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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 this book, 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. 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.

This thesis examines the role of women in Canadian socialist parties from the 1920's to the post-World War II period, by focusing on women involved in the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the primary manifestations of organized socialism during these years. Concentrating on two regions, Ontario and the West, the thesis explores three major themes: the distinct role women played within each Party, the Party's view of the woman question, and the construction of women's committees within each Party. The thesis explains why women were drawn to the socialist movement, assesses the successes and failures of each Party's program for women's equality, and suggests how and when feminist and socialist ideas intersected within the Canadian Left. The written history of the Canadian Left has largely neglected socialists' views of the woman question and women's role in the CPC and CCF. Although 'women were concentrated in less powerful positions, they did play an important, and distinctive, role in the making of Canadian socialism. Moreover, attention to women's social and economic inequality was a concern of Canadian socialists. Between 1920 and 1950, however, women's emancipation was never a priority for socialists. This thesis explains some of the reasons, both internal and external to the movement, for the secondary status of the woman question. Because the CCF and CPC emerged from different ideological traditions, their views of the woman question varied, and this thesis contrasts the two Parties' definition of women's issues and their commitment to women's emancipation. At the same time, there were some similarities between the two Parties, such as their attempts to link women's maternal and domestic roles with their political consciousness. The thesis also suggests ways on which socialists' ideas resembled the earlier ideology of womanhood and reform termed 'maternal feminism' and how their ideas, shaped by a different class perspective and social context, differed from the earlier feminists.

This article reviews the book, "A Woman's Place: An Oral History of Working-Class Women, 1890-1914," by Elizabeth Roberts.

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. --Publisher's description. Originally published: Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989. Contents: Preface --Theory and practice: early Canadian socialists explore the woman question -- The Communist Party of Canada confronts the woman question -- Red revolutionaries and pink tea pacifists: communist and socialist women in the early 1930's -- Militant mothering: women in the early CCF -- More militant mothering: communist women during the popular front -- From working for war to prices and peace: communist women during the 1940's -- The CCF confronts the woman question -- Conclusion: women and the party question.

This paper analyzes the Communist Party of Canada's view of the woman question, the role women played in the party, and the party's successes and failures in its attempts to organize working-class women. The Communist Party's view of the woman question was shaped by the advice of the USSR and the Communist International, as well as by the party's social base and the political understanding of its own membership. The Communist Party's Women's Department helped to create a new national organization for women, the Women's Labor Leagues, which, led by Florence Custance, experienced substantial growth in the 1920s. The Communist Party gave more attention to women's inequality than had previous socialist parties, although it failed to live up to its stated aims to organize working-class women and encourage women's participation in the revolutionary movement.

This paper traces the rise and fall in Ontario of the Workers Educational Association (WEA), a voluntary association whose main purpose was to organize inexpensive, non-credit night classes taught by university professors for the working class. The Association was an offshoot of the British WEA. ln Ontario the main impetus for establishing an Association in 1918 came from members of Toronto's intellectual elite. One of their aims was to teach labour people "responsible behaviour" at a time when the labour movement seemed to be gaining influence and becoming more radical. Working-class people within the WEA proved less malleable than the academics had hoped, and the Association soon became a workers' organization, largely controlled by some of its working-class members. It offered many liberal arts courses and, in the late 1930s and 1940s, developed innovative labour education and research programmes which proved of lasting benefit to the labour movement. Although continually threatened by the University of Toronto administration, the WEA failed in the 1950s because certain labour leaders, using Cold War tactics, opposed a labour educational institution that they could not control.

This collection of essays focuses on the experiences of women as poliutical activists in twentieth-century Canada, both in the mainstream of party politics and in groups outside the mainstream. The latter include women in the socialist and labour movements, the farm and peace movements, and women active in variouss ethnic communities. Expanding the notion of politics, the authors highlight the widespread naturee of women's activism - particularly at the local level - and challenge the easy formulation that women were primarily interest in the vote and lost interest in politics when they acquired it. Some of the essays suggest that even the suffrage campaign has been misrepresented as solely a middle-class movement. Women evolved their own styles of political pparticipation shaped by local contexts, class, culture, family, and life cycle. Women often organized at the community level, and worked both in combination with men and in women-only settings. Contributors to the volume explore women's involvement in organizations from the political left to right, and women's efforts to shape Canada's political priorities and activities. Politically minded women often found that their best outless for commitment and service was through women's organizations, which addressed their needs and provided a base for effective action. --Publisher's description