In the economy of nature or rather in the design of God, woman is the complement of man. In defining her sphere and describing her influence, this fact is fundamental. Unless this fact is admitted as an axiom in every way self-evident, no reasoning on this subject is sound. During 1920 in Canada there was a reaction against the dullness and restrictions imposed during the war effort. Women's clothing had to be adapted during the war to allow freedom of movement and safety around the factory machines. The stiff corsets that bound a woman from hip to chest and adversely affected her internal organs had disappeared.
In addition, the layers of long skirts that were incredibly heavy but thought to be feminine, had been exchanged for lighter, shorter garments. After the war, this new freedom in clothing was increased as hemlines climbed from the mid-calf to knee, hair was cut short to the ear in the new bob, and rouge were used to accentuate the features of the more daring young women. In this society seeking to reestablish itself after the war, there was little support for legislative change and improved rights for women.Considering these attitudes, it is surprising how much was achieved for women. In the 1926 edition of Nellie McClung's novel Purple Springs, Pearl Watson, the teenaged protagonist in Purple Springs stages a Mock Parliament in which she is the Premier. This is straight out of McClung's own experience; in 1914 Nellie took part in the "Women's Parliament" staged by the Political Equality League, a mock sitting of the Legislature in which women's rhetoric effected legislative change.
McClung amplifies temperance rhetoric as political activism through Pearl's standpoint in Purple Springs: She had been in the gallery [the Ladies' Gallery of the Provincial Legislature] the day that a great temperance delegation had come. . . .The case against the bar had been so well argued, that it seemed to Pearl that the law-makers must be moved to put it away forever.
She did not know, of course, that the liquor interests of the province were the strong supporters of the Government. . . so she was not prepared for it when one of his Ministers stoutly defended the bar-room as a social gathering place where men might meet and enjoy an innocent and profitable hour,” (pp.
78-79).McClung created a fictional version of what happened. The main character, Pearl Watson, is on stage playing the part of a woman premier speaking to a group of men who want the right to vote. Her fictional character uses many of the same kind of arguments and insults that other men used against women in real life, “You are the product of an age which has not seen fit to bestow the gift you ask, and who can say that you are not splendid specimens of mankind? No! No! Any system which can produce the virile, splendid type of men we have before us today, is good enough for me..
.. You have not thought of it, of course, with the natural thoughtlessness of your sex.You ask for something which may disrupt the whole course of civilization. Man's place is to provide for his family, a hard enough task in these strenuous days.
We hear of women leaving home ... Do you know why women leave home? There is a reason. Home is not made sufficiently attractive.
Would letting politics enter the home help matters. Ah no! Politics would unsettle our men. Man has a higher destiny than politics, what is home without a bank account? The man who pays the grocer rules the world.Shall I call men away from the useful plow and harrow, to talk loud on street corners about things which do not concern them. Do you never read, gentlemen? Do you not know of the graceful happenings in countries cursed by manhood suffrage? ..
. History is full of unhappy examples of men in public life; Nero, Herod, King John - you ask me to set these names before your young people. Politics has a blighting, demoralizing influence on men,” (McClung, 1926). “Now politics simply mean public affairs - yours and mine and everybody's - and to say that politics are too corrupt for women is a weak and foolish statement for any man to make.Any man who is actively engaged in politics, and declares that politics are too corrupt for women, admits one of two things, either that he is party to this corruption or that he is unable to prevent it - and in either case something should be done,” (McClung, 1926).
There is another hardy perennial that constantly lifts its head above the earth and that is if women were ever given a chance to participate in outside affairs, family quarrels would result. McClung believes that if husband and wife are going to quarrel, they will find a cause for dispute easy enough and will not be compelled to wait for election day.Right from the beginning, the campaign to better the position of the female sex was led by middle-class women. Their perspective and views on proper behaviour and standards infused the feminist movement, making it at times intolerant of ethnic, racial, and class diversity and often unwilling to confront profound inequities in capitalist society. Canadian Native women were among its many victims. Imperfect as it was, however, the feminist vision of a more equitable future challenged some fundamental structures in a society where male authority was largely unquestioned.
Lacking their wealthier sister’s resources, working-class women concentrated instead on the demands of day-to-day survival. During those times, in spite of the testimony of many reputable women that they have been able to vote and get the dinner on one and the same day, there still exists a strong belief that the whole household machinery gets out of order when a woman goes to vote. No person denies a woman the right to go to church, and yet the church service takes a great deal more time than voting.McClung quotes, “If one woman wants to vote, she should have that opportunity just as if one woman desires a college education, she should not be held back because of the indifferent careless ones who do not desire it.
” She questions the reason why the mentally inert, careless, uninterested woman, who cares nothing for humanity but is contented to patter along her own little narrow way, set the pace for the other women? She suggests that voting will not be compulsory, that the “shrinking violets” will not be torn from their shady fence-corner.She says they will not force the vote upon those who do not want to, but questions why should their votelessness be forced upon them. Woman is the equal of man, alike in the matter of intellect, emotion, and activity, and she has shown her capabilities in these respects. It would never do, however, from these premises to draw the conclusion that woman is bound to exert her powers in the same direction and for the same ends as man. This is to usurp the place of man or to forget her position as the complement of man, and assume a place she is incompetent to fill, or rather was not designed to fill.This is to leap out of her sphere and attempt to move in another, in which, to move rightly, the whole moral relations of society would be changed, and suited anew to each other, but which, because they are unchangeable, every attempt is fraught with damage, it may be with ruin, and woman becomes a wandering star, which, having left its due place, and violated its prescribed relations, dashes itself into shivers against some other planet and goes out in the blackness of darkness forever (Sedgewick, 1856).
