Twentieth-Century Canadian Working Class History: The Historic Challenges Facing Women in Canada's Workforce Essay by Top Papers

The following paper will look at twentieth century Canadian working class history with an eye towards exploring the challenges facing women in Canada's workforce. In particular, the next several pages will look at the historic attitudes which kept women out of many jobs and time will also be set aside to looking at the difficult job positions and work conditions - often tenuous, rarely well-paying - that women were forced to accept if they wanted paid employment. The essay will then examine the hostility which is also prevalent (or can be prevalent) in non-traditional sectors when women start intruding upon a space that has always been, definitively, male. From there, a significant portion of time will be devoted to highlighting how Canada - despite its public proclamations to be an enthusiastic supporter of women's rights - has done little to help busy professional women balance a career and the chores of being a mother. Last of all, the paper will conclude by underlining the simple, yet unpalatable, fact that sexist attitudes and stereotypes continue to pop up in the Canadian workplace (and in Canadian public life) despite vigorous efforts to stamp them out. In summation, the things that are holding Canadian women back today are attitudinal, cultural and - given the absence of appropriate day care centers - structural. Until these matters are addressed, women will continue to struggle without success to achieve full equality with men.