Women In The 1920s

The decade of the 1920s was a period of change. In Canada many famous and important events occurred during that time, for example Canada joined the League of Nations; The Indian Act was amended to give Canadian aboriginal peoples the right to vote; The Ottawa Senators won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Seattle Metropolitans. The discussed in the present essay is the first wave of feminism that was also taking place in that time. It was then that women openly realized that their political and economic situation was absolutely unsatisfactory, and they started to demand for same rights as men had, including the rights to vote and to get qualified jobs. But To what extent did the feminists of the 1920s achieve their goals? Women's status in the
On May 24, 1918 the Canada Elections Act gave all women over 21 the right to vote. It was by the Dominion Elections Act that the uniform franchise was established on July 1st, 1920 and the right for women to be elected to Parliament was made permanent [1]. The 1920s was full of biographies of famous women that stood out and became pioneers of new areas of society, which previously had been unexplored by women. One of such women was Agnes MacPhail, who became the first female Member of Parliament, originally a schoolteacher in Ontario. She was elected in 1921, at the first federal election in which women were allowed the vote, and she successfully fought for old-age pensions, prison reform, and farmers' co-operatives. She was also the first female delegate to the League of Nations. In addition to that, she was representing women's issues and created the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada, an association that operates in the present and which goals have been to work with and for women and girls in the justice system, particularly those who are, or may be, criminalized [2]. Another big example of such women is Mary Ellen Smith, who was appointed to the provincial legislative Cabinet in British Columbia, and was the first female Cabinet minister. [3] Winnifred Blair, Miss Canada of the Montréal winter carnival, yet another suffragist pioneer was the
Women were still expected to be doing the chores and taking care of the children, rather than economically maintain the family. This explains the situation in those years: men were first, men could get a better place, and men ruled the world. There is a very good representation of the situation with jobs for both men and women. "During the 1920s there was a rise in the average size of business units. Newer and larger enterprises began to invest in human resource departments that designed schemes, which aimed principally to reduce the turnover of skilled male workers. Even before the depression, a distinguishing characteristic of large firms was their two-tiered employment systems in which women's positions were less secure." [14] Since men ruled the world, they wanted their profitable places secured, so most did not like the new upcoming changes, and they enforced rules that it was easier for men to get a job. Introduction of minimum wages was to insure that women were getting the minimum descent payment for their jobs, but that gave men a chance to get a stabilised earning, so instead of protecting women, this gave firms an opportunity to hire men in manufacturing. [15] Historically it happened that men dominated in the majority of industries including regulated and protected industries, like in legal and business sectors. A woman employed in office administration found herself in a much