Women's Suffrage In Canada

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They Fought, They Inspired: 100th Anniversary of Women’s First Right to Vote

Gender equality had always been a vast topic for the ancients to solve and for modern society to improve on. From the society's early beginning of Masculinity to the gender equality contemporary world that we are maintaining, year 2016 has been exactly a century since women in Canada had first received their right to vote in the 20th century. In today’s world, it is not uncommon or abnormal for abounding amounts of females voting or running for political parties. This hundred-year recognition was earned through many female’s and male’s withstand to rights for women to vote. Many trials and obstacles were present for women when they were fighting for their right …show more content…

While the understanding of women’s right to vote was still new to the prairies in Canada, the movement for women’s right to vote was not a new for other parts of the world. In the United Kingdom, 1832, the first petition of women's suffrage was presented to Parliament, while in Alberta it was not until 1914. Evidently, because European immigrants had already had similar campaigns for the prior knowledge and findings of women’s right to vote, they had more experience and knowledge within the specific topic. The immigrants who had similar ongoing events in their homeland brought their skills and debating facts of rights for women into Canada, making Canada a continuation of their campaign. Regarding this, in United Kingdom in 1907, the Women's Freedom League was formed after a break from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which had caused many young teens and women to be affected by this. Additionally, Icelandic women, who also had the vote in their home country, campaigned for the vote since their arrival in Manitoba in the 1870s, yet it was not seen as a highly attentioned campaigned at that time due to the lack of …show more content…

Due to the a sentence of working men's, women were suggested to do men’s work, such as making clothes for oversea men, filling bullets and shell bombs with materials, and many more occupations and works that were once the ‘privilege’ only to men. After WWI ended, women were forced to leave their occupation and return back to their life as typical ‘house maids’. This did not only cause the women’s anger and rebellion due to the fact that their jobs were taken away from them, but it also planted seeds deeply within women’s hearts of the consciousness of gender inequality. Before women in Canada had ever taken on jobs before, their lives were all about pleasing their men and baring, caring for their children. Women did not have a life of their own before the famous The Person’s case, led by Emily Murphy, Irene Marryat Parlby, Nellie Mooney McClung, Louise Crummy McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edward; however , that is to say after the women in the prairies had granted votes for them. To resume, the newly funded experience for the women due to their new jobs had sparked the courage and anger in them. This can also explain the year of women first received their rights to vote in 1916, barely two years after the outbreak of WWI. While women’s men were away fighting during WWI, votes were given to women during conscription so that the wives could vote in place of their husband.

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