need leaders,” said Pattison. She said rural women have been nurtured and encouraged within the WI movement to run for their local councils or provincial government.
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“The WI is a fantastic training ground. Look at all the women in the (agricultural) hall of fame. Almost all of them have a base in WI.”
One of the campaigns that will keep SWI more known to the public is its commitment to valuing the role of unwaged workers, said Pattison. A motion approved at last weekend’s annual meeting urged the federal government to include unpaid work in its calculations of gross domestic product. And the SWI wants official definitions of work and labor to include the hours spent in unpaid work in the home and as community volunteers.
In a speech to SWI Carol Lees praised the group’s early support for her lobby that led Statistics Canada to start counting unpaid work hours. Lees urged the WI members to continue their letter writing to ensure the hours, once counted, are made meaningful by giving women credit for at-home child care and community work. Lees wants the tax, pension and health systems changed to account for this invisible work, done primarily by women.
Several of the SWI resolutions that passed dealt with changing the workplace for women. Among them:
- The WI will be letting the provincial government know it supports the pay equity concept, which, for example, would compare and more equally value the work of secretaries and truck drivers. The average Canadian woman makes 76 cents to the average male worker’s dollar, the group noted.
- The SWI will ask that federal and provincial government workplaces provide flexible work hours, on-site day care, job sharing and leave for family emergencies and that more incentives be offered to get employers to provide a more “family friendly” environment.
- That the records of battered women’s shelters be kept confidential.
Among other resolutions the SWI approved:
- That the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission eliminate excessive violence and sex on television before 10 p.m. when children are watching. And that all new TV sets have a v-chip to restrict what children watch and that all Canadian TV shows be rated so parents can decide what their children can watch.
- That the education department establish in all schools an early childhood intervention program for those children prone to aggressive behavior.
- That SWI branches and individuals contact sister branches in Quebec to promote national unity.
- That the federal government be commended for banning the manufacture of land mines and that it follow up this action by destroying Canadian stockpiles of land mines.
