Women's Rights Under Section 24 Research Paper

Throughout the year’s female rights has not been a silent outcry, 5 brave females by the names of Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby and Nellie McClung took it all the way. It was October 27, 1927 when these women challenged the Supreme Court of Canada and asked the famous question that would change the world, “Does the word ’persons’ in section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867 include female persons”. The main objective the 5 women wanted to achieve was to clarify if a woman counted as a “qualified person” under section 24 enabling a woman to be appointed to senate. The next year when the case was heard, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that a woman was not a “qualified person” under section 24

Known as the Persons Case the women had finally received a positive outcome as the decision had been overturned by the Privy Council and from that point on women were able to be defined as a “qualified person” but that was not the end, this verdict birthed one of the most important doctrines in history, the living tree doctrine. This doctrine established the fact that a constitution is “organic” and it must be read in a manner that allows it to be adapted to the changing times, it must be treated as a “Tree” as in being trimmed and maintained every so often just as the constitution needs to be updated and amended every so often to adapt to the changing

Feminism impacts the Constitution in every way possible and in the strongest way possible, feminists make us look at the Constitution in a different way and it shows just how much small mistakes can affect half of the worlds population, as explained above in the Persons Case, simply forgetting to change the word “he” in the BNA act results in every woman not being considered a person, these little things affect the Constitution as a whole. Feminism also evolves law, our law has become so evolved from 100 years ago just from the acts of feminism and possible the most important thing was not even a change in the Constitution but it was an addition and that’s all because of women, the living tree doctrine was established as a result of feminist lobbying by the Famous Five and this doctrine gives us the ability to have our Constitution moulded, changed and allows it to evolve along with society and that shows that feminism is not just a selfless lobbying group, feminists have made changes that impact everyone in Canada and the changes brought on will live on in the Charter as long as it stands and that is exactly why it