Canadian Women's Issues Vol. 2: Bold Visions

Margaret Conrad is a history professor at Acadia University and the
editor of Intimate Relations: Family and Community in Planter Nova
Scotia, 1759–1800.

Like its predecessor, Canadian Women’s Issues, Vol. 1: Strong Voices
(1993), this volume documents the evolution of feminism in
English-speaking Canada since 1967. The focus here is on the politics of
the domestic sphere, paid work, education, economic policy, and global
issues. Both volumes are useful not only because they bring together the
disparate threads of a highly fragmented movement but also because the
documents around which the books are organized are framed by
well-informed essays written by people who were observers of and even
insiders for much of what they describe.

While the authors include now-forgotten directions of the women’s
movement, they also reveal how much our present society owes to feminist
ideas. In the past 30 years, governments have passed equal-pay
legislation, reformed legal codes, and established daycare policies;
universities have lifted quotas that limited the entry of women into
professional schools; employers have addressed sexual harassment in the
workplace; and male-dominated unions have gradually recognized that they
have a responsibility to all their members. What is also clear from the
evidence presented here is how successfully the movement galvanized
women of all classes and cultures to public action. Women mobilized to
fight unfair employers, to improve the education system, to learn
self-defence techniques, to provide safe shelters for battered women and
children, and to take leadership positions. While achievements often
fell short of expectations, and feminism is still trashed by elites,
conditions for women in Canada, the compilers of this volume rightly
emphasize, have changed significantly since 1967.

In establishing organizing principles for their documents, the authors
decided to limit their sources largely to unpublished materials. This
has both advantages and disadvantages. While hitherto obscure documents
are now available to researchers, major statements on the women’s
movement, including those that appeared in early feminist texts
published in Canada, are not included here. Fortunately, a comprehensive
bibliography and scrupulously footnoted essays should alert the vigilant
scholar to other essential information.

Currently the best source available on the history of the women’s
movement in English Canada, the two volumes in this series are balanced,
hard-hitting, and often fun to read. They will not soon be superseded.