What range of possibilities might appear on the horizon to a young woman today as she contemplates her future compared to those envisioned by a young woman 150 years ago? And how would her daily life be different? The degree of change in women's lives in Canada over the last 150 years is staggering, and much is the result of the fight for greater equality. How did this change take place? Establishing equality as a fact of daily life has been a protracted struggle, and one that remains far from finished. Over the last century and a half since Confederation, this struggle has taken on a unique character in Canada, given our country's peculiar circumstances. Lorna R. Marsden, sociologist and activist-who has herself been involved in the action-chronicles the circumstances, the people, and the social changes that have characterized women's journey down the long road toward equality. Her account considers changes brought about by such forces as war, immigration, and public health, as well as other complex historical changes, such as legal evolution and employment opportunities. This fascinating book is full of insight, little known facts (for example, many women could vote as early as 1791 in some parts of Canada), and an understanding of the complex ways that a society like Canada can and does change. It also reminds us that there is still a distance to go in the journey toward equality.

On the eve of celebrating the 100th anniversary of women's right to vote in Canada comes a timely reassessment of everything Canadians thought they knew about the history of women, the vote, and democracy in our nation

For one hundred years women fashioned different dreams of equality, autonomy, and dignity; yet what is Canadian feminism? In Demanding Equality, Joan Sangster explores feminist thought and organizing from mid-nineteenth-century, Enlightenment-inspired writing to the multi-issue movement of the 1980s.She broadens our definition of feminism, and – recognizing that its political, cultural, and social dimensions are entangled – builds a picture of a heterogeneous movement often characterized by fierce internal debates. This comprehensive rear-view look at feminism in all its political guises encourages a wider public conversation about what Canadian feminism has been, is, and should be.

Radical Housewives is a history of Canada’s Housewives Consumers Association. This association was a community-based women’s organization with ties to the communist and social democratic left that, from 1937 until the early 1950s, led a broadly based popular movement for state control of prices and made other far-reaching demands on the state. As radical consumer activists, the Housewives engaged in gender-transgressive political activism that challenged the government to protect consumers’ interests rather than just those of business while popularizing socialist solutions to the economic crises of the Great Depression and the immediate postwar years. Julie Guard's exhaustive research, including archival research and interviews with twelve former Housewives, recovers a history of women’s social justice activism in an era often considered dormant and adds a Canadian dimension to the history of politicized consumerism and of politicized materialism. Radical Housewives reinterprets the view of postwar Canada as economically prosperous and reveals the left’s role in the origins of the food security movement.

This collection of essays explores the often antagonistic relationship between women and political life in Canada. While women make up little over half of the total population in Canada, they are in many ways conspicuous by their absence from the Canadian political scene. Published in English.

The early Salvation Army professed its commitment to sexual equality in ministry and leadership. In fact, its founding constitution proclaimed women had the right to preach and hold any office in the organization. But did they? Women in God’s Army is the first study of its kind devoted to the critical analysis of this central claim. It traces the extent to which this egalitarian ideal was realized in the private and public lives of first- and second-generation female Salvationists in Britain and argues that the Salvation Army was found wanting in its overall commitment to women’s equality with men. Bold pronouncements were not matched by actual practice in the home or in public ministry. Andrew Mark Eason traces the nature of these discrepancies, as well as the Victorian and evangelical factors that lay behind them. He demonstrates how Salvationists often assigned roles and responsibilities on the basis of gender rather than equality, and the ways in which these discriminatory practices were supported by a male-defined theology and authority. He views this story from a number of angles, including historical, gender and feminist theology, ensuring it will be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers. Salvationists themselves will appreciate the light it sheds on recent debates. Ultimately, however, anyone who wants to learn more about the human struggle for equality will find this book enlightening.

In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie travelled the 1,125 miles of the immense river in Canada that now bears his name, in search of the fabled Northwest Passage. In 2016, the acclaimed memoirist Brian Castner retraced Mackenzie's route by canoe in a grueling journey—in search of Mackenzie's Passage 200 years later. Disappointment River is a dual historical narrative and travel memoir that at once transports readers back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of energy extraction and climate change. Fourteen years before Lewis and Clark, Mackenzie set off to cross the continent of North America with a team of voyageurs and Chipewyan guides. In this book, Brian Castner not only retells the story of Mackenzie's epic voyages in vivid prose, he personally retraces his travels in an 1,125-mile canoe voyage down the river that bears his name, battling exhaustion, exposure, mosquitoes, white water rapids and the threat of bears. He transports readers to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote indigenous villages and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that has the potential of becoming a far-northern Mississippi of barges and pipelines and oil money.

Many women who lived through the Second World War believed it heralded new status and opportunities. But did it? Making the Best of It examines how gender and other identities intersected to shape the experiences of female Canadians and Newfoundlanders during the war. The contributors to this thoughtful collection consider mainstream and minority populations, girls and women, and different parts of Canada and Newfoundland in their essays. Ultimately, they lay a foundation for a better understanding of the ways in which the lives of Canadian women and girls were altered during and after the 1940s.

In the vein of Tim Wise’s White Like Me and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, The Time Has Come —by co-founder of the White Ribbon campaign Michael Kaufman — offers a plain-spoken and forthright look at why and how men must actively fight for gender equality. From founding the White Ribbon Campaign, the world’s largest organized effort of men working to end violence against women, in the early 1990s, to his appointment as the only male member of the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council, Michael Kaufman has been a major figure in promoting social justice and women’s rights for decades. Now, in The Time Has Come, he issues a stirring call for men to mobilize in the movement for gender equality. Weaving together sociological data, personal experiences, and insights gleaned from decades of work with governments and NGOs around the globe, Kaufman explores topics ranging from domestic violence to parental leave, grappling with the ways in which a culture of toxic masculinity hurts women and men (and their children). Informative and provocative, The Time Has Come demonstrates how real gender equality creates advancements in both the workplace and the global economy, and urges men to become dedicated allies in dismantling the patriarchy.

"British Columbia is often overlooked in the national story of women's struggle for political equality. This book rights that wrong. A Great Revolutionary Wave follows the propaganda campaigns undertaken by suffrage organizations and traces the role of working-class women in the fight for political equality. It demonstrates the connections between provincial and British suffragists, and examines how racial exclusion and Indigenous dispossession shaped arguments and tactics for enfranchisement. Lara Campbell rethinks the complex legacy of suffrage and traces the successes and limitations of women's historical fight for political equality. That legacy remains relevant today as Canadians continue to grapple with the meaning of justice, inclusion, and equality."--