The Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women (CACSW) emerged from the recommendation of the

Royal Commission on the Status of Women The Royal Commission on the Status of Women was a Canadian Royal Commission that examined the status of women and recommended steps that might be taken by the federal government to ensure equal opportunities with men and women in all aspects of C ...

(RCSW). The CACSW was established by the Canadian federal government in 1973 in order to educate and inform the public about women's concerns. The CACSW was also empowered with the task of advising the federal government as to the effect public policy had on women. Such direct access to government was significant in that it legitimized women's issues in large-P politics. The economic boom of the 1960s ensured that fiscal resources were available to support groups such as the CACSW. Additionally, global activist movements fostered an appropriate cultural environment for the acknowledgement of rights at the state level. Both these factors mitigated the process of discourse on women's issues with prominent political actors. As such, the CACSW was empowered with influencing the government agenda on subjects related to the

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

struggle, including: wage equity, access to employment traditionally dominated by men, education, female reproduction, child care, maternity benefits, and political representation.

CACSW and the feminist movement

An argument can be advanced that the creation of the CACSW was the government's response to the

second wave of feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. W ...

in Canadian society. Following the

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in representative democracy, public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally i ...

movement of the

first wave of feminism First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on securing women's right to vote. The term is often used ...

, the second wave ultimately challenged the

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...

norms which delegated women to their primary role of wife/mother, and that any additional roles, such as wage earning, was perceived as secondary to that primary role (and therefore, less important).

The 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Prime Minister Trudeau recognized the need to entrench basic rights into the constitution. However, prior to 1982, the constitution was still under the mandate of the British Parliament. His attempt to repatriate the constitution was met with hostility from the provinces. As such, interest groups within Canadian society viewed provincial governments as unsympathetic to equality rights, and therefore much public support was garnered for the repatriation of the constitution by the federal government. Under the presidency of Doris Hilda Anderson, the CACSW championed the explicit inclusion of women's equality in the

Charter of Rights and Freedoms The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part o ...

. The result of the active mobilization of women's groups, such as CACSW, resulted in the entrenchment of two separate provisions, Section 15 (equality rights) and

Section 28 Section 28 or Clause 28While going through Parliament, the amendment was constantly relabelled with a variety of clause numbers as other amendments were added to or deleted from the Bill, but by the final version of the Bill, which received R ...

(gender equality provision), in the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982.

References

{{Feminism 1973 establishments in Canada Women's organizations based in Canada