The Department of National Defence spent over $30,000 in taxpayer funds on an “intersectional feminist” and “decolonialist” review of the Liberal government’s space exploration program. The review advocates banning words such as “exploration,” “mankind,” and “frontiers” due to the supposed harm such verbiage causes.
According to access-to-information documents obtained from the Canadian Taxpayer Federation, the DND spent $32,250 on the report by Project Ploughshares, a University of Waterloo-based research institute.
The group describes itself as a Canadian peace research institute that “focuses on disarmament efforts and international security.” Among other security fields, the institute focuses on outer space and the “intersection of climate, peace, and security.”
According to the CTF, Project Ploughshares has previously received “four other federal research contracts totalling $155,875.”
The taxpayer-funded report emphasizes the need for inclusivity, disrupting patterns of thinking and equity in the DND’s communications about space technology and travel.
“This is more than $30,000 that didn’t need to be spent,” Kris Sims, the Alberta Director for the CTF told True North in an interview. “We understand that in the grand scheme of things, this is a small amount of money, but even $3 of taxpayers money would have been a waste on this study.”
Participants in the study said that a “truly feminist analysis rooted in intersectionality” was needed to “explore simultaneously the multiple, overlapping factors of advantage and disadvantage that shape human activities, experiences, and vulnerabilities in outer space.”
“The Department of National Defense has no business handing taxpayers money out for a study on space exploration through an intersectional feminist lens. Taxpayers do not value that.” Sims said. “If someone wants to go study space through that lens, in their private time with their own money, fill their spacesuits! That is completely up to them, but taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be wasted on that.”
The report also claims that it’s “pertinent” for the government to stop using the word “exploration,” among others such as “conquest” and “the idea of space as frontier,” as they hold “colonial connotations.”
“These approaches normalize violence and exploitation by using colonial-biased terms…depicting outer space as a hostile and desolate environment that is unpeopled/inhuman and controlled so that it can provide an extractable resource,” the report said.
Despite “exploration” having “colonial connotations,” the report simultaneously claims that more appropriate language “must” include terms such as “space exploration” and “living in space.”
The group heralded intersectionality’s ability to “disrupt patterns of thinking and provide alternative approaches.”
Among other questions about why such a report was funded, When asked how disrupting thinking could benefit the government’s space program, the DND indicated they were unable to respond to True North’s request before the deadline provided.
The Canadian taxpayer paid this organization also to advise the DND to remove “militarized masculinized, colonialized and state-based conceptions of outer space and security.”
Sims said it’s ironic that the report notes that using complicated jargon can make the space sector inaccessible for some. Still, it also uses words such as “masculinized,” which nearly nobody uses in daily life.
According to the report, masculine, militarized, and state-based concepts “dominated” the government’s verbiage in the space sector. The group said words such as “critical infrastructure,” “defence,” “armed conflict,” “militarism,” and “non-weaponization” should be removed from the conversation.
Any use of the word man, such as “mankind,” “manned and unmanned,” etc., must also be eliminated as these words violate the study’s participant’s “equity-related concerns in the space sector.”
Sims thinks it’s “silly” to replace “normal words,” such as mankind, saying the word only means “human beings,” and one still has to say “mankind” when they say “humankind.”
Sims noted that the report also claims women and other minorities are underrepresented in the space field.
“I’ve been space nerd my entire life, and anyone who does follow Space News and stargazing understands that women have always played a huge role in the space program,” Sims said. “There are women in orbit of our planet right now. There were already some up on the International Space Station and Elon Musk SpaceX program just launched their most recent spaceship. A woman just did a spacewalk.”
Sims thinks the report is representative of the inefficiency and waste of government that has become prevalent in federal spending programs. According to Sims, the onus lies with the DND officials who approved this spending.
“This usually lands with the bureaucrats who never need to face election, who are paid a crazy amount of money, and they work in departments,” She said. “The next time they’re approached by somebody (asking for a grant) to study space exploration through an intersectional feminist lens. They need to say no. It starts and stops with them. They need to say no because this kind of crazy wasteful spending will continue if they just keep rubber stamping this.”
