Four Suffragettes Sculpture
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Four Suffragettes Sculpture
This group of famous Québec women was sculpted by Jules Lasalle. They were unveiled on 5 December 2012.
Québec was the most backward province when it came to women's rights. People like Premier Maurice Duplessis backed by the Roman Catholic church did their best to keep women from having their rights. Things were so bad in Québec that when Marie-Claire Kirkland arrived in Québec City to take up her position as an MNA in 1964, she could not sign her own lease for an apartment. On April 25, 1940 Liberal Premier Adélard Godbout finally passed Bill 18, which granted women the right to vote and run for office. On the day the bill passed he gave the following speech: The conditions in which we are living make women equal to men. Women have the same duties and obligations.... Why should we refuse to grant them the same rights, especially when the issues we are called upon to examine have more to do with their realm of knowledge than ours?.... “Our society needs women.... I am promoting women’s right to vote in order to elevate the level of our political discussions. The women from left to right are: Marie Lacoste-Gérin-LaJoie was a pioneer Québec feminist who founded the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste (in 1907), an organization which campaigned for social and political rights for women. In addition to its legal work, the Federation nationale also championed social causes such as providing milk for children and mothers, fighting alcoholism and illness, raising awareness of infant mortality, and various other issues that affected women's lives. |
Idola St-Jean. Born Montreal, Québec 1880. She studied in Montreal and became a teacher of the French language.
However it would be her dedication to the fight for women's rights, specifically the right to vote in her home province of
Québec for which she would be best remembered. Québec would be the last province in Canada to grant the vote to
women and the battle was won by the direct efforts of women like Idola Saint-Jean. She founded the Alliance canadienne
pour le vote des femmes du Québec. In 1991 the Federation des femmes du Québec (FFQ) instituted Le Prix Idola Saint-Jean.
Thérèse Forget-Casgrain led the women's suffrage movement in Québec prior to World War I. She founded the Provincial Franchise Committee in 1921 and campaigned for women's rights and for the right to vote in Québec elections, a right that was not won until 1940. From 1928 to 1942, she was the leader of the League for Women's Rights. In the 1930s, she hosted a popular radio show Fémina. Marie-Claire Kirkland. When Marie-Claire Kirkland arrived in Québec City to take up her position as an MNA, she could not sign her own lease for an apartment. Her husband had to sign. Married women were legally incapable. Appointed a minister in Jean Lesage’s government, Mme Kirkland used her legislative power to give women more independence. In 1964, she tabled a bill that gave married women legal rights of their own. Since then, Québec women have been able to sign their own legal documents and make commercial and banking transactions on their own. |
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Four suffragettes sculpture June 2014 Photo 113 |
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Four suffragettes sculpture June 2014 Photo 117 |
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Four suffragettes sculpture
June 2014 Photo 114 |
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Four suffragettes sculpture
June 2014 Photo 115 |
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