Quebec Suffrage Movement

The Quebec’s Women Suffrage and the Unyielding Responses
Consequently, there were social changes, through urbanization and industrialization, that transformed the social order and the status of women. The first Montreal movement for women suffrage was inspired by the socio-economic developments that was influencing urban reform.22 Their purpose was to change their household role into professions within the urban transformation of society.23 As a result of their social implication, they desired women rights in “public health, the organization of municipal services, work regulation for women and children, access to education, and professional opportunities.”24 Despite their strong will, the first few Quebec women movements had failed and disbanded. Still, they were able to organize the women and give them the potential of their capabilities in politics.
It was not, until 1921, that the Catholic Women’s League, Montreal Local Council of Women and the Fédération National Saint-Jean Baptiste determined to gain Quebec women the right to vote and to disprove the theory that women were unfit for politics.25 Baptiste was able to promote a maternalism movement, meaning the ability to support their arguments with examples of maternity.26 It was also a way to differentiate those who promoted the maternal ideology as a positive aspect of women from the movements striving for equality.27 Although, Baptiste and new women’s committee wanted to change their strategy to support an education campaign, by demonstrating that the right to vote was not to “change their sphere of action in life, but rather to raise and ameliorate social life.”28 In this way, Quebec could see women implicating themselves within society and trying to positively influen...

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...n neutral and inform citizens of the current news. Yet, in their own way, they understood that Quebec was entering the same path as the rest of Canada and adapting to change.

Conclusion
To conclude, the cultural and traditional suppression of Quebec denied the French-Canadian women their right to vote, until 1940. The brief summary of Canadian suffrage was to introduce the general opposition and the reasons for it, while the Quebec situation notes the family foundation of their cultural identity. The delay was due to the unwavering thinking of Quebec, until women created opportunities for themselves to become equal to men. The right to vote was a privilege they were not able to enjoy because of their gender. Hence, the tradition of separating the gender roles was the main argument to which Quebec saw a threat to their basis if women were to become more active.