test 2 Flashcards
(102 cards)
1
Q
- Under british “coverture”, enshrined in common law, a married woman
A
woman did not have a separate legal existence from her husband.
2
Q
- A married woman was a “feme covert
A
a dependent, like an underage child – and her possessions were legally absorbed by her husband upon marriage
3
Q
- In some Canadian jurisdictions, a property-owning woman was required
A
upon marriage to obtain a new title replacing her name with her husbands
4
Q
- In 1859 a small gain came when Canada west enacted a law that stipulated that a married
A
woman’s property could no longer be sold by her husband without her consent
4
Q
- Property ownership conferred
A
status in the rapid expansion of the west, Manitoba’s 1871 Act Respecting Married Women stipulated that a woman kept her property upon marriage
o However, it also stated that a married woman’s earnings belong to her husband unless he was cruel, insane, drunken or neglectful
5
Q
- When the 1872 dominion lands act was enacted to
A
encourage settlement on the prairies, single women were barred from obtaining a homestad.
o If single women could homestead, they might not bother to marry
6
Q
- Under the matrimonial causes act of 1857, a
A
a husband had the power to divorce his wife if she committed adultery. However, a husband’s adultery was insufficient for a woman seeking divorce
o For her to file for divorce the husband would have to be found guilty of adultery compounded with cruelty, or with desertion for two years, or incestuous adultery, rape, sodomy or bestiality.
7
Q
- A critical influence on the suffrage movement in north America was the cause of temperance
A
o Temperance adherents believed that alcoholism and the social ills that it spawned could be stopped by banning liquor sales.
o Many believed that drunkenness’ was grounds for divorce
- Temperance adherents blamed many modern social ills such as prostitution, violence, poverty, child neglect and family breakdown on alcohol consumption.
8
Q
- Increasingly, women were taking an active role in
A
public affairs through women’s clubs, which provided a forum for debate on social and legal reforms and also provided direct services and programs aimed at helping women and children
9
Q
- The first branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association was founded in
A
1870 in Saint John, New Brunswick.
o Concerned itself with the welfare of single women newly arrived in Canada and provided them with temporary lodging, recreation and bible study
10
Q
- Inspired by the formation of the international council of women in 1888,
A
the national council of women of Canada was formed in 1893 to unite associations of women working for the betterment “of conditions pertaining to the family and the state”
o One of the first issues dissuced by the council was the need to improve low wages and poor working conditions for female factory workers, who earned as little as $2 per week
11
Q
early women’s vote
- In 1841 the first national aassembly was
A
elected in the province of Canada, which was made up of upper Canada and lower Canada
12
Q
- There was nothing in the 1791 constitutional act to specifically
A
bar women from voting, although voting requiredments made it all but impossible for most women to vote
o Would-be voters had to own property or have assets of a specified value, or else pay a minimum rate of taxes or rent
13
Q
- In lower Canada women were not subject to English common law
A
but rather the custom of paris, which allowed women to acquire half of the marital property when their husbands died.
o As a result, some propertied women in lower Canada voted between 1809 and 1849
14
Q
- In 1849 the reform government of the province of Canada enacted a law to
A
standardize voters lists in upper and lower Canada.
o At the time women were banned from votting
15
Q
- In 1883 prime minister john a. macdonald introduced a series of bills aimed at
A
making voters lists uniform.
o One of the proposals under his bill would have granted single and widowed propertied women, as well as propertied inians, the right to cast a ballot
He abandoned the measures
16
Q
- Most women left domestic work in favour of
A
factory work. Even work in under-regulated, non-unionized factory was considered by young women to be more desirable than domestic work. 5023.
17
Q
- The garment trade was highly segregated.
A
o Female sewing machine operatores were considered unskilled, while the higher paid position of cutter was reserved for men
Female sewing factory workers earned about 83 cents per day while men averaged $1.46 a day
18
Q
- Women and children often worked in
A
dirty, poorly lit factories and textile mills where shabby toilets, a lack of heat and dangerous work were common complaints.
19
Q
- The right to strike was implicitly recognized
A
by canada’s 1872 trade union act, but employers still routinely fired union members.
o Many male union members claimed that womens employment drove down the wages of men
20
Q
- The Knights of Labor was more than a union organization
A
It was a progressive movement that advocated for cooperatives, supported high taxation for land speculators, favoured free and compulsory education and supported the nationalization of the railway
21
Q
- For some trade unionists, the answer to low female wages was to fight for
A
high wages for men; that way, women could return to their “rightful” place in the home
o Many union rallied behind the demand for a “Family wage” a privilege reserved for male workers
22
Q
- In 1875, Grace Annie Lockhart became the first woman to
A
receive a university degree t Mount Allison University in New Brunswick
o Making it the first university to award a degree to a woman
23
Q
- It was not only administrators but students who wanted to keep women out of university
A
When Queen’s university medical school agreed in 1881 to admit female students, male medical students revolted.
- They demanded that female students be expelled on the basis that anatomy topics were not taught in sufficient depth in the presence of female students.
o While the claim was not substantiated, the university capitulated. It set up separate classes for female medical students and refused to admit additional female students
24
- Starting in 1884, women were allowed to
study medicine at the university of toronto
25
- Carrie derick was a pioneer in the study of genetics and heredity.
o In 1912 she bacame the first woman appointed as a full professor in canada as a professor of comparative morphology at McGill University.
26
- The klondike gold rush offered many women the
promise of adventure, independence and good pay. In many ways, the confines of rigid sex roles were suspended in the early klondike, where women staked claims for gold, ran hotels, worked in dance halls and operated laundries.
- Tale of the august 16, 1896, discovery of gold by George Carmack and two Tagish men- butfailed to mention the woman who played a central role in the discovery (George’s wife).
o The three men laid claims to the discovery. George became rich and left katie In 1900 to marry another woman.
27
- By the late 1800s, reform-minded women in europe and north america had begun
publishing newspapers to increase support for womens rights.
28
- The first decades of the 20th century marked the era of the
“new woman”.
29
- In 1901, 14.4% of girls and women over age 14
were in the paid workforce.
o They made up 14.9% of the labour force.
30
- Domestice workers made up
30% of women in the workforrce, a proportion that would decline to 2-% after the first world war.
31
- Many managers believed female workers
were better than male workers at handling impolite customers
32
- The Toronto dominion labour council in 1902 supported
women’s demands for equal pay, equal civil rights and for the abolition of labour for children under 15.
33
- In Canada, the 1911 B.C Factory Act restricted women’s work
to 8 hours per day within a 48 hour work week. In response to women’s lobby efforts, provinces began t hire female factory inspectors
34
- In 1911 the B.C. Women’s Suffrage League was started by
British- born Helena Gutteridge, a trade union activist, tailor and pacifist.
35
- The term “maternal feminism is widely used by
by modern observers to classify feminists who argued that, as mothers and wives, women brought special qualities into the political sphere.
36
- At the start of the first world war in 1915, women made up
15% of the workforce, a proportion that hadn’t changed significantly in nearly 20 years.
o However, the number of women in the workforce increased as a war-related shortage of young male workers grew, and by the end of the war, women made up 25% of the workforce in some parts of the country.
37
- February 1918, it marked the first time the federal cabine
had officially consulted with women from across Canada.
o More than seventy prominent women representing women’s organizations attended the conference.
Attendees called for minimum wage laws for women, equal pay, universal women’s suffrage and free technical training for women
38
- In 1917, wcru organizer and social reformer Louise McKinney
was elected to the alberta legislature, the first woman in canada elected to represent a provincial riding.
- She advocated for improved working conditions for miners and for better laws to protect immigrants.
o Her main issues were divorce reform and property rights to help women, who were frequently rendered penniless upon the death of a husband or upon divorce.
39
- Emily murphy was the force behind
alberta’s dower law – a provision to reinstate the right of wives a maximum one-third interest in their husbands’ estates upond their death.
o She gave speeches on women’s rights and in support of a children’s protection act, a law that would establish in law that children could obtain protection from neglect and abuse
40
- The university Women’s club determined that a single, self-supporting woman required a bare
minimum of $10 per week
41
- Womens lives changed drmatically during the inter-war years.
o Infant mortality improved and women were having fewer children.
In 1920 there were 102 infant deaths per thousand birth, a drop from 184 infant deaths per thousand births in 1851
42
- The prohibition many womeN
supported came into effect as part of an effort to preserve gain resources, under the war measures Act in 1918
o Although some jurisdictions, such as Windsor Ontario, saw increased crime as a result of rum-running, alcohol-related crimes reportedly fell overall by more than half during prohibition
43
- In 1928, women participated for the first time at the
Olympics summer games, establishing Canadian women’s capability in competitive sports
44
n 1921, female workers aged 14 and older made up
17% of the paid workforce.
- By the mid-1920s, domestic workers made up 20% of the female labour force.
o Domestic workers’ work conditions had eased slightly as they were no longer required to live in their employers’ homes and a number of maids’ organizations were formed
45
- For the majority of female workers, low wages meant women
lived with their families well after they entered the workforce.
46
- The federal election of december 6, 1921, the first in which
women voted on the same basis as men, saw the election of Agnes Macphail, the first female member of parliament, to the house of commons.
47
- The 1920s saw most legislatures pass legislation to give
mothers an equal right to the custody and control of their children upon divorce.
o Women also secured a legal right to a share of marital property upon divorce; however they are not entitled to financial support if they were adulterers
48
- The 1930 Divorce Act of Ontario granted women the right to
divorce on the same grounds as men- simple adultery.
o Canada would not have a uniform federal divoce law until 1968
49
- In 1916, Emily Murphy, the first female magistrate in canada was presiding over an Edmonton court.
o It was her first day on the job when the defendant claimed murphy was not qualified as a magistrate because women were not persons under the terms of the British North America Act.
50
- The person’s case was launched in 1927.
o The question was does the word “person” in section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?
o On April 28th, 1928, the supreme court of canada ruled unianmously that women were not qualified persons to be appointed to the senate of canada.
o A year and a half later, on October 18, 1929 the british privy council ruled unanimously in the case officially known as Edward vs. Canada that women were persons according to the BNA Act and were therefore qualified to be appointed to the senate of Canada
51
- “the problems of the subnormal family”, outlined a
national eugenics program under which couples would need to be declared moraly and mentally fit before marrying.
52
- A total of 2,822 women and men in alberta were subjected to
coerced and forced sterilization in alberta; most female residents in institutions for the mentally ill
53
- The rise of the welfare state was a hallmark of the inter-war years
o The new department of health had been established in 1919 to emphasize sanitation, vaccination, disease control and the development of healthy children
o Increased demands for greater public aid for the elderly and disabled, war widows, the unemployed, the sick and the destitute were heard in the House of Commons
54
- Whitton, a popular public speaker on child welfare reform, wanted canada to stop bring children into the country to work as domestics.
o Whitton urged provinces to enact laws to remove maltreated children from their parents care.
o Networks of social workers were employed by government agencies to control waywatd children and teenagers.
o She became the first female mayor of Ottawa city council
55
- During the depression, the wages of girls and women became
more critical to their families as the industries in which male workers were concentrated, including resource extraction and agriculture, suffered huge employment declines.
56
- By 1933, 28% of the workforce in canada was
unemployed and two million people were on relief.
57
- Of the women in the toronto workforce, 72% were between
15-35 and were mostly single. Women were commonly fired upon marriage, many women could simply not afford to get married during the depression.
o The scarcity of jobs placed added pressure on women to have sex in exchange for job
58
of the 826,000 canadians who were out of work during the depression
an estimated 20% were women
59
- The economic hardship of the Depression spurred a drop in Canada’s birth rate.
o Women had an average of 2.8 births compared to 3.3 five years earlier
60
- With birth control illegal and unavailable to many women
thousands of women died from complications from abortions
o Often relied on home remedies for contraception that were unreliable or dangerous
o Estimated that 4 thousand women died from botched abortions between 1926 and 1946
61
- Canada’s 1892 law on birth control and abortion in the criminal code stated that
“Everyone is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to two years imprisonment who knowingly without lawful justification or excuse offters to sell, advertise, publishes an advertisement or has for sale or disposal any means or instructions or any medicine drug or article intended or represented as a means of preventing conception or of causing abortion or miscarriage.
62
- By 1932 canadas
first birth control clinics had opened in B.C. and Hamilton Ontario.
63
- By the time Canada declared war on Germany in 1939, many Canadians believed that their country’s involvement was justified
o A minority, including women, held the view that war was unjustifiable under any circumstances.
64
- A year after Canada declared war on Germany in 1939m seven thousand Canadian women were
enrolled in volunteer organizations in aid of the war effort.
o One of the largest organizations, led by Joan B. Kennedy of Victoria was the British Columbia womens service corps.
o These volunteers were taught military transport, map reading, first aid, motor mechanics and firefighting
65
- In 1941, the department ofnational war services established the women’s
voluntary service division to coordinate women’s involvement in projects such as recycling scrap metals, animals bones, rubber and glass.
Women in war industries
66
- Necessity demanded that women step into
jobs traditionally held by men.
67
- Between 1939 and 1945 the number of women in the Canadian workforce nearly
doubled from 638,000 to 1,077,000
68
- By 1942, 21 national womens organizations
had lent their support to the national selective service (nss) program, established to recruit women into the labour force during wartime.
69
- To facilitate the entry of mothers into war-related industries,
federal-provincial child-care agreements, initiated by the federal government in 1942 saw 28 day nursies established in Ontario and 5 in Quebec
o Was first restricted to children of mothers in war-related industries= after extensive lobbying by women – opened up to all working mothers
70
- Canadian nurses had served in the first world war; however
however the second world war, marked the first time women were uniformed for a wide variety of armed forces positions
71
- Between 1941 and 1954, 21,624 women were accepted into the
Canadian womens army corps, a division of the military that trained women to serve in support roles to enable more men to participate in the fighting.
72
- By 1934, 65,000 japanese women and 25,000 japanese men had
immigrated to Canada, settling mainly in B.C.
o Ottawa placed greater restrictions on female Japanese immigrants to discourage permanent Japanese settlement in Canada
73
- On February 24, 1942, the mass evacuation of
Japanese-canadians, most of whom were born in Canada or were neutralized citizens, was ordered under the war measures act.
o Approx. 21,000 japanese-canadians were forced to turn over property to the custodian of alien property and sent to detention camps
74
- The federal government disbanded the Canadian womens army corps in
1946 and stood down the womens services in the air force and navy
75
- 72% of women intended to stay in the
workforce and half of married women workers wanted to keep working.
o But by September 1945, 80,000 female manufacturing workers had been laid off
- The federal government discouraged married women from working by penalizing their husbands
76
- In 1948, Luckock’s association organized a historic march of a million names campaign, which demanded that the federal government
re-institute war-era price controls in order to lower the price of consumer goods, including bread
77
Civil rights and viola Desmond
- From the 1850s to the 1950s black and white students could be relegated to sepate schools by law
- Nova scotia businesswoman viola desomnd confronted race segregation when she challenged the owner of a segregated movie theatre on November 8 1946
78
- In 1944, Ontario passed the
racial discrimination act, which prohibited the publication and display of any symbol, sign or notice that expressed ethnic, racial or religious discrimination
79
- An enduring myth of the 1950s era is that
women aspired to become housewives, thrived in suburban comfort and eschewed paid work.
- By the end of the second world war, nearly one quarter of women were still employed in 1951
o By the end of the 1950s, womens labour force participation rate was climbing back to the 30% level
80
- In 1960 canada passed its first bill of rights,
extended the federal franchise to statis Indians, approved the sale of the birth control pill and witnessed the creation of a women’s peace group that would steer public opinions against nuclear arms in Canada
81
- In august 1959, chatelaine broke ground with an article by Joan Finnigan titled “should Canada change its abortion law”
o Suggested that the law should be changed because illegal back alley abortions engangered womens lives.
Birth control and abortions were still illegal
82
- Planned parenthood was created by a
a man and his wife who brough together 50 representatives of womens groups and protestant churches.
83
- An estimated 33,000
abortions were performed each year in Canada, while it was illegal.
84
- Abortion related deaths accounted for an estimated
17 to 20 percent of all maternal deaths in Canada
85
- Quebecs womens movement influenced and was influenced by quebecs quiet revolution, a period in which social change was swift and sweeping.
o The state took over many public services that were once controlled by the church
o Women took on less traditional roles during the time and labour unions made headway.
86
- In 1963 pressure from women’s organizations
prompted the Quebec government to set up a commission to examine womens legal status within the provinces civil code.
87
- The voice of women founded in July 1960, became one
of the most successful women’s organizations in Canada
- An impetus for the voice of women was the 1958 formation of the north American air defense agreement.
- Women were voicing their opinions when it was discovered that the missiles would be fitted with nuclear warheads, a public debate known as the bomarc missile crisis ensued.
o The voice of women was formed and aimed to ban nuclear weapons from Canadas waters , airspace and soil and keep radioactive waste out of the country
88
- Eleanor Roosevelt had been instrumental
in the creation of the united nations universal declaration on human rights in 1948, which encouraged member states to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion
89
- On February 3 1967 after sabia threatened to summons a two million women strong march in Ottawa to shame government into action, a commission on women, to be chaired by CBC broadcaster Florence bird was announced,
o The royal commission on the status of women set out to recommend steps the federal government could take to ensure equal opportunities and improve the status of women in all aspects of Canadian society, particulary with reference to federal statutes, regulations and policies that concerned the rights of women
90
- Flight attendants were routinely fired when they
married or turned 32 years of age- whichever came first.
- It wasn’t until 1978 that they won the right to work after thirty two and after marriag e
91
- Thanks to womens efforts, the Canada labour code was amended in 1971 to provide
equal pay for equivalent work for federal employees; it also provided for maternity leave of 17 weeks for qualifying workers.
92
- The Canadian human rights act enacted in 1975 established a human rights commission to hear employment complaints based on a list of grounds of
of discrimination, including sex and marital status, for employees in federally regulated workplace
- By 1983 the Canadian human rights act ha dbeen amended to prohibit sexual harassment in workplaces under federal jurisdiction.
93
- Canadas first bill of rights was proclaimed in
1960
94
- Justice minister pierre trudeau’s 1968-1969 criminal law amendment act legalized
homosexual acts between consenting adults and also legalized birth control
95
- During the 1980s the pro-choice movement gained
momentum and tens of thousands of pro-choice supporters marched in the streets of major cities to protest Canadas abortion law and to raise money for Dr. Morgentaler’s legal defence.
96
- The first shelters for women in violent relationships opened in Canada in
1973
97
- In 1988 the federal government pledged to spend
40 million over 4 years on wife battering research, education and assistance
98
- In response to the perceived lack of justice for rape victims
three women started Vancouver rape relief in 1973
99
- A victory came in 1983 with the passage of bill C-127
a law that redefined rape and indecent assault as sexual assault
o The new law created 3 tiers of offences: sexual assault- punishable by a max of 10 years
Sexuals assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm- carried by a max of 14 years
And aggravated sexual assault- punishable by max of life
* The new law stipulated that penetration was no longer a requirement for sexual assault to have occurred.
100
- Under bill C-127, women’s sexual histories could no longer
be liberally scrutinized by defence lawyers in an attempt to discredit a rape victims court testimony
101
- A national survey in 1999 found that 78%
of sexual assaults were not reported to police
