(Version fran\u00e7aise disponible ici.<\/a>) <\/p>\n Anyone who was old enough to vote on October 30, 1995, remembers these words spoken by Jacques Parizeau that evening. \u201cIt’s true that we were defeated, but by what? By money and ethnic votes.\u201d According to the Quebec premier, immigrant votes and the considerable sums invested by the federal government were responsible for defeating the Yes side, which French-speaking Quebecers had supported by more than 60 per cent.<\/p>\n The reality was in fact not so cut and dried. First, in 1995, no one expected the ethnic vote to be pro-sovereignty. The surprise came instead from predominantly French-speaking regions\u2014Beauce and Quebec City, notably, where only 44 per cent and 54 per cent voted in favour. The women’s vote, which was hardly mentioned in the aftermath of the referendum, was also a letdown.<\/p>\n The Yes vote lagging among women<\/p>\n Throughout the referendum campaign, women lagged far behind men in their support for sovereignty. With less than 30 days to go before the vote, only 38.9 per cent of women were voting Yes, compared to 52.6 per cent of men.<\/a> “They don\u2019t seem to realize that they could be responsible for the defeat of the Quebecois people,” Louise Harel said<\/a> during a cabinet meeting. “They must understand that time is of the essence.”<\/p>\n Despite significant strategic realignments during the campaign, including the appointment of Lucien Bouchard as head of the Yes camp and the proposal for an economic partnership with Canada, women had remained unmoved while men had gradually come around. \u00a0Faced with this stubborn defiance, the Yes camp realized that it needed to address women quite differently. Adopting a less \u201caggressive\u201d tone wouldn\u2019t suffice; women needed to be offered a genuine \u201csocietal project\u201d to see what a future country could hold.<\/p>\n Operation Megaphone: winning over Quebec women<\/p>\n Starting in late September 1995, initiatives aimed directly at women multiplied \u2013 flyers, shows, dinner conferences. Under the banner “Operation Megaphone,” some 50 women traveled across the province to convince Quebec women that they had nothing to lose. Quite the contrary, they argued, the freedom they had fought so hard to achieve would be deepened in an independent Quebec.<\/p>\n Not only were women promised equal pay, they were assured that the new country would be built on strict equality with men. Quebec was becoming one of the few places in the world where “the co-founding of the political space by men and women<\/a>” was within reach.<\/p>\n A surge… but no victory<\/p>\n The energetic feminist offensive did not quite yield the expected results, however. Although this campaign, unprecedented in Quebec’s history, undoubtedly explains the last-minute surge among women (from 38.9 per cent to 52.6 per cent, according to polls conducted in the final days of the campaign), women still lagged far behind men, at 63.5 per cent.<\/p>\n “If French-speaking Quebec women had supported the Yes camp as much as men did,” political scientist Guy Lachapelle wrote in a study<\/a> on the distribution of votes, “it would have won and the majority would have been substantial […] at nearly 55 per cent.”<\/p>\n Is sovereignty gendered?<\/p>\n Is sovereignty a man\u2019s game? No one, of course, would accuse women of not carrying a torch for the Quebecois nation. After all, women have long been responsible for safeguarding \u00a0the French language and culture. It is on a political level that things unravel. For obvious reasons, women harbour a distrust of power, which was exercised for centuries without them. And while that traditional wariness has faded with women\u2019s growing political influence, other misgivings \u2014 toward the sovereignty project itself \u2014 have taken root.<\/p>\n A recent poll<\/a> is a case in point : 32 per cent of women versus 42 per cent of men would vote in favour of sovereignty today \u2013 the same 10-point gap as 30 years ago.<\/p>\n Two visions of independence<\/p>\n The reason for this ongoing gender discrepancy is simple. There have always been two distinct currents within the Quebec sovereignty movement, dual factions which I\u2019ve baptized the Pierre Falardeaus and the Fran\u00e7oise Davids<\/a>. Those who focus on the container versus those who focus on the content. In the first case, the important thing is to raise a fist and plant the flag; people can worry later about the kind of country they want. Unsurprisingly, this approach appeals more to men.<\/p>\n Quebec as a warning for Alberta\u2019s independence movement<\/a><\/p>\n The American factor in Quebec\u2019s independence debates<\/a><\/p>\n