Over the past years, the Vancouver Eastside has had too many women go missing but local and global media have given this issue very little attention. Need not forget all the media sources are businesses and choose a few out of the millions of news stories to give out to their viewers, by narrowing down what news that is prevailing to be most important to viewers, in attempts to attract more people towards their newspaper, website or channel (Gilchrist, 2007, p.375). Attention towards missing women increased when the head turning Robert Pickton case was brought in front of the eyes of many, though this issue finally got the attention it needed, it was still the wrong type. More attention was given to Pickton compared the circumstances that forced …show more content…
This news article shines a light on the ongoing inequalities the “native people” face because of their low economic status (5,000 Canadians listed as missing, 1994). The article fails to point out the existence of intersectionality that come into play when looking at cases of missing native women. Their race, gender, and economic status being the main causes of the inequalities they are facing. This news article rather focuses more on the positive aspect that the number of missing women hasn’t increased instead of focusing on thefact that women are missing, no matter the number. The passage ends off with a short paragraph focusing on the lack of attention given to missing persons out of “the mainstream” (Jim Frideres, as cited in “5,000 Canadians listed missing”, 1994). The police have a duty to provide every one of equal services no matter “race, gender, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, belief, or social standing.” (Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, 2012). This has failed to be done when the police are unable to adapt to ongoing patterns to prevent problems before they occur in communities already known to be vulnerable to violence (Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, 2012). The news report also fails to acknowledge readers about the history of the native communities and what lead to the poverty in the …show more content…
This article discusses the disappearances and deaths of women along highway 16, also known as the highway of tears. The Article also mentions that the highway of tears is located in a very isolated area with little public transportation. Many of the women that go missing or are found murdered on this highway were hitchhiking to get from point a (most likely a reserve) to point b. The lack of safe transportation for the people around the area is not mentioned in the article. The residents turn to hitchhiking to get to their destination a transportation method which is perceived to be unsafe and is categorized as “bad mobility” (Katherine, 2016, p.299). This categorization of hitchhiking allows people to blame the women for this method of transportation (Katherine, 2016, p.299), allowing once again the blame to be put upon the women for the injustice they face. The article ends off with words from Mary Teegee who depicts the difference in police action if women from West Vancouver had gone missing or found to murdered. She states that “the [death toll] would never reach that in West Vancouver” (Trumpener, 2016). Kristen Gilchrist gives an explanation as to why the response to missing and murdered women would be different in West Vancouver and Gilchrist gives a few reasons as to why. The women in the downtown Eastside are associated with prostitutes and drug users putting them into a negative
On June 19th of 1990, Robert Baltovich’s girlfriend Elizabeth Bain went missing. Elizabeth told her family that she was going to check the tennis schedules at her school, the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus. She never returned, but her car was eventually recovered. It was found with blood on the backseat, with forensic tests showing that it was Elizabeth’s. With no clear evidence, the “solving” of the case was completely based on eyewitness testimonies, which eventually had Robert arrested for the murder of his girlfriend.
In this proposal our team seeks to explore the injustices within the Indian Act. To achieve this our proposed research will examine the target population being the aboriginal woman. The paper will further explore the oppressions faced by the aboriginal women within the Indian Act. In conclusion, this proposal will sum up the negative impact that the Indian Act had on aboriginal women and how it continues to oppress this population within the Canadian National discourse.
Generations of native people in Canada have faced suffering and cultural loss as a result of European colonization of their land. Government legislation has impacted the lives of five generations of First Nations people and as a result the fifth generation (from 1980 to present) is working to recover from their crippled cultural identity (Deiter-McArthur 379-380). This current generation is living with the fallout of previous government policies and societal prejudices that linger from four generations previous. Unrepentant, Canada’s ‘Genocide’, and Saskatchewan’s Indian People – Five Generations highlight issues that negatively influence First Nations people. The fifth generation of native people struggle against tremendous adversity in regard to assimilation, integration, separation, and recovering their cultural identity with inadequate assistance from our great nation.
Systemic discrimination has been a part of Canada’s past. Women, racial and ethnic minorities as well as First Nations people have all faced discrimination in Canada. Policies such as, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, provincial and federal Human Rights Codes, as well has various employment equity programs have been placed in Canada’s constitution to fight and address discrimination issues. Despite these key documents placed for universal rights and freedoms Aboriginal and other minority populations in Canada continue to be discriminated against. Many believe there is no discrimination in Canada, and suggest any lack of success of these groups is a result of personal decisions and not systemic discrimination. While others feel that the legislation and equality policies have yet resulted in an equal society for all minorities. Racism is immersed in Canadian society; this is clearly shown by stories of racial profiling in law enforcement.
After watching Finding Dawn, my impression of the film documentary had hit me hard, especially due the fact that I am a female and strikes me to empathize with women who have who are treated like a ghosts by the government. No one wants to be have that treatment to them. You have to have no ounce of humanity in you to ignore the issue, specifically indigenous women, who have to put their lives at risk in order to survive because of a systemic discrimination that constantly ignores this part of society that where recognition is lacking.
...ough group and individual models of deviant behaviour. The patriarchal pedagogy and structures that set the stage for permitting sexual assault to occur historically, still continue today, although in more subtle ways. Women are still seen as the property of men, and are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today's world. Men are usually in power positions, especially of an economic nature, and women are seen as passive. Marxist-feminist and differential identification are two theories that can be used to effectively explicate the cycle of sexualized violence in Canadian society today. In order to deal with the occurrence of sexual assault in our society, we must examine its causes more deeply. We must understand the sociology of sexualized violence in order to effectively explicate its groups and individual dynamics.
Parker and M. Kristen Hefner write about how the intersectionality of class, race and gender affect homicide rates at a macro level of White and African American females between the years of 1990-2000. As well as using an intersectional framework, Parker and Hefner explore how the contemporary economic, social and policy changes can differently affect black and white female homicide rates. The study reveals many interesting facts and shows how intersectionality can change how we understand crime today. Firstly, it is found that an increase in resource deprivation saw a 27% increase in white female offending and a 39% increase in black female offending. Resource deprivation includes the declining number of domestic violence shelters available to women. Some feminist scholars have criticised these domestic violence services as being “based on white, middle-class, female standards” (Parker & Hefner, 2013, p. 247) as they do not take into account the structural difficulties that only minority women face. The fact that these services do not take into account the culturally specific difficulties that minority women face, some women may feel that their only option is to turn to crime. This can explain why the rate of black female offending is much higher than that of white female offending when they are deprived of
Canada likes to paint an image of peace, justice and equality for all, when, in reality, the treatment of Aboriginal peoples in our country has been anything but. Laden with incomprehensible assimilation and destruction, the history of Canada is a shameful story of dismantlement of Indian rights, of blatant lies and mistrust, and of complete lack of interest in the well-being of First Nations peoples. Though some breakthroughs were made over the years, the overall arching story fits into Cardinal’s description exactly. “Clearly something must be done,” states Murray Sinclair (p. 184, 1994). And that ‘something’ he refers to is drastic change. It is evident, therefore, that Harold Cardinal’s statement is an accurate summarization of the Indigenous/non-Indigenous relationship in
Welsh et al. (2006) used data from the research focus groups of Canadian women to discuss the issue of sexual harassment among Canadian women and how the white Canadian women, who are mostly heterosexual, define sexual harassment and rape (objective) versus how the women of color define their experience of rape and sexual harassment in workplace (subjective). According to Welsh et al. (2006), he discussed how race, gender and citizenship are important factors in how Women of color with and without citizenship right define sexual harassment and rape. Sometimes as race and sometimes sees it as an experience they will pass through at some point or the other in their lives and most times they failed to report because of their legal statues, fear, pity, guilt, love, ignorance, lack of education. He also discussed how they fail to pay attention to the interlocking aspect of race and citizenship and how the legal system failed to give as much attention to the few reported case of rape by women of color because of their passed sexual history. While on the other hand, the white Canadian Woman defines her experience of rape and harassment not as a race but as what the author failed to discuss. The white Canadian woman knows when the boundary is crossed and most times do not contemplate to express her legal rights.
Her book focuses on the myriads of issues and struggles that Indigenous men and women have faced and will continue to face because of colonialism. During her speech, Palmater addressed the grave effects of the cultural assimilation that permeated in Indigenous communities, particularly the Indian Residential School System and the Indian Act, which has been extensively discussed in both lectures and readings. Such policies were created by European settlers to institutionalize colonialism and maintain the social and cultural hierarchy that established Aboriginals as the inferior group. Palmater also discussed that according to news reports, an Aboriginal baby from Manitoba is taken away every single day by the government and is put in social care (CTVNews.ca Staff, 2015). This echoes Andrea Smith’s argument in “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing” that colonialism continues to affect Aboriginals through genocide (2006, p. 68). Although such actions by the government are not physical acts of genocide, where 90% of Aboriginal population was annihilated, it is this modern day cultural assimilation that succeeded the Indigenous Residential School System and the Indian Act embodies colonialism and genocide (Larkin, November 4,
According to the FBI, more than 75 percent of all murder victims are women, and more than 50 percent of the women are between the ages of 14 and 29 years old. A part of that statistic is Kitty Genovese,a murder victim who is the focus of an editorial, “The Dying Girl that No One Helped,” written by Loudon Wainwright. Kitty was a 28 year old woman who was brutally stabbed to death while on her way home from work. The woman, named Kitty Genovese, lived in a pleasant, welcoming, residential area, in New York. There was at least 38 witnesses that came forward, and they all heard her cries for help, but no one came to her aid. Wainwright effectively demonstrates how society has started turning a “blind-eye” toward problems that can endanger someone's
Throughout the years it has recorded that woman now have definitely been doing crimes as much as what men have done in the past years. In an article about The Criminal Justice System and Woman both Freda Alder and Rita Simons talk about theories and facts about the woman committing crimes that we see on TV’s, newspapers, and interviews. They discuss in depth about the reasoning on why woman are now starting to do crimes and murders as bad as men have done over the past years.
Scott Peterson was an educated man from California Polytechnic State University where he graduated with a B.A. in Agricultural Business. He was married to his wife Laci Peterson who was also pregnant with their unborn son. In December of 2002 Laci Peterson went missing in the Modesto, California area where she shared a home with Scott. Once the investigation of Scott’s missing wife started authorities began to suspect Scott as a suspect in her disappearance. In April of 2003 a fetus and a female torso that was missing hands, feet, and a head were found on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. The San Francisco Bay area was where Scott was boating the day of Laci’s disappearance. The body was later identified as Laci Peterson and the fetus as Laci and Scott’s unborn son. Scott was also arrested in the month of April shortly after the discovery of Laci and their son’s body and was later sentenced to the death penalty. Over the course of this paper I will cover the whole event of the disappearance of Laci Peterson, relating it to a sociological theory, the impact the event had on our society and how the media had influence over this national event.
Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars' Press, 2000. 167-186. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secon Ogawa, Brian K. Color of Justice: Culturally Sensitive Treatment of Minority Crime Victims. Allen and Bacon: Needham Heights, MA, 1999. Saleh Hanna, Viviane.
... Children in National News Coverage: Racial and Gender Representations of Missing Children Cases." 27.3 (2010): 207-216. Academia.edu. Web. 5 Nov 2013.