The Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) was an association founded in 1918 to promote the interests of female

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teachers in

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, and continued to represent female teachers until merging in 1998 with the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation to form the

Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO; , FEÉO) is a labour union representing all public elementary school teachers, occasional teachers, and some designated early childhood educators (DECEs) in the Canadian province of Ontario. T ...

History

The FWTAO was formed as a coalition of local women teachers' associations which had begun forming in 1888 in several Ontario cities. They worked for better salaries and job security. In the early years, according to a history by Barbara Richter in the newsletter of the successor organization, FWTAO organizers risked dismissal from their jobs. With the passage of the

Teaching Profession Act Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the of an educational institution. Teaching is closely related to ...

of 1944, all female elementary school teachers in the public school system in Ontario were required to be members of the FWTAO. This empowered the FWTAO to carry out its work. The FWTAO worked to counter discrimination against women; for example, even after the passage of legislation in 1951 requiring equal pay for work of equal value, married male teachers were still receiving an additional allowance. There were strict social expectations of female teachers; a 1965 study found that female teachers were expected by parents not to smoke, place bets, run for political office, teach after marriage or any of a number of other activities; there were strict expectations that they stop work if visibly pregnant. The FWTAO worked to change these expectations. The FWTAO lobbied for

affirmative action Affirmative action (also sometimes called reservations, alternative access, positive discrimination or positive action in various countries' laws and policies) refers to a set of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking ...

programs and used scholarships to help individual women further their careers; they also gave scholarships to young women in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

. They developed curricula, which tended to follow a democratic philosophy of education, promoting cooperation rather than competition. The Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, formerly the Ontario Public School Men Teachers Federation, made repeated attempts since the late 1960s to merge with the FWTAO, including three court challenges. In 1994, the

Ontario Human Rights Commission The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) was established in the Canadian province of Ontario on March 29, 1961, to administer the Ontario Human Rights Code. The OHRC is an arm's length agency of government accountable to the legislature throug ...

upheld a complaint by a female principal that the requirement that she be a member of FWTAO was discrimination. A decision was made in 1996 to merge the organizations, and in 1998 they did so, forming the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. The FWTAO donated its records to the

Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections Clara Thomas (née McCandless; May 22, 1919 – September 26, 2013) was a Canadian academic. A longtime professor of English at York University, she was one of the first academics to devote her work specifically to the study of Canadian literatur ...

York University Libraries York University Libraries (YUL) is the library system of York University in Toronto, Ontario. The four main libraries and one archives contain more than 2,500,000 volumes. History The first York library opened in 1961 at Glendon College and ...

References

{{Authority control Women's rights in Canada Education-related professional associations Teaching in Canada Women in Ontario