Tag Archives: International Women’s Year

1975: The Egg that was International Women’s Year

28 Tue Jul 2015

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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.

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

31 Wed Dec 2014

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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.