Women’s rights in Canada; How Canadian women fought for their rights

Nowadays women’s rights in Canada is well accepted and respected. Canada is probably one of the last countries in the world when you think about the lack of Women’s rights . Today, Canada is one of the world’s freest and the most justice-driven countries. As stated in the Canadian Human Rights Act and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, people of every race, nationality, sex, color, age, or mental disability are protected under federal law without discrimination.

But Canada wasn’t always a perfect country concerning social issues such as gender equality and women’s rights, there are dark moments in Canada’s history when women had to fight for equal rights, and we are going to cover them, so stay with us.

The progress of Equal Rights

Many of today’s Women’s rights in Canada are the works and campaigns made in the last 100 years. Up until the late 1900s, Canadian women lacked some of the most basic rights that effectively made them be treated as less than a man. Lack of property rights and inability to Vote are examples of the lack of equality in Canadian society. Now, we look at some of the rights acquired by women in the span of 100 years.

Married women’s property rights

As we stated earlier, until the early 1900s, women lacked some of the most basic women’s rights in Canada; after marriage, women had no legal control over their wages and couldn’t own properties. One of the earliest rights given to women was the married women’s property right. Enacted in 1884 in Ontario and 1900 in Manitoba, it gave women the same legal rights as men in these provinces and enabled them to own properties and enter legal agreements. Other provinces followed suit, and Quebec was the last province that signed this act in 1964.

Asking to be defined as a “person.” 

Through the British North American act of 1867, which acted as the constitution, the word “persons” was used to refer to more than one person and “he” when referring to only one. 5 women from Alberta, known as the Famous Five, with the goal of entering the Senate, asked the government if the word, “persons” in the act, did include women. At first, the Supreme Court stated that the “Persons” did not include women. However, after an appeal to the Privy Council was launched, the five lords of the committee all agreed that the word “Persons” included both males and females.

The earlier interpretation of the word was called “a relic of days more barbarous than ours” by the council. After this new interpretation, the women were considered “persons” under the law, and after only one year, Cairine Reay Wilson became the first woman that enters the Canadian Senate, which makes it a crucial point the history of women’s right in Canada.

The Right to Vote

Until the beginning of the 20th century, women’s rights in Canada lacked a key components: They weren’t allowed to vote in both provincial and federal elections.