CFP: “Women, the Charter, and CEDAW in the 21st Century,” Kingston, Ont. March 2-4, 2012

From our colleagues at Queen’s University (Kingston Ont.):

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY FEMINIST LEGAL STUDIES

 Call for papers —

 Women, the Charter, and CEDAW in the 21^st Century:

Taking Stock and Moving Forward

March 2-4, 2012, Kingston Ont.

 The Charter sex equality provisions were drafted in 1981, the same year Canada signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). How have women fared as these human rights guarantees have come into effect over the last thirty years? What accomplishments can now be counted on, and what challenges remain?

This symposium invites lawyers, academics in law and other disciplines, policy analysts, community activists, and students to submit proposals for panel discussions and papers that assess the state of contemporary women’s equality in Canada and other jurisdictions at the national, regional, and international levels. The goal of this symposium is to identify emerging priorities and examine strategies that are most likely to promote substantive sex equality in the rapidly changing social, political, and economic circumstances of today.

Proposals and papers are invited on these issues, and on any others added by participants:

• Women in paid work: barriers, rewards, and challenges
• Violence against women, disappearing women, and government responses
• Indigenous women’s issues: economic, social, and political
• Arctic and northern women: geography, culture, and equality
• Immigration and refugee law, public safety deportations, and federal policy
• Disabled women’s rights
• Education and sex/gender: for whom does education pay, and how much?
• Racialization and gender in legal policy
• Religion, feminism, and human rights
• Women in corrections systems
• Maternal mortality, health care, and reproductive rights
• Women and economic crisis: gender and recessions, unequal safety nets, social costs
• Pay equity, equal pay, and equality: how are women faring?
• Gender mainstreaming, gender budgeting, and fiscal equality
• International relations, militarism, and democracy
• Lesbian, bisexual, and trans women – rights and responsibilities
• Women in sports: funding, safety, competition constraints, and ‘legacy’ planning
• Prostitution, Bedford, and beyond
• Sex/gender and economic security, property, wealth, and subsistence

Call for papers:

Submissions grounded in public policy, domestic or international law, sociology, economics, health/medicine, foreign affairs, women’s/gender studies, Aboriginal studies, development, gender/sexualities, accounting, environmental, human rights, or political studies are sought.

Date and location:

The symposium will be held at Queen’s University Faculty of Law, Kingston, Ont. on

Friday March 2 through early afternoon Sunday March 4, 2012.

Submitting paper topics:

If you are interested in presenting a paper or organizing a panel on specific issues, please email your proposal and a short (one paragraph) description to Bita Amani at amanib@queensu.ca or Kathleen Lahey at kal2@queensu.ca.  This can be sent any time until Nov. 15, 2011. Participation will be confirmed by Nov. 25, 2011.

Travel funding:

When submitting paper or panel proposals, please indicate whether you would be able to obtain institutional support to attend, or whether you could attend only if you receive funding from Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s.

Registration:

Attendance without presenting a paper is welcome, as the goal is to discuss a wide variety of equality issues. Contact the organizers to indicate interest and obtain registration information. Special funding from the Law Foundation of Ontario, which is funding this symposium, has been provided to assist students to attend.

Accommodation and child care:

Information on accommodation will be provided on request. Anyone wanting child care should mention that from the outset so appropriate arrangements can be made.

For further information, contact either —

Professor Bita Amani (co-director, Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s) at amanib@queensu.ca or Professor Kathleen Lahey (co-director, Feminist Legal Studies Queen’s) at kal2@queensu.ca.

The folks at Queen’s are doing very interesting work, and very much welcome participation from U.S.-based academics, so check it out.

-Bridget Crawford