Actions and Responses
Louise McKinney, a women's rights activist and legislator, wrote this article titled, "Where are Canadian Women Going - Back to Their Homes or Continue in Business Life?" in the Canadian Home Journal in August 1919. During WWI, women had temporarily replaced men's jobs, specifically in factories. But when the war was over, all the men returning home from war needed to find jobs again. So the biggest question for women was whether they should continue working in the labour markets and in the industry or whether they should go back to their lives as mothers, the way things were "supposed" to be. From McKinney, it is quite clear that she supports the idea of women gaining recognition as an individual and she also supports the idea that women should follow their desires instead of following what society wants them to do; which is to go back to their homes.
Nellie L. McClung wrote an article for Maclean's Magazine in February 1928 titled, "Can a Woman Raise a Family and Have a Career?" As this was a rising problem during this time period, McClung provides a bold answer which goes against the traditional beliefs of a woman staying at home all the time. In this article, she wholeheartedly agrees to the question she poses in the magazine. But McClung says that a woman can do both only if she has the "love and loyalty" from her family. She provides an answer that perfectly describes the responses women wish to hear from their families.
This is a political cartoon from Puck Magazine around the 1920s, that sends out a very clear and distinct message that: a woman has every right to be treated as a citizen as a man. In this cartoon, the original statement is that the, "woman's sphere," meaning the woman's domain, "is the home." But, "the home," is crossed out and replaced by, "wherever she makes good." This cartoon is trying to say that women are not restricted to only staying at home, but that they have the capability to do whatever she wishes to do. It basically states that women have the potential to be as great as men.