When the news was released that a Canadian woman was finally going to grace the polymer bill, those lobbying for equal rights were thrilled. As names of potential nominees start to be tossed around, it became clear there is still a long way to go until we reach gender equality.
The names proposed included the “Famous Five” Alberta women who championed for political equality. It was part of a nationwide suffragette movement to raise the status of women in Canada.
What is often forgotten regarding this—and many other suffragette movements—is the fight for equality is primarily equality for white women. Not only that, first-wave feminist movements were often blatantly racist, excluding people of colour, Indigenous people, and immigrants.
Emily Murphy, for example, wrote against Black people, Jews, immigrants, and other non-white people who had settled in Alberta. Nellie McClung believed women should be maternal and nurturing, although this may have been a strategy to get men to allow women to vote.
While it is important to realize these views were reflective of the time period these women were living in, it is equally important to recognize their oppressive views. Their fight was a fight for white women, not for all women. The movement won the right for women to vote in 1929, but Indigenous women could not vote until 1951.
The real problem is not that these movements were racist, but rather that no one today realizes they were. They are lauded as heroes for women, but only a fraction of women can actually see them as such.
There are many Canadian women who have been dead for the prescribed 25 years, and many of these women do not have checkered pasts. The woman on the bill should be a woman everyone can look up to.
Canada is boasted as being a multicultural country. Carleton itself is full of people of various races, ethnicities, and religions. There are many international students studying here. Events across campus seek to raise awareness about these different cultures. Islam Awareness Week had people applying traditional henna designs on the hands of non-SouthAsian and non-Muslim people too. A woman on the bill could represent multiculturalism in addition to being a landmark for women’s rights.
Viola Desmond, sometimes called Canada’s Rosa Parks, is relatively unknown to many Canadians. She was at a theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and unknowingly sat in the main area, which was designated for white people. When she refused the staff’s demands that she move, she was thrown in jail for the night. After she was released, she began her fight against segregation laws.
There are white women, too, who can be universal role models. Two potential nominees are Emily Carr and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Carr embodies the modern-day feminist who rejected the idea of needing a mainland, and went out into the wilderness and First Nations reserves to paint.
Canada has a silent legacy of erasing Indigneous history and culture. The genocide of Two-Spirit people and the establishment of residential schools are both (successful) attempts in doing this. Many people do not know the difference between Inuit, First Nations, and Métis.
There are attempts to correct this, however. Events at Carleton and in Ottawa often mention that the event is taking place on unceded Algonquin territory. There was an exhibition at the Carleton University Art Gallery titled “Walking With Our Sisters” which brought awareness to missing and murdered Indigenous women.
A way to make amends to the Indigenous people would be to put an Indigenous woman on the bill. Rosemarie Kuptana and Daphne Odjig are two possible nominees.
Kuptana was a leader for human rights and served as president of the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation from 1983-88. She worked to spread awareness for Inuit culture and society.
In the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian art section is overrun by the white, British-Canadian Group of Seven. Odjig is known as the driving force behind the Indian Group of Seven, who also painted Canadian nature scenes. Putting Odjig on the bill would also raise awareness of Indigenous art and people—especially because she addressed colonialism in her work.
The Famous Five women should not be discounted solely for holding oppressive views that were reflective of the period they lived in. Putting a woman who took part in the oppression of many Canadians on the bill ignores the opportunity to bring awareness to the diversity Canada holds and to the shady past it has worked to erase.
