In a wide-ranging survey of Canadian feminism from the 1880s to the 1980s, Demanding Equality reveals a continuous, vibrant, and often contentious search for equality, autonomy, and dignity.
Description
For one hundred years women fashioned different dreams of equality, autonomy, and dignity; yet what is Canadian feminism? In Demanding Equality, Joan Sangster explores feminist thought and organizing from mid-nineteenth-century, Enlightenment-inspired writing to the multi-issue movement of the 1980s.She broadens our definition of feminism, and – recognizing that its political, cultural, and social dimensions are entangled – builds a picture of a heterogeneous movement often characterized by fierce internal debates. This comprehensive rear-view look at feminism in all its political guises encourages a wider public conversation about what Canadian feminism has been, is, and should be.
Awards
- Winner, The Canadian Committee on Womens and Gender History English Language Book Prize 2022
Reviews
Sangster’s precisely written yet wideranging book is a tour de force that chronicles the struggles for ‘equality, autonomy, and dignity’ in all of their rich complexity.
- Elaine Coburn, York University
[Demanding Equality] is an impressively balanced account that will undoubtedly become required reading for gender and women's history classes across the country.
- Catherine Carstairs, University of Guelph
"There are few, if any, historians better placed than Joan Sangster to write a history of a century of feminism in Canada... Demanding Equality is a book that is at once capacious in its scope and accessibly written."
- Magda Fahrni, Universite du Quebec a Montreal