If Canada’s prime minister were a woman, she wouldn’t have been permitted where Justin Trudeau stood earlier this week: on the ground floor of a gender-segregated Ottawa mosque for Eid al-Adha celebrations. Most Canadians understand that the prime minister will, on occasion, be granted extraordinary access to certain facilities or events, but that is typically because of the fact he’s the prime minister, not because he’s a man.

But on Monday, Trudeau’s gender granted him access to a spot where half the population wouldn’t be allowed to stand (unless they get special permission), not the least of which include the premier of the province, the leader of the Opposition and any hypothetical future female prime ministers.

To many, the appearance was another example of the hypocrisy of a government that talks the talk on feminism but has trouble executing “real change” — to borrow a phrase from the governing Liberals. To be sure, the Trudeau government has mastered the easy stuff when it comes to women’s rights: the prime minister proudly calls himself a feminist, for example, and he has promised a Canadian woman on a banknote and delivered gender parity in cabinet. Canada will likely also see its new “gender neutral” national anthem soon made official, and its next representative to the International Monetary Fund will be a woman — a Canadian first.

But when it comes to the more contentious women’s issues — especially those where religion and women’s rights awkwardly intersect — Trudeau is conspicuously quiet. In his unabashed defence of the niqab during last year’s federal election campaign, for example, Trudeau gave almost no heed to the possibility there are some women who are forced to cover up, which can be acknowledged while still defending the separation of state and wardrobe. Likewise, the Trudeau government has basically no position on sex-selective abortion, despite concerns raised by the Canadian Medical Association Journal in recent years, other than its blanket approval of a woman’s right to choose — even if, ironically, she is choosing to abort her baby for being a girl. And despite initial wavering, Trudeau’s feminist government decided to honour its arms deal with Saudi Arabia, one of the most oppressive regimes for women in the world.

Feminism is more than cheap slogans and Liberal-branded T-shirts: it is standing up for women even when and where it is contentious and uncomfortable to do so

It’s certainly difficult for any government to tread the fraught line between religion and women’s rights, but this government’s hypocrisy shines that much more poignantly, because of the fact it is literally publishing buttons and stickers boasting about Trudeau’s feminist credentials. By addressing a group of men in a spot where women are prohibited, the prime minister’s supposed dedication to feminism takes a back seat to religious observance. Regular Canadians are free to prioritize their values in such ways, but tolerating gender segregation — whether in a mosque, or an Orthodox synagogue, or Hindu temple — is particularly unbecoming for the leader of a secular, democratic country, especially one who claims that feminism is at the forefront of his political agenda.

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A true feminist would not indulge in a privilege afforded to him only by virtue of the fact he is a man, which is exactly what Trudeau did by speaking on the ground floor of a segregated Ottawa mosque. Indeed, there are plenty of integrated mosques where Trudeau could have marked Eid al-Adha with Canada’s Muslim community, while at the same time holding true to his commitment to equal treatment, equal freedoms and equal access for women.

Feminism is more than cheap slogans and Liberal-branded T-shirts: it is standing up for women even when and where it is contentious and uncomfortable to do so. Canada’s feminist prime minister missed an opportunity to demonstrate that.

National Post

Robyn Urback • rurback@nationalpost.com | robynurback