The Globe and Mail - 22.02.2020

O4| OPINION OTHEGLOBEANDMAIL | SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020

This is how we sustain the long-

term care system for older citi-

zens today. But as the baby boom-

ers age, the cost of caring for the

elderly is expected to triple over

the next three decades, reaching

$71-billion annually in 2050.

To sustain people at home and

in long-term care facilities, feder-

al and provincialgovernments

will face difficult choices. The op-

tions include some combination

of:

Ordering health professionals

to cut back on end-of-life care.

Forcing family members –

most of them women – to spend

more and more of their time look-

ing after aging relatives.

Raising taxes, while cutting

funding to defence, education,

foreign aid and other programs

not related to health care and

long-term care.

Implementing comprehen-

sive long-term care insurance,

with workers and employers pay-

ing the premiums,and govern-

W

e’ll leave it to others to
explain why men gener-
ally don’t like looking af-
ter people. But it’s a fact that care-
givers are overwhelmingly wom-
en. And sincegovernments are
facing massive increases in the
costs of caring for older Cana-
dians, women need to make sure
they are in positions of power.
Otherwise, the burden will fall on
them, while the boys play with
their toys.
In North America today, wom-
en still do almost all of the caring.
According to Priceonomics,
which analyzed data from the
United States, more than 90 per
cent of babysitters are female. In
Canada, three-quarters of public
school teachers are women, along
with more than half of all physi-
cians younger than 40 and 90 per
cent of nurses.
Personal support workers are
the backbone of the long-term
care system. There are around
100,000 of them in Ontario, alone

• the underpaid and overworked
  caregivers who, literally, do the
  heavy lifting of caring for the frail
  and elderly in homes and nursing
  homes. More than 90 per cent of
  PSWs are women; about 40 per
  cent were not born in Canada.
  Their work is difficult and can be
  dangerous if the patient is violent
  due to dementia. They make little
  more than minimum wage.
  “We are not valuing this incred-
  ibly difficult and important
  work,” says Chi Nguyen, director
  of Toronto-based Social Innova-
  tion Canada. “When you consider
  the kind of personal care and sup-
  port and dignity you are giving to
  another human being, and the
  kind of emotional sensitivity
  that’s required to do that job com-
  petently, it’s incredible that they
  get paid as little as they do.”
  One reason they are not paid
  better is that personal support
  workers supplement the work of
  family members, who provide
  about three-quarters of all long-
  term care. According to Statistics
  Canada, women are twice as like-
  ly as men to provide intensive, re-
  petitive care, such as bathing and
  dressing older family members,
  while men are more likely to carry
  out home maintenance.

ment programs filling any gaps.

Accepting higher poverty lev-

els among the elderly.

These choices will affect wom-

en more than men because wom-

en already devote so much time

to care. But although Prime Min-

ister Justin Trudeau has mandat-

ed that half of all federal cabinet

positions be filled by women,

men continue to dominate Cana-

da’s power structures. Caroline

Cochrane of the Northwest Terri-

tories is the only female premier.

Nine of the 14 federal, provincial

and territorial finance ministers

are men.

Imagine a meeting between a

prime minister and finance min-

ister, both men, around budget

time. Demands are many and rev-

enue limited. If the choice is be-

tween replacing some aging fri-

gates or increasing the budget for

home care, the men may incline

toward the navy, knowing their

wives or sisters will make sure

mom and dad are looked after.

But if the prime minister and fi-

nance minister are women who

are dealing with the challenges of

their own aging parents, maybe

increased funding for personal

support workers would take pri-

ority.

“When you have more women

in positions of political power,

you see them making more deci-

sions that are good for local com-

munities,” says Therese Huston, a

cognitive psychologist at Seattle

University and author of the 2016

bookHoö Bomen 

ecime.

Although Dr. Huston is not

aware of any specific research on

how women and men decide on

policy issues affecting families,

“the research shows women mak-

ing more collaborative decisions,

bringing more people’s needs in-

to the conversation than men

do,” she said in an interview.

“That may mean that women

will do a better job of looking out

for a broader range of needs, be-

cause they take more people’s

needs into consideration.”

Even if men are left in charge,

market forces and electoral con-

siderations will force change. As

Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, direc-

tor of financial security research

at Ryerson University’s National

Institute on Ageing, observes, ap-

proximately 6.1 million Cana-

dians, or 35 per cent of the work

force, balance career and caregiv-

ing responsibilities at the same

time.

“With smaller families, fewer

adult children, and many of those

female adult children in the work

force, sustaining this level of un-

paid care will be a challenge as

Canada’s population ages,” she

says.

While the challenges of an ag-

ing society affect women more

than men in their role as caregiv-

ers, everyone is affected equally

as receivers of care.

In some ways, it’s “self-inter-

est” for women to be in positions

of power where decisions about

the future of long-term care are

made, says Ms. Nguyen at Social

Innovation Canada. “But actually

it’s a collective societal interest in

investing in the mechanisms that

are going to keep us all healthier

longer, with better living oppor-

tunities.”

There is no greater policy chal-

lenge for Canada’sgovernments

than caring for a growing, aging

society. Everyone would benefit if

women managed that change at

the cabinet table, as well as at

home.

Inouragingsociety,weneedfemale

leadersmorethanever

Malepoliticiansalonecan’tbeallowedtodecidethefutureoflong-termcare,writesJohnIbbitson.

Themoreinputwomenhave,thebetteroffweallare

OPINION

JohnIbbitsonisawriter-at-largefor
TheGlobeandMail.Hislatestbook
isEmptyPlanet:TheShockofGlobal
PopulationDecline,co-authoredwith
DarrellBricker.

Whilethechallenges

ofanagingsociety

affectwomenmorethan

menintheirroleas

caregivers,everyone

isaffectedequally

asreceiversofcare.

PHOTOILLUSTRATION:THEGLOBEANDMAIL

C

anada’s Department of Jus-
tice currently recommends
that legislators use gender-
neutral language when drafting
statutes because “laws that ex-
clude references to the female
gender do not promote gender
equality.” Leading off their list of
suggestions is a pronoun: “Use
the singular ‘they’ ... to refer to in-
definite pronouns and singular
nouns.” Other options include the
phrase “he or she” or rewriting in
the plural. Generic “he,” once the
default legal construction, is no
longer an option, which is a good
thing because despite centuries of
being propped up by grammari-
ans, teachers and editors, “he”
was never truly generic.
Using a masculine word to in-
clude women – what generic “he”
is supposed to do in grammar and
in law – was a key feature of En-
gland’s Act of Interpretation
(1850) as well as Canada’s first In-
terpretation Act, which provided
that “Words importing ... the
masculine gender only, shall in-
clude ... females as well as males”
(in the United States, the Dictio-
nary Act – passed in 1871 – also
said that masculine words could
refer to women).
Courts had no trouble puni-
shing women when the criminal
code referred to lawbreakers as
“he.” But judges and legislators –
all of them men in the 19th centu-
ry – insisted that “he” was not ge-
neric when it came to rights such

as voting, holding elected office or

entering a traditionally all-male

profession such as medicine or

law.

All that has changed. Canadian

women have been doctors since

the 1860s, lawyers since 1892 and

voters since 1918. But such

achievements came without the

help of the Interpretation Act’s

“he-means-she” provision.

The generic “he” also kept

women out of civil service jobs in

Canada. A 1921 article on the histo-

ry of the Ottawa civil service sug-

gested that women’s exclusion

was both grammatical and natu-

ral: “The Civil Service is for men

only ... The law on the subject is all

in the masculine gender, which,

while a purely technical point, is

really founded on the primary

conception of a service in which

women would not have a part.”

According to the writer, the

pronoun “he” in the Canadian

Civil Service law was simply a nod

to grammatical tradition, not to

the realities ofgovernment work:

“Women were not specifically ex-

cluded: they were simply not

thought of being in any way eligi-

ble.” In his opinion – the anony-

mous writer is certainly male –

what eventually put women at

government desks in 1883 had

nothing to do with feminism, suf-

frage or a sense of fairness. It was

their ability to do menial office

work. He put it bluntly: “They

came in with the typewriter.”

Typewriters first appeared in

the 1870s, and within a decade

they were well on their way to be-

coming the office writing tool of

choice. Once it became clear that

women could type, and do it more

cheaply than men, the Ottawa

Civil Service hired them by the

thousands. But even as late as 1921

women were considered temps.

According to the anonymous civ-

il-service historian, “They come

and go. The brighter and cleverer

they are the more likely they are to

get married, and it is another tra-

dition that a married woman ...

shall not be in the public service.”

In fact, a new civil-service bill

introduced in 1924 codified the

tradition of ousting married

women from the civil service, and

it too had pronoun trouble. In a

bizarre attempt to adhere to

grammatical convention, that bill

used masculine pronouns for the

women: “he [i.e., a civil servant] is

to retire on marriage.”

During the legislative debate

over this provision, the bill’s

sponsor was asked whether male

civil servants also had to retire

when they married. He replied,

matter-of-factly, “Female employ-

ees are of course compelled to re-

tire on marriage” – no surprise

there, given the previous “tradi-

tion.” The follow-up question,

“Then why not say ‘she’?” brought

the reply that “he” was used “for

conformity” – Canadian statutes

always used “he.” Apparently that

was explanation enough, and the

Civil Service bill – in which “he” in

this case meant “only she” – was

quickly approved.

All that has changed. Over the

past decade, singular “they” has

become the statutory pronoun of

choice. It’s the ultimate inclusive

word: both gender-neutral and

non-binary, singular “they” refers

to men, women and persons who

are trans or gender-nonconform-

ing. And it’s idiomatic: English

plural pronouns can and regular-

ly do function as singulars – see,

for example, the editorial or royal

“we.” More to the point, plural

“they” has doubled as a singular

pronoun in careful, edited writing

sincethe 14th century. In contrast,

the second person plural pro-

noun “you” has only functioned

as a singular since the 17th centu-

ry, when it began driving out sin-

gular “thou” and “thee.”

This means singular “they” is

hundreds of years older than the

perfectly standard singular “you.”

And language authorities – dictio-

naries, grammar and style guides

• are quickly recognizing that sin-
  gular “they” is standard English.
  Both Merriam-Webster and the
  Oxford English Dictionary have
  added the non-binary sense of
  singular “they” to existing defini-
  tions of gender-neutral “they,”
  and the latest edition of the Amer-
  ican Psychological Association’s
  Publication Manual recommends
  the gender-inclusive singular
  “they” both in clinical settings
  and for scholarly writing.
  In addition, singular “they” has
  been sweeping the awards. Mer-
  riam-Webster declared non-bina-
  ry singular “they” its Word of the
  Year for 2019, and the American
  Dialect Society named singular
  “they” the Word of the Decade.
  There are alternatives to singu-
  lar “they.” Some people prefer a
  coined pronoun such as “zie” or
  “hir.” Or no pronoun at all. But
  whatever option you choose, re-
  member that generic “he” is pret-
  ty much stake-through-the-heart
  dead. Singular “they” is used by
  people who want to promote gen-
  der inclusivity, and it’s used as
  well by those who have never giv-
  en the issue of gender much
  thought at all. Anyone who still
  objects to singular “they” on
  grammatical grounds should con-
  sider what the linguist Fred New-
  ton Scott said 135 years ago: “The
  word they is being used as a pro-
  noun of the common gender ev-
  ery day by millions of persons
  who are not particular about their
  language, and every other day by
  several thousands who are partic-
  ular.”

Spreadingtheword

DENNISBARON

OPINION

ProfessorofEnglishandlinguistics,
emeritus,attheUniversityofIllinois
andtheauthorofthenewbook
What’sYourPronoun?BeyondHe
andShe

Singular‘they’hasbeen

sweepingtheawards.

Merriam-Webster

declarednon-binary

singular‘they‘itsWord

oftheYearfor2019,

andtheAmerican

DialectSocietynamed

singular‘they’theWord

oftheDecade.