Three Masquerades: Essays on Equality, Work, and Human Rights

Margaret Kechnie teaches women’s studies at Thorneloe College,
Laurentian University, and is the editor of Changing Lives: Women in
Northern Ontario.

The central thesis of this book is that the concepts of equality, work,
and human rights are all too often lies that masquerade as truth. In the
“Equality” chapter, the author recounts her experiences as a member
of the New Zealand Parliament. Those who wonder why there are so few
women politicians will find ample answers here. In the chapter on work,
Waring concludes that little real change has resulted from the studies
that have evaluated women’s work as homemakers and caregivers. In
“Hu(man) Rights,” the final chapter, she argues that Western
democracies such as Canada grant the occasional woman refugee status
more out of a desire to score political points than out of any real
concern for human rights.

The various ways in which “lies masquerade as truths” are cause for
anger, but not surrender. As Waring writes in her preface,
“[w]omen’s sense of humour, and their remarkable resilience in the
face of the very real obstacles to their rights to equality, visible
work and female human rights, keeps me strategising and scheming and
writing.”