And on That Farm He Had a Wife: Ontario Farm Women and Feminism, 1900-1970

Terry A. Crowley is a professor of history at the University of Guelph,
and the former editor of the journal, Ontario History. He is the author
of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality and Canadian History to
1967, and the coauthor of The College on

Feminism continues to fascinate scholars, although its many variants
obscure its meaning and young people recoil from using the word.
University of Western Ontario historian Monda Halpern argues that
Ontario’s farm women adhered to a social feminism that was more
progressive than constrained in the period from 1900 to 1970. The
introduction to her book contains a careful discussion of the
differences currently observed between social, maternal, equity, and
agrarian feminism. In particular, Halpern wants to distance herself from
political scientist Louise Carbert, whose earlier book on Ontario farm
women after 1970 identified the outlook and activities of members of the
Women’s Institutes as agrarian feminism. Halpern tries to make the
case that social feminism constructed women’s position in society in
such a manner as to be outward looking, while agrarian feminism looked
inward toward the problems afflicting a farm population under assault.
The argument is viable, but one cannot help feeling that social feminism
is such a broad category as to lack analytical rigor.

Whatever one makes of these theoretical debates, Halpern’s book is
the first to review the history of Ontario farm women during the first
three-quarters of the 20th century. The early chapters on gender
conflicts in agriculture, the beginnings of the domestic science
movement in education, the early years of the Women’s Institutes of
Ontario, and the United Farm Women of Ontario during the 1920s provide
well-written overviews of their subjects. The author’s sources become
decidedly thinner after 1930, and only one chapter deals with the period
from 1940 to 1970, when Halpern highlights journalist Ethel Chapman as
an exponent of the social feminism that is critical to her own argument.
A brief concluding chapter contrasts the equity feminism that emerged
after 1970 in groups such as Women for the Survival of Agriculture,
Concerned Farm Women, and the Ontario Farm Women’s Network.
Halpern’s book provides an introduction to a part of the experience of
Canadian farm wo-men during the 20th century.