Olivia Chow speaks at McMaster

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By: Katie Lehwald

On Feb. 5, the Academic Women’s Success and Mentorship brought former Member of Parliament and Toronto City Councillor Olivia Chow to campus for a keynote lecture.

Chow is the second in the AWSM series that brings various speakers to campus to share their advice on mentorship and empowering female leaders.

Chow’s talk centered on her experience growing up as an immigrant in Canada, and her perspective on various issues as seen through the eyes of a woman in the political sphere. Reading an excerpt from her recently published memoir, she detailed personal struggles which encouraged her to seek avenues for change, and eventually resulted in her introduction to politics.

“Women who endure cultural bias are the most poverty stricken in [Toronto],” Chow said. “[Those who are underrepresented can] understand weakness as a source of strength [and] turn helplessness and despair into a quest for political action.”

Chow expressed her belief that an underlying gender bias interferes with determining what is public or state business.

“No one [debates] that policing or army should be paid. It is the state business to protect us collectively,” she said.

Yet when it comes to matters of nurturing, like childcare or home care for seniors, the response is often that it should be a private or family responsibility.

“If you think about protecting, [men] do most of the protecting. And who does most of the nurturing? Females. So somehow, nurturing jobs are supposed to be mostly private, not the government’s responsibility by and large... This is why it is especially important to have women involved in politics. It is long overdue,” she said.

In line with the intention of the lecture series, Chow encouraged the audience to empower women around them, saying to never underestimate “the power of the collective.”

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