ABSTRACT
Feminist literature in Canada has developed hand-in-hand with feminist social, political and literary-theory movements; the figure of the chiasmus – a crossing back and forth – applies to this dialogic interplay, whereby creativity and theorizing speak to, or inform one another, with a downplaying of hierarchy in favour of collaborative exchange. Beyond gaining the right to vote in all of the Canadian provinces in 1920, women were highly restricted in family, social and political life for much of the first half of the twentieth century; in 1966, the Fédération des femmes du Québec and the Committee for the Equality of Women in Canada were formed to redress this situation, leading to the Pearson government’s 1967 Royal Commission on the Status of Women, which reported in 1970, making 167 recommendations covering issues as diverse as birth control, pensions, family law and the Indian Act. Many of the recommendations were put into place, except for some of the more radical proposals, such as a national day-care programme, guaranteed income for the heads of single-parent families, or universal access to affordable abortion (see O’Neill). Creative artists and writers were key in the exploration of women’s rights, offering alternative perspectives and ideologies to those sanctioned by the government.
