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Bonnie Reilly Schmidt, Ph.D.

~ History Provides Context

Bonnie Reilly Schmidt, Ph.D.

Category Archives: Women in History

Celebrating Great Canadian Women on International Women’s Day

01 Tue Mar 2016

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Canadian History, Society, Women in History

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A Women's Parliament, Aimee Semple McPherson, Canadian Women, Chatelaine Magazine, Doris Anderson, International Women's Day, Judy LaMarsh, Kathleen Klondike Kate Ryan, Lois Beckett, Manitoba Political Equality League, Sault Ste. Marie Police, Stelco Steel, Women in the RCMP, Women's Suffrage

International Women’s Day is a day set aside to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world. The United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day during International Women’s Year in 1975, establishing March 8 as the day member states celebrate women.

International Year of the Woman

This year, March 8 is particularly significant because it marks the centenary of the date women first gained the right to vote in Canada. In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to grant women the suffrage in provincial elections, along with the right to hold public office. Women have come a long way since then. For the first time in Canadian history, women now hold half of the federal Cabinet positions in the House of Commons.

To celebrate, here are just some of the women who have helped to make Canada great and who have influenced and inspired me:

Doris Anderson (1921-2007)

Anderson was the editor of Chatelaine magazine from 1957-1977. As an activist, Anderson played an important role in championing women’s rights and advocating for social change through her editorials and the magazine’s content. Anderson’s editorials in particular were instrumental in applying pressure on the federal government to establish a Royal Commission to investigate the status of women in Canada. She also lobbied for the inclusion of women’s rights in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1981. Under her tenure as editor, Chatelaine’s readership rose to over one million.[1]

Doris Anderson Source: CBC News

Doris Anderson
Source: CBC News

The Women of the Stelco Steel Company (1943-1981)

During WWII, Stelco Steel in Hamilton, Ontario supplied steel for the building of ships, shells, and army transports. One of the largest steel producers in Canada, Stelco lost 1,500 men to the war. To fill the employment gap, the company hired women who worked in some of the toughest sections of the mill, including the blast furnaces. After the war, all of the women were fired. Between 1961 and 1977, no women were hired womens-rights1[1]at all. Only twenty-eight women, working in the tin mill and the cafeteria, were employed at Stelco while 13,000 men worked for the company. The disparity was challenged when five women launched a sex discrimination complaint against the company with the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1979. The women won their case and Stelco was forced to hire 180 women, all of whom lost their jobs during massive layoffs by Stelco in 1981.[2]

Julia Verlyn (Judy) LaMarsh (1924-1980)

In 1963, Judy LaMarsh was just the second woman in Canadian history to be appointed to a federal Cabinet position. As a minister, LaMarsh was instrumental in pressuring her cabinet colleagues to establish a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada. She was also responsible for the implementation

Judy LaMarsh

Judy LaMarsh

of the Canada Pension Plan, designing Canada’s Medicare system, creating the Broadcasting Act, and overseeing Canada’s centennial celebrations as Secretary of State in 1967.[3] LaMarsh died of cancer in 1980, but her legacy lives on in the medical and social benefits that all Canadians enjoy today.

Kathleen “Klondike Kate” Ryan (1868-1932)

Ryan was the first white woman to arrive in Whitehorse in 1898 during the Yukon Gold Rush, mushing some 600 miles on foot along the Stikine Trail to get there. She established a successful restaurant business and regularly invested in gold. In 1900, Ryan was hired by the North-West Mounted Police as a matron to assist in the care of female prisoners. She was later appointed as a “Constable Special” to work as a gold inspector monitoring female smugglers. Ryan was so esteemed by the RCMP that when she died in Vancouver in 1932, the police force provided an honour guard for her funeral, a rare privilege that few women have been afforded.[4]

Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944)

Aimee Semple McPherson Source: Foursquare Church International

Aimee Semple McPherson
Source: Foursquare Church International

A missionary, radio broadcaster, evangelist, and author, Aimee McPherson was born in the small farming community of Salford, Ontario. McPherson’s evangelistic work landed her in Los Angeles where she established one of the largest Pentecostal churches in the world, Angelus Temple, in 1923. During the Depression, McPherson’s temple fed and clothed thousands of homeless and destitute in Los Angeles. But she is best remembered for her colourful preaching and unconventional approach to spreading her “old-time gospel” message. McPherson was ahead of her time. She used radio broadcasts, stage plays, magazines, newspapers, and even a float in the Tournament of Roses parade to draw people to church and to God, methods that would become commonplace later in the century.

The Women of Royal Canadian Mounted Police Troop 17 (1974-1975)

In September 1974, thirty-two women arrived at the RCMP’s academy in Regina, Saskatchewan to begin training as the first women to join the RCMP. Although the RCMP signed up all thirty-two women at exactly the same time so no one woman would be able to claim that she was “the first,” the members of Troop 17 broke ground as the first female figures of authority in Canada’s national police force.

Female Troop Parade Square

Constable Lois Beckett, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (1949-1968)

Lois Beckett served as a constable with the Sault Ste. Marie Police Force between 1949 and 1968. Although she held the rank of constable during those years, she was paid less than men of the same rank. She was also denied membership in the force’s association because she was a woman. Beckett sued the police force and the association for discrimination. In response, the department dismissed her from her duties as a constable and reclassified her as a clerk-typist. In 1968, her case went to the Ontario Supreme Court where Justice R. Fergusson ruled against Beckett, arguing that she should be paid less than her male colleagues because, as a woman, she did not perform the same duties as men and did not have dependents to provide for. To Fergusson, the lower rate of pay was justified since it conformed to “all the rules of civilization, economics, family life and common sense.”[5] Nevertheless, her demands for equal pay and equal rights brought the issue before politicians and the public, opening the door for women’s rights as police officers.

The Women of the Manitoba Political Equality League (1912-1916)

On January 28, 1914, members of Manitoba’s Political Equality League staged a “A Women’s Parliament” at the Walker Theatre in Winnipeg. The satire starred suffragist Nellie McClung as the premier of a mythical province where women were the political leaders and men were asking for the right to vote. The women acted out a parliamentary debate discussing why men should be denied the vote, using the same arguments Manitoba’s politicians employed. But it was McClung’s thinly-disguised parody of the province’s long-time premier Rodmond Roblin that brought the house down. The satire was a brilliant strategy that placed the issue of voting rights into proper perspective for many Manitobans. In 1916, exactly two years to the day after the mock parliament was first performed, Manitoba women became the first in Canada to exercise their right to vote in provincial elections and to hold public office.[6]

Executive members of the League following the passage of the suffrage bill in Manitoba, 1916. Source: Manitoba Archives

Executive members of the League following the passage of the suffrage bill in Manitoba, 1916.
Source: Manitoba Archives

 

[1] Eberts, Mary. “‘Write It For the Women’: Doris Anderson, the Changemaker.” Canadian Woman Studies 26:2 (Summer/Fall 2007): 6-13.

[2] Meg Luxton and June Corman, “Getting to Work: The Challenge of the Women Back Into Stelco Campaign,” Labour/Le Travail 28 (Fall 1991).

[3] LaMarsh, Judy, Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1968).

[4] Edmonds, William Lewis, “The Woman Called Klondike Kate,” Maclean’s (15 December 1922); Brennan, T. Ann, The Real Klondike Kate (Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1990).

[5] Doris Anderson, “The Strange Case of Policewoman Beckett,” Chatelaine 41:4 (April 1968): 3.

[6] http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/mcclung-played-the-crowd-like-a-vaudevillian-241934181.html.

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Remembering Canadian Women and War

10 Tue Nov 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Society, Women in History

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Remembrance Day, Women and War, Women in WWI and WWII

There is a tendency in Canada today to overlook the work of women who participated in Canada’s armed conflicts. Too often we assume that because they were prohibited from joining the military throughout most of the twentieth century, they did not contribute to the defense of our country. Remembrance Day poppy1[1]

But the contributions of Canadian women can be traced back to 1899 when four nursing “sisters” accompanied the first contingent of soldiers fighting in the Anglo-South Africa War (1899-1902). It was the first time Canadian women served overseas with the military.

At the start of the First World War (1914-1918), 105 military nurses sailed to England with the first group of Canadian soldiers. These nurses were known as “Bluebirds” because of the long blue dresses, white aprons, and the sheer white veils they wore.

Bluebirds worked on the front lines in thirty military hospitals around Europe. Over forty nurses were killed by enemy action during the conflict, and one lost a limb. By the end of WWI, the number of nurses working in field hospitals had increased to more than 3,000 women.

Katherine MacDonald, the first nurse to die during bombing in France, 1918 Source: Veterans' Affairs Canada

Katherine MacDonald, the first Canadian nurse to die during bombing in France, 1918
Source: Veterans’ Affairs Canada

In 1917, in recognition of their contributions, Bluebirds became the first women to vote in a federal election, along with the women at home whose husbands, sons, and brothers were away at war.

Bluebirds at the ballot box overseas, 1917. Source: DND and Library and Archives Canada

It was not until 1918 that the federal government finally acknowledged the service of all Canadian women to their country by granting them the right to vote in federal elections.

During the Second World War (1939-1945) a total of 4,480 military nurses served overseas. For the first time in Canadian history, however, all three branches of the military created women’s divisions. As combat casualties mounted, the work of women was needed as more and more men were required to fill combat roles. By the end of the war, approximately 50,000 women had joined one of the women’s divisions.

Women on the home front women-making-bombs-wwii-2[1]stepped into what were then considered to be men’s jobs. Their work provided armaments and aircraft for combat and kept Canadians and her allies fed. In short, they kept the country going.

This Remembrance Day, let’s remember the sacrifice and commitment to the country made by Canadian women. They also deserve our recognition and thanks.

For more about Canadian women and war see http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/those-who-served/women-and-war/timeline  and  http://pw20c.mcmaster.ca/case-study/angels-mercy-canada-s-nursing-sisters-world-war-i-and-ii

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A Good Day for Canadian Women

04 Wed Nov 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Society, Women in History, Women in the News

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Cabinet Ministers, Ellen Fairclough, Judy LaMarsh, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Women and Merit, Women in Cabinet

As I watched fifteen female members of parliament being sworn in today as part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, I was thinking of two of their predecessors who also made political history. Ellen Fairclough (1905-2004) and Judy LaMarsh (1924-1980) were the first women to serve as federal cabinet ministers in Canada.

Ellen Fairclough

Ellen Fairclough

Fairclough was elected as a member of parliament for the riding of Hamilton West in 1950. She was the first Canadian woman to hold a cabinet post when Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker appointed her as Secretary of State in 1957. The next year she held the portfolio of Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Under her direction, immigration legislation was reformed making Canada’s laws more progressive and less discriminatory against immigrants and refugees.

Judy LaMarsh, Member of Parliament for Niagara Falls, was the second woman in Canadian history to be appointed to a cabinet position. In 1963, Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson assigned her the portfolio of Minister of National Health and Welfare. LaMarsh was responsible for some of Canada’s most innovative social legislation during her tenure in office. She implemented the Canada Pension Plan, a national health care system, the Broadcasting Act, oversaw the country’s Centennial Year celebrations, and served as secretary of state from 1965-1968.

Judy LaMarsh

Judy LaMarsh

Both women were the only female members of their respective cabinets during their time in office. In contrast, the women who were sworn in today will be joined by fourteen female colleagues, an occurrence that both Fairclough and LaMarsh could only dream of.

Our new prime minister’s promise to create a cabinet that is more representative of the Canadian population has been criticized by many. Of course, questions of merit arise any time people start discussing women in powerful positions. Old arguments about affirmative action usually surface and the abilities of women who are given political power on an equal basis with men are often called into question.

(For more on the issue of merit see http://www.chatelaine.com/living/politics/justin-trudeaus-new-cabinet-is-a-dream-team-and-heres-why/.)

But the women who were sworn in today challenge assumptions of tokenism. They have backgrounds in international trade, United Nations peacekeeping, public relations, communications, law, medicine, worker’s compensation, Paralympic sport, medical geography, indigenous rights, political organization, and environmental protection, to name just a few. One, Kirsty Duncan, jointly holds a Nobel Prize for her participation on an intergovernmental panel on climate change.

Patricia Hajdu, Minister of the Status of Women (Source: @PattyHajdu)

Patricia Hajdu, Minister of the Status of Women

Yes, many of the rookie cabinet ministers will make mistakes and stumble as they learn their jobs and wrestle with some fairly daunting issues. But they’ll do so because they’re human, not because they’re women. “Government by cabinet is back,” according to Trudeau, and for the first time in Canadian history women will equally share in the burden of running the country.

Fifty-eight years ago, Judy LaMarsh recalled having to curtsey to the Governor General before taking her oath of office in 1963. Today the curtsies were dispensed with as the new ministers assumed their rightful place in leading our nation. It’s an exciting day for Canadian women, one that is long overdue.

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1975: The Egg that was International Women’s Year

28 Tue Jul 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Social Justice, Society, Women in History

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1975, International Women's Year, United Nations, Women's Rights in Canada

In 1972, the twenty-ninth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) adopted Resolution No. 3275 proclaiming 1975 as International Women’s Year (IWY). The year was designed to “promote equality between men and women” and to emphasize “women’s responsibility and important role in economic, social and cultural development at the national, regional and international levels” of society.[1] As a signatory Canada’s federal government was required to ensure that the terms of the resolution were carried out in this country, especially in its own institutions.

International-Womens-Year-1975_WHY-NOT_because_buttons1[1]

What was really accomplished? According to Chatelaine, one of the leading Canadian women’s magazines at the time, not much. Journalist Michele Landsberg, writing in “Has Women’s Year Laid an Egg?,”[2] observed that the exercise was largely a public relations opportunity for Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s governing Liberals.

Although the federal government had allocated $5 million toward promoting IWY through a program called “Why Not?,” it spent the bulk of the funds creating informational programs, conferences for men, designing pamphlets and buttons, and developing a number of mobile information vans that toured six of the provinces. All of these initiatives focused on the federal government’s programs rather than providing funding for local women’s groups and projects. The idea of the federal government raising awareness of women prompted one man to wonder if this was “the first time the government had heard of women?”

equality equal rights amendment separate but equal is not equal[1]Women’s complaints about the inadequacies of the campaign prompted Prime Minister Trudeau to publicly offer up his own complaint: “That’s the trouble with women: they bitch after the fact.” It was an example of the prevailing attitudes toward women in the 1970s.

Landsberg did note that some minor progress was made in 1975. For example, women were no longer discriminated against under the Canada Pension Plan and they were no longer required to identify themselves as “Mrs.” on the voters’ list. They were also given more flexibility when deciding when to use their 15 weeks of paid maternity leave. Girls were allowed to join the military cadets for the first time. Rape victims were now legally protected from being questioned by defense attorneys about past sexual behaviour during court proceedings.

But serious injustices remained. The provinces dithered over marriage laws, specifically the division of assets and property rights during a divorce. Those decisions were left entirely to a judge’s discretion and, more often than not, judges decided in favour of men. Preschool children of working mothers were still without adequate childcare.

Women who worked full time in 1973 earned just over half of the wages paid to men who, on average, earned up to $3,834 a year more. Forty years later, little has changed. In 2011, according to Statistics Canada, women earned $32,100 a year, or just 66.7% of the $48,100 earned by men, an alarming statistic that should concern all Canadians.[3]

womens-rights1[1]

The failure of the government’s IWY campaign to effect real, lasting change for Canadian women in 1975 prompted Landsberg to conclude that change would only come when women themselves became more active in demanding their rights as citizens. Government grants, glossy ads, buttons, and kiosks did little to generate concrete cultural change in 1975, and they won’t today. Women’s inequality will only become a thing of the past when those who are committed to “fighting politically for human betterment” make their voices heard.

[1] United Nations General Assembly Resolution #3275 (XXIX), “International Women’s Year,” December 10, 1974.

[2] Michele Landsberg, “Has Women’s Year Laid an Egg?” Chatelaine 48:11 (November 1975).

[3] “Average Earnings by Sex and Work Pattern,” Statistics Canada, June 27, 2013. www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableau/sum-som/101/cst/o1/labor01a-eng.htm.

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Remembering the Journey: The Forty-fifth Anniversary of the Final Report of the RCSW

26 Fri Jun 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Social Justice, Women in History

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Florence Bird, Forty-fifth Anniversary, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Women's Rights in Canada

December 2015 will mark the forty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the findings of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada (RCSW). The RCSW was established in 1967 by Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson in response to pressure being exerted on the government by the women’s movement.

The commissioners’ mandate was to “to inquire into and report upon the status of women in Canada, and to recommend what steps might be taken by the federal government to ensure for women equal opportunities with men in all aspects of Canadian society.”[1] Florence Bird was chosen to lead the enquiry, the first time in history a woman had been appointed to chair a royal commission.

filmhalfthesky[1]

Many in Canada were opposed to the establishment of the commission, especially male politicians and journalists. Several editorial cartoonists mocked the commissioners, feminists, and women who were testifying during hearings. And in the House of Commons, where women were not generally considered to be voting constituents, Conservative member Terry Nugent bluntly called the idea of an inquiry “utter balderdash.” Nugent commented during the debate that the best approach to handling women was to simply agree with them when they were right and agree with them when they were wrong.[2]

The RCSW held a series of public hearings between April and October of 1968 in numerous locations across the country. They received a total of 468 briefs and some 1,000 letters of opinion from individuals and organizations in addition to submissions from 890 witnesses.  In their final report released in December 1970, the commissioners made 167 recommendations that clearly documented women’s concerns over inequality between genders in Canadian society.[3]

Their concerns were justified. At the time in Canada, there was just one female member of parliament sitting in the midst of 263 men. There were four female senators (out of 102) sitting in the upper chamber, and only 14 of 889 judges in Canada were women.[4] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s federal police force, did not allow women in its ranks. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was still twelve years away from development. Sexual harassment case law was still ten years away and it was not until 1983 that the Canadian Human Rights Act included sexual harassment as a discriminatory practice.

The Commission’s final report was not perfect. Visible minorities and immigrant women were not recognized, nor were women with disabilities. A discussion on sexual orientation and gay rights was also missing, and the issue of violence against women was not addressed.

Female RCMP members 1975

Nevertheless, the recommendations made by the commissioners included wider access to birth control, improved access to higher education, the inclusion of women in the RCMP, changes to the Indian Act, employment equity, access to trades in the Canadian Armed Forces, paid maternity leave, family law, and pensions. All were identified as fundamental rights for women in Canada. Most of the recommendations have since been enacted, a claim few royal commissions before or since can make.

The commission’s findings represented a milestone for women’s rights in Canada. Today, Canadian women can look to the RCSW as an important touchstone in the ongoing fight for equality. We can thank the women from all walks of Canadian life who participated in the hearings and made submissions, as well as the commissioners, for their work in helping to establish the rights we all enjoy today.

 

[1] See the Status of Women Canada website http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/rc-cr/roycom/index-eng.html

[2] Christina Newman, “What’s so funny about the Royal Commission on the Status of Women?,” Saturday Night 84:1 (January 1969), 23.

[3] Report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1970): x.

[4] Doris Anderson, “The Report: Making Women More Equal,” Chatelaine 44:2 (February 1971): 1.

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Remembering the Journey: Judy LaMarsh

21 Wed Jan 2015

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Social Justice, Women in History

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Judy LaMarsh, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Women's rights in the 1970s

A number of women were instrumental in achieving the gains made by activists in the women’s movement during the 1960s and 70s. Their activism on behalf of women’s rights laid the groundwork for many of the social, economic, and political rights that Canadian women enjoy today.

Judy LaMarsh was one of these women. LaMarsh served as a member of the Canadian Women’s Army Corps from 1943-1946, obtaining the rank of sergeant. She trained as a lawyer following the war, entering politics in 1960 and winning her first seat in 1963 as a member of Parliament for the riding of Niagara Falls, Ontario. LaMarsh held a number of portfolios under the leadership of Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson, her most important being Secretary of State from 1965-68. She was only the second woman in Canadian history to hold a Cabinet post.

portrait%20judy%20lamarsh%202[1]

Judy LaMarsh (1924-1980)

LaMarsh proved to be an important ally within the government for the Canadian women’s movement. She had been quietly encouraging Pearson to establish a Royal Commission on the Status of Women since taking office. In her memoirs, LaMarsh claimed that Pearson had been prepared to accept her advice in 1965 until she publicly mentioned the need for a Royal Commission at a national women’s meeting. It was a comment that was vehemently attacked in the press by a number of male journalists. According to LaMarsh, “Pearson backed off as if stung with a nettle.”[1]

LaMarsh repeatedly raised the issue with him afterwards, but Pearson remained obdurate. It was not until 1967 that a door opened for LaMarsh to revisit the issue with the prime minister. On 5 January, journalist Barry Craig of the Toronto Globe and Mail published a threat made during an interview by Laura Sabia of the Committee for the Equality of Women in Canada (CEWC). Sabia impulsively told Craig that three million women were prepared to march on Parliament Hill to demand a Royal Commission if the government failed to meet its demands. LaMarsh later recalled that Pearson was “sufficiently frightened” by the prospect and wanted to re-open talks with the CEWC.[2]

Three days after Sabia’s threat was published, LaMarsh strategically delivered a public response, via the media, meant to appease the prime minister and members of the Cabinet. She warned the CEWC about its strident tone, cautioning that the “Prime Minister and the Cabinet are men as other men and if you have harpies harping at them you will just get their backs up and they won’t do anything. I think the women have made their point and they should just wait a few weeks and see what happens.”[3] By appearing to offer a more reasoned approach to the issue by publicly castigating the “harpies,” LaMarsh was pandering to male concepts of women and their proper role in society.

The tactic worked because it allowed Pearson to appear to be making an informed, rather than a reactive, decision. Some feminists later noted that LaMarsh’s pressure tactics inside the Cabinet were more important in gaining a Royal Commission than Sabia’s threatened march on Parliament Hill.[4] The approach that was the most influential has been a question of debate for decades. The answer is probably that both tactics were successful because on 16 February 1967, a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada was created.

2015: The Fortieth Anniversary of the United Nations’

International Women’s Year, 1975

 

[1] Judy LaMarsh, Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), 301. [2] Morris, “‘Determination and Thoroughness’,” 15. [3] Rudy Platiel, “Stop harping about a royal commission, Judy LaMarsh warns women’s group,” The Globe and Mail, 09 January 1967, 13. [4] Cerise Morris, “‘Determination and Thoroughness’: The Movement for a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada,” Atlantis 5:2 (Spring 1980): 16.

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Remembering the Journey: Women’s Rights in Canada in the 1970s

31 Wed Dec 2014

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Social Justice, Women in History

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1975 Human Rights in Canada, International Women's Year, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Women's rights in the 1970s

2015: The Fortieth Anniversary of the United Nations’

International Women’s Year, 1975

As strange as it may seem to us in the twenty-first century, women’s rights were not always equated with human rights in Canada. In the 1940s, a number of Canadian provinces began to develop human rights legislation, particularly in an effort to protect racial minorities against discrimination. Saskatchewan was the first, enacting a statutory Bill of Rights in 1947.  51F17660-1560-95DA-43B6EDA36078E1F4 (1)[1]

Source: nextyearcountrynews.blogspot.com

The issue of fair wages for women in the workplace was just beginning to be addressed, too. Ontario was the first to pass the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act in 1951, with most other provinces following suit over the next ten years.[1] In 1960, the federal government developed a Bill of Rights which recognized the rights of Canadians to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, association, and due process.[2] None of these pieces of legislation, however, made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex.

When Canada became a member of the United Nation’s (UN) Status of Women Commission in 1958, some women’s groups were quick to point out that the federal government violated its commitment by failing to implement employment equity policies in its own institutions. Women were required to resign from their civil service jobs as soon as they married or became pregnant. Several government agencies such as the RCMP and the armed forces resisted employing women, Aboriginal people, and ethnic and cultural minorities with impunity.

filmhalfthesky[1]March on International Women’s Day, 1970s

Activists pushed the federal government to honour the agreements it had ratified but not yet acted upon, with little success.

In 1968, the UN designated the year as the International Year for Human Rights. The Canadian government planned a number of events to celebrate. A conference was being organized, but not one woman was appointed to the planning committee. It was an ironic development that was not lost on activists who feared that any human rights ASC04612[1]

Abortion Caravan protestors, 1970 – Source: socialist.ca

commission investigating the status of women in Canada would be comprised solely of men. As the planning for the humans rights conference demonstrated, their fears were justified and activists continued to lobby the government to establish a royal commission instead. The Canadian government hesitated on the grounds that Québec resisted federal impingement on the jurisdiction of the provinces. Judy LaMarsh, the only woman on the federal cabinet in 1968, quipped that it seemed “odd to think that in some men’s minds women belong predominantly to the provinces.”[3]

It was only after activists threatened to march three million women to protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario if the government continued to refuse to establish a royal commission that the prime minister finally relented. abortion%20caravan[1]

Abortion Caravan activists protest on Parliament Hill, May 1970 – Source: Jack Holland, Toronto Telegram, yorkspace.library.yorku.ca

On 16 February 1967, Order-in-Council PC 1967-312 was approved by the Governor General and a Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada was created. The commissioners were mandated to “inquire into and report upon the status of women in Canada, and to recommend what steps might be taken by the federal government to ensure for women equal opportunities with men in all aspects of Canadian society.”[4]

It was a turning point for women’s rights in this country. The commission’s hearings and its final report (published in 1970) received a considerable amount of media coverage which drew attention, not all of it positive, to the issue of women’s inequality in Canada.

A number of Canadian women were instrumental in advancing the rights of women throughout the decade. Their stories will be featured in upcoming blogs in celebration of the United Nation’s fortieth anniversary of International Women’s Year (1975).

[1] Dominique Clément, “‘I Believe in Human Rights, Not Women’s Rights’: Women and the Human Rights State, 1969-1984,” Radical History Review 1 (Spring 2008), 111. [2] Ibid. [3] Judy LaMarsh, Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), 301. [4] Right Hon. L.B. Pearson, “Announcement of Establishment of Royal Commission to Study Status,” House of Commons Debates, 3 February 1967, 12613.

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Women’s “Firsts” – History Provides Context

11 Thu Dec 2014

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Women in History

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Albert Einstein, History Provides Context, Marie Curie, Women in the RCMP

Recent revelations that Albert Einstein advised Marie Curie in a letter to ignore the “reptiles,” the journalists who printed “hogwash” about her personal life, have made for fascinating reading. Einstein’s letter to Curie was a beautifully written piece of encouragement that reminded Curie that her intellect was most important.[1]

Einstein recognized brilliance when he saw it; Curie was an incredibly gifted scientist. She was the first woman to obtain a doctorate in a scientific field in France (1903), the first female professor at the Sorbonne (1906), and the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize (1903) for Physics. In 1911, she received a second Nobel for Chemistry, the first and only person since that time to be recognized in two different sciences.

einstein%20curie[1]

Albert Einstein and Marie Curie (Photo source: NobelPrize.org)

Being a brilliant and successful scientist was not enough however, because Curie was still a woman. When she crossed the gendered boundaries of appropriate feminine behaviour by entering into an affair with a married colleague who was estranged from his wife, Curie was vilified in the press. She was accused of sullying the name and reputation of her late husband, Pierre, prompting Einstein to write his letter.

When members of the Nobel committee tried to discourage Curie from accepting her prize in person because of the negative publicity surrounding her private life, Curie responded, “The prize has been awarded for the discovery of radium and polonium… I cannot accept that the appreciation of the value of scientific work should be influenced by libel and slander concerning private life.”[2] Curie quite wisely insisted that her scientific work was separate from her personal life and picked up her prize in person.

History is filled with women who have achieved groundbreaking firsts. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) decided in 1974 to hire women for the first time, they did not want any one woman to claim that she was “the first” female Mountie. The police force may have had a number of reasons for this approach, but the official reason was that they did not want the pressure of being “the first” placed on one woman. It was a paternalistic attitude that was based on the assumption that a woman would be unable to handle the media’s intense scrutiny.

As a result, all thirty-two of the first female members of the police force were sworn in together at exactly the same time across the country’s five time zones. It too, was “a first,” a decision that has never been repeated in the history of the RCMP. It was just the beginning of the unprecedented attention on the women, both inside and outside the RCMP, who dared to transgress gendered boundaries that would influence their working lives on a daily basis.

Our fascination with the correspondence between Einstein and Curie a century ago probably has a lot to do with our familiarity with the ongoing issues over gender that exist in our society today. But it also serves as a reminder of the importance of considering context when we think about the accomplishments of women in history.  Then we will more fully understand the significance of their achievements.

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2867236/Don-t-read-hogwash-Newly-unearthed-letter-enraged-Albert-Einstein-Marie-Curie-1911-advises-female-scientist-ignore-critics.html

[2] Ibid.

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The Right to Vote: Freedom from the Grille

14 Fri Nov 2014

Posted by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt in Women in History

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BC Municipal Elections, Muriel Matters, Suffragettes, Women and Voting, Women's Rights

Tomorrow British Columbians go to the polls to vote in their municipal elections. Unfortunately, many people will not bother to cast a ballot. It seems that fewer and fewer people consider the importance of this privilege.

If you think that casting a ballot is unimportant, especially if you are a woman, consider this: In England during the construction of a new House of Commons following a fire in 1844, a debate ensued amongst parliamentarians over whether accommodation should be made for women in the new building. Previously, women had been allowed to peer down a ventilation shaft if they wished to hear the debates or catch a glimpse of the proceedings taking place.

After much debate it was decided that a ladies’ gallery should be built, an innovation that included a large brass grille placed in front of the seating area as a compromise to those members who were opposed to exposing women to the workings of government.[1] Women visiting the House of Commons were confined to listening to debates from behind the grille which concealed their presence and obscured their view of the proceedings. Over the decades, the gallery’s ironwork became a potent symbol of female oppression.

In October 1908, suffragette Muriel Matters protested parliamentarians’ refusal to grant women the right to vote in a unique way. Matters chained herself to the grille in the ladies’ gallery, managing to deliver a speech to the House of Commons before the chain was cut and she was forcibly removed. Matters was charged with disorderly conduct and imprisoned for her actions. Although it would be another ten years before English women were finally enfranchised, Muriel’s protest contributed to a growing awareness of women’s lack of rights as citizens.

Suffragette 1908

Muriel Matters. Source: The Muriel Matters Society Inc.

On November 15, let’s honour suffragettes like Muriel Matters who were willing to give so much for your right to cast a vote in an election. Although you may think that your vote doesn’t count for much in the larger scheme of things, the fact that you can vote, and run for office, should be enough motivation for you to make your way to the polling booth.

[1] Ray Strachey, The Cause (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1928), 361.

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