Dentist Misogyny at Dalhousie

By Nicole Hattie, Halifax

A widespread public outcry has been heard across Nova Scotia following news that 13 male Dalhousie Dentistry students were members of a self‑described "gentlemen's facebook page" used to discuss chauvinistic and misogynistic messages. The men engaged in a poll, which asked who they would like to "hate fuck," and discussed using chloroform to rape women. The results of the poll were posted on Dec. 6 - the 25th anniversary of the Montreal massacre.

The response by some people, like the Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente, has been to say that this was a "joke" and should not be taken as a direct attack on women. But many labour, community and women's groups sharply disagree. A protest of approximately 300 students, faculty and other people on Dalhousie's campus rallied against all forms of sexism and harassment, denouncing the university's approach as unacceptable.

Bowing somewhat to public pressure, Dalhousie president Richard Florizone later suspended the men from clinical duties at the Dalhousie clinic, saying the school is looking at many options and is not ruling out expulsions. Despite this, many continue to be outraged.

These violent sexualized acts of hate speech had reportedly been taking place months prior and the university was well aware. However, nothing was done about the issue until it went "viral" in the media. There had also been reports of a male professor showing sexualized videos in class that objectified women as a way in which to "wake the male students up."

It appears the dentistry programme at Dal is basically a sexist "old boys club" for the sons of Nova Scotia's well‑heeled elite.

The reality of sexism -- a few examples

It is International Women's Day this week. All over the world. this event is marked by women in various ways as they celebrate victories and mark the struggles ahead. Progressive-minded women and men in the youth and student movement across Canada are also finding ways to raise the important issues marked on this day in our communities, work-places and campuses. But, we all know the story. Sooner or later some guy blurts out -- women are equal today and sexism is over. Well, here are just a few anecdotes that friends and readers of Rebel Youth have brought to our attention over the past days. 

De-bunking the myth of the good old days - part 2

St Catharines auto plant workers, 1944

by Ryan Sparrow

This article is part two of a two-part series.

Racialised and gendered work is a common feature of the development of capitalism. The need for a super-exploitable vulnerable group of workers is beneficial to the big business community as it helps bring about a much lower floor of wages and working conditions.

In the post-war era, the overt racism and overt gender discrimination of workers was still around, although less prevalent.  Institutionalized racism and sexism, however, was still very widely practised.  Racialised and gendered labour therefore represented a super-exploited strata of the working class in the post-war era. This article continues from the historic framework of analysis and presents some examples.


Racism in Auto

Racialized male workers had a variety of differing experience which allowed for their discrimination in the labour market.  For example, in the auto industry of southern Ontario black male workers were segregated into certain jobs. The policy, when it came to hiring black workers, varied from employer to employer.

Chrysler, for instance, entirely prohibited black male workers from working on their assembly lines until they were forced to change their policies with the Ontario Fair Employment Practices Act in 1951. By 1953, a Federal Fair Employment Practices Act had also (officially) been put into effect.

Other auto manufacturers like Ford and McKinnon Industries were more accepting of black workers. But these workers faced other barriers within these companies, like being segregated into specific occupations based on racial stereotypes.

Genetic resistance to heat

According to sociologist Pamela Sugiman, foundry work was one of the racialised occupations since employers stereotyped black men as“…strong, robust, and muscular worker[s]…” who were more suitable for the job, while some even claimed that “…coloured men, in particular, could endure these excesses because of a genetic predisposition to withstand heat”.

Another racialised occupation in the plants was janitorial work as firms tended to employ black males for this line of work. It is important to note that while there was nothing formal about the segregation of employment for racialised workers in the Ontario auto industry, it was a widespread practice.

Aboriginal workers

The experiences of Aboriginal male workers confirm a pattern of racialised segregation in the labour market, where the shift from rural life in the prairies to wage labour is marked by both mismanagement and intentional exploitation.

Historian Joan Sangster for example explains that the “Fordist” economic arrangement completely excluded Aboriginal and Métis populations in the northern prairies and was a “… class accommodation that marginalized many working people, often on the basis of gender and race.”

The government intentionally created racialised labour segregation on behalf of private interests with acts of coercion like the “cessation of welfare payments as a means of forcing families to accept sugar-beet work”, Sangster writes.

Lower pay, bad jobs

Instead of the employers offering wages and working conditions to attract workers, the state intervened to provide a very precarious workforce for the growers. Further, the economic data points to systemic racism where  “…Metis and Indian households always earned less than white ones in similar geographical areas”.

Aboriginal communities had very unstable employment, according Jean Lagasse’s interviews of native peoples in the 1950s, holding many different jobs with the changing of the seasons. In the post war period, Aboriginal and racialised male workers were typically stuck in the lower rungs of the labour market, the secondary labour market and some in the subordinate primary market jobs.

Women workers and racism

Historically, the dominant patriarchal view of women was that they should be confined to domestic work, tied to a man with the state and employers encouraging such an arrangement. At the same time, capitalism has regularly relied on women's labour not just to reproduce and maintain workers but also in the working class. The trade union movement historically fought for a family/breadwinner wage; therefore even in the labour movement, women’s wages were seen as a secondary income.

Women from racialized communities had it hardest. There was not a single black woman employed in all of the 50 post-war United Auto Worker (UAW) organized plants in Windsor. The segregated labour markets also created segregated communities, with the newly formed suburbs housing a predominately non-racialised, white middle class community, while the city housed a more racialised workforce.

Maggie Holmes, a domestic worker describes how all the white males travel to the city during the morning and came back to the suburbs during the evening, while she and many other racialised domestic workers were going the opposite direction towards the cities. Their jobs were tough, often leading to aliments like arthritis.

Summary

While there was representation of white Anglo-male workers in all three labour markets, the experiences of racialised workers and women workers in the post-war era confirm segregated labour markets existed in Canada.

White women and racialised workers rarely went beyond the subordinate primary market.  Racialised women had faced the most discrimination in the labour market with very few examples of them advancing out of the secondary market for labour.

Ultimately, the configuration of the labour market in the post-war era provides an revealing insight into systemic racism and sexism today.

This article has been edited.

Bibliography

Acker, J,(1990). “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,”
                Gender & Society, 4, 2,139-158.

Edwards, E. (1979). Labour Re-Divided Part 1: Segmented Labor Markets. Contested Terrain: The              Transformation of the Workplace in the Twenthieth Century. Basic Books: New York.

Jacoby, S. M. (1984). The Development of Internal Labour Markets in American Manufacturing Firms. Internal Labour  Markets. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 23-69.

Sangster, J. (2010). “Aboriginal Women and Work in Prairie Communities.  Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Post-War Canada. University  of Toronto Press: Toronto. 199-23

Sugiman, P. (2001). Privilege and Oppression: The Configuration of Race, Gender, and Class in Southern                Ontario Auto Plants, 1939 to 1949. Labour/Le Travail . Retrieved from         http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/47/04sugima.html

Turkel, S. (2009). Studs Turkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaption. New York, New York: The New Press.

De-bunking the myth of the good old days: sexism, racism and the working class in Canada after WWII

The historic 1945 Ford Strike in Windsor

Special to Rebel Youth

This article is part one of a two-part series.

Racialised and gendered work is a common feature of the development of capitalism. The need for a super-exploitable vulnerable group of workers is beneficial to the big business community as it helps bring about a much lower floor of wages and working conditions.

In the post-war era, the overt racism and overt gender discrimination of workers was still around, although less prevalent.  Institutionalized racism and sexism, however, was still very widely practised.  Racialised and gendered labour therefore represented a super-exploited strata of the working class in the post-war era.

The Drive System

The history of discrimination of the working class in the Canadian "labour market" comes about from its very beginning. There were "preferred" labourers, and the male Anglo-white labour was given a privilege position within the industrial framework.  While the Anglo-white male labourer was indeed heavily exploited, the exploitation of racialised and female labourers was even greater.

At the turn of the century, the primary management method by which employers managed to increase productivity was the drive system. The drive system was used to increase the worker’s effort at the job by “…close supervision, abuse, profanity and threats” and hold down the cost of labour.

Toss an apple

During this period of time, the foreman was the supreme ruler on the shop floor, hiring was, at times, arbitrary – some employers tossing an apple to a crowd of workers and whoever caught it would work. At other times, hiring was rather nepotistic -- ie. the friends and family of employees being unfairly favoured. Many workers were hired for jobs based on ethnic stereotypes.

Due to the large amount of surplus labour supply, workers who the foreman found unsatisfactory or did not like could be removed with impunity. The foreman typically had the power to set wages too, so there could be many different wages for workers doing the exact same job.

HR is born

Eventually, as a response to the class struggle and growing pressure from the labour movement in Canada and internationally (including the gains by working people in USSR and socialist countries), as well as tighter labour markets, the capitalists were forced to replace this system with somewhat more equitable forms of management.

Human resource departments became more common and formal rules were established for firms as a way to retain employees. This process was not uniform, however.  Labour historians identify three distinct labour markets that emerged in the post war era. The three types of markets were not equally accessible for gendered and racialised workers.

Three categories of workplaces

The "secondary labour market" was the lowest. Comprised of small manufacturing, service, retail sales, and temporary office work, workers in the secondary labour market had very little control over the labour processes.  The secondary labour market jobs were also the lowest paid, the least secure, with very little union coverage and almost no seniority provisions.

Above the secondary was the "subordinate primary market." The jobs in subordinate primary market are more stable, have seniority, are more likely to be unionized, and have relatively higher wages. Work in the subordinate primary market includes jobs with major manufacturers, secretary jobs, and assembly line work.

The "independent primary market" employed workers in professional fields, like skilled trades, teachers, lawyers, consultants and technicians.  Independent primary labour allowed for even higher wages, benefits, and transferable skills making their working lives much more stable since they can transfer easily to other firms.

This article has been edited from the original essay. A full biography is presented in part two.