By Betty Krawczyk

Provincial party leaders Carole James of the NDP and Jane Sterk of the Greens both try to include women but consistently speak to men in their policies and speeches. But are women a separate class? Well, we know that it is male culture that decides what’s important—what will even be discussed during elections and policy making.

But, in my opinion, both the NDP and the Greens have the potential to break out of this male-constructed straight jacket and awaken women to the distinct possibility that women’s issues of just trying to survive as not only poorly paid producers in a tough job market but also as unpaid reproducers in the capacity of having and caring for children—also caring for the elderly, the disfranchised, plus, in our spare time, trying to save the entire Earth, for Pete’s sake—that these are the very issues that strike at the heart of humanity.

The NDP better understands social issues; the Greens know the environment better. Neither party did as well as expected in the last election because each party is only half of what many women are looking for—that is, a platform that acknowledges that the work of having and rearing children is our society’s most important activity. And that the people who do this, or most of it, should be given the money and status this social activity demands.

If childless people object to their tax money being spent thus they can trade their owed tax amount for hours, days, weeks, whatever, spent in child-care centres, nurseries, schools, doing cooking, cleaning, and teaching. Every citizen must take responsibility for the care of future generations.

We want a platform that stresses that no system of belief should be allowed to raise the sex of one child above another the other, before or after birth. Women fear prostitution and want a party that declares that no woman or child be stripped of their humanity by sexual violation of their bodies by men, even if they agree for poverty’s sake. We worry about good food, that there is enough for the children, and that there should be stricter rules about what children can be fed. Corporations who poison food with chemicals and hormones and governments who allow this should be found guilty of child abuse, just as the poisoning of the minds of children with pornography and violence on the Internet, film, and TV should be declared a crime against children (and let the networks, corporations, and the civil liberties unions howl).

Can the NDP and the Greens come together and form one party? I think it’s time. A clear vision releases creativity, both in leaders and the people. Have the corporations, the banks, the monetary experts done such a hot job? The only hot job they know how to do is steal. And then for their thievery demand more taxpayers’ money while they plunge us further into debt and social degradation.

I’m serious, leaders of the Greens and the NDP. You want a majority? Form one party. Turn to your true, largely untapped base: women. Not to ignore or demean men, but to lead them, as well as more women, to a more comprehensive way of including women, children, and the Earth in every policy-making decision.

At a time when mothers’ breast milk is the most polluted food source on Earth, we just have to do this. We must. And we can.

Betty Krawczyk is an environmental activist.