It is hard to believe but women were not always persons. They were not individuals and so they had no rights. Women where properties of their father and when they got married they became property of their husbands. We know in centuries gone by women were not even allowed to read and write; that was left up to the man.
Any university sociology class we tell you how a woman’s place was in the home, to cook clean and bare children for her husband. She was not allowed to think, the husband was the master of the house and she did his bidding. We also know that through time there were courageous women who fought the patriarchal system and fought for their own rights; and some actually fought for all women’s rights.
Women had no say in the political arena either and of course that meant that they did not have the right to vote.
This article will focus on the Canadian Women’s Movement in terms of women serving in office. I will do a follow up on the American Women’s Movement as well. This particular article is dedicated to my friend, Leah Christensen, who is a firm believer in women’s rights.
Canadian women owe their status as women and “persons” to five brave Alberta women of the early 20th century. They are sometimes referred to as the “famous five”. Their names are Emily Murphy, Nellie, McClung, Irene Parlby, Louise McKinney, and Henrietta Muir Edwards.
Emily Murphy was the first woman Police Magistrate appointed in the British Empire in 1916 yet technically she was not a person. Canadian law did not recognize women as “persons”. Emily fight for women’s rights began when she was traveling with her husband and met a woman with her children, left destitute. Her husband left her and she had no legal resource. She had worked hard and put 18 years into the family farm with absolutely nothing to show for it. There was no legal recourse for her. She got nothing, the husband keep everything.
Emily decided to change all that. Emily studied and spoke to members of Alberta’s legislature and finally in 1917 the Dower Act was passed to allow women one third of a husband’s estate, only it was not enforced right away. Women had to wait a few years for it.
Emily Murphy not only fought for the Dower Act, she found for women representatation in government and therefore she requested a female magistrate to serve since there was not any at the time. Her wish was granted. The Attorney General gave her the position of female magistrate in 1916.
Her joy was short lived though. Justice Murphy was not able to complete a full day of her duties when her position was challenged. A lawyer by the name of Eardley Jackson, challenged her status as a woman judge on the basis that she was not a person under the British North America Act of 1867. The battle in court was overruled on that day was overruled, but issue keep resurfacing until 1917, when the Supreme Court of Alberta declared women to be persons. Though this was not the case in other Canadian Provinces when still had to fight for their rights as persons.
Emily tried for a position in the Senate and was refused by Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden because the same issue arose; she was not a person under the British North American Act. British Common Law of 1876 stated, “Women were eligible for pains and penalties, but not rights and privileges."
This was no longer a provincial matter but a national one, since Murphy was applying for a federal appointment, a campaign was launched across Canada and 500,000 Canadians signed a petition to allow this woman an appointment to the senate.
Borden and Mackenzie said they would love to appoint her but couldn’t do so until the law was changed. Thus Emily Murphy took it upon herself to get it changed. Murphy and her brother who happened to be a lawyer planned to ask the courts for a constitutional clarification concerning the ability of women becoming senators. She needed 5 citizens to ask the question by law and so she and the aforementioned lady friends sent the petition for clarification to the Supreme Court of Canada.
A long debate ensued and on April 24, 1928, the courts refused to acknowledge women as “female persons.” The famous five would not give up and the issue was sent for appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England, the true Supreme Court for Canada at that particular period in Canadian History. Finally on October 18, 1929, the British ruled that women were persons and therefore could serve in the senate.
For all her efforts in having the law changed, Emily Murphy was not the first woman to be appointed to the Canadian Senate, Cairine Wilson was. The argument was that it had to do with jurisdiction. The question of personhood was decided in Ottawa; Emily Murphy was in Alberta. She also happened to be a conservative while Mackenzie King the Prime Minister was liberal.
Then again in 1931 Emily lost her chance to become a senator when the Alberta senator died. The argument then was that Emily was protestant and they had to replace the position with another Roman Catholic senator. Patrick Burns, a male Roman Catholic Liberal, got that appointment. It took until 1979 for Marsha Bielish to become the first female senator from the Province of Alberta.
Emily Murphy died on October 17, 1933. She was one of the greatest Canadians and women’s activists of all time yet few people even know her name.
On June 11, 1938, Prime Minister Mackenzie King unveiled a plaque honouring the famous five activists and their work in what would forever be known as “The persons case.” Emily did not survive to see it.
Sources:
http://www.abheritage.ca/famous5/achievements/emily_murphy.html
http://archives.cbc.ca/on_this_day/10/18/
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Comments: 68
We take a lot for granted, don't we? Very good and interesting post! Thanks for sharing and for the reminder. :)
you are welcome my friend
I agree, Marilyn.
Interesting.
thanks Peter
Times have changed haven't they. Thanks.
they have thank god
Well researched post
thanks Kimber
Anthropology tells us that women tend to lose status in agricultural societies (which includes all nations until the development of industrialization) whereas women have higher status in hunting and gathering societies. Women are rather trapped in an agrarian society. They are tied to the crops they tend and the children they care for. Thus the men do things like politics, war, religion, and going to market while the women produce food, make clothing, perform child care, cook, build the housing, draw water, keep the home fires (hearth) burning, and such mundane tasks.
Therefore, women are economic assets and in most agricultural societies they get a "bride price" for the family that gives them up. It is only in the upper classes in which women do little work in which the dowery comes into play. The bride price is forfeit if the woman is mistreated which protects her to some degree. But because the families are almost always patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrilocal (father has the power, the family tree is traced through the male line, and the bride goes to live in her husband's home) it is clear why she is thought of as property. She actually is property. They bought her. Naturally, her mother-in-law is more important to her than her husband whom she rarely sees.
So you see, the experience of women in Canada is only a natural outgrowth of agricultural society around the world. Aren't you glad you live in an industrial society? Don't you wish the norms had already adjusted to equality for men and women?
no I don't think the normals have adjusted there is still much that needs to be improved,
all soceities started at hunting and gathering societies, but when we get into the 19th century we are now in industrial socieities and men still ruled, they today in 2009 some soceities around the world still live with women being oppressed, industrial or not, and though in the west things are better for women generally speaking than in the east, women are still not equal to men, but yes they have come a long way since the time they were not even considered persons under the law.
Please go back and read that last sentence of mine again. What I wrote was not what you read.
I said that there was no equality as yet but that things would be better once that equality was attained.
thanks Larry then we are of the same mine, that is great!
... great read Carol ! thanks for sharing ...
... it makes it all the more important now - that if a woman has the freedom to live a life that is relatively her own choosing ... how much better should she learn to live it with great love toward, equity, integrity, morality, justice, & the human essence of spirituality!
latest chapter from book - Worth Your Salt - Chapter Six
thank you c.l.
I don't know how the idea that women were somehow inferior to men ever got started; perhaps a misunderstanding of something written in the Bible? In any case women are and have always been the equal of men, not the same, but equal. Their roles are different, but, like the two wings of a bird, both must be equal, otherwise the bird flies around in a circle and gets nowhere. The sooner women get equal rights with men everywhere in the world the sooner will we enjoy universal peace and prosperity.
long long before the bible my friend, it was though of since the beginning of time, when the cave man dragged hiw woman around by the hair on her head.
What an amazing article! Great information :-)
thank you Pamela
A very refreshing article. Well done and thank you for sharing.
you are welcome bunny
Excellent history, Carol, and I did not know ANY of this about Canadian history of women's rights...
I did I was a canadian history major the first year of university before I transgered over to psychology
Since our beginning, we have been "natural" and have governed ourselves just as Chimpanzees and baboons govern themselves, by force. Our modern partisan politics is a prime example, just a more sophisticated looking form of chest beating, false charges, fighting and taking the most bananas. The largest male dominated the males and females and the largest female (and/or boldest) dominated the females. We are just now coming out of that atavistic paradigm with regards to women and women's place. However, the Bible reinforces that paradigm and those who cling tenaciously to the Bible literally accept that paradigm as "right." The Bible was written (and originally given orally to man) for man when he was not sophisticated enough evolutionally speaking to do otherwise. We have reached a turning point in history and are just beginning to "come around" to a more humane and sensible form of social interaction. We need to modernize our religious thinking (as God intends for us to do by bringing more modern revelations) and consequently modernize our more human potential of operating. But too many people still resist "growing up" and want to behave as wild "teenagers" socially. It has only been in the last hundred years that this animalistic view of the place of women vs men in society has been even questioned seriously. We are still in our nascent, "growing up" stage.
So true.
Well in my mind I feel about 9 years old. It's just this silly body that thinks it's approaching 70.
Perhaps I can understant our culture still being a "teenager" in many ways.
You are right Donald and Thomas.
The bible is not a book that equalizes women.
The Bible does two things:
1. It is a record of social conditions at the time it was written
2. It teaches a better way to live, a way in accordance with God's will for man.
excellent comments Donald
As I love Regency novels and have studied history for the past few years, I am painfully aware of how women were treated unfairly for many years. Even after they fought for rights and won them, men still did not want to uphold the law.
It would take many years, when women got the right to vote, to truly make a huge difference.
Even then, it still took a long time for men to accept women as equals. And, give them their God given rights.
some men still don't see women as equals,
Interesting and informative article Carol.
thanks linda
Thanks Carol. I continue to tell my daughters how blessed they are that there were women who came before them that chose to fight the status quo of women. Both of my girls were strong athletes and I shared with them the progess that has been made in the US to guarantee females athletes equal opportunities. During their high school days the girls got the guys hand me down track suits (gaping armholes and all) until a group of mothers reminded them that the school wasn't following the law. It was amazing when the girls got new track uniforms designed for females! They were so proud of them.
I can't believe they got boys uniforms what were these people thinking
They weren't thinking!
Even worse was what they called "bra check" for the girls in track and cross country races. All of the girls bras had to match so it was someone's job to check to see if they matched. If they didn't they had to switch bras with another team member or not compete. I questioned the policy and they claimed that bras were part of the uniform. I explained that bras were support devices and that they should be checking guys for what they were wearing as "support devices." They informed the coach that I was a trouble maker. There were many crazy issues like race officials smoking at the end of the races (both of my daughters were severe asthmatics.) It was wild what was considered acceptable.
incredible
Our suffragettes went through the same nightmare. Our rights were among the last to be granted.
Wierd isn't it. Men would not even exist if their non person mothers did not bear and raise them.
canada actually followed the american movement I am going to do the american movement as I said but I believe they were first.
I believe that even without changes in laws, women were always equal, perhaps not in the eyes of the law, but in the eyes of God, for without women, there would be no propogation of the human race. Women are the nurturers, the one who does the raising and teaching of the children. They take care of the men, who really need taking care of, for in most cases, men cannot be successful without a good woman behind them, even today. I just read Sharons comment above me, I guess we think a lot alike.
they were never equal in the eyes of men until this century, even in the eyes of God, count how many women ministers you new of when you were growing up? orthdox jewish women even in the united states and canada can't even sit in the room at synagoge with the men, who are their husbands women and children are separate and cannot even enter the same door but pass through a side door if there are separate door to the hall.
The old view of women as property and not persons is the reason I did not take my husband's name when when married. He offered to take mine though. ;)
here in quebec a woman has no choice, she must keep her maiden name that is the law
This is really interesting. What is sad still in some homes woman aren't treated equal, even in some countries.
even in homes in any country in the world,
That is what I was trying to say it didn't come our right sorry.
It's crazy how far along we've come. Interesting and well written article. Thanks again. :D
thank you Lisa
What a great topic! Yes, we've come a long way, and it has taken a long, long time, and there's still more that needs to be done.
absolutely
We have really come a long way. It is because of these fighters that we are able to live the lives we live today.
yes again absolutely!
Good article. Not all change is bad, and a world that doesn't change would have left us where we were.
that is so true
... the other end of the stick is ... with all of this 'freedom' women have found ... there must remain a balance also. it seems that our own government has taken our freedoms & used them against us - hence our double incomes - double bills as far as insurance for cars, medical etc ... also now our beloved America is suffering from lack of motherhood being taken seriously - or the other direction where mothers have become social directors that still do not profit the family in general. this list could go on ...
then there is the other side single mothers and kids practically starving to death, men in the same position still make more money on the average.
thanks!
you are welcome chas
Women's rights are still underrated, and not given the attention they so deserve still today. It may end up being decades more before this ever ends. Or at least in maybe a couple to 6 more years from now. Time will tell. There are some really smart cookies (both women and men), and they both should be treated with the same respect, illregardless of their gender, as long as they both can do the same job. The movie G.I. Jane was a great movie protraying that fact. Women ROCK!
yes there is still so many things that are not equal yet, I hope you read my entire series
I'm ashamed to say that I do not know who these women are. I now know and I appreciate their struggle. Thank you for sharing them with us.
for one they are canadian, and even canadians don't even no who they are, that really is a shame, I have a series of woman's rights going on now I hope you will read it.
I knew some of this, but it is still hard to imagine how different things once were.
yep it is really hard to think about it I could not imagine not being a person
This is so hard 2 imagine - but of course u r right! obviously women & men r equal - it's just a matter of peace in the world more than anything. I mean, yes men challenge (& r often threatened) by female power - but men r just as threatened & challenged by other men.
It is obvious that females choose the male they r going 2 be with - so in any culture where there r 'arranged' marriages, that is unnatural.
Oppression will not last forever - it can't - & there r many activists that r working towards change within the cultures that r still practicing oppression.