Introduction
It was no coincidence that women made up much of the workforce in the early factories and manufacturing industries. During those days to jump start an industry, the owner needed cheap labor. In the nineteenth / early twentieth century women had few alternatives for work, and thus took whatever pay and conditions that were offered in order to feed themselves and their families. Women also were sought as desirable employees because of age old beliefs that they, more than men, were nimble fingered, dexterous, careful, meticulous and quick. Accustomed to a world in which male authority ruled, employers counted on them to be compliant, docile workers. (Woloch, 1984)
The history of women work
As nation builders, women have for a long time distinguished themselves by the extra ordinary diversity of their contribution. Their duties from giving birth to the transfer of these young people to their duties in the factory indicates their perseverance and hardworking to a fruitful end.
Apart from these duties of increasing the man power they themselves really toiled and worked. They were unpaid or ill paid, did dirty work, monotonous back breaking duties in the nations homes, farms and factories or industries. They transformed Canadian nation from rural, agricultural based society into an urban industrialized society. One of the most beneficiary industries was that of textile. Women transferred their time on spinning and weaving skills from the hearth to the industries and factories. (Woloch, 1984) For example in Quebec the cotton industry developed a lot because of cheap labor from women.
To see these more clearly we are going to look at a case study of Quebec. In the period of 20th century there was change and women had a lot of better job opportunities compared to before. The systematic events that led to the statehood gave way to an official demise to the practice of polygamy. This led to the approval for the state to change its constitution. The constitution then restored the rights of women to vote and also guaranteed other equal rights that were usually neglected.
This brought about gender equality. The most important laws that were passed between the periods 1930 had to set the maximum hours and the almost minimum wages for women who were working in average kind of conditions. During these period technology dramatically changed women’s lives mostly in the urban areas. There was the revolutionizing of homemaking with the introduction of indoor plumbing, electric service, central heating and the small power motor. (Richard, 1988)
There was the growth of commercial laundries and the expansion of factory production industries such as that of clothing, processed foods, and other household items that relieved women of many tasks and created thousands of job opportunities for them outside their place of residence. This resulted to the fast growth of manufacturing, banking, retail and wholesale trade during this period of twentieth century. The success of many of these ventures depended on women.
Many women found employment in offices, communications, retail stores and hotels in fast-growing cities and towns throughout the Quebec, Montreal and other towns. From the beginning women had predominated as telephone operators but because of their gender, few advanced beyond the lowest supervisory positions. Women also staffed retail stores all over the state and some of them owned and managed many of them. They also dominated the teaching and health care professions which they were accredited to.
Low salaries and the failure of school boards to provide equal pay for female and male teachers, as required by state law, led many women to leave classrooms for the greater financial rewards of office employment. Office workers were usually young, single white women who liked their jobs because they were “cleaner and less strenuous than factory work, and socially much more acceptable.” (Richard, 1988)
In the 1920’s there were new products that women in Canada were working on. Among these were the chemicals, cigars, soaps, candy, crackers and other baked goods. Also the importance of women was evident in the printing and publishing industries in these areas of Canada where it was believed that in approximate one in every seven workers in the businesses was a woman. As the Country developed and grew, working women filled important roles in many businesses, industries, and professions, but society would continue to underestimate and undervalue their contributions for many decades to come. (Banner, 1984)
By the end of 1920, the work force of textile industries in Quebec was equally divided to both sexes. At around 1930 only about 39% of this workforce accounted for women. This was due to the fact that the end products of the textile required advanced techniques like dyeing and printing, but women lacked these skills. (Woloch, 1984)
The married women were fired when laws were passed that male workers who had responsibilities were employed. This also favored the unmarried and single ladies. This changed after there was acute demand for labor in 1942. This was after male employees were lured to higher wages industries after the Second World War.
In 1930 women aged from 12 years and 14 years worked in the mills. Even after laws were passed for the women to show their baptismal certificates to indicate when they were born they hid them until the time that they could turn 14 years. Most women who started to work at the age below 20 years had not proceeded beyond elementary school. In some places the age was set to 16 years for women to start in the factories and industries.
Women had to work under poor conditions and small amounts of wages. For example in around 1900 employees worked for 60 hours a week. In 1910 they worked for 55 hours a week. This was about ten hours a day from Monday to Friday and five hours on Saturday. This was plus one hour for lunch breaks. Their other let down was their wages. Workers in Montreal Island with not less than two years of experience were supposed to be paid more than $12 per week. This was after legislation. For other parts of the country it went low to about $10 a week. In 1930 the average pay for a week was about $8.92 and in 1936 it was $9.57. (Woloch, 1984)
From its inception, women provided the labor which enabled the Quebec cotton industry to flourish. After 1930, there was reduction in the female component of the force in this industry as a result of technological change and a reinforcement of public opinion against women working outside the home. Concurrently, there was an important transformation occurring in the occupational distribution of female cotton workers to unskilled positions.
Low wages, long hours and poor working conditions remained the trademarks of the Quebec cotton industry. In spite of some improvements after the Second World War, the working conditions and environment continued to deteriorate. Female cotton workers were reduced from individuals finding a sense of pride and accomplishment in their work to tenders of ever increasing number of “improved” machines requiring little human intervention.(Woloch, 1984)
Conclusion
From this paper we have seen that the working conditions were biased and favored one gender. Even though through these hardships women excelled in all activities that they did. Women demonstrated good example of what women if given opportunity can do. Such good results leads to the ideas that gender equality in all areas should be put in fore front.
Reference
Banner, L. (1984). Women in modern Canada: a brief history, (New York, San Diego).
Daniel, R. (1986). Canadian women in the twentieth century, (New York, San Diego).
James, K. (1992). Women and Quebec, (New York, New York Publishers).
Richard, M. (1988). Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Women’s Professional Work, (London, Cambridge Publishers).