1930 - Annual Convention Report

              64 A L B E R T A W O M E N ' S I N S T I T U T ES
in the Old Country was the franchise an equal privilege w i t h both sexes; not
one year ago five distinguished women of your own Province of Alberta
removed the last stigma from our sex, when they had it established beyond
a doubt on the highest legal authority that a woman is a person. Is it wise,
is it safe, that women should now clamour for legislation that w i l l lay a dis­ability
on a married woman which could never be laid on a married man?
Is she to be a person at one end of the line, only to forfeit her personality at
the other? A principle, you see, is involved. Moreover, however could such
legislation be enforced? The wife of the farmer markets her chickens, ducks,
turkeys, milk, cream, butter, eggs, cheese, and frequently vegetables, not for
pleasure, but for cash, but you could not insist that she sit in idleness and
employ hired help because she is a married woman. The wife of the store­keeper
may clerk all afternoon in the store, and save the wages of an em­ployee,
and why not? A wife and mother is many a time her husband's
stenographer or . book- keeper, and she has every right to this service. I
question if such a disability as is proposed could constitutionally be laid on
any person. Employers as individuals can fix their own arrangements, but
it is not for governments to interfere. You may recall how R. L. S. made
one of his characters say to a young friend: '' Be supple, Davie, in things
immaterial." This is far from immaterial. It is a vital matter. I am not
discussing the circumstances, only the principle, and this seems to call for
rigidity and not suppleness. As women, looking to the future, let us not turn
back the clock; rather when an hour of unemployment strikes, let us seek a
remedy that will not restore the lately lost limitations of our sex;. Shorter
hours and more workers, even half day jobs with half pay and doubled em­ployment,
less luxury, with more plain living and high thinking, would be a
sacrifice worth making before woman offers to relinquish her equality of
status. The whole subject is fraught with difficulty, for it is in the less
salaried positions that the stringency mainly occurs. It is s t i l l true that there
is always room at the top. This is one contact which, though painful, might
call for sacrifice that would result in a real elevation of soul.
I cannot pass on without a reference to the glory that is Alberta's in
winning the decision last fall of the Lords of the P r i v y Council. Nor yet
has Alberta received her due reward. The first woman Senator, a lady of
talent and of wealth in Ottawa, has been signally honored in her appoint­ment,
and is well fitted to adorn her office, but it is the hope of all western
women, even of many who have little regard for the prestige of the Senate,
that ' ere the next ten years are up, without consideration of rank or party
or wealth, but solely on the score of merit, Alberta will have at least one
representative in that august body, who w i l l not merely come into her reward
as one of the dauntless five, but who w i l l be an ornament and a reinforcement
to the Upper House.
To talk of limitations on women as women at this late hour is unthink­able,
and no sacrifice is too great to avoid such a catastrophe. Not in the
coming decade shall we sit idly by, and witness any retrogression. Tennyson
even is behind the times:
" M a n for the field and woman for the hearth;
Man for the sword and for the needle she;
Man with the head and woman with the heart;
Man to command and woman to obey;
A l l else confusion."
The younger generation would swiftly add: " I don't think." The sword
is driven by women out of date, if their urge stands for anything. May it
lie buried forever. Heart and hand are human qualities, w i t h no discrimina­tion
of sex. No mode ™ man in his senses would try to get away with the