Radical Ruptures: Feminism, Labor, and the Left in the Long Sixties in Canada

Abstract

This article examines the Canadian trade union movement's encounter with feminism, particularly socialist feminism, in the “long sixties,” exploring the challenges that feminists and leftists posed to the gender politics of the labor movement. In contrast to some writing on the New Left, which emphasizes continuities from the 1950s to the 1970s, I argue that these challenges represented a radical departure with the past. This is made evident when you compare Canadian labor's weak response to women's issues in the post-war period to the new mobilizations of the sixties. However, this does not necessarily mean we should accept the old “two wave” model of feminist activism. My discussion of these challenges to the labor movement is also compared to the more extensive American scholarship on the 1960s, indicating both some general similarities and also key differences between these two countries.