Women and CJS Programs in Nova Scotia

by Paula Chegwidden

CJS has not
been designed
to get women
into jobs other
than the
traditional ones
they already occupy.

Previous articles in Women's Education des femmes (WEdf) have discussed the re-entry component of the Canadian Jobs Strategy since it began in 1985 (1). By the winter of 1992 most re-entry funding had tapered off, as federally funded job training was increasingly directed towards people on unemployment insurance. My own observations, looking back at the impact of re- entry training in Nova Scotia, reveal positive sides to the experience for the women who participated as well as the inevitable limitations to any approach which focuses on training as the key to improving women's chances in the labor market.

In many respects, the CJS re-entry component incorporated policies to enhance women's access to training and used insights from feminist ideas about learning. Most critics would agree that the re-entry program was an improvement on anything before it.

However, the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women found serious fault with CJS in its 1987 and 1988 assessments (2). Women have consistently been under-represented in the non re-entry component of the program, especially in apprenticeships (3). Despite rhetoric to the contrary, CJS has not been designed to get women into jobs other than the traditional ones they already occupy. The conventional nature of many re-entry courses is exemplified in a February 1992 article in Canadian Living Magazine describing a program in Toronto. The article is subtitled "Fifteen graduates of a job re-entry program get dynamite new looks." Similarly, Lona Smiley notes, in an article about her own experience in a re-entry program, she was regarded as a success because she learned to look and act like a middle-class person (4).

The most common program's in Nova Scotia, taken by the 1500 women who had passed through them by 1990, combined training for office reception, wordprocessing, and computerized accounting. Of the 68 re-entry program's sponsored by CEIC in Nova Scotia in 1988-1990, 42 were clerical or clerical with computing skills program's.

Les femmes et les programmes de réinsertion en Nouvelle-Écosse
par Paula Chegwidden

Les programmes de réinsertion de la Planification de l'emploi se sont dotés de quelques politiques féministes qui facilitent l'accès des femmes à la formation; toutefois, les femmes ont été sous-représentées dans les programmes d'apprentissage et dans le secteur de la formation débouchant sur des métiers autres que ceux qu'elles exercent traditionnellement. Dans le cadre de certaines recherches que j'effectuai, j'ai interrogé des femmes qui avait suivi un programme de réinsertion en gestion. Le concept sous-jacent était le suivant: les femmes au foyer sont des gestionnaires et détiennent des compétences dont elles devraient pouvoir tirer parti pour entrer dans la main-d'oeuvre rémunérée.

Hormis quelques brèves descriptions de la gestion des affaires, presque tout l'apprentissage se fait collectivement. Parmi les femmes que j'ai interviewées, certaines n'aimaient pas cette approche. De plus, la nature amorphe et mal définie des exercices sur la dynamique de la vie en irritait certaines et en embrouillaient d'autres. D'autres appréciaient davantage ce genre de formation et en tiraient quelque inspiration. À l'époque de mes recherches, seules dix femmes sur vingt-deux avaient des responsabilités de gestionnaires, encore que huit occupaient un poste traditionnel. Pourtant, ce cours de gestion destiné aux femmes, même s'il se fondait sur les meilleures intentions et méthodes, ne réussit pas en fin de compte à faire sortir les femmes du secteur d'emploi traditionnel où on les trouve.


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