Reframing Equality

Another equity conference, another year, how much more equitable are we? Well, I don't want to scare you away just yet, so I share the good news first. Today at our conference, we had a diverse crowd. The UVic Law 2nd Annual Community Conference: Reframing equality included the Women's Court of Canada, six sessions put on by the clubs, all difficult to chose between, and rewriting of our own decisions of the court, and a follow up session reflecting and looking foreward.

The sessions had speakers with topics ranging from the Reach of the Charter in the case of the Afghan Detainees, Environmental Resources on Reserve Land, and Grandparents raising Grandchildren. Our afternoon sesions included Indigenous Perspectives in Law: Law's Stories, Acheiving equitable outcomes in refugee cases, and Transforming Law's Family.

My thoughts today were heavy around academic-izing everything. The Day began with the Women's Court of Canada, a group of feminist lawyers, advocates and activists who rewrite equality decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. The judgments are those that we find most difficult to stomach. Those in which the systemic sexism, racism, homophobia, and able-bodied discrimination are clothed in myths and stereotypes, in which equality is just completely out of the imagination of the law. The Women's Court of Canada rewrites the decision to actually acheive equality. They use the tools of law to speak back to itself.

When asked what the judgements best achieved, the women answered, they provided context. The positioned the women in her lived reality in society, and found discrimination or difference approaches to equality. That's a lot of talk, where are the people?

Fiona Kelly came today and spoke about Lesbian families, in particular planned lesbian families. She examined how the law understands and could best reflect the needs of lesbian parents and their family forms. We heard the voices of women parenting in Vancouver and their very different families. It really expanded my imagination of what a family could look like. From two women and an unknown donor who doesn't participate in the raising of the child, to two moms and a donor and his (usually male) parter, to anything inbetween. It was really fascinating to explore what families look like that are so different than our own an,really, how cool would that be? What if every child had four parents watching her back, supporting her, loving her? Aren't more parents the way to go?

So I really think we kept the lesbian and gay parents in the picure. Tracy and Helen; and Alicia, Cassendra, Kevin and Nick. Tracy and Helen had a son, and stuggled with the fact that they felt constrained from living a radically different life becuase of their son but really didn't want to appear as a nuclear lesbian family, however, the donor lived overseas with his male partner. Alicia and Cassancra worked together and though they were never in a conjugal relationship, committing to raising the child that Alicia wanted to have. Their donor Kevin and his partner Nick were just as involved in raising the child. Even when Kevin and Nick's relationship ended they continued to stay with the child twice a week. These two families really pushed the boundaries of law's family in which the heterosexual nuclear family is the norm.

It was the information that I always thought existed and made most sense for my conception of family. Friends as family, family that you chose, parents who are caregivers, all these make sense for my conception of family. Today, I think we acheived presenting lesbian families in their social context, providing legal realities that reflect the diversity of their lived realities. It pushed the boundaries, and I learned a lot.

The Equity Conference gives us an amazing amount to reflect upon. Our community is diverse and pretty great. We are social justice focused, equality centred, and we do a pretty good job. Sometimes we don't celebrate our successes enough when we deserve them, and today we had a fantastic conference at UVic Law.