As the election nears, it is clear that blaming women for injustice we experience continues to be a problem among politicians and parties. In 2015, we still see headlines like this:

That’s right. Women can and should *choose* to make as much money as men. In the same vein, conservatives want women to stop *choosing* to put themselves in danger.

As part of the CBC Radio election panel this morning, former leader of the British Columbia Conservative Party,  John Cummins said this regarding missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls: “What is fairly clear, quite often people are engaging in behaviour, hitchhiking on these lonely roads by themselves at night. That behaviour is dangerous. They are putting themselves at risk.”

Yes, instead of looking at the systems and institutions that perpetuate violence like misogyny and colonization, and individual men who choose to rape and kill women, conservatives propose that the solution to thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women is more control over women’s behaviour.

Are you kidding me?