My perspective - Nice women...
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- Published on Friday, March 11, 2016
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
One hundred years ago, 水果视频 women won the right to vote in provincial elections. We were the pathfinders, the first Canadian province to extend voting rights to women. It was a monumental shift and can teach us valuable lessons about working together towards a seemingly impossible goal.
The women鈥檚 suffrage movement started slowly building momentum in the latter half of the 1800s. By the 1900s, it drew its support from a wide variety of sources. When a large delegation appeared before the 水果视频 legislature in January of 1914, to present the case for granting women the right to vote in provincial elections, it included a diverse group of men and women. The group included representatives from the Women鈥檚 Christian Temperance Union, the Political Equality League, the Grain Growers鈥� Association, the Young Women鈥檚 Christian Association, the Trades and Labor Council, the Icelandic Women鈥檚 Suffrage Association and the Canadian Women鈥檚 Press Club.
It鈥檚 amazing to think of how far we have come. In response to that January 1914 delegation, Conservative 水果视频 premier, Sir Rodmond Roblin, said, 鈥淢ost women鈥on鈥檛 want the vote.鈥� He, like many others, believed that a woman has 鈥渁 hundredfold more influence in shaping public opinion around her dinner table than she would have in the market place.鈥� Nice women did not want to vote was the common argument early suffragettes faced.
In both Canada and the US, women in the west were the first to win the right to vote. Like 水果视频, Saskatchewan women also won the right to vote in 1916, followed by women in Alberta and B.C. It wasn鈥檛 until 1918 that women won the right to vote in Federal elections. In the US, women in the Wyoming Territory won the right to vote in 1869, in Utah in 1870, in Colorado in 1893 and in Idaho in 1896.
What was it about these prairie women and their supporters that made them the pathfinders?
We can credit much of it to the type of people who made their homes on the prairies and western frontiers. The prairies were home to many well educated and well informed women. In 水果视频, the leaders were predominantly professionals and often university educated. The core group included physicians, such as Mary Crawford and Amelia and Lillian Yeomans; journalists, such as Cora Hind and Lillian and Francis Beynon and Nellie McClung, who began her career as a teacher but went on to become a popular writer.
These women wanted fairness and equality in areas such as voting rights, property and dower laws and the provision of health and wellbeing to the greater community. Also, the cities tended to attract independent women seeking similar prospects as those that were available to their brothers and to that end, became politically involved. These women, most of whom came from the east, had economic security and access to men in power, those who had the ability to change legislation.
But it wasn鈥檛 just the women in the cities. The frontier life required an equal partnership between men and women to develop a homestead into a viable farming operation. They played a more active and visible role in the family鈥檚 success or failure. On western Canada鈥檚 farms, women worked along side their husbands, but regardless of their land holding before their marriage, once married, women had no legal claim to any part of her husband鈥檚 estate if she were widowed or separated. Pioneer women were prominent in farm organizations, which in addition to enfranchisement, pushed for changes to property law.
On March 8, we celebrated International Women鈥檚 Day. This year鈥檚 theme was celebrating the social, cultural and economic achievements of women. Here in Canada, we enjoy not just the right to vote in elections, but the ability to pursue any opportunities we so choose; this is not the case around the world. The enfranchisement of women in the 1900s didn鈥檛 tear society apart, as predicted by those in power at the time, but improved it. We should remember this, and the partnerships that made it possible, as we seek to improve equality at home and around the world.
