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Reviews / Comptes Rendus
| Judith Fingard and Janet Guildford, eds., Mothers of the Municipality: Women, Work, and Social Policy in Post-1945 Halifax (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2005)
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| IN TEN ESSAYS based around the theme of civic activism, this anthology charts the impact women's organizations had on shaping the changes that characterized Canadian social services in post-war Halifax. Incorporating the result of a five-year research project about women, work, and social policy, this collection features contributions from the disciplines of history, social work, and healthcare. The focus is change at the local level, and two main themes emerge. The first is the theme of militant maternalism. Contrary to the image of the 1950s and 1960s as a period characterized by female domesticity, shallow consumerism, and conservative Cold War values, these essays depict women participating in public life and actively engaging in pol i t i c a l lobbying through t h e i r volunteerism and membership in women's organizations. The second theme is the impact of the expansion of the welfare state on women's lives, and the efforts of the women's movement to influence these pervasive reforms. The essays chart how post-war women's organizations and activism went through a cycle of decline and renewal, and they provide grist for the argument that the women's movement has provided a more effective political voice for women than federal and provincial political parties. |
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For Nova Scotia, the decades after World War II were an unprecedented time of growth. Traditionally, Nova Scotians had relied on out-migration, subsistence production, occupational pluralism, and private charity to get by in difficult times. By the standards of the wealthier provinces, Nova Scotia was slow to develop its modern social assistance programs. Before 1945, social services in Halifax consisted of a network of voluntary organizations and religious groups. Three buildings on the Halifax urban landscape in 1960 symbolized the legacy of pre-war attitudes towards social welfare: the City Home or "poorhouse," the Catholic children's home, and the home for coloured children. Each of these institutions has an essay dedicated to it in this volume, chronicling its survival and transformation as part of the welfare state. |
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Halifax's first-wave feminist organizations provided women with opportunities to grow as public citizens and individuals and to contribute to their community; however, this was conceptualized mainly from a white middle-class perspective. Policy matters that were of vital importance to these women included public welfare, housing, day care, employment, community development, legal aid, family planning, and support to women in crisis. Undoubtedly, maternalism helped to shape post-war policies and institutions and was a vital element in women's activism, because it recognized the value of women's unpaid volunteer work. However, at least two authors point to a lesson that is repeated elsewhere in feminist writing, namely, that maternalism can be a slippery slope. For example, even though post-war women activists established the legitimacy of single mothers as social assistance recipients, the state still regulated their sexual relations and threatened their children with welfare supervision, considering them to be the "less deserving" in a maternalist, moral hierarchy topped by the "deserving widow." Another example is taken up in the essay about the struggle for universally accessible daycare. Government involvement in child care began as early as the 1960s, but the motive of legislators was to provide a limited service to "needy" women and children. In the 1970s, joined by a vocal alliance of feminist activists, parents and childcare workers called for universally accessible early childhood education centres; however, their efforts fell on deaf ears amongst policy- makers, and the provincial government accused them of being "political agitators." |
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The essay on the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women is a bittersweet reminder of the fragility of some of the gains of the second-wave feminist movement. Created in 1977 as a response to the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, the Council was to advise the provincial government and provide services to women. Completely dependent on the government for funding, and with no formal links to the organized women's movement, its autonomy was constantly tested. In the end, the agency can be credited for introducing needed reforms to human rights legislation, and for giving women's equality issues visibility in the province, but it remained a weak and isolated voice for change. |
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Compared with other major Canadian cities, the 1961 census reported Halifax to have a smaller percentage of married women working outside the home. This was not the case in the outlying communities in Dartmouth. Many African Nova Scotian mothers performed housekeeping or "day's work" for middle-class Halifax families. Limited by a lack of job opportunities, these women were the first generation of married African Nova Scotian women to work outside their homes in significant numbers. Their daily forays into the Halifax urban centre brought them into contact with a higher standard of living. Even after their children had grown up, many continued this work because it provided structure to their week, a break in the routine of their home life, and an opportunity to socialize with other women. Few considered moving closer to town because they enjoyed home ownership in Dartmouth. As domestic workers, African Nova Scotian women were part of an informal economy not regulated by the state, which gave them some control over their working conditions and wages. Once urban renewal projects took off in the 1960s and 1970s, many of these women took jobs in the day care centres, health clinics, and schools that were opening at the time. |
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The essay on the Voice of Women [VOW] illustrates how a feminist organization lead the way for change in Halifax. These activist women reframed their identities in the 1970s without rejecting t h e i r maternalist ideas. Muriel Duckworth and Pearleen Oliver were two leaders who possessed impressive talents and intellectual capacities. In a city where women did not enter politics until the 1970s, middle-class women's organizations were a way for women to become involved in the civic life of their community and province. The Voice of Women brought together women from diverse circumstances who rose up against the Cold War domestic ideology that sought to constrict their role. By channeling their efforts against the male politicians they held responsible for the arms race, VOW members symbolized the maternalist desire for a less violent world for future generations. In Halifax, where one-quarter of the population was dependent on the military economy, VOW was unpopular in many circles, but it stood up to public criticism. Duckworth and Oliver used their affiliations with more conservative local civic organizations to help mitigate the impact. VOW was committed to coalition politics, community organizing, educational work, and political lobbying. "Everyone can do something" was its credo. Its successful outreach style was to work on local problems, and at the same time bring women to the larger issues, such as peace and foreign policy. As an organization that was a training ground for advocacy, VOW drew together civic-minded wives and mothers and succeeded in linking peace with other social justice issues; it also served as a successful bridge between first- and second-wave feminism. The Halifax chapter has many achievements to its credit, including standing up for a nuclear-free policy for Canada in the 1960s, protesting the US war in Vietnam, sponsoring two successful international women's conferences, and linking the international peace movement with the movement for racial equality in Halifax. |
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No female provincial or federal political candidates emerged in the metropolitan Halifax area until the 1970s; yet, as the essays in this volume aptly show, women in Halifax were instrumental in creating and reforming social services. At the same time, the transition to the welfare state also precipitated a decline in women's volunteerism. St. John Ambulance was one of the casualties; it represented a view of women's role that faded away quickly once women began entering the workforce in record numbers. The essays collected together here show that what sprang up instead was a new kind of advocacy, bringing together women of different classes, races, and professions. In coalitional and sometimes militant politics, Halifax women advocated for such issues as community development, public housing, adult education, and equal rights for the city's black residents. These women were the architects of Nova Scotia's vibrant social justice and peace movements, and they helped to transform Halifax into a more cosmopolitan city. This anthology should serve as an inspiration to scholars in other provinces and cities; hopefully, it is only the first of many to chart the contribution of women and women's organizations to social service reform and civic activism at the municipal level. |
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Laurel Whitney
Simon Fraser University |
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