A timely and relevant collection of stories about groundbreaking Canadian women, present and past. Canadian women have long been trailblazers, often battling incredible odds and discrimination in the process. Here are biographies of more than one hundred of these remarkable women, from the famous to the lesser known. There are activists and architects, engineers and explorers, poets and politicians and so many more. Each category pairs a historical groundbreaker with a present-day woman making her mark in that same field. Together, these women tell the story of Canada. And together, they offer a vision of what’s possible. A unique look at Canadian history sure to inspire all children to blaze trails of their own.
Over the past one hundred and fifty years, and most especially since the late 1960s, Canadian women have made a remarkable contribution to world literature. Carol Shields won the Pulitzer Prize; Margaret Atwood, Janette Turner Hospital, Anne Michaels, and Carol Shields were short listed forthe Booker Award; Atwood and Michaels were nominated for the Orange. This anthology enocmpasses over a century and a half of writing by Canadian women. The stories collected here represent a cross-section of the best writing by women in the genre and demonstrate a wide range of styles from therealistic to the post-modern and experimental. All the stories are about women: in childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age; in relationships such as daughters, sisters, lovers, mothers; in a variety of social and political contexts. Though all authors are Canadian by birth or choice, nationalityand gender have different meanings for each of them. But all write confidently and eloquently of their experience as women. At the end of the last century, no one could have predicted such wealth in women's writing. Now we have only to celebrate it.This collection of highly readable stories is ideal for the trade market while at the same time Rosemary Sullivan establishes a canon of stories for the university/college market. These are writers engaging with many different genres, including historical fiction, domestic drama and more abstractintrospection. No reader will fail to be amused, enthralled, intrigued, or invigorated.
An enthralling and irresistible collection of twenty-two established writers and talented new voices who attest to the richness and continued popularity of the short story.
Canadian Women in Print, 1750—1918 is the first historical examination of women’s engagement with multiple aspects of print over some two hundred years, from the settlers who wrote diaries and letters to the New Women who argued for ballots and equal rights. Considering women’s published writing as an intervention in the public sphere of national and material print culture, this book uses approaches from book history to address the working and living conditions of women who wrote in many genres and for many reasons. This study situates English Canadian authors within an extensive framework that includes francophone writers as well as women’s work as compositors, bookbinders, and interveners in public access to print. Literary authorship is shown to be one point on a spectrum that ranges from missionary writing, temperance advocacy, and educational texts to journalism and travel accounts by New Woman adventurers. Familiar figures such as Susanna Moodie, L.M. Montgomery, Nellie McClung, Pauline Johnson, and Sara Jeannette Duncan are contextualized by writers whose names are less well known (such as Madge Macbeth and Agnes Laut) and by many others whose writings and biographies have vanished into the recesses of history. Readers will learn of the surprising range of writing and publishing performed by early Canadian women under various ideological, biographical, and cultural motivations and circumstances. Some expressed reluctance while others eagerly sought literary careers. Together they did much more to shape Canada’s cultural history than has heretofore been recognized.
New Women is an anthology of short fiction written by Canadian women between 1900 and 1920. The carefully selected stories by writers such as L.M. Montgomery, Nellie McClung, and Marjorie Pickthall provide dramatic and imaginative glimpses of Canadian society and of the women who lived during those momentous years.
Where are the women in Canada’s international history? Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds answers this question in a comprehensive volume that explores the role of women in Canadian international affairs. Foreign policy historians have traditionally focused on powerful men. Though hidden, forgotten, or ignored, this book shows that women have also shaped Canada’s relations with the world over the past century – whether as activists, missionaries, aid workers, diplomats or diplomatic spouses. Breaking Barriers, Shaping Worlds examines the lives and careers of professional women working abroad as doctors, nurses, or economic development advisors; women fighting for change as anti-war, anti-nuclear, or Indigenous rights activists; and women engaged in traditional diplomacy. This wide-ranging collection reveals the vital contribution of women to the search for global order that has been a hallmark of Canada’s international history.
The Great Canadian Woman is all of us. She is the single mother who provides for her children come hell or high water. She is the woman who has a dream, and musters up enough courage to go after it. She is the woman who has quarreled in the depths of pain and grief and finds her way back home to herself. She is the woman who says "no" to what does not serve her. She is the woman who says "enough is enough", and commits to a new way of living. She is the woman who finds the strength to leave toxic relationships. She is the woman who knows unconditional love. She is the woman who takes the lead and lights the torch. She is the woman who refuses to accept the limits that someone else placed before her. She is the woman who knocks down doors, and shatters glass ceilings. She is the woman who finds a way out of no way then turns around, extends her hand, and brings as many people as she can along with her. The following women all co-authored this book: Sarah Swain Margot Gaudet Jessica De Castro Megan Harmony Olivia Shwetz Falon Malec Rose Finlay Sarah Swain Barbara McBryer Patricia Coulter Brenda Wiese Shannon Miller Susan Ruhe Koa Hughes Stephanie Goudreault The women who have shared their sacred stories in this book are warriors of light. They are some of the most resilient women we have ever encountered and we are humbled by their courageous journeys. They exemplify what it means to be The Great Canadian Woman, Strong and Free. Their voices give hope to other women, that they too can change the trajectory of their lives, if the course they are travelling doesn't serve them. Their expertise and insight inspire women to make better choices for themselves and take empowered action towards their lives with intention. Their stories grant us all the permission to live fully, love deeply and to fight like hell in the name of happiness. We are so proud of each and every one of them.
What range of possibilities might appear on the horizon to a young woman today as she contemplates her future compared to those envisioned by a young woman 150 years ago? And how would her daily life be different? The degree of change in women's lives in Canada over the last 150 years is staggering, and much is the result of the fight for greater equality. How did this change take place? Establishing equality as a fact of daily life has been a protracted struggle, and one that remains far from finished. Over the last century and a half since Confederation, this struggle has taken on a unique character in Canada, given our country's peculiar circumstances. Lorna R. Marsden, sociologist and activist-who has herself been involved in the action-chronicles the circumstances, the people, and the social changes that have characterized women's journey down the long road toward equality. Her account considers changes brought about by such forces as war, immigration, and public health, as well as other complex historical changes, such as legal evolution and employment opportunities. This fascinating book is full of insight, little known facts (for example, many women could vote as early as 1791 in some parts of Canada), and an understanding of the complex ways that a society like Canada can and does change. It also reminds us that there is still a distance to go in the journey toward equality.
Western feminists have long treated the rule of law as an essential ingredient of social justice; however, as the contributors to this collection remind us, meaningful justice remains out of reach for many women and racialized minorities precisely because the law turns a blind eye to the inequities that structure their daily lives. In fourteen chapters that open vital debates about the erosion of the welfare state and the media's complicity in concealing political injustice, Within the Confines details the brutal ironies of a society that criminalizes the vulnerable while absolving the elite. Distinctive in its focus on Canada, the book traces the linkages among racial, ethnic, sexual, and economic vulnerability and reveals the inadequacies of legislative approaches to socio-historical problems such as drug trafficking, homelessness, infanticide, and the legacies of settler colonial violence. In accessible prose, the authors dismantle the myths behind topics that are often sensationalized in the media-pornography, single motherhood, sex work, filicide, gangs, domestic abuse, prison conditions, HIV nondisclosure-and present alternative arguments that expose the justice system's role in widening the gap between the rich and the poor. What emerges is a poignant challenge to the neoliberal fable that women and minorities in Western democracies now enjoy full equality and an urgent call to action for those who seek to shift institutional norms in more equitable directions. A valuable resource for a wide range of fields, including criminology, sociology, social anthropology, gender studies, political science, social work, and legal history, this multidisciplinary volume offers a fresh perspective on the disturbingly predictable judgments that criminalized women face in Canada.
