Interview with Professor Sylvia Bashevkin

When did your interest in researching women and politics develop?
What moved you in that direction?

I first became interested during graduate school in the 1970s, when the very few references to women in the political science literature suggested female voters were disinterested, conservative and, in one memorable text, "political barbarians." There was an active women's movement outside universities, and women's studies programs were forming in many universities, but relatively little attention was devoted to women as political actors in political science.

In your book, Welfare Hot Buttons: Women, Work and Social Policy Reform
you present a comprehensive assessments of contemporary social policy change
in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain under the leadership of Bill
Clinton, Jean Chritien, and Tony Blair, respectively.  You found that despite campaign rhetoric that seemed progressive and favourable to those who would benefit most from social welfare reform, the realities of social assistance did not live up to the promises made by each leader.

"All [three leaders] defined social programs as a heavy weight on the public purse, which in their view had become an unaffordable burden in an age of high government deficits and debts...Each wanted to lower social spending-especially spending on people who were not, in their view, truly needy...Family values discourse effectively defined single mothers trying to raise their children as 'irresponsible' deviants who deserved public humiliation...Single mothers on social assistance were increasingly
identified as lazy, deceitful and, above all, personally irresponsible in their use of public funds to cultivate a life of leisure without work."

Are you aware of any country where social policy is underlined with a humane
approach to women and there is support for single mothers through funding
programs?

Willingness to fund in a generous way the nurturing work of women as mothers is generally not characteristic of Anglo-American countries. At the same time, willingness to promote the rights of women as employed, independent earners in the labour market is generally not characteristic of countries with more robust welfare states, including in Scandinavia. In short, it is difficult to find heaven on earth.

What adverse reaction did you get to your book, Welfare Hot Buttons from the debate that it precipitated? 
Like many studies about domestic public policy that appeared since 9/11, my book was generally ignored in the rush to probe global terror and religious extremism. It is only in the past six months or so that questions about welfare states and social policy have begun to re-emerge in public debate in North America. 

Can you comment on the social policy approach in the USA under George Bush Junior and in Australia under John Howard?  What do you see as the principles underlying it?
I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to comment on John Howard's policies, having only spent a few weeks in Australia this summer. In terms of George W. Bush, the policies appear quite consistent with both the Clinton legacy, and with his father's and Ronald Reagan's approaches.  

In your book, Women on the Defensive: Living Through Conservative Times you explore:
"Where have the vibrant women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s gone? Is
the feminist struggle for equality over or only temporarily muffled? Many
believe that the "backlash" of the 1980s sounded a death knell for contemporary feminism, but Women on the Defensive-the first comparative analysis of the intersection of government policies and the women's movement-paints a much more rich and complex picture of the greatly exaggerated reports of feminism's death."

What were the beliefs that were held about women and the women's movements
under the conservative leaderships of Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney, and
Margaret Thatcher?
Beliefs varied quite widely within these three countries, and among these three leaders. My book tries to sort out how movements survived when prevailing ideas among leaders in Canada, the US and Britain grew increasingly conservative. In part, the ability of movements to move forward in difficult times depended on the type of conservatism that was ascendant in each country, and on the types of constitutional protections and judicial champions women could claim in each place.

What did you identify as the beliefs that were held in common by feminists in all three countries that were in conflict with conservative policies of the three administrations?

Feminists generally believed in a strong role for the state, and a constrained role for markets, which set them in direct conflict with conservative political leaders. In the US in particular, Republicant elites were allied with socially conservative and religious interests that opposed the equal rights, family law, employment and reproductive rights agendas of the organized women's movement.

How do you regard the future of contemporary feminism?

Movements ebb and flow, and protest evolves in cycles. Young women and men in countries like Canada continue to believe in norms of equality, and often find that their expectations are not matched by their real-world experiences. This process whereby individuals "click" with movement ideas ensures that new activists for equality struggles are continuously coming on board, as older veterans tire out.

Can one distinguish women's approaches to planning? Are there any common
tenets?
In the past, women in cities were at the forefront of settlement house efforts, campaigns to build public libraries, and struggles to end child labour. This history forms the background for feminist urban planning during the 1970s and following, which emphasized wide-open community consultation (whereby local citizens were considered experts based on their lived experiences) and, at a substantive level, identified attention to access to public transportation, affordable housing, child care and safety from violence as core planning priorities.

In your opinion, how can planning issues effect and affect women's needs
and aspirations?  Do you believe that urban planning addresses gender and
ethno-specific needs?

At its best, urban planning can bridge the gap between the lives of citizens and the built environment of cities, by placing the varieties of lived experiences in cities at its core. At its worst, urban planning becomes a map-building exercise that envisions highways, buildings and other structures without consideration for the quality of human experiences in cities. Women are often most familiar with ground-level planning problems, including rushed traffic through residential areas, the lack of pedestrian walkways in cities and the impossibility of travelling on subways and streetcars with baby strollers.

Do you see yourself as a leader? What vision are you working towards?
I view myself as a teacher and researcher who is fortunate to share her ideas with a larger public. My own vision is of a more equal world, in which cities are organized to meet the needs of their diverse citizens first and foremost.