I believe that women need to have real choices. Staying at home to raise children is definitely real work. Without the availability of affordable quality child care single mothers are denied the choice to return to school or a full-time job or they are relegated to precarious part-time jobs with informal daycare arrangements.

Many people think that we have truly achieved equality for women in Canada. Much as we would like it to be so, it is simply not the case. In 2011, only one in five members of Parliament is a woman. The same holds true in general across the legislatures of the provinces and territories. Girls are the victims of more than four out of five cases of sexual assault on minors. Four out of five one parent-families are headed by women. The employment income gap between male and female university graduates who work full time has widened. Women working full time still earn only 71 cents for every dollar that men make. Women do the large majority of the unpaid work in Canada. …The most recent figures show that 38 per cent of Aboriginal women live in low income situations. So, too, do 35 per cent of lone mothers and 27 per cent of immigrant women. Immigrant women working full time earn 58 cents for every dollar earned by Canadian born men….

Here’s an article from the National Post on Feminism’s Second-Wave hangover…

Check out the special edition of CBC’s The Current

Link to my AM 640 interview from Twitter….” just did Talk640 chat 100yr #IWD with NP’s Tasha Kheiridan http://tinyurl.com/4hgcsrc I don’t think #feminism is the problem !”

A note written by a friend, Beverley Smith…

Some young women today, outnumbering men on university campuses and in faculties of law and medicine may think the equality struggle is over.

 They get pay equity on the job, they have all the marital, property and inheritance laws men have, the key to the corporate suite if they work for it and they can serve at any level of government.

They may not know how bad it was and may not understand what a leap their present freedom represents.

 They were scorned. Aristotle said women are inferior to men, Sophocles said they are the worst calamity to happen to men.  Renoir said women authors are monsters. Oscar Wilde in 1884 compared women’s reasoning  to a fool and his folly, like a dog walking on hind legs.

Rousseau in 1762 said women were only made to please men

Nietzsche said women’s problems all have one solution- pregnancy.

Women were valued for producing heirs, and the female child was much less valued than the male for he could work the land. Women were seen as child-producing vehicles, birth control was frowned on and reproductive options such as abortion were illegal.  Women were supposed to be quiet, look pretty and not complain.

The laws of the nation were written mostly by men and showed these biases.

Women could not vote, own property, keep any significant money in the bank, inherit or even have child custody. In the law, the  man was the ‘head of the house’.. In marriage the bride  promised to obey him. In education, preference was given to male students and women were not even legally allowed to sign contracts.  If a man failed to provide for the family he could sell the house out from under them, rendering them homeless and if he was alcoholic and absentee, the woman had no recourse in the law. Her poverty was her problem.

Even in the roles they were allowed, they were deemed incompetent.

Lenin argued in 1922 that housework is the most unproductive work possible. Children were considered possessions of the man as was the wife – his chattels or property. He ruled the roost, could discipline or harm those in his house as he deemed fit and the law winked at this for keeping the family under control. The cost of raising a child was considered a hobby responsibility of the man and what he did about it , for food or health care or dental care or housing was not of interest to government.  The state did not want to butt in.

Even when women did enter paid labor jobs, they entered at a lower income stream, doing more menial jobs and if doing ones identical to men, were still paid much less than men. Women were excluded by definition from higher echelon jobs in all fields. Doctors were men, nurses women, principals were men, teachers women, bank managers were men, tellers women.  In 1861 a woman teacher in Toronto was paid 41% of what a male teacher was paid. Women were excluded from serving on a jury, sitting in government, and were not allowed in many clubs. The term golf originally was even an acronym for Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden’.

When women tried to get more rights they were ignored, mocked, scorned or sometimes even disciplined. In Manchester England women who campaigned to get the vote were jailed.  Divorce was nearly impossible to obtain and when it was secured, women were not given a share of the property of the marriage. They were forced to depend on men financially and their lives were precarious based on the whims of the man.

Advances in women’s rights in Canada  word count – 1448

Activists for human rights have always been around in history though not always famous. In early Canada the church tried to help families tend children and set up orphanages in the 1840s.  Emily Stowe became the first female school principal in 1852.

The civil rights movement in the US liberated slaves in 1865 and viewed black men of color as equal to white men. But women of any color  were still denied the vote or property rights.

In 1882 the Toronto Labour Council supported equal pay for men or women doing the same job but not all companies agreed.  In the 1885 unmarried women who owned property were allowed to vote but married women still could not. In 1893 32 Canadian cities offered domestic science as a school course, trying to raise the status of the work done in the home and in 1918 McGill University offered a Bachelor of Household Science degree.

In all avenues single women got rights before married women did, under the assumption that married women should be under the control of a man. In 1895 the Toronto school board would not hire married women and many airlines and nursing colleges even in the 1940s had the same policy.

In 1905 the Supreme Court still ruled that a New Brunswick woman, Mabel French could not become a barrister because she was a woman and though Sir Richard Cartwright in the House of Commons and Senate said women should be allowed to take part in the pension plan they were not permitted in. They were left dependent on men and the poverty of women who tend to outlive men became significant, hence the term’ bag lady’.

It was not till 1911 that Alberta legislated that a woman could inherit part of her deceased husband’s estate and the amount set was one-third of it.  During the first world war, with a lot of men killed or wounded, a campaign to help fund families was successful and mothers’ allowances were introduced in several provinces. It was 1917 before a minimum wage was set for women in Alberta.  Nellie McClung in

1918 was pushing for old age pensions, mothers’ allowances, public health, free medical treatment to school children and for women to get

the vote.   She was not completely successful in all areas but women

did get the vote in 1918 all across  Canada except in Quebec which delayed it till 1945. In 1921 Canada had one female MP, Agnes Macphail but Canada did send her as its first woman rep to the League of Nations in 1929. Mary Ellen Smith became the first woman in the British Empire to be given a government cabinet position, in BC in 1921.

The care of children was becoming valued too. BC established a 6 week maternity leave program and in 1920 Alberta and Saskatchewan legislated that mothers as well as fathers could be legal guardians of children.  It took till 1922 before married women in Alberta got independence in their financial and legal dealings however.

Women were still not permitted to sit in the Senate and when five prairie women made formal court appeal to get this right, they were turned down. It was only when the Famous Five  appealed to the Privy Council in Britain that women were officially recognized as ‘persons’

in Canada. In 1930 Carrine Wilson was appointed Canada’s  first female senator.

When the depression challenged the economy and world war two further upset the economic stability of homes, government took on a societal responsibility for some costs of rearing children. In 1940 the Unemployment Insurance Act funded temporarily those in poverty who were between jobs.  It passed in 1945 the Family Allowance Act, money sent per child to age 16 years to help with costs of food, clothing and education.

In 1946 the UN established a Commission on the Status of Women to examine and eliminate areas of gender discrimination around the world.

 Member nations agreed to recognize the need of babies to be near their mothers and set up some maternity protection legislation.

It took till 1952 for women to be allowed to be jurors in Manitoba and in the federal Income Tax Act of 1952 it was still assumed that a married woman was a dependent of her spouse. It was not till 1955 that Ontario gave financial assistance to unwed mothers and deserted wives, finally recognizing their vulnerability and poverty.

It took till 1963 to establish a Canada Pension Plan and a national medicare system, dreams suggested by Nellie McClung in 1915 so women were made less vulnerable to poverty. But though the Royal Commission on Taxation of 1966recommended thinking of the family as a unit of taxation this did not come to be, and still is not, 45 years later.

Women were still to be seen as dependent on men not equal partners.

The Divorce  Act of 1968 recognized a wider range of grounds for divorce not  just adultery but also marriage breakdown but it did not

always set in place a sharing of assets when a marriage ended.   In

1970 the Royal Commission on the Status of Women recommended sweeping changes to government policy about women, but few were enacted. More formal recognition of women came in small ways. In 1971 Statistics Canada estimated that if it had counted household work in the GDP such work would account for 41% of the total. But it did not count it and still does not. By 1972 women were recognized for paid work rights and were permitted to deduct some of the costs of care of their children while they did this paid work.

In 1973 an Alberta farm wife was still denied her  half interest in the family farm upon divorce. Public uproar ensued over the case of Irene Murdoch, many women saying she deserved more. In 1975 a supreme court justice still ruled that on divorce one spouse should not continue to be a ‘drag’ on the other.

In 1981 Canada signed at the UN a resolution to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and in 1983 the Canadian Human Rights Act banned discrimination based on pregnancy or on family or marital status.

In 1991 however Statistics Canada still used forms saying that a woman at home with children ‘does not work’.  Homemaker Carol Lees of Saskatoon made a formal objection to the terminology and risked a jail sentence.  She helped organize a national conference in 1993 along with the BC Voice of Women to recognize women’s work in the home.

In 1993 Catherine Callbeck became the first elected female premier in Canada but MP Guy St-Julien’s private member’s bill  in 1993 to have money fund the role of women at home was not even discussed.

.  In 1993 Kids First Parent Association launched a court challenge to see if families could deduct costs of family-based care of the child, but were unsuccessful.  However in 1995 Canada signed at the UN a promise under the Platform  For Action to start to tally and value previously unpaid work of women.

In the mid 1990s government had quietly taken away some recognition it had given to women at home, had lowered the proportion of the spousal deduction and quietly wiped out the universal family allowance and the universal child dependent deduction. From then on the state would preferentially fund and encourage only paid roles for women outside the home and only care of children outside the family.

 In 1996 the Supreme Court ruled that same sex couples could seek spousal support  and in 1998 Revenue Canada set up a tax credit for caregivers of the elderly and disabled. In 1998 GPI Atlantic did a study of the economic value of household labor, noticing the importance of the previously uncounted work there.  However the tallies to value unpaid work were not matched by tax policy change to enable it.

 In 2003 the federal government set up a compassionate leave program to fund care of the dying and in 2004 the BC Ministry of Health was forced by the courts to permit funding of a handicapped woman by her chosen caregiver, her father, even though previous policy would only have funded care outside the family.

By 2011 heavy pressure was still on women to get paid jobs however and the role at home was still treated as lesser.  However the Supreme Court ruled in Feb 2011 that on divorce common law couples also must share assets since each had contributed to the household, even if one had not been paid.  The road to liberation has been a long one and the definition of some basic terms is still highly contentious, especially ‘work’ and ‘childcare’.

3. Nellie McClung and me – word count 1461

My name is Beverley Smith. I am the homemaker who in 1997, after failed attempts at the Human Rights Commissions and with MPs made a formal complaint at the UN against Canada. My claim, like that of the Persons case of 1929 actually, was that my government was discriminating against women and  in my case, against women in the home.

The UN unlike the Privy Council in England, has no power to change Canadian laws but did look at  international trends. In 1999 it admitted there were legal systems discriminating and a high incidence of women and children in poverty.

I, like Nellie McClung, had had only partial victory however.. She along with the Famous Five got women our status as persons, she helped get us the vote but she died in 1952, years before her dreams of universal pension, medicare or equal pay were fully realized.  The women’s movement grinds so very slowly.  I had a token victory at the UN, but no laws changed.

I did not know her of course. She was born in  1873 in Ontario and I was born in Calgary. shortly after she died.  In 1973 I was a school teacher, fresh with the joy of earning my own money for the first time blissfully unaware how fast I could sink to being second class, and how fast I did.

She ran for government, so did I, but she won once and I never did.

She wrote and spoke in public at great length about women’s rights, fighting the obstacles of the 1910s and with vigor. I did my parallel I guess, in letters to the editor, petitions, meetings with politicians, submissions to federal committees and rallies. She headed several women’s rights groups. I headed one parents’ rights group, Kids First Parent Association of Canada.  She was a writer. I also write edit a monthly newsletter on the Net. But she and I have something in common and it’s eerie.

For most of my life  I never heard of her but somehow on my own landed on many of her ideas. The problem is I discovered the same hurdles 60 years later.  I have now fought them for 30 years myself . Sadly we have not come a long way baby in one key area, recognition of the care role in the home, the ‘mom’ role if you will.

I ran across Nellie McClung’s book”In Times Like These”  only recently. It was published in 1915, long before women even had the vote or political presence in government.  She was angry. And yet she was funny, sarcastic. She organized a mock parliament telling all the reasons men were too emotional and unstable to be allowed to vote. She

had the crowd roaring with laughter.   I’ve never had that effect.

But she was a mother of five, I was a mother of four, and we had somehow deep down gut feelings in common. .  As I look at the 1915 book I am distressed at how far we have not come.  She wrote’ You cannot insult a boy more deeply than to tell him he looks like a girl or to insult him as a sissy’.  This is the same today.

She argued that a woman at home tending the children, cooking, cleaning has ‘worked for the whole family’ but current law still says this woman does not work. She wrote that ‘women’s work is taken for granted’ but the  UN in 1996  was just starting to  notice unpaid labor in actual GDP tallies. It still is not counted, it still is taken for granted in Canada.

When she said  ‘We hear too much of the burden of motherhood and too little of its benefits’ she was countering in an eerie way the statements of formal government policies 70 years later that said that women at home are in distress because they ‘cannot work’  for lack of daycare.

She did not blame men. She said the true equal rights struggle was to get governments to notice but ‘the state robs freely, openly and unashamed by unjust taxation’. Even today there is on the books a a higher tax for those who cohabit and there is still a failure to permit us to be taxed as if we share income.  It is tax policy that keeps all children from getting funds till age 18, that keeps women from pensions for the caregiving years, that penalizes the single earner household.

In her push to get women the vote, she ran into opposition by men of course. They said women were hysterical and just rubber stamps to the vote of the man anyway. Men said women were too pure to be bothered with the hurly burly of voting and should leave that to the men. Oddly in 1997 when I made my complaint to the Finance Department to have funding for all children not just those in daycare, one official told me that the Income Tax Act was a very thick book and well planned and left the impression clearly that I was too dumb to deal with it and should just trust the men. I was apparently the sweet little housewife who should be patted on the back and sent home.

But McClung also ran into opposition, surprisingly, from women. I did too. I was shocked.  The woman in McClung’s time often told her she was acting improperly and was an embarrassment.  Just last fall when I spoke to a standing committee on the status of women a female MP told me she too was home with her own child years ago but she ‘never thought of it as work’ She was appalled at my statement that it is work and urged me to rethink.McClung also had walked this path before me and she had an answer. “Women who put a low value on themselves make life hard for all women”

Some may think the new liberation, the sexual freedom of the 1960s would have shocked the 1915s feminists. But surprisingly, McClung was in favor of birth control and was not so much an advocate of bringing children into the world as of making the world fit for the children who are there. I too was misunderstood in the 1990s when I wanted funding for mothers at home, as if this meant I was against women working outside the home.  I was not. I was for equal funding, period.

 It seemed McClung also was often misunderstood.

McClung said girls should aim higher than being just sex objects and yet when I flick on TV dance competitions or open a tabloid magazine, it is the girls who are scantily clad, not the men.  Ads for men often show toys they can buy to drive fast or climb mountains in a manly way but ads for women tell how they can repair their natural flaws. Is it not striking how much the fashion and cosmetics industry makes off this? McClung said that women do not have to marry and was appalled at the tradition in 1915 of contempt for ‘old maids’. She pointed out that many ‘old maids’ of the era were very successful in business.

Yet women already in their mid 30s feel passed by still if not married. Why?

When a marriage ends McClung wanted the woman to have her work recognized and to get her share of the assets. At the time women got nothing. But today in Canada women only are recognized for sharing if they divorce. If they stay married they still are viewed as dependants, lesser than men. Is it not strange? We still tax individuals ignoring that it costs money to raise a child, and any benefits we legislated for care of the young are based not on taking care of the young  but on earning. We still force women into financial dependency, not seeing the role as a partnership of equals.

I found out today that Nellie McClung used to be called Calamity Nellie.  How odd.  My dad watched me at age 3 trying to help my mother dust and breaking several of her ornaments. He  playfully also dubbed me ‘Calamity’.  It seems Nellie and I had that in common also.

The problem is it is 96 years since McClung wrote. We still are addressing many of the problems she fought against.  Her home has been made a national historic site and is a block from the church my parents attended.  It is a small bungalow in Calgary just off 17th avenue.  I have toured it .  I wish I had known her.  We could have talked. I feel a bond with her and I think all women should. We must still cling to the dreams of Nellie McClung. It’s not over yet.