Fear, Love, and Liberation in Contemporary Québec

A Feminist Reflection

Alexa Conradi, Catherine Browne

• Publisher: Between the Lines
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781771134156
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Social Sciences

In response to rapid and unsettling social, economic, and climate changes, fearmongering now features as a main component of public life. Right-wing nationalist populism has become a hallmark of politics around the world. No less so in Quebec. Alexa Conradi has made it her life's work to understand and to generate thoughtful debate about this worrisome trend. As the first President of Québec solidaire and the president of Canada's largest feminist organisation, the Fédération des femmes du Québec, Conradi refused to shy away from difficult issues: the Charter of Quebec Values, religion and Islam, sovereignty, rape culture and violence against women, extractive industries and the treatment of Indigenous women, austerity policy and the growing gap between rich and poor. This determination to address uncomfortable subjects has made Conradi—an anglo-Montrealer—a sometimes controversial leader. In Fear, Love, and Liberation in Contemporary Quebec, Conradi invites us to take off our rose-coloured glasses and to examine Quebec's treatment of women with more honesty. Through her personal reflections on Quebec politics and culture, she dispels the myth that gender equality has been achieved and paves the way for a more critical understanding of what remains to be done.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• One ON HAVING A VOICE
• Two LETTING GO OF FEAR
• Three LOVE
• Four UNDERSTANDING THE OTHER’S PAIN, WITHOUT INDULGENCE
• Five DENYING SYSTEMIC RACISM
• Six EQUALITY: A CORE VALUE FOR QUEBEC
• Seven DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM ACTUAL FEMINISM
• Eight UNLEARNING
• Nine DISCOVERY
• Ten OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS
• Eleven VIOLENT DISPOSSESSION
• Twelve DENYING AND MINIMIZING
• Thirteen RAPE CULTURE TAKES MANY FORMS
• Fourteen DENYING THE POLITICS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE
• Fifteen IS QUEBEC REALLY AGAINST WAR?
• Sixteen SHOOTING SPREE
• Seventeen THE RETURN OF THE RELIGIOUS
• Eighteen PREVENTING FUNDAMENTALISM
• Nineteen BREAKING WITH MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM
• Twenty AUSTERITY AND ITS PHONY NEUTRALITY
• Twenty-One A GLARING INJUSTICE
• Twenty-Two ON THE RISE OF POPULISM
• Twenty-Three A NEW/OLD VISION TO PROTECT OUR HOME
• Twenty-Four COUNTING ON THE LEFT? YES, BUT...
• CONCLUSION
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• NOTES