Women During the 1920s.

Essay by prettyxkaykayHigh School, 10th grade May 2003

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An explaination of what women were like and how they were treated during the 1920s

Women During the 1920s

Canadian women benefited from the courageous acts of several leaders who challenged the legal restrictions that limited woman's rights in this country. Many women such as the women in the Famous Five, like Emily Murphy, and Agnes Macphail were all in the "persons case" to make women's rights become equalized.

Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Henrietta Edwards, Irene Parlby and Louise McKinney were five Alberta reformers, also known as the Famous Five, wanted absolute equality for all women. In doing so, the Famous Five battle their was through the Supreme Court of Alberta, to Supreme Court of Canada, then all the way to the British Privy Council, the highest appeal court for Canadians at that time. The British court decisions was a triumph for Canadian women, but after the "Persons Case" the women movement lost momentum.

Another famous women was Emily Murphy. Emily Murphy led the battle of the Famous Five to ensure that women were recognized as "person" under the law, by going court to court making sure women were qualified as people. Emily Murphy was the first women judge in the British Empire. Lawyers repeatedly objected that she was not a "person" under the law for appointing judges. So Emily appealed the case to the supreme court and was therefore qualified as a person and was qualified to sit as a judge. Murphy then decided that she wanted to take a step forward, so she set out to the Supreme Court of Canada to state whether women were qualified as "people" in order to be a senate. In 1928, Supreme court of Canada decided that women were not considered to be people, so Murphy and...