Professor Jocelyn Downie of the Schulich School of Law will present the keynote address on a feminist’s perspective on medical assistance in dying in Canada.
Professor Jocelyn Downie of the Schulich School of Law will present the keynote address on a feminist’s perspective on medical assistance in dying in Canada.

Gender parity is still 200 years away. That key finding from the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report has prompted the United Nations to adopt the theme “Press for Progress” for International Women’s Day 2018. It’s also the focus of the upcoming Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s (FLSQ) conference “(Re)Production: Inequalities of Gender, Racialization, and Class.” The two-day event takes place on campus on March 2 and 3. 

“The conference’s aim is, first, to explore ‘Press for Progress’ in light of socio-political and normative factors that lead to the continuance and reproduction of inequalities,” says Professor Bita Amani, co-director of FLSQ. “Second, the conference aims to critique the political ideals of material production of market commodities for their impact on perpetuating gender inequality at the intersection of racial inequality, dis/ability, and poverty.”

The conference will also honour the United Nation’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. “Gender-, racial- and class-based inequalities persist in spite of the growth and abundance of wealth,” explains Professor Kathleen Lahey, FLSQ co-director. “The accumulation of wealth and disparate use of the world’s resources has significant distributional consequences and serves to perpetuate inequality and vulnerability.” 

Health law expert Professor Jocelyn Downie of the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie is the keynote speaker. She will deliver the Willis G. Cunningham Lecture in Law and Medicine, titled “A Feminist’s Perspective on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada: Past, Present, Future.”

Seven different panels will discuss a wide array of critical topics with the attendees, including access to health care for different age groups, bodily autonomy, pay equity, economic deprivation and food ethics.

“It is our aim that the FLSQ conference may infuse new hope in our collective effort to inspire and mobilize legal, political, interdisciplinary, scholarly, policy, advocacy and grass-root communities toward effective action in the push for progress,” says Amani. “The push for progress will only be effective if we turn our gaze to the existing institutional, instrumental, and political structures and mechanisms that enable or limit agency and set the terms of our social relations, at every stage of the life cycle.”

For more information and to register for the conference, visit the FLSQ website. 

By Anthony Pugh