Gender vulnerability as a public problem
In Quebec, the public problem of women’s homelessness is generally framed as the result of the accumulation of multiple forms of gender-based violence and individual and structural vulnerabilities. To understand this macropolitical analysis, this article will consider this public issue by taking a closer look at how it is identified, defined and remedied in situ, rather than only focusing on how it emerges in public arenas and becomes institutionalized. This is carried out through an ethnography in a day center and shelter in Montreal, which demonstrates how women who are homeless are labelled and evaluated as “victims” of gender relationships by the social workers who care for them. Their framing operations, in Goffman’s micro-sociological sense, embodied in their daily experiences of listening and caring, lead them to engage in singular reparations halfway between feminist and psychological interventions.