The struggle for equality in parliament and beyond.

• Author: Copps, Sheila
• Position: Report

Much has been written about the dominance of one race and one gender in Parliament and in politics generally. But Parliament is not the only area where there are problems with equality for women. This article looks at Canadian society and argues that what we see in Parliament and in politics is a reflection of larger problems in Canadian society.

**********

I entered adulthood with the mistaken impression that the battle for equality had already been won. More than a decade had passed since Betty Friedan wrote her famous treatise, The Feminine Mystique. Tennis star Billy Jean King had easily whipped Bobby Riggs in the 1973 "Battle of the Sexes".

A Personal Journey

My first hint of how far we had to go in the quest for equality occurred when I secured my first full time job as a junior reporter for the Hamilton Spectator. The Editor welcomed me to the team with a remark that I will always remember. He said "I hope you realize that we are exceeding our quota of women by hiring you."

Thankful to have a job at all, I merely smiled and said "thank you". In those days one would not think of laying an official complaint to a human rights commission.

Twenty eight years earlier my own mother had been fired from her secretarial job merely for the offense of getting married. In her generation nobody thought twice about a company policy that permitted the firing of females because of a change in their marital status.

Young women were Socialized into believing that our lot in life was to find a man who would support us. When I entered university I had some revolutionary ideas. I quickly became active on student council, and as Vice President External at the University of Western Ontario.

I organized a demonstration against nuclear testing off Amchitka Island in the Pacific Ocean. We managed to assemble ten thousand student activists who closed the border at the Samia bridge linking Ontario and Michigan. But even with my revolutionary bent I actually believed that life after university would probably involve working for favourite social causes, for free, while my future husband would be the bread winner.

When I was mulling over an application to law school a friend told me not to apply on the grounds I would be competing with a guy who actually needed the job! I still shake my head today when I reflect on how I accepted the social stereotypes that defined women and men in those days.

I believed in my own capacity to work hard and to succeed. But I did not realize how much my personal ambitions had to be tempered by societal expectations.

The newspaper business was and largely still is a man's world. To get along you did your job, laughed at their jokes and tried your best to fit in. The same rules applied when I switched to politics running for office for the first time at the ripe old age of 24 and being...