Contract work is often exploitative. While it might work well in establishing both tax breaks and professional credibility for the already employed, it also depends on a pool of unemployed women and their accumulated expertise. Some of these women might only want part-time work because of family responsibilities, but in the present scheme of things, they derive little equity from this kind of work. In fact, contracting arrangements perpetuate the low status of women in the work force (even in the so-called professional work force), and reinforce all the many injustices we complain about... especially those related to pensions and fringe benefits. Contracting out helps maintain women in our position of occupying 72% of all part- time jobs in Canada.

Most organizations rely on volunteers to do research. While they might occasionally make use of a contract researcher (as CCLOW did recently with its work on the National Training Act), they are on the whole dependent on the work of a fluid, often enthusiastic but fragmented and over- worked membership. It would seem that Canadian women spend many hours of volunteer time preparing briefs for the federal government. These briefs are never fully implemented. Our voluntaryism can work to the self-interest of the state in the following ways: it can serve as a lightening rod to point out where difficulties might arise politically if we are not listened to. That is, our work can prematurely give away any possible strategy we might formulate well before we have even recognized the struggle. Our voluntaryism can provide for the government valuable data and theoretical work which can be cooped to their own use, and not always in our interest. It can also, it must be admitted, have a limited effect on government policy.

IV. IMPACT

"We always get something,
but not what we want."

Doris Anderson

While there is little doubt that women's research has some impact on government policy, the above quote would suggest that we are easily bought off. The respondents to our questionnaires indicated some input into the following legislation: the constitution, abortion, sexual assault, affirmative action, C-53 wife abuse, divorce, pensions, the lab our code amendments, and women's education at the level of CEIC. In no case were we told that they had achieved the ends they had set out achieve; we did not ask about those cases where they felt they'd had no effect whatsoever. Some informants felt that while we have fairly minor positive results, we had at least prevented some... "really dumb things from happening." All respondents felt they had little power over the final outcome of their briefs and papers. Getting heard is a difficulty for some groups, and it is clear that much lobbying is undertaken by most groups in order to have any hearing at all. While it might be argued that there are other advocacy groups in Canada which face the same problems, they do not represent such a large percentage of the total population.



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