Women Between the Wars & the Person S Case

Social Studies 11

Ms. Laverdure

Women Between the Wars & The Person’s Case

Women Between the Wars

•  Main role still as ______and ______

•  Most women in business/industry worked as secretaries, telephone operators or sales clerks.

•  Usually earned much less than men.

Women in Politics

•  Women had won the right to vote in 1918, but only four women ran for office in the 1921 election.

•  ______– First woman to be elected into House of Commons (1921-1935)

Women in Politics

•  Federal and provincial governments remained male dominated.

•  Western provinces elected nine women into legislature

•  BC’s first MLA – Helen Gregory MacGill

•  Some social reforms took place

•  Female politicians fought for rights of women and children.

•  By end of 1920s, Equal Rights measure passed in BC Legislature

• 

The Person’s Case

•  1916 –

•  Appointment challenged:

•  BNA Act (1867) - only “persons” could hold seats in a legislature or be a judge in a court of law.

•  According to law, women were not considered at this time to be “persons” in eyes of law.

•  Murphy challenged Prime Minister Mackenzie King to appoint a woman ______and clarify the definition of ______.

•  Murphy discovered a Canadian document that said that “any five citizens, acting as a unit, had the right to petition the Supreme Court for clarification of a constitutional point.”

•  She enlisted the help of four other women and, together, they became known as ______.

The Persons Case: The Famous Five

The Person's Case

·  On March 14, 1928, the Famous Five took their question to the ______.

·  “Does the word ‘person’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act of 1867 include female persons?”

·  Murphy argued that women were “qualified persons” and must be entitled to hold appointed public office.

·  The Supreme Court decided that women were not “persons” under the Canadian Constitution.

·  When the BNA Act was written, women could not participate in politics and were not “qualified persons.”

· 

·  Only male nouns and pronouns were used in the BNA Act

The Persons Case – The Appeal

§ 

§  On October 18, 1929, the five Lords of the Judicial Committee declared its support for the women

§  They "unanimously came to the conclusion that the word ‘persons’ in Section 24 includes members both of the male and female sex.“

§  Women considered persons under the law.

§  Could become members of the Senate.

“[the exclusion] of women from all public offices is a relic of days more barbarous than ours…To those who would ask why the word “person” should include females. The obvious answer is, why should it not?” – Privy Council Judgement, October 18 1929

Henrietta Muir Edwards

“ Personally, I do not care whether or not women ever sit in the Senate, but we fought for the privilege for the to do so. We sought to establish the personal individuality of women and this decision is the announcement of our victory. It has been an uphill fight.”

Impact of the Person's Case

·  Although the Famous Five themselves were never appointed senators, their victory in the "Persons" Case led to increased opportunities for women and their greater participation in government and in other areas of Canadian society.

·  Four months after the judgement of the Judicial Committee of England's Privy Council, ______became the first female admitted to the Canadian Senate.