The history of feminism in Canada has been a gradual struggle aimed at establishing equal rights between women and men. The history of Canadian feminism, like modern, Western feminism in other countries has been divided by scholars into three "waves", each describing a period of intense activism and social change. The use of “waves,” however has been critiqued for its failure to include the feminist activism of, for example, Aboriginal and Québécois women who organized for changes in their own communities as well as for larger social change.
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“One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held perceptions of male and female behaviour was its insistence that women were victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary people’s experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women.”
—Rosalind Coward (b. 1953)
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)