1. FemNorthNet Webinar October 21, 2010
Restructuring
FemNorthNet Webinar
October 21, 2010

2. What is a Structure? A structure is a combination of:
Material Conditions
Institutions
Ideas
Sometimes all three come together in a relatively stable way for a period of time in a particular place (R.W. Cox).

3. EG - “Nuclear Family” male bread-winner with a stable, well-paying job
often unionized
able-bodied
white industrial worker
woman who worked at home without pay
heterosexual couple

4. “Nuclear Family”
Was the ideal, but many people excluded from the definition
Aboriginal families, rural families, immigrant families, single-mother led families
North American ideal
In the years after the Second World War

5. Re-structuring
When structures change, sometimes we can’t recognize the change until time passes.
In the midst of it, sometimes we experience chaos, or crisis, or upheaval.
But if we take a long term view, we can see how profound the changes have been.

6. What happened to the “nuclear family”?

7. Economic Restructuring
A process of profound and prolonged economic change,
brought about by the shifting interests of corporations

8. Economic Restructuring
But, to identify what has changed,
we need to think about how things once were.
So, what has changed since our grandmothers’ time?

9. How has the economy changed?
Reliance by firms on national markets to reliance on global markets
Active state in economic planning to free trade agreements
State-funded and publicly-delivered services to privatization of public services

10. How has the economy changed?
US branch plants industrialization to plant closures
Extraction of minerals and energy resources to super-exploitation of natural resources
Some women in the labour market to most women working for a wage

11. Signs of Restructuring in our communities:
No national childcare program
Rise in domestic violence
Pensions collapsing/lack of private pensions
Poverty worsening
Economic activity, but the community is suffering

12. Why is this happening?