Lecture 7 Wednesday October 23, 2013 The Women's Movement and ...
Lecture 7 Wednesday October 23, 2013 The Women's Movement and Equality Rights in Canada THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT AND EQUALITY RIGHTS IN CANADA If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of woman, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test. —Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) At the time of the B.N.A. Act, [women] were, under the common law, as well as under the civil law, relieved from the duties from the duties of public office or place, by a general rule of law, which affected them […] with a personal incapacity to accept or perform such duties; and, in particular, women were excluded by the law and practice of parliamentary institutions, both in England and in Canada, and indeed in the English speaking world, from holding a place in any legislative or deliberative body, and from voting for the election of a member of any such body. —Supreme Court of Canada (Reference re Meaning of the Word “Persons” in s. 24 of the BNA Act, 1928) 1. Equality Rights and the Intellectual Roots of the (White, Middle-Class) Canadian Woman’s Movement - The only group of women who had any real influence to bring legal reform has been white middle class women 1. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) 1. This text was partially a response to Thomas Paine called The Rights of Man – defended the French Revolution 2. She was in broad agreement with the liberal democratic slogan of the French Revolution Liberty Equality and Brotherhood 3. Paine was defending the right of men – like actually men and Wollstonecraft believed that he was only defending half the population 4. In Wollstonecraft books, she advocates rationality, the idea that people can reason and that’s what makes them people she argues that argues that women too can reason ad should be given opportunities to use that reason 5. She also argues that masculinity and femininity is social constructed in essence she is arguing a social constructivist view of gender 6. Public Sphere – out in the world, politics the law etc. Wollstonecraft was very interested in women not being excluded in the public sphere 2. John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (1861)
1. Mill made a sustained argument for the right of women 2. He demanded for the … 1. Equality of women 2. Changes of attitudes towards women 3. He wanted women to have education outside of the home (in favour of the education) and women employment (law, medicine) 3. Limitations of (liberal) “equal rights” perspective i. Basic legal/political reform advocated by Wollstonecraft and Mill have been achieved; yet position of women remains problematic a. A lot of what they have been arguing for has been changed, they believed that t would change the attitudes, but we can see that women still face problems b. We have achieved what they wanted us to achieve so why is it still problematic? (Very complex answer) ii. Classism; they were concerned largely with women of their class a. Inherent classism- Mill and Wollstonecraft were very privileged white British people b. Mill wasn’t really concerned with women and education for women who were already working c. Wollstonecraft argues that all children ought o be educated in the same manner but only ages 5-9 and after 9 the working class children to be shunted off to another school and children should receive the same education but only the middle class and wealthy kids. d. Wollstonecraft: girl should learn to sew, make hats and gown. Boys should be educated in the trades. iii. Race and racism not a matter of interest a. Over 80 references to slavery and in all of these references she says the “slavery of white British women of her class” i. Very inappropriate use of the term slavery iv. Did not consider how pregnancy, childbirth and childcare pose obstacles for economic independence a. Wollstonecraft struggled with pregnancy, childbirth and raising a child. b. These equal right feminists did not realize all these obstacles 4. Limitations of this perspective can be seen in the Canadian women’s movement 1. Gives un insight into how these upper class feminists thought 2. The “Three Wave” Approach to the Canadian Women’s Movement
1. What is a wave: said to describe a period of intense activism and social change. 3. “First Wave” Feminism (Late 19th and Early 20th Century) - Gain basic political and legal rights for women (vote, property, considered a person). Quite conservative. 1. First wave feminism as largely conservative and racist; privileging of white, middle-class motherhood 1. Overwhelming protestant Christian and actively excluded anyone who wasn’t Christian from their movement 2. Very essentials: women were naturally more moral and pure that men, Higher degree of purity and morality and that’s why God suggested that they should look after children. 3. They were very worried about immigration by non-white people and non-British people. And they wanted the basic rights so that nice women can have more say in public affairs. They though that immigrants would take over (they believed that they have lower values) 4. They had problematic politics—however they were successful and gaining basic political rights for women as well as aboriginal women 2. “Unity doctrine” 1. Getting rid of this doctrine was one accomplishment 2. It is after marriage a husband and a wife become one legal person and that legal person is the husband. A women had legal personhood before marriage, however it is lost when they become married 3. A married women had far less rights than a single women, she kind of became an extension as her husbands 4. Under this doctrine married women could not own property, they were legally obligated to give up all their property to husband. Women became the property of the husband. Land furniture, her clothes etc. 5. This doctrine left women very vulnerable. Canadian courts consistently absolute right of fathers to legal control of their children. It essentially allowed men to divorce or abandon their wives and leave their wives over any means of property 3. Married Women’s Property Acts, starting with Ontario (1884) 1. One way to get rid of the Unity Doctrine 2. Giving women the right to hold property under her name 1. After a women got married she no longer had to surrender all her property to her husband 4. Suffrage: federal (1918), provincial (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1916, B.C. and Ontario in 1917, Quebec 1940), Aboriginal women and men (federally in 1960) 1. Another way to get rid of the unity doctrine 2. Aboriginal men and women did not get the right to vote until 1960
3. Quebec was the last province to enfranchise women 5. “Persons Case” (1929) 1. The right to sit in the Canadian Senate 2. BNA Act of 1867 1. Any “qualified” person can sit in the senate 3. These so called person did not include women 4. The famous 5 went against this notion. 6. Women in late nineteenth/early twentieth century not completely confined to the private sphere; forgotten history of women in public sphere 1. Working class women, women of colour 2. White middle class and wealthy women 4. “Second Wave” Feminism (1960s-1980s) - Second wavers focused on lobbying gender neutral laws 1. Issues of importance 2. Constitutional crisis 3. Ad Hoc Committee of Women on the Constitution 4. Sections 15 and 28 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) 1. Equality before the law and under the law 2. S15 specific guarantee is sex equality. Equal protection from the law 5. Problems with “gender neutrality” in Canadian law 1. 1980’s- many laws were not gender neutral 1. Rape (wasn’t a violent crime, it was a property crime) 2. Abuse 2. People argue that gender neutral laws has caused a lot of damage (double edge sword) 3. Happened in criminal law: wife abuse, family law 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
EMPLOMENT EQUITY THE right to be hired Pay equity Reproductive right: the right to birth control The right to an abortion Domestic violence (wasn’t seen as an issue at all) (the man could do what ever he liked with this property) 10. Maternity leave
5. “Third Wave” Feminism (1990s-present) - Very difficult to define
- Suppose to be about inclusivity because in the first and second wave there was a lot of exclusions - Also about intersexuality 6. Problems with the “Three Wave” Approach 1. Primary focus is white, Anglo women 1. Suggests that anti-racist feminists and women of colour had no feminist activism until the 1990s 2. Erases Aboriginal feminist history and Québécois feminist history 2. Yet at the same time, insofar as feminism has been successful in influencing Canadian law, it is been a (liberal) feminism that largely represents the interests of white, middle class women
1. Mill made a sustained argument for the right of women 2. He demanded for the … 1. Equality of women 2. Changes of attitudes towards women 3. He wanted women to have education outside of the home (in favour of the education) and women employment (law, medicine) 3. Limitations of (liberal) “equal rights” perspective i. Basic legal/political reform advocated by Wollstonecraft and Mill have been achieved; yet position of women remains problematic a. A lot of what they have been arguing for has been changed, they believed that t would change the attitudes, but we can see that women still face problems b. We have achieved what they wanted us to achieve so why is it still problematic? (Very complex answer) ii. Classism; they were concerned largely with women of their class a. Inherent classism- Mill and Wollstonecraft were very privileged white British people b. Mill wasn’t really concerned with women and education for women who were already working c. Wollstonecraft argues that all children ought o be educated in the same manner but only ages 5-9 and after 9 the working class children to be shunted off to another school and children should receive the same education but only the middle class and wealthy kids. d. Wollstonecraft: girl should learn to sew, make hats and gown. Boys should be educated in the trades. iii. Race and racism not a matter of interest a. Over 80 references to slavery and in all of these references she says the “slavery of white British women of her class” i. Very inappropriate use of the term slavery iv. Did not consider how pregnancy, childbirth and childcare pose obstacles for economic independence a. Wollstonecraft struggled with pregnancy, childbirth and raising a child. b. These equal right feminists did not realize all these obstacles 4. Limitations of this perspective can be seen in the Canadian women’s movement 1. Gives un insight into how these upper class feminists thought 2. The “Three Wave” Approach to the Canadian Women’s Movement
1. What is a wave: said to describe a period of intense activism and social change. 3. “First Wave” Feminism (Late 19th and Early 20th Century) - Gain basic political and legal rights for women (vote, property, considered a person). Quite conservative. 1. First wave feminism as largely conservative and racist; privileging of white, middle-class motherhood 1. Overwhelming protestant Christian and actively excluded anyone who wasn’t Christian from their movement 2. Very essentials: women were naturally more moral and pure that men, Higher degree of purity and morality and that’s why God suggested that they should look after children. 3. They were very worried about immigration by non-white people and non-British people. And they wanted the basic rights so that nice women can have more say in public affairs. They though that immigrants would take over (they believed that they have lower values) 4. They had problematic politics—however they were successful and gaining basic political rights for women as well as aboriginal women 2. “Unity doctrine” 1. Getting rid of this doctrine was one accomplishment 2. It is after marriage a husband and a wife become one legal person and that legal person is the husband. A women had legal personhood before marriage, however it is lost when they become married 3. A married women had far less rights than a single women, she kind of became an extension as her husbands 4. Under this doctrine married women could not own property, they were legally obligated to give up all their property to husband. Women became the property of the husband. Land furniture, her clothes etc. 5. This doctrine left women very vulnerable. Canadian courts consistently absolute right of fathers to legal control of their children. It essentially allowed men to divorce or abandon their wives and leave their wives over any means of property 3. Married Women’s Property Acts, starting with Ontario (1884) 1. One way to get rid of the Unity Doctrine 2. Giving women the right to hold property under her name 1. After a women got married she no longer had to surrender all her property to her husband 4. Suffrage: federal (1918), provincial (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in 1916, B.C. and Ontario in 1917, Quebec 1940), Aboriginal women and men (federally in 1960) 1. Another way to get rid of the unity doctrine 2. Aboriginal men and women did not get the right to vote until 1960
3. Quebec was the last province to enfranchise women 5. “Persons Case” (1929) 1. The right to sit in the Canadian Senate 2. BNA Act of 1867 1. Any “qualified” person can sit in the senate 3. These so called person did not include women 4. The famous 5 went against this notion. 6. Women in late nineteenth/early twentieth century not completely confined to the private sphere; forgotten history of women in public sphere 1. Working class women, women of colour 2. White middle class and wealthy women 4. “Second Wave” Feminism (1960s-1980s) - Second wavers focused on lobbying gender neutral laws 1. Issues of importance 2. Constitutional crisis 3. Ad Hoc Committee of Women on the Constitution 4. Sections 15 and 28 of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) 1. Equality before the law and under the law 2. S15 specific guarantee is sex equality. Equal protection from the law 5. Problems with “gender neutrality” in Canadian law 1. 1980’s- many laws were not gender neutral 1. Rape (wasn’t a violent crime, it was a property crime) 2. Abuse 2. People argue that gender neutral laws has caused a lot of damage (double edge sword) 3. Happened in criminal law: wife abuse, family law 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
EMPLOMENT EQUITY THE right to be hired Pay equity Reproductive right: the right to birth control The right to an abortion Domestic violence (wasn’t seen as an issue at all) (the man could do what ever he liked with this property) 10. Maternity leave
5. “Third Wave” Feminism (1990s-present) - Very difficult to define
- Suppose to be about inclusivity because in the first and second wave there was a lot of exclusions - Also about intersexuality 6. Problems with the “Three Wave” Approach 1. Primary focus is white, Anglo women 1. Suggests that anti-racist feminists and women of colour had no feminist activism until the 1990s 2. Erases Aboriginal feminist history and Québécois feminist history 2. Yet at the same time, insofar as feminism has been successful in influencing Canadian law, it is been a (liberal) feminism that largely represents the interests of white, middle class women
