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Lectures to probe history of women's rights

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 10/10/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Donna Goodman will teach a course on the history of Manitoba�s suffrage movement.

IN two decades as a history teacher at Kelvin High School, Donna Goodman rarely found a word in the textbooks about the women's rights movement.

An empowered woman, a scholar, a dedicated teacher -- Goodman is not the kind of person to let that go.

"It was one united battle for rights of half the population, yet it has been virtually invisible from history courses," Goodman said. "The heroines we could have had growing up, we had no information on."

Now retired, Goodman will redress some of that absence of information with a series of four lectures at the University Women's Club on the history of the suffrage movement in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain, beginning Nov. 6.

Goodman calls it Hidden from History -- Herstory.

Women such as Nellie McClung and Cora Hind were pioneers for women's rights in Manitoba, not just getting the vote, but full rights, said Goodman.

She recalled that back in the 1980s she got a call from Prof. Ron Kirbyson -- whose son, Geoff, now a Free Press reporter, was in her class -- asking for help with a history book project to be used as a textbook in Ontario public schools.

"I kind of foolishly agreed to it, not knowing what was involved," laughed Goodman.

"Canada in a North American perspective -- it was a focus on ideas," Goodman said. At the same time, "There was pressure from the women's movement -- where are the women?"

Goodman said there are two distinct eras key to women's rights, the suffrage movement from the late 19th century through the First World War, and the women's movement from the 1960s onward.

The series of lectures "is going to give you the context as to why attitudes to women were so entrenched.

"It's the debate as it raged in the U.S. and Britain, and then Canada got involved. It was less intense and less violent" here, she said.

One theme Goodman will explore: "Why was it the western provinces, the western states, were the first to grant the vote to women?

"The issues are still relevant today," said Goodman. "It's an age-old question: how does one bring about change?"

Donna Goodman will present her two-hour lectures Tuesdays beginning Nov. 6 and continuing through Nov. 27 at 9:15 a.m. at the University Women's Club, 54 West Gate. Cost for the series is $45 for members, $60 for non-members.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 10, 2012 A8

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