MARCH ISSUE | MARCH 202 2
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THE ONTARION
According to Jacqueline Potvin, pictured, making the final goal of female empowerment the participation of women in economic sectors ultimately creates a limited understanding of gender equality. CREDIT: GINA SNOOKS
Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy offers a limited aproach to reproductive health, rights, and justice, says U of G researcher Dr. Jacqueline Potvin notes that neoliberal approaches to feminist international development highlight a narrow understanding of equality ALYSSA MARKS
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n her Feb. 8 webinar, U of G postdoctoral researcher Dr. Jacqueline Potvin presented her findings and analyses on the evolution of Canada’s Fem-
inist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) and how the frameworks embedded in FIAP influence the pursuit of reproductive health and rights.
Potvin completed her PhD in the department of women’s studies and feminist research at Western University. She conducted doctoral research that investigat-
ed Canada’s Maternal, Newborn and Child Health policy under the Muskoka Initiative. She has taught at Western University and at King’s University College, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at U of G. “My research interests combine global development studies, gender studies, and sociology. I use the lenses of medical sociology and feminist theory to examine how global development policies and programmes can reinforce certain ideas about gender, motherhood, and reproduction,” Potvin told The Ontarion. Her analysis of the FIAP and its prescriptive limitations were the main focus of her recent webinar. The FIAP was developed in 2017 under Justin Trudeau’s government, positioning Canada as a world leader in gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls worldwide. According to Potvin, the FIAP is an “advent of feminist foreign policy.” The FIAP defends reproductive rights and access to safe abortions, with Canada vowing to invest $650 million in improving reproductive and sexual rights, health, and justice for women and girls across the globe. According to the Government of Canada, this fund has been allocated specifically to pursuits that involve increasing access to family planning, contraception, sexuality education, safe and legal abortions, post-abortion care, and the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. Potvin noted that previous international projects, namely the Muskoka Initiative Partnership Program, excluded many important elements regarding reproductive, maternal, and child health. For instance, the Muskoka Initiative mainly focused on service delivery rather than the social barriers in accessing reproductive and sexual health. Potvin also highlighted that reproductive health and rights need to be viewed as more than solely a maternal health issue, and incorporate access to abortions. “The Muskoka Initiative focused on providing people who are pregnant and giving birth access to healthcare, which is great. But what was missing were the social determinants of health, that we now know play a huge role in maternal and reproductive health,” she said. “For me, it's less about saying that the Muskoka Initiative or FIAP are all good or all bad. Both policies have funded many programmes that have undoubtedly helped people—but neither of them are perfect.” In her research, Potvin critically analyzes the discourses surrounding reproductive and sexual rights, health, and justice in the
FIAP, and whether they adopt a neoliberal feminist approach. In this case, neoliberal feminism is referred to as the promotion of “market citizenship as the primary path to achieving gender equality,” as outlined in a 2020 Foreign Policy Analysis paper by Canadian researcher Laura Parisi. In other words, neoliberal feminists believe that the main way to empower women and girls is by facilitating their participation within global and local markets. It is thought that doing so will lead to more economic independence and prosperity for women and girls, their families, and their communities. Essentially, neoliberal feminism is the belief that women and girls who become economic agents are then universally empowered. “[Neoliberal feminism] relies on a narrative where the goal of gender equality or empowerment is participation in the economy– but again, this is a narrow understanding of what equality means,” Potvin said. She also noted that the FIAP adopts an individualized approach to internationational assistance. This means that it is more focused on developing the capacity for individual women and girls to overcome socio-economic and political barriers rather than on removing the barriers themselves. “By framing it as a problem of individuals, the systemic and political aspects of gender inequality can be missed,” she said. Neoliberalism and individualism, among other assumptions about global gender development, form the basis of Potvin’s analysis. Specifically, there are two dominant discourses in Potvin’s FIAP analysis: First, the push for averted birth, and second, the Girl Effect. First, one of the FIAP’s primary goals is to increase access to contraception and safe and legal abortions. According to Potvin, this aligns with the global development initiative of population control. The FIAP reports that smaller family sizes allow women to participate in the workforce more easily, thus providing their families with more economic stability and their countries with national prosperity. Potvin takes issue with this approach—namely the fact that it does not take women’s individual decisions into consideration. “[I]f the goal of allowing women and girls to access contraception is so that they can align to reproductive norms established by development experts, that’s a limited approach. The goal of allowing women to have fewer children oversimplifies a) what it takes to end the cycle of poverty and b) what it means to ensure all people have access to bodily autonomy and reproductive rights.”
