History Post-confederation (1867-)
Dreams of Equality
Women on the Canadian Left, 1920-1950
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Initial publish date
- Apr 1989
- Category
- Post-Confederation (1867-), Native American
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780771079467
- Publish Date
- Apr 1989
- List Price
- $31.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781442659636
- Publish Date
- Dec 1989
- List Price
- $43.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442656055
- Publish Date
- Dec 1989
- List Price
- $33.95
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
Canadian women on the political left in the first half of the twentieth century fought with varying degrees of commitment for women's rights. Women's dreams of equality were in part a vision of economic and class equality, though they also represented profound desires for equality with men - both within their own parties and in the larger society. In both the Communist Party of Canada and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a male-dominated leadership seldom embraced women's causes wholeheartedly or as a doctrinal priority. So-called women's issues, whether birth control, consumer issues, or equal pay, usually took second place to an emphasis on the general needs of workers or farmers. Nonetheless, many women continued to promote their feminist causes through the socialist movement, in the hope that, eventually, the socialist New Jerusalem would see their dreams of equality fulfilled.
In Dreams of Equality, Joan Sangster chronicles in fascinating detail the first tentative stages of a politically aware women's movement in Canada, from the time of women's suffrage to the 1950's when the CPC went into decline and the CCF began to experience the changes that would evolve into the New Democratic Party a decade later.
About the author
Joan Sangster is a professor of women's studies and history at Trent University, where she also teaches at the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Native Studies. Her most recent books are Girl Trouble: Female 'Delinquency' in English Canada and Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada.
Other titles by
Essays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume XII
New Essays in Women's History
Demanding Equality
One Hundred Years of Canadian Feminism
The Violence of Work
New Essays in Canadian and US Labour History
One Hundred Years of Struggle
The History of Women and the Vote in Canada
The Iconic North
Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada
Through Feminist Eyes
Essays on Canadian Women’s History
Transforming Labour
Women and Work in Postwar Canada
Labouring Canada
Class, Gender, and Race in Canadian Working-Class History
Girl Trouble
Female Delinquency in English Canada
Regulating Girls and Women
Sexuality, Family, and the Law in Ontario, 1920-1960