Political Context

By Liz Briemberg

In North America women’s issues came to the forefront of political discussion after the US publication in 1963 of the book The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Prior to this, the work of Simone de Beauvoir in France (The Second Sex) and Doris Lessing in England (The Golden Notebook) had provoked serious discussion of discrimination against women in Europe. These books were published at a time when there was growing economic opportunity in both Europe and North America and a demographic change due to the baby boom following the end of the Second World War. Prior to the 60s there was no Human Rights legislation and no legislation requiring men and women to be treated equally in the labour force or elsewhere, either in Europe or North America.

In this same period there was extensive community organizing and protest about many other issues both in Canada and the US. There were frequent large demonstrations protesting the ongoing US war against Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In Vancouver a Committee to Aid American War Objectors was set up. In the US the Civil Rights Movement had been organizing for some years demanding civil rights for Black people and the Black Panthers were doing community organizing among Black people in California. The American Indian Movement (AIM) was demonstrating against the oppression of First Nations people. Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S) was organizing to protect students’ rights to take political action and against the draft and there were student uprisings over campus restrictions on free speech.

In Canada the Front de Liberation du Quebec (F.L.Q) was organizing the struggle for independence for Quebec. In other parts of Canada sections of the Labour movement were forming unions independent of US unions and demanding changes to the Labour laws and bargaining rights. All these protests and demands for change spawned extensive and inspiring cultural activity. There were folk songs created by people such as Joan Baez, Buffy St Marie, Judy Collins, Phil Ochs; poetry by poets such as Dorothy Livesay, Sylvia Plath, Milton Acorn and the ‘Advanced Mattress’ in Vancouver; and movies, mostly European, that challenged the sexual mores of the day, such as those of Jean Luc Godard, Antonioni and Truffaut.

In the Caribbean, Cuba had gained independence from the US but suffered the US blockade and attacks. Other Caribbean nations were demanding their independence from colonial powers also. In Africa there were many Liberation movements struggling against colonialism and the black and ‘coloured’ people of South Africa were opposing Apartheid. In Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia was resisting the rule of the Soviet Union – the Prague spring. In the Middle East the Palestinian people, defeated by Israel in the 1967 war, were struggling against further subjugation and the struggle for sovereignty in Ireland was increasing in strength. Indeed on all sides people were rising up and demanding to be heard by their governments or their overlords. They were demanding justice and that their rights be enshrined in legislation, respected and implemented. Women were equally inspired to do the same.

In 1963 President Kennedy set up a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women and this was followed later in 1966 by the Canadian government setting up a Royal Commission on the Status of Women. In 1966 the US National Organization of Women (N.O.W) was founded with Betty Friedan as its first president and in 1967 Affirmative Action Rights were proclaimed under Executive Order. Despite much lobbying from N.O.W the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution failed at that time. In 1968 women on the Simon Fraser University campus organized demanding recognition for their struggle for a democratic university, for child care provision and for reproductive rights services. This led to the formation of the Vancouver Women’s Caucus which in 1969 organized a campaign calling for reproductive rights for women (Pedestal Vol. 1 no. 2, Vol. 2 no. 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6), the right to use contraception, at that time illegal, and the right to choice regarding abortion. The campaign included a caravan from Vancouver to Ottawa and a counselling service on reproductive alternatives. Then in 1971 women marched in Washington demanding a repeal of the US abortion laws, contraception laws and an end to forced sterilization.

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