Making and Breaking the Rules: Women in Quebec, 1919-1939

Terry A. Crowley is an associate professor of history at the University
of Guelph and the author of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality.

In this study of Quebec women between the two world wars, McGill
historian Andrée Lévesque begins by examining normative values
expressed in public discourse, then goes on to examine motherhood,
sexuality, abortion, infanticide, illegitimacy, and prostitution. In
doing so, she presents a more extended and comprehensive portrait of
women’s lives during this period than is available for other parts of
the country.

Although Lévesque has illustrated her work with advertisements, she
fails to consider the role of the business sector in conveying often
contradictory messages to women. While French-Canadian minority
consciousness led to a greater emphasis on motherhood than in other
parts of Canada, some Quebec women rejected societal norms by engaging
in practices that were termed deviant. The author is at her best in
examining the care and treatment provided to single mothers in
Montreal’s Hфpital de la Miséricorde and its counterpart in Quebec
City. It is peculiar that she does not consider what happened to
maternal mortality as the birth rate and infant deaths declined
radically in these years. Although Lévesque speaks of this era as one
of transformation for women, in reality it was a period of transition
prior to the more major upheavals that began with the onset of war in
1939.