A Timmins councillor is speaking out after receiving a misogynistic email.
Coun. Michelle Boileau has been on parental leave since May when her daughter was born.
While she hasn't been attending council meetings, she has been responding to email and keeping up with committee work.
“Ironically I was going to respond to his and figured I’d look at what other emails I had in my inbox first and then found his response to my out-of-office reply and decided maybe not to respond to his question," said Boileau.
The person had sent an email to council about face masks and received an automatic out-of-office response from Boileau.
"I'm sure you have time to look at an e-mail but I just thought that you should know that this is one of the reasons why women have no place in politics, or the workplace for that matter. Good on you, have more kids and never come back (your kids are more important)," reads the response to Boileau.
She took a screenshot of the response and shared it to Facebook.
“The reach as of this morning was about 20,000 people...it’s been shared a lot and I’ve been overwhelmed by the flood of positive messages and comments and shares and people are outraged, and that’s exactly why I wanted to share it,” she said.
At first the email shocked her.
"I took a step back and I wasn’t so surprised that this kind of misogyny is still out there. I was a little taken aback by the fact that it was expressed so blatantly in an email cause normally those kind of comments are a little more veiled, are a little more in passing and not so explicit and direct,” she said, noting this was written by a man, but there are women who feel the same way.
“I was going to write back and then was like, you know what, it won’t change the way he thinks, it won’t change his world views. One email from me won’t have the kind of impact I’m hoping it will, so instead I decided to share it on social media to serve as a stark reminder to everyone that this level of sexism still exists, it’s still out there and women in politics are dealing with it on the daily."
This is Boileau's first term on council. She also ran for the Liberal Party in last year's federal election.
Normally, she said people question why she would run politically without having a family first.
"People seem to have a preconceived notion of when a woman should go into politics and that’s later on in life once they’ve raised their family,” she said. “There does seem to be a sort of undertone in society that women should raise their family first and then pursue any kind of political, professional career.”
While she's encouraged by the positive uptake, she's disappointed someone could think that way.
“I’m on parental leave because I just had a baby girl. Here I am thinking she’s going to grow up thinking she could do anything she wants, this was just a reminder that I’m also going to have to teach her that she’s going to have to face this kind of sexism, misogyny and I’m going to have to teach her how to confront these kind of comments,” she said.
Boileau is one of three women elected to Timmins council in the 2018 municipal election.
Fellow councillors Noella Rinaldo and Kristin Murray have each experienced sexism in their political life as well.
“I think (the email) opens people’s eyes to the fact that people think this is one guy and that it’s isolated, I hate to tell them this, but I’ve dealt with it all the time. I’m glad that...people are responsive to it and are positive to it, but they can’t be shocked about it because I’m telling you there are lots of guys, and some females, that are like that,” said Rinaldo, who recently announced her resignation from council to take a position with the Timmins Economic Development Corporation.
Rinaldo said she's put up with it for 10 years at the council table.
In a previous term, she was subjected to 'brutal' comments on social media.
“They would talk about my weight, they would talk about what I was wearing,” said Rinaldo, noting those comments weren't made about the men on council.
As a corporation, Rinaldo noted the city is not bias in their hiring process and listed a number of managers across the city who are women.
When Murray, who also represents Ward 5, read the email she was 'shocked and appalled'.
"But as a woman and mother in politics, comments like that that Michelle received are not uncommon. There’s a slight difference though because the comments that I experience are usually spoken words wrapped in jest not ever in the written form,” she said.
“It sheds light on a much bigger issue in our community, how many other people have been subject to someone of this mindset and also just acknowledging people in our community who are working tirelessly to just discuss women’s rights, talk about the women’s movement and bring forth those issues. It’s a community issue and we really have to look at it as a community."
While campaigning, Murray experienced comments about being a mom, young and a woman.
“At the same time I didn’t let that stop me. I think that just adds to some of the skills and abilities because sometimes we as women and mothers we interact with some people in our community who might need that mothering response,” she said.
Murray added this a great learning opportunity to reach out to young women considering running for politics.
"There’s a lot to be learned from this and I hope that other people will see that and it will drive them forward,” she said.
It was last year that council adopted a parental leave policy. Boileau is the first councillor to use it, and the first Timmins councillor to have a baby while in office.
Boileau said more women need to be in politics and leadership roles.
"We’re so underrepresented at most tables — political tables, boardroom tables — there are a lot of people working hard to encourage more women to step up and this is just one example of one of the many outrageous reasons why women don’t go into politics and don’t put themselves out there,” she said.
"I didn’t take this as a personal attack, this is just an attack on all professional women, really, so it’s not like I needed to see those comments of encouragement, I just think all women out there needed to see those comments of encouragement and that’s why I really wanted to make it public so that women could be encouraged by the positivity."
Boileau plans to be back at the virtual council sooner than anticipated.
The goal is to be at the Sept. 8 meeting, she's just waiting for word that the change is approved.
