Women In History Month - October
Barbara Steckly
In Edmonton, we have had the opportunity to exercise our right to vote twice in the last two months; this is a privilege many of us take for granted. Women’s voting rights were granted between 1916 ( in Manitoba), 1918 federally, however, in some provinces women’s voting rights weren’t granted until as late as 1940, and for women of colour, much later. Asian men and women did not gain voting rights until 1948, and for indigenous women, full voting privileges (that didn’t require them to relinquish treaty status) weren’t granted until 1960.
Nelly McLung was one of the “Famous Five” influential women who fought for women’s suffrage (along with Emily Murphy, Henrietta Edwards, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby), but did you also know that she was one of Alberta’s first female politicians? After sitting as the first female MLA in Manitoba, Nelly McClung was also elected to the Alberta Legislative Assembly in 1921.
Please join us in celebrating Canadian Women in History Month, and join Women and Gender Equality Canada on October 28th, when they hold their panel Building Canada’s Future: Embracing All Women, registration information here.
“We must uplift, protect and celebrate the voices and perspectives of Indigenous women. There are too few of us working behind and in front of the camera. Those you read about are doing incredible and important work yet represent less than 1% of Canadian content creators receiving funding. When that changes we will witness a monumental shift in our collective narrative and we will all be better for it.”
- Jennifer Podemski is an actress, producer and founder of Indigenous film company Shine Network; find out more here.
Emily Carr, painter, writer (born 13 December 1871 in Victoria, BC; died 2 March 1945 in Victoria). Along with Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, and David Milne, Emily Carr was one of the pre-eminent, and perhaps most original, Canadian painters of the first half of the twentieth century; she was also one of the only major female artists in either North America or Europe of that period. In Carr’s mature paintings, like the great Indian Church (1929) in the Art Gallery of Ontario, nature is a furious vortex of organic growth depicted with curving shapes that create the impression of constant movement and transformation. By comparison, the human element – churches, houses, totem poles – seem small and fragile.