Women's Suffrage Movement: Breaking Barriers for Equal Opportunities - Essay Sample

Introduction

The desire to participate in the workforce and boosting social status were also important reasons for the rise of the movement. The movement was primarily driven by working women who felt that it was unfair to limit the options of women in the workplace. Dr. Emily Stowe, the first and only female doctor in Canada for over a decade, was a founding member of the Suffrage movement in the 19th century. She was forced to go and study in the U.S. because Canadian schools of medicine did not admit women. Other leading suffragists at the time were middle-class women who saw enfranchisement as a way to improve their social standing and showed little regard for poor women or women of other races in their fight for the vote. The battle was about their status within Canadian society and not concerning other nations.

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Racial relations also appear to have played a significant part in the rise and success of the suffrage movement. Some suffragists saw women's enfranchisement as a way of strengthening white middle-class power over other races. Newly settled areas of Canada tended to be more conservative and Christian. Yet, the recently settled western provinces of Canada were more receptive to women's enfranchisement compared to central and eastern provinces. This phenomenon can be looked at in terms of racial relations and hierarchy. Newly settled areas were more receptive to women's enfranchisement because this would entrench the power of white settlers over indigenous people and also attract new female settlers who would further the numerical advantage of white settlers. This sinister reason for the success of enfranchisement in the west once again shows how local conditions drove the fight for women's enfranchisement in Canada.

The first World War was an important factor in the success of the suffrage movement in a number of ways. First, the war boosted women's participation in the workforce as men left for the war. Successful participation in the workforce and the home front war effort showed that women were capable of working and led to calls for an extension of voting rights. Secondly, participation in the war and workforce created an incentive for women to be rewarded, and the government of the time felt women earned enfranchisement through their effort. This can be seen in the fact that voting rights were first extended to women who served in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and immediate female relatives of men serving in war zones.

The final reason the war promoted enfranchisement is more sinister. The government feared that the conscription of white men who were eligible to vote would reduce support for the conscription by favoring conscientious objectors and immigrant citizens from countries that were at war with Canada. The government extended the vote to women with the understanding that white women with male relatives who were already conscripted would support conscription. The government also utilized the chance to pass the Wartime Elections Act that disenfranchised thousands of immigrants and conscientious objectors to the war while enfranchising women who participated in the war effort and those with relatives who had gone off to war. Again, these reasons highlight how local conditions conspired to give Canadian women the vote even as other groups became disenfranchised.

The support of a section of men was a significant yet understated reason for the success of the Candian suffrage movement. The message of a fairer society and social reform resonated with a substantial section of the male electorate. Some feminists also resorted to pitting the rights of the working underclasses versus the wealthy business owners and presented suffrage as a means to reduce the power of the propertied classes. The province of British Columbia was the only jurisdiction to put the suffrage issue to voters at a time when only men could vote. An overwhelming majority voted to extend the franchise to women, and the province duly gave women the right to vote in 1917. The suffragist, Margaret Haile, took advantage of a law that barred women from voting but did not explicitly bar them from standing to stand for elections in the 1902 Ontario provincial elections becoming the first woman in the state to do so. She received 84 votes from men.

The Nature and Tactics of the Suffrage Movement

The nature and tactics used by the suffragists also show that the movement was mostly local with minimal international influence. Canadian suffrage movements were highly decentralized, and no organization had achieved comprehensive nation-wide influence by the time the majority of women received voting rights in 1918. This state was a reflection of the highly decentralized nature of Canadian politics at the time. Decentralization meant that women in different areas received voting rights at different times. It also meant that in some areas, women were eligible to vote in federal elections but not in local elections. This was different from the U.S. and U.K., where enfranchisement by the national government automatically conferred the right to vote in all polls, local or domestic. The Decentralized nature of the movement is also a reflection of the fact that different regions had different reasons for supporting the women's enfranchisement, as stated earlier.

The Canadian suffrage movement was also highly racialized. Nearly all leading white suffragists of the first wave feminism only fought for voting rights for white women to vote. Some suffragists further viewed the enfranchisement of white women as a means for dominance over the other races. However, unlike in the other two nations, Canadian racial hierarchy placed black people above Asians and indigenous peoples. Black Canadian women received the right to vote significantly earlier than Asian women, especially Chinese women. They also faced fewer obstacles to voting when compared to indigenous women who were effectively required to abandon their way of life in return for voting rights. Canadian society at the time viewed Indians as a dyi...