State Masculine Logics, Neoliberalism, and Canadian Federalism

Abstract

Institutional feminist theorists are interested in understanding how political institutions impact the creation of social policy and gender equality within a country. In Canada, institutional feminist scholars have predominantly focused on Constitutional jurisprudence and Charter politics to understand Canada’s institutional response to gender inequality. However, this literature is limited in its analysis of federal structures as being based within masculine logics, upholding patriarchal systems. Using a historical institutionalist approach, this paper looks at three stages of Canadian federalism: the 1867 two-nation compact, the Keynesian-Ford welfare state, and neoliberal ‘open federalism’ model. It finds that the non-static institutionalized gender biases in Canadian federalism have continued to favour masculine logics and bias, and disadvantages the creation of feminist social policy by the Canadian and provincial governments.