Women's Rights 1910-1930

Women Woman’s Rights (1910-1930) Did they Gained Greater Rights? Women in Canada between 1910 and 1930 acquired greater equality with men by gaining more educational opportunities, more political clout, and higher paying skilled jobs in the workforce. Women spent many years to gather up the trust so the men would treat them as equal citizens. One specific time that they gained significant roles was the 20th century. During this time the women were more noticed as persons with significant gains.
One of the women’s greatest gains was to getting a better education. Women that got the better education usually got a job that had higher pay then the conventional jobs that the women had done.
“By 1900, 250 women were enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and affiliated colleges of University of Toronto, 117 at Queen’s University, and 17 at McMaster.”1 The women who were enrolled in arts soon got a better job. These better jobs helped the women get a better job which got them a better standard of living. Better standard living
means they have more money to spend on make-up, clothes etc. Other than that, women eventually had enough money to move out, so they can leave their parents have individual lives as regular citizens. With this better education, it helped them during World War II as they were not only serving as nurses. Since these women got a degree, they soon were designing guns for the soldiers to use across the ocean.
1. Cook, McLean, O’Rourke, Framing Our Past p. 160
The women gained better in the political state throughout the 20th century. Women were elected into the members of parliament. Women soon gained the right to vote. But the women were still limited to only white women. Though it was limited to white women, this was a great achievement for the women. This stand point helped many women get into political jobs. As soon as the women got the right to vote, they started voting for women into the political stance. Other than supporting their own sex, men soon realized that the women had great potential. Agnes C. Macphail as the first Member of Parliament, she gave the women better rights such as allowing the women to divorce and so it’s not only the male’s choice, but a woman’s decision as well.
“Through her association with Winnipeg labour MP James Shaver Woodsworth, Macphail acquired a social democratic philosophy that sustained her as farmers ceased being a direct influence to politics” 2
As Agnes Macphail progressed through, she contributed to the formation of the new party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, later the New Democratic Party. This brought many jobs together which then made a social democratic reform. Sadly during the 1940 election, she lost and didn’t get the vote back into the Member of Parliament.
”Agnes Macphail failed to get re-elected in the 1940 wartime election when she unwisely attacked Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King.” 3

2.
Cook, McLean, O’Rourke, Framing Our Past p. 213-214
3. Cook, McLean, O’Rourke, Framing Our Past p. 214

As the women progressed through life, the women knew that they can’t work with just lower paying jobs. So women decided to get better education and which then they got better jobs in the workplace. The better paying jobs got them further in life. With the money they had, the women usually bought products for themselves. With the better education, they soon were better educated about sex. But there were ones that were not so lucky.
“Many of the women were poorly treated as they were physically or sexually abused” 4
With that being said, women often did not have the right to choose to have sex or not. Since majority of the women were still not educated, they often had suffrages. One woman named Idola Saint-Jean stated:
“Tomorrow the Legislature will for the fifth time receive a bill demanding suffrage for the women of this province.”
5 With higher paying jobs, the women’s suffrage wouldn’t have occurred and women would live happily along with the males in the society. Higher paying jobs do not come in by just the time they worked because the employers will often discriminate the women by giving them a lower paying job and expel them if they were married. Women did not work in good conditions either. They were forced to work in sweatshops or assembly plants. Woman eventually gained better working conditions as some of the better well off educated women decided to inform the government on this serious problem.
4. Judy Giles, The Parlour of the Suburb p. 61
5. Station, Unfolding Power: Documents p. 85

Overall, women gained greater equality such as gaining more education opportunities, a better political clout and getting higher paying skilled jobs. Many women spent many years to gained many rights. This paid off significantly when they got the right to vote, to the first women in Members of Parliament. Many gains did not take one night to build itself up; it took many years and many generations for the women to gain better rights.