A Voice of Her Own

Margaret Kechnie is head of the Women’s Studies Program at Laurentian
University. She is the co-editor of Changing Lives: Women in Northern
Ontario, and the author of Organizing Rural Women: The Federating
Women's Institutes of Ontario, 1897–1919.

The editors of this fascinating collection present us with the voices of
52 contemporary ranch women, all from Western Canada. In the words of
Kimberly Taylor, one of the women featured, “ranch women [are] the
pillar and the post of the ranch family, and I think that has been true
for generations—the kind of person that binds the family together.”

In many ways, the lives of ranch women parallel the lives of urban
women. Ranch women keep homes, raise children, and contribute to the
family finances. The experiences of the contemporary Canadian ranch
women profiled in A Voice of Her Own differ greatly. Dena Weiss holds a
commerce degree from the University of Saskatchewan and is a certified
management accountant who ranches with her husband in Maple Creek,
Saskatchewan. Sherri Grant, on the other hand, sees farming more as a
family affair. What unites the book’s diverse accounts is the fact
that ranch life could not exist without women’s contributions. A Voice
of Her Own deserves a wide readership.