Female Labourer In The Patriarchal Martial Institutions Of Early 20th Century Canada

This historical essay will define the marginalized role of the unmarried female labourer in the context of the patriarchal martial institutions of early 20th century Canada. During the early 20th century, the role of unmarried women in the Canadian workforce defines the highly marginalized aspects of gender roles that limited women’s wages and restricted them from male industrial work. Women were often forced to marry due to the prominent role of the male worker to provide income to the household and support the woman in the domestic sphere. In this case, many women were unpaid for their work in the home, which also defines the barriers to equal pay and representation in the workplace for unmarried women that had to provide their own income.

Typically, a “domestic industry” would textile work, agricultural work, and other forms of labor that was designated for the female worker. Unmarried women were a source of labor for Canadian industry, since they were under no obligation to work in the home as a domestic servant. Therefore, women could be expected to work in domestic industries as a source of income in order to pay for rent, clothing, and food. This type of patriarchal culture defines the highly restrictive barriers that made it difficult for women to find gainful employment throughout the 1890s to the early 1920s. MacDowell et al (1992) disagrees on the dominance of unmarried women in the workforce, but it does reflect the overarching patriarchal barriers to female employment over a period of thirty

The problem of lower wages for women that did the equal amount of work of men is one way in which to understand how the issue of gender and sex was barrier to the independence of the unmarried female worker. In many cases, women were paid for less than men due to the gender/sex biases that denied them the same opportunities for financial security and employment during this historical era. For instance, labour statistics taken from the 1910s reveals the disparity of wages for women that did the same amount of work as men in a particular