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Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution
Ten Thousand Roses is a rich tapestry of stories told by over a hundred feminists from across Canada who organized, discussed, protested and struggled for change. Legalized abortion, resistance to male violence, pay equity and employment equity, legal equality through the Charter, pornography, anti-racism, action against poverty, rights for Aboriginal women and child these are the issues that rallied Canadian women to activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, the second wave of feminism. Judy Rebick, feminist activist, weaves together an insightful and stirring oral history full of four decades of struggle, defeat and triumph. The book also offers honest and insightful discussions of the differences that simultaneously divided and strengthened the women's movement in its efforts to remake a male-dominated culture. These stories define the Canadian women's movement as one of the most successful on the planet and open a treasure chest of knowledge for anyone wanting to make a better world.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
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252 people want to read
About the author
Judy Rebick
12 books46 followersJudy Rebick is a well-known social justice and feminist activist. My new book "[book Heroes in My Head] is a memoir of my healing from Multiple Personality Syndrome (now called DID). I am also the founding publisher of , Canada's progressive multimedia web site.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 23, 2021
A really comprehensive and insightful history of the struggles and achievements of the Canadian feminist movement from the 1960s through the early 2000s. I particularly appreciated the fact that Judy Rebick was willing to show the hard work and the messiness involved in movement building; and her emphasis on the importance of organizing for change over time. I particularly love this quote from an interview with organizer Debbie Field (pg. 200): "Social movements are like rivers. They either flow or they don't flow. As a political leader, you can change the direction, but you can never start the river flowing." In other words, it's not what happens during election cycles that matters. It's what happens in between elections.
May 27, 2023
Extremely coloured by 90s/00s anti-globalization movement stuff, which does make a fair bit of sense given when it was written. Given that whole scene was probably the place where stuff must have felt the most generative in 2005.
Probably a good introduction to various feminist movement ideas and the historical context of the era (esp given that Canadian feminism feels particularly neglected and is swallowed in the Canadian self conception by what went down on in the States).
I say probably because I can never tell what is "accessible" to people who have never read about feminism or feminist mvnt stuff, but I also err on the side of having faith in the intelligence of people to decode stuff that might seem weird/difficult.
Probably a good introduction to various feminist movement ideas and the historical context of the era (esp given that Canadian feminism feels particularly neglected and is swallowed in the Canadian self conception by what went down on in the States).
I say probably because I can never tell what is "accessible" to people who have never read about feminism or feminist mvnt stuff, but I also err on the side of having faith in the intelligence of people to decode stuff that might seem weird/difficult.
May 27, 2021
Overall, this is an excellent book with comprehensive storytelling. However, as noted by previous reviewers, the historical facts are not 100% accurate. Nonetheless, I would still recommend this book to anyone that is interested in feminist literature. This book helped me understand feminism through a different lens. All I can say is that historical context is critical and the best way to value that statement is to read this book!
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April 1, 2009Reviewed here.
April 19, 2015
“Always cast you heart over the hurdle first; your body will be obliged to follow.” (Judith Thurman, Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller)
Introduction
p.xi – In 1995 almost eight hundred women marched from Montreal to Quebec City to demand the elimination of poverty. As they passed through towns and villages along the way, whole populations came out to greet them, and churches sounded their bells. One man, a rose grower in Drummondville, was so inspired that he brought ten thousand roses to Quebec City for the huge rally that greeted the marchers, and so, instead of placards, every person carried a rose. It is from this story that my book takes its title. The theme of the march was bread and roses, the anthem of the women’s movement.
p.xii – Unlike in the United States, women’s liberation in Canada started with an alliance between older feminists and young radicals. In Canada, too, socialist feminists played an important role from the beginning, making sure that the interests of working-class women were part of the movement. The resulting alliance between autonomous women’s groups and women in the labour movement has made our trade unions the most feminist in the world.
Part I – The 1960s
1 – The Seedbed
p.5 – Voice of Women (VOW) was ahead of its time. In general, the second wave of feminism is agreed to have started in 1963, with the publication in the United States of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Years before young radical discovered feminism, the generation of women before them was starting to push against the constraints of what Friedan called “the problem with no name.”
p.6 – In 1966 Thérèse Casgrain, a leader in the Quebec’s women’s struggle to get the vote and a VOW activist, founded the Fédération des femmes du Québec. That same year, led by feminist Laura Sabia, a group calling themselves the Committee for the Equality of women in Canada formed in Toronto to campaign for the establishment of a Royal Commission on the status of women.
p.8 – It started in Canada with the Toronto Women’s Liberation Movement, founded in 1967, and mushroomed from there. The Feminine Action League was established at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, soon followed by the Women’s Caucus in Vancouver.
p.11 – In the middle of what was called the sexual revolution, abortion was illegal, as was distributing birth control information. Women across the country did abortion referral and set up information tables on campuses. The Birth Control Handbook published by the McGill Student Society in 1968 became an underground bestseller across North America. In part because of women’s organizing, the House of Commons passed an omnibus bill in 1969 that covered abortion, birth control and homosexuality. The new law decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults and made birth control legal, but it placed serious restrictions on abortion. Feminists continued to organize.
Part II – The 1970s
p.20 – Rosemary Brown became the first black woman elected to legislature when she won a seat in British Columbia in 1972. In 1979, fed up with the slow progress women were making in mainstream politics, seven hundred women attended the founding meeting of the Feminist Party of Canada. But the Feminist Party never ran a candidate, and women continued to struggle for representation in the male-dominated political parties.
4 – A Not-So-Quiet Revolution, The Quebec Women’s Movement
p.47 – Quebec women did not get the vote until 1940, a generation after the rest of the country, although they held it briefly from 1791 to 1849. Because Quebec moved so quickly in the 1960s from a reactionary, Catholic Church-dominated society into the modern age, new institutions such as unions were much more open to radical change than were their bureaucratic English Canadian counterparts.
p.48 – Dr. Henry Morgentaler performed his first illegal abortion in Montreal in 1968; after advocating for liberalization of the abortion laws, he felt hypocritical turning away women who asked for the procedure. On June 1, 1970, Morgentaler was arrested. His trial and subsequent jailing remained the focus of the pro-choice movement in Quebec until the newly elected Parti Québécois virtually legalized abortion in 1976 by announcing it would not prosecute any doctor performing safe abortions. Abortion would remain restricted in the rest of Canada until the 1988 Supreme Court decision striking down the abortion law.
8 – Coming Out, Lesbians Organize
p.101 – Homosexuality was illegal in Canada until Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 assertion that “the stat has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.”
Part III – The 1980s
p.127 – the proclamation of the equality section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1985 created a major new arm of struggle for Canadian feminism. Using the Charter protections that women had won, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund intervened in multiple cases and helped establish landmark legal victories for women on everything from sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, and sex bias in employment standards to spousal support and reproductive freedom.
p.128 – In 1981 Bertha Wilson had become the first woman appointed t the Supreme Court, and her judgments pushed the court toward a progressive interpretation of equality rights.
p.142 – “Whatever women do, they must do it twice as well as men to be half as good. Luckily this is not that difficult.” (Charlotte Whitton)
13 – Freedom of Choice, The Morgentaler Clinics
p.156 – “When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether I am afraid.” (Audre Lorde)
Quebec essentially legalized abortion in 1976, after three juries had acquitted Dr. Morgentaler, but the restrictive 1969 abortion law remained in effect in the rest of Canada. After the 1973 Rowe v. Wade decision in the United States made first-trimester abortions legal, many Canadian women’s liberation groups set up a kind of underground railroad to ferry women to abortion clinics in the United States.
15 – Federal Politics
p.179 – By 1980 the National Action Committee on the Status of Women was a major voice for feminism and a truly national organization.
Almost every women’s group in the country was a member, from the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire and the Women’s Temperance League to rape crisis centers and the women’s committee of the Communist Party of Canada.
Part IV – The 1990 and Beyond
p.221 – The 1990s was the decade of corporate globalization. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, capitalism embraced the globe with triumphalist right-wing intellectuals declaring the “end of history,” by which they meant the end of any struggle for an alternative economic, political, or social system. Communism had failed to create a viable alternative and social democracy was everywhere beginning to embrace the neo-liberal reality.
p.222 – In June 1993, with Mulroney’s resignation, Kim Campbell became leader of the Progressive Conservatives and the first female prime minister of Canada.
Epilogue
p.255-256 – The success of the women’s movement was in its ability to work both inside and outside the system: as some writers have put it, in and against the state. Once you are inside a system, however, the pressure to conform is tremendous. My generation started as kick-ass radicals but were slowly co-opted. Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci called it hegemony, the way that capitalism maintains its ideological hold.
Introduction
p.xi – In 1995 almost eight hundred women marched from Montreal to Quebec City to demand the elimination of poverty. As they passed through towns and villages along the way, whole populations came out to greet them, and churches sounded their bells. One man, a rose grower in Drummondville, was so inspired that he brought ten thousand roses to Quebec City for the huge rally that greeted the marchers, and so, instead of placards, every person carried a rose. It is from this story that my book takes its title. The theme of the march was bread and roses, the anthem of the women’s movement.
p.xii – Unlike in the United States, women’s liberation in Canada started with an alliance between older feminists and young radicals. In Canada, too, socialist feminists played an important role from the beginning, making sure that the interests of working-class women were part of the movement. The resulting alliance between autonomous women’s groups and women in the labour movement has made our trade unions the most feminist in the world.
Part I – The 1960s
1 – The Seedbed
p.5 – Voice of Women (VOW) was ahead of its time. In general, the second wave of feminism is agreed to have started in 1963, with the publication in the United States of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Years before young radical discovered feminism, the generation of women before them was starting to push against the constraints of what Friedan called “the problem with no name.”
p.6 – In 1966 Thérèse Casgrain, a leader in the Quebec’s women’s struggle to get the vote and a VOW activist, founded the Fédération des femmes du Québec. That same year, led by feminist Laura Sabia, a group calling themselves the Committee for the Equality of women in Canada formed in Toronto to campaign for the establishment of a Royal Commission on the status of women.
p.8 – It started in Canada with the Toronto Women’s Liberation Movement, founded in 1967, and mushroomed from there. The Feminine Action League was established at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, soon followed by the Women’s Caucus in Vancouver.
p.11 – In the middle of what was called the sexual revolution, abortion was illegal, as was distributing birth control information. Women across the country did abortion referral and set up information tables on campuses. The Birth Control Handbook published by the McGill Student Society in 1968 became an underground bestseller across North America. In part because of women’s organizing, the House of Commons passed an omnibus bill in 1969 that covered abortion, birth control and homosexuality. The new law decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adults and made birth control legal, but it placed serious restrictions on abortion. Feminists continued to organize.
Part II – The 1970s
p.20 – Rosemary Brown became the first black woman elected to legislature when she won a seat in British Columbia in 1972. In 1979, fed up with the slow progress women were making in mainstream politics, seven hundred women attended the founding meeting of the Feminist Party of Canada. But the Feminist Party never ran a candidate, and women continued to struggle for representation in the male-dominated political parties.
4 – A Not-So-Quiet Revolution, The Quebec Women’s Movement
p.47 – Quebec women did not get the vote until 1940, a generation after the rest of the country, although they held it briefly from 1791 to 1849. Because Quebec moved so quickly in the 1960s from a reactionary, Catholic Church-dominated society into the modern age, new institutions such as unions were much more open to radical change than were their bureaucratic English Canadian counterparts.
p.48 – Dr. Henry Morgentaler performed his first illegal abortion in Montreal in 1968; after advocating for liberalization of the abortion laws, he felt hypocritical turning away women who asked for the procedure. On June 1, 1970, Morgentaler was arrested. His trial and subsequent jailing remained the focus of the pro-choice movement in Quebec until the newly elected Parti Québécois virtually legalized abortion in 1976 by announcing it would not prosecute any doctor performing safe abortions. Abortion would remain restricted in the rest of Canada until the 1988 Supreme Court decision striking down the abortion law.
8 – Coming Out, Lesbians Organize
p.101 – Homosexuality was illegal in Canada until Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s 1969 assertion that “the stat has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.”
Part III – The 1980s
p.127 – the proclamation of the equality section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1985 created a major new arm of struggle for Canadian feminism. Using the Charter protections that women had won, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund intervened in multiple cases and helped establish landmark legal victories for women on everything from sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, and sex bias in employment standards to spousal support and reproductive freedom.
p.128 – In 1981 Bertha Wilson had become the first woman appointed t the Supreme Court, and her judgments pushed the court toward a progressive interpretation of equality rights.
p.142 – “Whatever women do, they must do it twice as well as men to be half as good. Luckily this is not that difficult.” (Charlotte Whitton)
13 – Freedom of Choice, The Morgentaler Clinics
p.156 – “When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether I am afraid.” (Audre Lorde)
Quebec essentially legalized abortion in 1976, after three juries had acquitted Dr. Morgentaler, but the restrictive 1969 abortion law remained in effect in the rest of Canada. After the 1973 Rowe v. Wade decision in the United States made first-trimester abortions legal, many Canadian women’s liberation groups set up a kind of underground railroad to ferry women to abortion clinics in the United States.
15 – Federal Politics
p.179 – By 1980 the National Action Committee on the Status of Women was a major voice for feminism and a truly national organization.
Almost every women’s group in the country was a member, from the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire and the Women’s Temperance League to rape crisis centers and the women’s committee of the Communist Party of Canada.
Part IV – The 1990 and Beyond
p.221 – The 1990s was the decade of corporate globalization. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, capitalism embraced the globe with triumphalist right-wing intellectuals declaring the “end of history,” by which they meant the end of any struggle for an alternative economic, political, or social system. Communism had failed to create a viable alternative and social democracy was everywhere beginning to embrace the neo-liberal reality.
p.222 – In June 1993, with Mulroney’s resignation, Kim Campbell became leader of the Progressive Conservatives and the first female prime minister of Canada.
Epilogue
p.255-256 – The success of the women’s movement was in its ability to work both inside and outside the system: as some writers have put it, in and against the state. Once you are inside a system, however, the pressure to conform is tremendous. My generation started as kick-ass radicals but were slowly co-opted. Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci called it hegemony, the way that capitalism maintains its ideological hold.
July 1, 2020
This book based on the individual stories of women working hard for a better life, not just for women, but for everyone was a real eye-opener. The women's movement pioneered advances in social justice issues of poverty, racism, sexism, ablism, homophobia, patriarchy and more. This book helped me better understand the dedication and hard work of women before me that have resulted in huge advances in eradicating gender inequality and the better life I live as a woman in Canada now - though we still have much more work to do. I thank and applaud all these women who made such sacrifices because they believed in a better world.
January 8, 2021
A very enjoyable collection of essays and oral histories of the Canadian feminist movement.
January 29, 2023
That was a sometimes boring but mostly interesting recount of the history of the feminist movement in Canada, I really enjoyed learning about the creation of DAWN.
January 14, 2012
I don't really remember this book but that's not because it wasn't interesting. A lot of the books I'm marking as read today are books I read a year or more ago. I just haven't logged into good reads in a while. I remember liking this book and enjoying reading about the Canadian side of things (most of the books out there are on american feminist history) but that's about it.
I'm bad at reviews so I'll just repost the blurb about it from the Penguin Publishing website:
Ten Thousand Roses is a rich tapestry of stories told by over a hundred feminists from across Canada who organized, discussed, protested and struggled for change.
Legalized abortion, resistance to male violence, pay equity and employment equity, legal equality through the Charter, pornography, anti-racism, action against poverty, rights for Aboriginal women and child care: these are the issues that rallied Canadian women to activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, the second wave of feminism. Judy Rebick, feminist activist, weaves together an insightful and stirring oral history full of four decades of struggle, defeat and triumph. The book also offers honest and insightful discussions of the differences that simultaneously divided and strengthened the women's movement in its efforts to remake a male-dominated culture. These stories define the Canadian women's movement as one of the most successful on the planet and open a treasure chest of knowledge for anyone wanting to make a better world.
I'm bad at reviews so I'll just repost the blurb about it from the Penguin Publishing website:
Ten Thousand Roses is a rich tapestry of stories told by over a hundred feminists from across Canada who organized, discussed, protested and struggled for change.
Legalized abortion, resistance to male violence, pay equity and employment equity, legal equality through the Charter, pornography, anti-racism, action against poverty, rights for Aboriginal women and child care: these are the issues that rallied Canadian women to activism from the 1960s through the 1990s, the second wave of feminism. Judy Rebick, feminist activist, weaves together an insightful and stirring oral history full of four decades of struggle, defeat and triumph. The book also offers honest and insightful discussions of the differences that simultaneously divided and strengthened the women's movement in its efforts to remake a male-dominated culture. These stories define the Canadian women's movement as one of the most successful on the planet and open a treasure chest of knowledge for anyone wanting to make a better world.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews