Woman's Place

"Girls should be educated to fit them for the sphere of life for which they are destined– that of the homemaker."

Adelaide Hoodless, 1897

Women who believe in woman suffrage seem to think that we men want to deprive them of their liberties; but we wish to do no such thing. All men who are worthy of the name of men, place woman upon a very high pedestal, to which no man in his sphere, could ever hope to attain: and we want her to remain there, where she can command our respect and esteem and use the powers that God has given her for the good of humanity . . . Why should she besmear herself with the rottenness of politics?
Letter to the editor, Toronto Globe, 1912

"Maternity is the ultimate destiny of women and signifies the flowering of her existence."
La Mère canadienne et son enfant, 1946

"A woman is regarded as a second-rate substitute for a man. The dice are loaded for half the population. The men want to hog everything. They want all the gravy, the gravy boat and the silver ladle."
Agnes Macphail, 16 September 1949

"I can't be a rose in any man's lapel."
Margaret Trudeau