Accessibility:

CCLOW Participation

   CCLOW board members had lobbied to have us invited as delegates to the conference and to be able to speak to the conference. We accomplished both aims and were invited to respond to the panel on access to post-secondary education. In her response, Lenore Rogers asked those present to look around them and note that very few women were present at the conference. This was the case, she pointed out, in spite of the fact that women make up almost half of the post-secondary students in Canada. Women are 46% of university under-graduates and 51% of community college students (1980-1981). Although women do have access to education, as enrollment statistics indicate, they do not have equal access. As Ms. Rogers stated:

" If women were equally distributed in all courses, we would expect them to be about 50% of students in each area. However, they are not. Women are most seriously under- represented in engineering and applied sciences (9%) and most seriously over-represented in nursing (97%). Sex-stereotyping is clearly operative in both these areas.

Systemic sex discrimination extends to the lab our market where women, on average, earn 60% of men's earnings, and most of the gap cannot be accounted for by differences in seniority, experience or qualifications. Ms. Rogers emphasized that:

"Equal access to education, training and employment is a right to which women are entitled. Sex discrimination, entrenched in a wide variety of beliefs, practices and procedures has been developed and transmitted for generations. These practices have prevented women from gaining equal access in all areas. We can no longer blame individual women for not becoming engineers. We must intervene in this process to interrupt and dismantle it."

She went on to state that CCLOW believes it is incumbent upon all policy and decision makers to be accountable for and responsible For women's equal participation in all areas of post-secondary education.

"We believe that the best vehicle for ensuring this account-ability is Equal Opportunity Legislation. Such legislation would need to include prescriptions for implementing equal opportunity, affirmative action and contract compliance. Affirmative action, applied to the education field would cover the hiring of both faculty and administrative staff, the distribution of student enrollment present and future and curriculum. Contract compliance would apply to both transfer payments and wage subsidies in industrial training.

The procedures and practices involved in sex discrimination in education, training and employment are not easily dismantled. Change will only be effected through firm, committed and decisive action."