An Alternative Timeline Canadian Women Slide 2 1900-1925 By Anne
Song Slide 3 Coloured Womens Club of Montreal:1902 In the early
twentieth century, at least nine out of ten women belonged to an
organization. Although these organizations all had different goals
and purposes, they were similar in that they were all activist
groups working towards the improvement of womens lives. In other
words, Canadian women organized themselves in hopes of social,
political, and economic power and equality. Nevertheless, most of
these organizations, reform groups, and grassroots charities were
made of white, middle- and upper-class women who continued to
exclude other women based on race, ethnicity, religion, and class.
Excluded from mainstream organizations, the wives of Black railroad
workers in Montreal organized themselves in 1902 as the Coloured
Womens Club, which is now the oldest Black womens organization in
Canada. It not only functioned as a social club but its main goal
was to address problems faced by the Black community such as
poverty and discrimination. More specifically, the Coloured Womens
Club assisted new immigrants from the West Indies adapt to the
Canadian cold by offering warm clothing. Unlike mainstream womens
organizations, the Coloured Womens Club dedicated itself to the
supporting those who continued to live in marginalization. For
example, the Club suggested strategies for both new and old Black
families to deal with discrimination. The formation of the Coloured
Womens Club remains significant because it demonstrates that the
immigrant women, coloured women, and working-class women that the
mainstream organizations excluded did not remain in the dark. These
minority groups organized themselves to actively support their own
communities and other marginalized communities that the mainstream
organizations continued to ignore. Another organization of Black
women includes the Workers Missionary Society, which formed in
Halifax in 1917. The goal of this organization was to support
education in the Black community by building more schools. In this
way, minority women participated in the Canadian womens movement in
their own ways. In other words, despite exclusion from the
mainstream womens organizations, minority groups, affected by both
race and class, persisted to organize themselves to march towards
equality. Slide 4 Coloured Womens Club of Montreal:1902 The
Coloured Womens Club of Montreal Slide 5 Bell Strike: 1907 On
January 31, 1907, 400 Bell telephone operators, also known as Bells
hello girls, demonstrated militancy when they walked off from their
jobs and began to strike for better working conditions. The strike
occurred when the company demanded more hours of work without
increase in pay. Without protection from unions or laws ensuring
safe working conditions, Bell operators, which were all women,
suffered mental and physical exhaustion, fatigue, and stress.
Although perceived as a white-collar job, telephone operators
received very low pay while working in strenuous and stressful
environments. Each woman looked after 80-100 switchboard lines, and
on average they picked up 300 calls per hour on uncomfortable
stools. Furthermore, they also worked in dangerous conditions, for
operators who picked up long distance calls were often subject to
severe electric shocks. Thus, when the company demanded the
operators to work three extra hours without a pay raise, women
joined in solidarity and protested the telephone monopoly. Bell
managers argued that these women should be satisfied with their pin
money, for after all, they were only working to buy clothes. In
fact, more than 40% of the women were self- supporting and depended
on every penny to make a living for themselves. Public support and
sympathy for the women finally caught the attention of the Minister
of Labour, Mackenzie King. After listening to the womens legitimate
complaints, a compromise was reached that ended the strike. The
women did not gain much because they had no union protection;
however, this is an example in Canadian history of women actively
and aggressively fighting for their rights through public
demonstration and strike. This event demonstrates that women were
not only organizing themselves into clubs and charities, but they
were also organizing themselves into militant groups, fighting,
challenging, and struggling with employers to protect themselves
and their rights. Slide 6 Bell Strike: 1907 Bells Hello Girls in
Toronto, circa 1909 Slide 7 Lemieux-Hayashi Gentlemens Agreement:
1908 After a major anti-Asian riot in Vancouvers Chinatown in 1907,
the Minister of Labour, Rodolphe Lemieux, paid a visit to Japan to
meet with the Japanese government. This meeting resulted with the
Lemieux-Hayashi Gentlemens Agreement, which limited the number of
male labourers entering into Canada to 400 migrants per year. This
agreement is significant in the history of Canadian women because
it set off a new wave of immigration: the immigration of Japanese
picture brides. Although the agreement decreased the number of male
immigrants, women were not included in the 400 quota. Canadas
immigration policy dictated that Japanese women were only allowed
to enter provided that she had a spouse already living in Canada.
Thus, an influx of Japanese women entered Canada as wives of
Japanese immigrants already living in Canada and the majority of
these women were picture brides. The picture-bride system is often
ignored and hidden in the study of Canadian women. Often viewed as
a shameful part of history, the picture-bride system is not
adequately addressed in the standard study of the past.
Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that such systems
dealing with the selling and buying of brides overseas and turning
women into commodities were responses to Canadas racist and sexist
immigration policies. The system was a response to Canadas
anti-Asian policies that limited Asian migrants. It was also a
response to Canadas sexist policies that feared that Chinese and
Japanese women would threaten the purity of the white society. The
Gentlemens Agreement is important to recognize in the study of
Canadas past because it triggered the picture-bride system. It is
important to recognize the picture-bride system and the struggles
these women faced and suffered upon their arrival in Canada. They
were not only subject to hostility and discrimination but also
subject to strict subordination to husbands that they barely knew.
The experiences of these marginalized women should be further
studied instead of being left in the outskirts of history. Slide 8
Lemieux-Hayashi Gentlemens Agreement: 1908 Japanese Picture Brides
Arrive in North America, circa 1919 Slide 9 Federation of Women
Teachers Association of Ontario: 1918 Although the Womens Teachers
Association of Toronto formed prior to the twentieth century along
with many other regional teacher organizations, it wasnt until 1918
that the first province-wide professional association for female
teachers formed. The meeting was held at the University of Toronto
in the spring of 1918. In a crowded room, Bertha Adkins, who became
the Federations first secretary-treasurer, gave her famous speech
titled, Why are Women in the Same Training and Qualifications as
Men Relegated to the Less Remunerative Positions? Like many other
womens organizations at the time, the Federation came together in
hopes of better working conditions and pay for women. More
specifically, the Federation was concerned with professionalism. In
other words, the Federation wanted teachers to be recognized as
professionals and teaching to be recognized as a profession. The
Federation believed that the formation of a professional
association would promote the professionalism of teaching and with
this recognition, women teachers would be treated as professionals
with better working conditions and better pay. In reality, both
urban and rural teachers faced poor working conditions. Without the
laws and policies to protect female teachers from salary cuts and
without the legislation to protect female teachers from contract-
related disputes such as illegitimate dismissals, women teachers
were powerless against all decisions made by school boards. Working
in overcrowded classrooms with the constant shortage of supplies
and resources, women teachers were underpaid and often treated like
domestic labourers while boarding in students homes. In this way,
teaching had an ambiguous status, for although it was idealized as
a respectable profession, women often worked in fatiguing and
stressful environments with very low pay. Thus, the Federation
organized itself in hopes of changing the grim realities of female
teachers and fought for equal pay as male teachers, better
conditions, better training, minimum wage laws, and contract
protections. Slide 10 Federation of Women Teachers Associations of
Ontario: 1918 The Federation wasnt formally recognized as a
professional association by the Ontario government until the
Teaching Professions Act in 1944. Finally, at this moment,
education and teaching became professional. The Federation and its
efforts are significant in the history of Canadian women because
they ensured women teachers achieved the true professional status
that they hoped for. Without recognizing the efforts of the
Federation, one may never understand that teaching wasnt always
considered a profession and that teaching didnt become a
respectable job overnight. It took decades of work by organizations
such as the Federation of Women Teachers Association of Ontario to
turn teaching into profession and ensure that all women teachers
acted as professionals and were treated as professionals. Miss
Doherty and Students, Bear Island, Ontario, 1906 Slide 11 Canadian
Federation of University Women: 1919 Throughout the early twentieth
century, women struggled in their quest for higher education. By
1905, most provinces required children to attend school up to a
certain grade; however, girls continued to work at home or were
sent to work by their families, and therefore school attendance was
very poor. When girls attended schools, they were often separated
from the boys in order to study domestic science in order to be
prepared for their future roles as mothers and wives. Throughout
their schooling, girls were treated as second-class citizens in
co-educational environments and were discouraged from pursuing
higher education. In fact, women were not admitted into
universities until 1884 when McGill University became the first
university to open its doors to women. Nevertheless, admittance and
recognition was slow. By 1900, however, 11 percent of college and
university students were women and by 1919, 13.9% of undergraduates
were women. Most of these undergraduates concentrated in faculties
of arts and education. Although women were still refused entry into
medicine and law in the early twentieth century, the first
generation of women graduates organized themselves into the
Canadian Federation of University Women. It is important to
recognize that most female graduates at this time came from
well-to-do families, and thus the group only represents a specific
group of women. In any case, they remain significant as they
demonstrated for all Canadian women, both rich and poor, that women
have intellectual abilities equal to that of men: women can receive
the same education and instruction, and succeed as intellectual
equals to men. The first generation of women graduates realized
this and came together to form a long-lasting sisterhood and
solidarity through the Federation. Slide 12 Canadian Federation of
University Women: 1919 Women Graduates Marching to Convocation Hall
at the University of Toronto, circa 1915
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Women_graduates_University_of_Toronto_circa_1915.jpg
Slide 13 1925-1950 By Stephi Eschle Slide 14 Agnes Macphail Agnes
Macphail was the first woman to be elected into the House of
Commons as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of
Canada. She was first elected in 1921 and then was re-elected in
the 1925, 1926 and 1930 federal elections. She was the sole female
in the House of Commons for 14 years. Macphail was also the first
woman President of the Ontario CCF, but later pulled out due to the
partys possible communist connections. Macphail fought for
equality, not only amongst men and women, but also for other groups
which she felt were disadvantaged, such as farmers, workers, and
the disabled. In 1935 she was re-elected to the House of Commons,
but this time as a member of the United Farmers of Ontario. She was
also the first woman delegate to the League of Nations, where she
worked with the World Disarmament Committee. Terry Crowley wrote,
No matter how her formal political affiliation changed, Agnes
Macphail served as a vehicle through which the influence of
Canadian women was felt in the redefinition of government's role in
Canadian society during the first half of the 20th century. Slide
15 The Persons Case: 1927 The Famous 5 did not back down. They
appealed the ruling before the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council of London and in 1929, the Council reversed the Supreme
Courts ruling, stating that the term person was ambiguous and that
if Parliament had wanted to exclude women from the term, it should
have stated that outright. The Famous 5 had won and in 1929, women
officially became persons and acquired the right to exercise
official functions, to attend university, and to practice a liberal
trade. In 1927, Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Muir
Edwards, Louise Crummy McKinney and Irene Parlby, also known as the
Famous 5 contested the legal interpretation of the term person
before the Supreme Court of Canada. These women and many other
lobby groups were not happy with the social, economic, legal and
political rights of women. So the Famous 5 took on the Supreme
Court. The ruling however, was disappointing. It stated that the
term person did not apply to women because when the British North
America Act was signed, women were not considered as qualified
persons and if the Constitution had included women in this
definition, it would have specifically been mentioned. Slide 16
Cairine Wilson: 1930 Cairine Wilson was the first woman appointed
to the Canadian Senate. She was appointed in 1930 only a few months
after the Persons Case officially declared women persons, thus
giving her the right to sit in the Senate. She sat as the sole
woman in the Senate, and it was another 23 years before another
woman would be appointed. During her time in politics she was a
very active member of the Ottawa Womens Liberal Club and was not
only a founder of the club, but also served as president for three
years. She was the first female president of the League of Nations
Society in Canada and in 1949 she became the first woman delegate
to represent Canada in the United Nations General Assembly. She
served in the Senate until her death in 1962.
http://canadaonline.about.com/od/womeningovernment/p/cairinewilson.htm
http://www.heroines.ca/people/wilson.html Slide 17 Dr. Elizabeth
Bagshaw: 1932 In 1932, Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw became actively
involved in Canadas first and illegal birth control clinic. Dr.
Bagshaw entered Toronto Womens Medical college in 1901, only 18
years after it had opened. Bagshaws medical career began and was
played out, for the most part in Hamilton, where she was a family
physician with a primary focus in obstetrics and for three
consecutive years in the 1920s she signed more birth certificates
than any other doctor in Hamilton. In 1932, she became the medical
director of the clinic in Hamilton, despite criticism from both the
medical and religious communities. She was director for 30 years
and during that time she provided information, and education which
helped women to believe that women are in control of their
reproductive destinies. She felt that it was not in the countries,
or the womens, best interest for people to continue to have
children that they couldnt afford to provide for. I was not until
1969 that the clinic became legal and it eventually began to
receive government grants. In 1976 at the age of 95, Dr. Bagshaw,
who was the oldest practicing physician in Canada, decided to
retire. She was she was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada
in 1973, and in 1979 she received the Governor General Persons
Award. http://www.cdnmedhall.org/dr-elizabeth-bagshaw Slide 18 OTF
Approves Equal Pay for Men and Women: 1946 In 1945, at the annual
meeting of the Federation of Women Teachers Association of Ontario,
FWTAO, they decided to endorse the idea of equal pay and equal
opportunity for advancement for both men and women teachers in
Ontario. They took their ideas to the newly formed Ontario
Federation of Teachers hoping that that organization would join
with them and give more weight to their efforts. This was a
revolutionary idea in a time period that felt that the work of men
was more important and therefore, better paid. The society followed
a male breadwinner ideology in which the man, as the provider of
the family, belonged in a well paid job, and women belonged either
in low-wage job ghettos or in the home. In February 1946 when the
equal pay discussion came before the OTF, it was met with some
opposition. It was thoroughly deliberated over and finally passed
at the December 1946 meeting. However, even though the equal pay
resolution was passed, there were still many opponents of the idea
and many school boards and mens groups were not thrilled with the
idea of equal pay and bargaining jointly with women teachers. While
differences in pay were slowly eliminated by salary schedules,
boards were able to get around the issue by offering sports or
supervision allowances or marriage bonuses to their male teachers.
It would take another 20 years to phase out these inequalities.
www.etfo.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/About%20ETFO%20Documents/ETFO%20History%2
0Documents/history-pt3.pdf Slide 19 1950-1975 By Sabrina
Kokosarevic Slide 20 Thrse Casgrain: 1951 In 1946 Thrse joined the
Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation and became the first female
provincial leader for a recognized political party, leading the
Quebec wing of the party, the Parti social dmocratique du Qubec,
from 1951-1957. In 1970 she became the first woman from Qubec to be
appointed to the Senate. She became an iconic leader for womens
rights and is best remembered for her campaigning for just that in
the years before World War II. Her political history is riddled
with accomplishments including the founding of the League for Human
Rights in 1960, the Quebec branch of the Voice of Women in 1961,
and the Fdration des femmes du Qubec in 1966. She became an Officer
of the Order of Canada in 1967. Alongside her political career she
managed to maintain a marriage and raise four children. Thrse
Casgrain, National Archives, undated. Slide 21 Marilyn Bell: 1954
On September 8, 1954, at the age of 16, Marilyn became the first
woman to swim across Lake Ontario. She swam 52km from Youngstown,
New York, to a breakwater on Torontos shoreline. By proving that
women were formidable athletic opponents, Bell caught the attention
of her country. Radio news coverage gave hourly updates on her 21
hour journey, rumours abound that reporters from The Toronto Star
and The Toronto Telegram actually fought each other for the chance
to interview her while she was swimming. Bell had more than just
the water to contend with as she fought to stay afloat with lamprey
eels attacking her legs and trying not to choke on oil spills. Her
coach, Gus Ryder, was later publicly attacked for refusing to pull
her out of the water when she seemed to be semiconscious but he was
eventually forgiven for this. When she surfaced on the other side
of the lake, Bell was greeted by nearly 100,000 supporters of both
Canadian and American origin. She would later become the youngest
person to ever swim the English Channel and the Strait of Juan de
Fuca but nothing would ever top what was said to be a
quintessential Canadian Achievement: an individual, grim and
steadfast, who was not defeated by the elements. (The Canadian
Encyclopedia). Marilyn Bell, CBC Digital Archives, 1954 Slide 22
Ellen Fairclough: 1957 Ellen Fairclough was a chartered accountant
before she entered politics and from 1946-1949 she held a position
as a member of the Hamilton City Council and won a federal seat in
a 1950 by-election. Her position allowed her to introduce measures
that would help equalize immigration and eliminate the inherently
racist system including introducing a bill requiring equal pay for
equal work done and creating the Department of Labour Womens
Bureau. In 1957 she became Secretary of State and the first female
Federal Cabinet Minister as the Minister of Citizenship and
Immigration under the Diefenbaker Government. In 1962 she became
Postmaster General but was defeated in the 1963 election after
which she left federal politics and returned to her Hamilton roots.
She became the Chairman of Hamilton Hydro and Treasurer of the
Zonta International womens group. She was bestowed with several
honourary titles before she died including the Dame of Grace
(1985), Order of St John of Jerusalem (1985), Knights Hospitaler
(1985), and the Persons Award (1989). In 1992 she was named Right
Honourable by the Queen of England and was made a Companion of the
Order of Canada in 1995. She published her memoirs, Saturdays
Child, in 1996. Ellen Fairclough, Canada Post, undated. Slide 23
The Royal Commission on the Status of Women: 1967 The Royal
Commission on the Status of Women was created by Prime Minister
Lester B. Pearson in response to a campaign mounted by a combined
effort from 32 womens groups, led by Ontario activist Laura Sabia.
Equality being its focus, the Royal Commission was to examine the
roles of men and women in Canada and create steps to create equal
opportunities in all aspects of Canadian society for both sexes.
Florence Bird was appointed as the Chair of the Commission, she had
previously been a journalist and broadcaster. Other female
commissioners included Lola Lange, a farmer and activist; Jeanne
Lapointe, a professor of literature; Elsie Gregory, an aeronautical
engineer and Doris Ogilvie, a judge. The comission began public
investigations in the spring of 1968 and for 6 months they attended
public hearings all over Canada, including the Far North where they
were presented with briefs and testimony which attested to the
widespread problems experienced by women from all walks of Canadian
life. The Commission produced a 488 page report containing 167
recommendations on the issues brought before them (equal pay for
equal work, maternity leave, day care programs, birth control,
family law, the Indian Act, education opportunities, managerial
positions, part-time work and pensions). By the 1980s most of the
recommendations had been either partially or fully implemented.
Lester Pearson, IRDC database, undated Slide 24 Rosemary Brown:
1972-75 Rosemary Brown was a social worker, a politician and a
mother. She was the first black woman in Canada to become a member
of a provincial legislature (1972) and the first woman to run for
leadership of a provincial political party (NDP, 1975). She used
her duality as a black individual and a woman during the chaos of
the 1960s Civil Rights movements that rocked North America in her
role as the Ombudswoman and founding member of the Vancouver Status
of Women Council. It was her fellow members who convinced her to
enter provincial politics and in 1972 she became the first Black
woman to sit in British Columbia legislature as an NDP candidate.
During her 14 as part of the NDP she made several great changes
including creating a committee to remove sexism in British
Columbias educational texts and materials and was a key player in
the formation of the Berger Commission on the Family. Rosemary
Brown, National Archives, undated. With her slogan Brown is
Beautiful she ran for the leadership of the NDP in 1975 she brought
attention to the fact that she was not only a woman but a Black
woman, a first in Canada. Unfortunately, she lost the race, coming
in second place. In 1988 she retired from Provincial politics and
put her efforts into international affairs. Human Rights were a
passion of hers and she became the CEO of an advocacy group called
MATCH international. In 1993 she was named Chief Commissioner of
the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which she held until 1996. She
was bestowed with numerous awards before her death including 15
honourary doctorates from Canadian universities as well as the
Order of British Columbia (1995), the Order of Canada (1996) and
the United Nations Human Rights Fellowship (1973). Slide 25
1975-2000 By Drazenka Saric Slide 26 Bertha Wilson: 1975/1982 1 st
Woman appointed to the Canadian Court of Appeal 1975, 1 st woman
appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada 1982. Born in Scotland,
she immigrated to Canada with her husband in 1949 and forced her
way into Dalhousie over the Deans objections in 1954. She graduated
in 1957, moved to Toronto with her husband in started to work in a
Bay Street firm. She made partner in 1968 and given the title
research director while still kept hidden from the background. But
the rumours were flying about a secret weapon in a Bay street firm.
In 1975 Berth Wilson stepped into the limelight when she was
appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. She proved her reputation
and was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in March 1982. In
1988, in R. vs. Morgentaler, she was part of the instrumental
majority in striking down Canadas abortion law. Slide 27 Ursula
Martius Franklin 1984 First University of Toronto female professor.
1984. Born in Germany, she earned her doctorate degree in physics
from the Technical University of Berlin and moved to Canada in
1949. She conducted post doctoral research at University of Toronto
and in 1967 was the first woman to join the department of
Metallurgy and Materials Science. She continued teaching and doing
research and in 1982 was awarded the Distinguished Lectureship by
the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the first for a
woman. In 1982 she was appointed as an officer to the Order of
Canada and in 1984 was bestowed the highest honour the University
can give to its faculty members, she became a University Professor.
Slide 28 Roberta Bondar: 1992 1 st Canadian Woman in space. 1992.
As a little girl she knew she wanted to go into space but the
obstacle was that a woman could not be an astronaut. She went on to
get her degree in zoology/agriculture from Guelph, a masters in
experimental pathology from Western, a Ph.D. in neurobiology from
University of Toronto and finally an M.D. from McMaster in 1977. In
1983 an ad in a newspaper looking for Canadian men and women to fly
as astronauts caught her eye and she went for it. She made the
short list and was the only woman. Her science background aided in
her being chosen and in 1992 Roberta became the first Canadian
woman in space. Slide 29 Rose Toodick Boyko: 1994 1 st Aboriginal
Woman on the Canadian Superior Court, 1994. Born to a Ukrainian
father and a first nations mother Rose she went to school for
nursing and became one of the first aboriginal nurses working in
remote Cree communities in James Bay. She then went back to school
for her BA and then Law School. She was called to the bar in 1982.
It wasnt so much a question of making it happen, as it was trusting
in the universe, trusting that something would emerge. I didnt dare
to dream because I couldnt take for granted that anything would
come my way. Slide 30 Hoda Elmaraghy: 1994 1 st woman Dean of a
faculty of Engineering in Canada, University of Windsor, 1994. She
grew up in Egypt and decided early on she wanted to become an
engineer and Graduated 3 rd in her engineering class at the
University of Cairo. She then immigrated to Canada, along with her
husband,to accept a scholarship to McMaster University to pursue a
doctorate. Mechanical Engineering had not progressed to include
many women in Canada and she found herself often the only woman at
meetings and conferences. In 1977 she became assistant Professor at
McMaster and the only woman faculty member for 12 years. In 1994
she was appointed Dean of Engineering, first woman dean of an
Engineering Faculty in a Canadian University, she says pioneering,
fighting an uphill battle all the way.
