The beginning of the century was extremely important to the proclamation of gender Equality. It introduced Women as important figures in society and that they could make as much of a contribution to the world as men. Women participated in World War 1 and helped with the war effort; they combated women's rights on a legal scale for the first time via the Person's Case and sparked the first wave of feminism. Women sewed socks and attire for the men in the war and prevented them from suffering from diseases such as trench foot and they provided money for the war effort as well as took care of the children back at home; some women even worked in factories to make sure the economy was stable in Canada. In fact, by 1914, almost 20% of the workforce …show more content…
f They were not incapable second-class citizens. Women throughout the 1930s and World War 2(WW2) participated in World War 2, changed the role of women and portrayed their commitment to politics through Agnes MacPhail. Women played a pivotal role in World War 2 because the participated in directing planes in the RAF as well as cooking, cleaning and supporting the men in military bases, over 46,000 Canadian women were enrolled in military services (Hundey and Margarry, 221-222). On the home front, everyone relied on women to work and to take care of their children. Many women took care of the children back at home and worked in factories in order to provide munitions for the military, by 1944 1 million Canadian women were in the Canadian workforce (Hundey and Margarry, 221-222). Unfortunately, it seems like women made no advancement in the public mind because people still expected women to drop their jobs for men when they came back from the war but even so women kept fighting (Hundey and Margarry, 223). However, just like in WW1, it continued to give women a base to fight with. They used their participation to accentuate their contributions and once again to prove that they should not be 'enslaved' to lives as housewives and child-bearers. By participating in WW2, women proved their worth once again and they had sewn the seeds for a new wave …show more content…
By the 1960s women were fed up with their conditions, they felt like they were treated as second class citizens because wages were going up, unemployment rates were going down, but women were still considered lesser to men (Bellamy, Liz, and Kate Moorse, 73) and therefore started the second wave of feminism or the Women's Liberation Movement (Hundey and Margarry, 277-278). Women finally had the resources to strongly campaign for gender equality: they had the media, television, radio as well as constantly increasing literacy and education rates for women (Bellamy, Liz, and Kate Moorse, 73). The second wave of feminism would be the final push needed to seal the deal with gender equality. In response, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women was created in order to recommend steps towards women's equality (Hundey and Margarry, 341) and was important because it gave a layout as to how the Charter of Rights and freedoms would be altered in the upcoming years. The Royal Commission made sure that in the 1970s discriminatory employment on the basis of gender was illegal and it gave recommendations towards how gender equality would be achieved (Anderson). All of these events, in conjunction were crucial in battling the government to change the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By the 1980s women were still frustrated because they were not considered equal, even though 45%