In this paper, we examine how Canadian federal policy discourse on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) frames the ‘problem’ of alcohol use and FASD in gendered and colonial ways that marginalize the needs of women. Applying a critical feminist lens to key policy documents, we show how Aboriginal women continue to be constructed as perpetrators of the ‘problem’ of FASD, while the structural, social, and historical processes (i.e., urbanization, racialization, and colonialism) that give rise to women’s health and social inequities are obscured. Our aim is to contribute to the dialogue that feminist, indigenous, and women’s health scholars have offered with respect to recognizing and problematizing the assumptions implicit within health policy. This analysis highlights the need to re-contextualize current policy discourses in ways that foreground women’s health experiences within intersections of power and ongoing processes of discrimination.
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