The Women’s Labour League platform really pushed the boundaries of political and gender thinking. Their purpose was by women, for women; to defend the struggles of working women and to help the women labour movement. Members were wage earners and working housewives many of which were Ukrainian, Finnish, or Jewish. This reflected the ethnic powers of the communist movement. Some of the demands that the WLL wanted were maternity care, birth control for women, and equal pay. The league was shaped on the bases of the British Women’s League, which was formed in 1906 to promote women representation in parliament and local offices and wanted women’s suffrage. The league branched off into many cities including Winnipeg and Cape Breton and by 1927 there were 37 leagues. Although some leagues faded away, some of the stronger leagues continued to operate until the 1940’s. The need for Women’s Labour Leagues was detrimental to the fight for women’s equality not only in the work place, but also as a step into being equals in society. During the 20th century the different jobs available to men or women were a refection of gender biases that were around at the time, even in cases were physicality wasn’t an issue. The sexual division in working environments limited the work produced and made it nearly impossible for women to work under perfection since they were under such scrutiny. Employers took advantage of the limited job opportunities for women and gave women lower wages and made them work the less skilled jobs. Men didn’t exactly have a problem with this as it excluded women from the better paying jobs so that they could take these jobs for themselves. These are just a few reasons that though radical for its time, the Women’s Labour League was needed to help define Canadian women’s position in the workforce.
Though women were slowly getting into the workforce before the Women’s Labour Leagues were formed, women were always getting the short end of the stick, whether it was under a close watchful eye, typically being one of the first people to be let go, working for very minimal pay, limited opportunities to advance in the workplace, or getting unskilled jobs. But in order to survive, many women in Canada, especially (but not exclusively) the poor, have needed to work for pay outside the home. Typically women that worked revolved around jobs such as prostitution, domestic services, factory workers, seamstresses LOOK AT NOTES but even in these jobs women were not treated very well EXAMPLES FROM READINGS. Many women that also looked for jobs were young single women, many of these women tried to resist being exploited, but did not achieve the same results individually compared to the Women’s Labour Leagues. Women had such great economic vulnerability, opposition from male employers, rapid turnover, and mixed messages of support that it made it very difficult to rally big changes in their workplace. Women from the beginning stuck together when it came to other women workers such as urging the faster workers to slow down or faster worker gave some of their pieces to slower workers to help her make her quota. Women were given fines for a range of misconducts such as being late, talking to the other workers, and damage, and poor work. Women were also charged when damage happened through no fault of her own, such as if oil dropped from the loom onto a piece of cloth. The higher ups in the system still didn’t think that they were getting the most of some of these women, so then the type of pay would change from day to day, switching from wage work some days and piece rate on other days.
Many men feared women in the workplace, scared that they would take the more advanced jobs. This was a major set back in the push for equality as men typically held the highest paying jobs and had more control over things such as wage, promotions, and hiring. Men at the time weren’t as accepting of the changing gender norms and still believed that women either shouldn’t be in the workplace at all, or should retire once they got married and should go back to doing their main duties of being a housewife and a mother. For example, in the 1930’s a Montreal social worker blamed strong prejudice against women for the appointment of relatively inexperienced men to executive positions. She believed that gender stereotypes prevented men from recognizing the qualifications of their female subordinates. While some males did encourage female recognition and equality, most of the time it wasn’t enough or the men were preoccupied fighting their own work battles. It wasn’t just the attitudes of males outside of the family that had an impact of the way women were treated, it also stemmed from a women worker’s close family and communities. If a female worker’s father figure did not want the daughter to go to work or to go on strike, it would be difficult to disobey the authority of a parent.
An important figure in Winnipeg’s Women’s Labour League is Helen Armstrong who was a strong supporter for unions, feminism, anti-war, and equal pay for women. Armstrong was a Toronto native born in 1875 and her father was a tailor and was a member of The Knights of Labour. The Knights of Labour was an organization that was founded in the United States, but also played a key role in developing working-class consciousness in Canada. The Knights fought for eight-hour work days, safety conditions, better hygiene, nationalization of the telegraph, public transport services, and telephone, and equal pay for both genders. So as Helen Armstrong worked at her fathers shop at an early age, she learned quite quickly about labour leaders, socialists, trade unionists, and other believers of better working conditions. Some years later in 1917 Armstrong is put in charge of the Women’s Labour League in Winnipeg. She planned to make some great changes and she did leading clerks out on strike in the same year. Helen was quite a character as she spoke vocally about her opinions such as her anti-war and anti-conscription views. After getting arrested for her anti-war efforts, she creates a voice for herself on the far left side of politics. She then turned into the only women on the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council. Armstrong’s biggest achievement was her vital part in the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. It was noted by Mary Horodyski that one of the most important tasks women performed during the strike was the setting up of a food kitchen, the kitchen that was initiated and maintained by the Women’s Labour League. President of the WLL, Helen Armstrong was the one who was in charge of this arrangement. Not only did the Women’s Labour League give put 1200-1500 free meals a day, they also gave out cash to women so that they could meet their rent during the strike. Horodyski also notes that the Women’s Labour Leagues contribution was women-centred, for women, by women. This is also