Essay on Womens Rights

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Freedom And Rights Assignment

Women’s Rights

Biography Of Key Players In Canadian Women’s History

Women fought for years to win their rights to be equals, all doing their part, but there were key players who pitched in more then others. 3 of the key players we are mentioning are Emily Murphy, the leader of the famous five and the first female judge in Canadian history. Agnes Macphail, the first female MP in Canadian history. Elsie MacGill, the first women in the world to design an airplane. These women all had a key role in developing women’s rights.

Emily Murphy was perhaps the most famous female in Canadian history in terms of what she did for women’s rights in Canada. Murphy was born in 1868 in Cookstown, Ontario, where her and her 2 brothers were encouraged by their father to share responsibilities equally. Murphy attended school in Toronto, and was influenced by her family of politicians to go into the family business. Fast forward some years in 1916, she became the first female judge in Canada and the British Empire. In her first case on July 1st, 1916, she found a prisoner guilty but the prisoner argued that he cannot be sentenced by someone who is not a “person”. The municipal court agreed with the prisoner. Murphy was furious and took the case to the supreme court of Canada where it was ruled women not “persons” and later talking the case to the privy counsel in England where it was ruled that women were indeed legally “persons” which gave women the right to run in office.

Agnes Macphail was born on March 24th, 1890 in Proton township, Grey country, Ontario. She was raised as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a church within the Latter Day Saint movement. After amendments to the Elections Act by the Conservative Party government in 1919, Macphail was elected to the House of Commons as a member of the Progressive Party of Canada for the Grey Southeast electoral district in the 1921 federal election. She was the first woman Member of Parliament in Canada. Macphail was re-elected in the 1925, 1926, and 1930 federal elections.

Elsie MacGill was born on March 27th, 1905, in Vancouver. MacGill’s mother was the first women judge in British Colombia; her mother was an advocate of women's suffrage and influenced her decision to study engineering. MacGill graduated from the University of Toronto in 1927, was the first Canadian woman to earn a degree in aeronautical engineering. MacGill has already done what most people believed that women couldn’t do, and to top it off, MacGill was the first women in the whole world to design an airplane. A task, which only men have done in the past years.

Overview Of Women’s Rights In Canada

For a very long time women were treated as second class, and were not treated equals to men. People believed that women’s only role in society was to stay at home to do the cooking, cleaning, raising and taking care of the children. Women did not even have the right to vote, and they weren’t even considered “persons”, but all of these issues would change for the better during WW1 when men had to leave home and go over seas to support England.

Of course women struggled for centuries prior WW1, but when war came around women stepped up and took the men’s roles back home. Women did not just do traditional feminine jobs, but also did the hard jobs, such as working in the munitions factories while the men were off at war. Come wars end, people saw that women could do just as much as men, but when the men came back the women were forced to give up their jobs back to the men and women did not like this. Talk of women’s suffrage raised.

Women always wanted the right to vote and affect the future of their country but were never able to, up until January 28th, 1916. Manitoba was the first province to give the right to vote Provincially, followed by Saskatchewan and Alberta a couple months
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