But what did all of that mean to Quebec? Michelle Dumont shows that the women's movements that had become established in Quebec in the postwar period were a key ingredient: ". . . it was the symmetry and the channels of communication between the two linguistic groups which ensured the success of the operation to establish the Royal Commission." Feminism and Quebec nationalism were key and complex events in recent Quebec history.
The search for women's rights has considerable parallels in the U.S. and Canada. But while American women failed to achieve ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in Washington, Canadian women won explicit rights in the 1982 Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Why? Naomi Black examines the anti-feminist forces, organizational structures and political systems that led to these outcomes in one of the few truly comparative pieces in the collection. Micheline de Seve challenges this with a description from the Quebec feminist nationalist perspective. "The truth is that the claim for a specific amendment to the Constitution could not be approved by Quebec feminists, since the Constitution itself was not recognized as legitimate by our own democratic institutions in Quebec, women and men united. This was an English-Canadian issue which Quebec- identified feminists could not address without strong reservations."
This debate presents only one of a number of controversies that must have enlivened this conference. There are differing viewpoints over feminist research methods illustrated in Margrit Eichler's research on women's studies and its practitioners, in American Jean O'Barr's Case for Feminist Scholarship, and in Lorraine Greaves' commentary on academic feminism from her position in a community college.
The three commentators on racism in the Canadian women's movement all conclude that it is endemic in the "white feminism" of this country, although they tackle different aspects of this question. Mariana Valverde characterizes feminist studies as "debates between different white perspectives on sexuality and gender." Arun Mukherjee attacks the racism of feminists in the 19th century and their 20th-century analysts. Glenda Simms, President of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, points out the demographic impetus to change in Canada. This section of the book reflects the wider debate but will be especially useful to many readers for its look at the contemporary literature.
