Demanding Equality: One Hundred Years of Canadian Feminism

For one hundred years women fashioned different dreams of social transformation in their search for equality, autonomy, and dignity; yet what is Canadian feminism? Demanding Equality offers illustrations of feminist thought and organizing from mid-nineteenth-century, Enlightenment-inspired writing to the multi-issue movement of the 1980s. Broadening our definition of feminism – and recognizing that its political, cultural, and social dimensions are entangled – Joan Sangster explores the different pathways pursued to gain equality. She challenges the popular "wave" theory, concluding that feminist activism was continuous, despite changing significantly across decades. Demanding Equality presents a picture of a heterogeneous movement characterized by both alliances and fierce internal debates. This comprehensive rear-view look at feminism in all its political guises encourages a wider public conversation about what Canadian feminism has been, is, and should be.

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 Spreading the Word of Women's Emancipation 2 The Origins of Socialist and Labour Feminism 3 Feminism, Democracy, and Suffrage 4 Reform Feminism and Women's Right to Work 5 Agrarian, Labour, and Socialist Feminism after the First World War 6 Feminism and the Party Question 7 Feminism, War, and Peace 8 Feminism in a Cold War Climate 9 Liberating Feminisms 10 Feminist Organizing in the 1970s and 1980s 11 Afterword: Feminist Challenges of the 1990s and Beyond Notes; Index

About the Author :
Joan Sangster is Vanier Professor Emeritus at Trent University and a past president of the Canadian Historical Association/Société historique du Canada. She is the author of One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada; Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada; and The Iconic North: Cultural Constructions of Aboriginal Life in Postwar Canada.

Review :
"There are few, if any, historians better placed than Joan Sangster to write a history of a century of feminism in Canada... Demanding Equality is a book that is at once capacious in its scope and accessibly written." - Magda Fahrni, Universite du Quebec a Montreal (Labour / Le Travail) Sangster's precisely written yet wideranging book is a tour de force that chronicles the struggles for 'equality, autonomy, and dignity' in all of their rich complexity. - Elaine Coburn, York University (Literary Review of Canada) "Demanding Equality is a formidable book, wide in scope, commendably readable, expansive in content, and convincing in analysis." - Rebecca Priegert Coulter, Professor Emerita, University of Western Ontario. (University of Toronto Quarterly) "In Demanding Equality, Joan Sangster demonstrates the confidence and virtuosity of a well-seasoned scholar at the top of her game." - Sarah Glassford, University of Windsor (Social History) [Demanding Equality] is an impressively balanced account that will undoubtedly become required reading for gender and women's history classes across the country. - Catherine Carstairs, University of Guelph (JACANZ, Vol. 1, Issue 2)