NATIONALISM, SUFFRAGE & MATERNAL FEMINISM: RACE, GENDER & RELIGION

Abstract

Abstract:The turn of the nineteenth century was an extremely dynamic and formative time in Canadian history as it defined its “imagined community.” Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities espoused nation and nationalism through his concept as “imagined communities,” both politically and culturally. “National identities are imagined as both intrinsically limited and sovereign. The nation is imagined as limited because, no matter the size or scope, it is finite in its inclusion and there is always “others” beyond its borders.” Through research on suffragist writings from both men and women, suffragist organizations membership, documents written about the future of Canada, and the concept of maternal feminism there remained a majority of people committed to a future “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant” nation. The women’s suffragist movement and “maternal feminism,” intertwined with nationalism, created a reciprocal effect, which established an “imagined community” that included those who belonged and “others” who clearly did not. Suffragist, armed with new found political influence, endorsed policies of assimilation or legislation to keep Canada from accepting people of “degenerating” races or religions. Clearly, nationalism and an emerging Canadian identity had profound influences on the suffragist movement and maternal feminism, causing once a once marginalized gender to now subjugate “others” based on class, race or religion.