As evidenced in this week’s posts, women’s suffrage groups have existed since the late 1870’s and a myriad of supporters, opposers, and events have influenced them. To finish off this discussion we will examine the impact World War I had on the suffragist movement. World War I was arguably one of the main driving forces behind women gaining the right to vote nationally; however, as will be examined in this post, this victory was bittersweet.
The fight for equality at the 1917 ballot box became confounded by the need to demonstrate or describe what equality meant. Not all women at this time were thinking of the same concepts or ideas when they fought for this democratic equality, yet they used the same types of words to express their vastly different goals. Women were divided in their opinion as to whether the 1917 right to vote granted a definitive sense of equality, or whether it was simply a figment to cover up an underlying political goal. However, despite such contentions, “the visible, publicly acknowledged wartime work of women encouraged many reformers to press their more comprehensive demands” resulting in an incredible spread of women’s rights and suffrage not only in Canada but around the world. [1]
Due to the country’s colonial status, Canada was automatically at war when Great Britain declared war on Germany in 1914. Canadian troops were extensively involved almost immediately and as a result, “men were expected to fulfill their imperial and masculine duty by soldiering, [and] women’s wartime work was designed to literally and figuratively reinforce men’s service.”[2] As such, and although a temporary aberration, women transcended traditional gender roles by “serving in the war, taking over from men in factories and offices, holding families together while men were overseas, and working in voluntary organizations that supported the war effort.” [3] Given this strong involvement and support from women, it was almost impossible to continue to keep them out of the political sphere.
As a result, the right for women to vote federally came in three stages. First, the Military Voters Act of 1917 was passed which allowed nurses and women in the armed services to vote. Second, the Wartime Election Act extended the vote to women who had a close relative serving overseas. And third, on January 1, 1919, every woman aged 21 or older was given the right to vote in federal elections, “provided she met the same qualifications that a man would require to vote in her province.” [4] Although these stages signified a “win” for women in the political sphere, not all women fully agreed. Canadian women fell into different camps of thinking in regards to wartime policies on conscription and the limited enfranchisement of women.
Prime Minister Robert Borden introduced these policies as he headed into the 1917 federal election. Many soldiers had already lost their lives in the war, but Borden was determined to step up Canada’s war effort. To achieve this, Borden believed that mandatory military service would be a viable option. However, he needed pro-conscription votes in order to implement this policy. As such, he gave only selected women a vote through the Military Voters Act and Wartime Elections Act, since he believed that women who were related to soldiers would be potential supporters. Accordingly, and probably not surprisingly, many of these “chosen” women agreed with the politics of the Acts, stating that, “it is only right that those women who have sent their sons off to fight should have special privileges… The men who have given their services must be represented and the slackers who have remained behind should not be allowed to control the policy of the country. The women will vote for their relatives at the front, and where the men already have the vote, they will be represented doubly- which is just as it should be!”[5]
However, the prime minister’s “Trojan horse” stance on women’s suffrage was also met with intense opposition. Suffragists argued, “it was apparent that under these terms a woman’s political and patriotic responsibilities had nothing to do with her own achievements, labour, or beliefs. Instead it was being defined solely as having sent her husband, son, brother, or father off to war.” [6] They further declared that “women should receive the vote based on their status as equal citizens, not as pawns in Borden’s war effort.” [7] These sentiments showed a common dividing line between women’s views of what it meant to have equality.
The irony is undeniable - the 1917 election “positioned women as critical political players and gave them the best opportunity to date to exercise their political power; [even though] wartime pressures allowed for only one type of vote to be considered appropriate by the majority.” [8] However, amidst women gaining enfranchisement, women turned against each other and resorted to partisan favouritism. Unfortunately, this partition between women and their ideas of equality continue to be elusive, as is evidenced by the lack of consensus as to what feminism means in the modern day.
[1] A Prentice, Canadian Women: A History, (Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988) at 122.
[2] T Brookfield, “ Divided by the Ballot Box: The Montreal Council of Women and the 1917 Election” (2008) The Canadian Historical Review at 480 [Brookfield].
[3] http://www.canadahistoryproject.ca/1914/1914-08-women-vote.html
[4] L Marsden, Canadian Women & the Struggle for Equality, (Ontario, Oxford University Press, 2012) at 69.
[5] Brookfield, supra note 2 at 490.
[6] Ibid.
[7] P Mitchell, About Canada: Women’s Rights, (Winnipeg, Fernwood Publishing, 2015) at 81.
[8] Brookfield, supra note 2 at 500.
