Pedestal Newspaper

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The Pedestal, Canada’s first feminist periodical, launched in Sept. 1969 as the voice of the Vancouver Women’s Caucus. Famous for initiating the abortion caravan that shut down Canada’s Parliament for the first time in the country’s history, Women’s Caucus had a socialist bent, seeking radical change for working women by forming women’s unions and hosting a peace conference with women from Indo-China.

Women’s Caucus grew out of the heady battles in the late 60s at the newly created Simon Fraser University led by faculty and students seeking democratic control over curriculum and hiring decisions, challenging the institution to serve workers rather than business interests. Though as active as men, the women felt they were “just appendages” to the student movement, expected to do menial organizational work while men made theoretical speeches.

Women activists, mostly students but also two faculty members and some clerical staff, began to meet in July 1968 to analyze women’s place in the movement, at the university and in society and to figure out how to end their oppression. One of their first actions was to set up a clinic that provided, in a clandestine manner, information on how to access abortions, then outlawed in Canada. At the same time, they kicked off a campaign to repeal the laws and make abortion and birth control information a woman’s right.

By the summer of 1969, the group moved off-campus to expand their focus more to the problems facing women workers. Membership had swelled to 250 names on a mailing list. About 80 active members were organized into 12 action groups. The Caucus protested discrimination in hiring practices, especially in the federal civil service. The women picketed the post office for advertising during the Christmas rush temporary jobs categorized by gender with higher pay scales for male jobs. A women’s artist coop was formed. Child care forums were held. Women’s liberation groups were formed at UBC and Vancouver Community College.

Like the other action groups in Women’s Caucus, the Pedestal was a collective where everyone did the work and made the decisions together. Skills were shared. Individual by-lines were mostly rejected. Together, they wrote, edited, did the lay-out, concocted headlines that fit, produced the graphics, and cut and pasted-up the copy. It was a radical and exciting project at a time when women were shut out of the mainstream media and even the “hippie” paper, the Georgia Straight, was hostile to women’s liberation.

Two issues of the Pedestal were published in 1969. During the next three years, the 8- to 16-page Pedestal was published 10 or 11 times a year. Each month, 3,000 copies were printed at a cost of $100. By July 1971, there were 538 subscribers from across Canada and in the US who paid $2 a year. Caucus members sold individual copies for 15 cents at demonstrations and political events. It was always a hand-to-mouth operation that staved off closure several times only when readers responded to desperate appeals for donations.

The papers had to be addressed by hand, stapled and stamped before mailing. Bundles were taken to the post office to send to women’s groups in Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Halifax for a reduced rate. Bundles of 50 or more were delivered to 25 bookstores and grocery stores around Vancouver.

During those early years, the women’s movement grew at a hectic pace, and then split over myriad issues, including reform vs. revolution, the leadership of vanguard parties, making decisions collectively in a participatory democracy, homophobia and racism. Women’s Caucus members increasingly focused on forming a women’s union. In July 1971, it voted to disband, turning its office over to women organizing a women’s centre.

The Pedestal continued to publish until August 1974 as an independent collective, covering news of the women’s movement but also turning more attention to theoretical considerations and the arts, particularly poetry. The Pedestal was resurrected in an issue dated only 1975 as a lesbian-feminist newspaper. After three issues, the last Pedestal was published in October/November 1975.