Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada

by Joan Sangster

The increased participation of women in the labour force was one of the most significant changes to Canadian social life during the quarter century after the close of the Second World War. Transforming Labour offers one of the first critical assessments of women's paid labour in this era, a period when more and more women, particularly those with families, were going 'out to work'. Using case studies from across Canada, Joan Sangster explores a range of themes, including women's experiences within unions, Aboriginal women's changing patterns of work, and the challenges faced by immigrant women. By charting women's own efforts to ameliorate their work lives as well as factors that re-shaped the labour force, Sangster challenges the commonplace perception of this era as one of conformity, domesticity for women, and feminist inactivity. Working women's collective grievances fuelled their desire for change, culminating in challenges to the status quo in the 1960s, when they voiced their discontent, calling for a new world of work and better opportunities for themselves and their daughters.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Canada

416 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2010

About the author

Joan Sangster is Vanier Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and director of the Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies at Trent University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Reviews

[Rissa (rissasreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Women’s increased participation in the paid labor force was an important time in Canadian society as many changes were and had to be made to support women within the workforce. Joan Sangster chronicles this period in Transforming Labour by reflecting on the changes that were made in the pattern of work, social concerns (such as childcare), union membership, and is an eye-opening book that highlights the barriers women faced, how they fought to remove them, and provides an interesting parallel to the current state of the workforce in modern times.
One aspect of this book that I really enjoyed was how Sangster formatted the chapters to take us on a journey through time. We begin the novel looking at the direct impacts of WWII and the Cold-War on women entering the workforce and what changes needed to be made to make accessing work more accessible for women and how women and unions fought for those changes. Then Joan Sangster provides more of a focus on the increase of women’s union membership as well as the nuances and barriers that were specific to Indigenous women that were entering and actively participating in the workforce. I did struggle a bit with how Joan Sangster wrote parts of this book as the writing style was one that I found hard to remain completely immersed in. For me, some aspects of how Joan Sangster wrote this book felt more like she was telling us these facts versus explaining/elaborating on them for the reader.
My favorite chapters of this book were Chapters 4 – 6 as these chapters provided an interesting parallel to some aspects of modern-day work. Chapter 4 was especially intriguing because I found that a lot of the personality traits and performance that employees had to adhere to still translates today when it comes to customer service jobs, such as being bubbly, cheery, and easily malleable. “Aesthetic labour” was an interesting term that Joan Sangster used in Chapter 4 to describe this aspect of the work and how this reinforced stereotyping in hiring. I would argue that we can still see a lot of this today, especially in the restaurant industries with those businesses tending to hire women for waitress and hostess roles with specific dress codes that limit their autonomy and expect them to constantly be bubbly and cheery to customers even when being faced with mistreatment. Although this aspect of work was discussed earlier on by showcasing the beauty pageants that were held for female employees in some places of employment and the sexualization of women in job related adverts , I found Chapter 4s look into retail workers highlighted the aesthetic of labor and the nuances of how women were expected to behave versus men even more so than the earlier chapters as it resembles the current issues women face in the workforce today.
Chapter 5 addressed the ways in which women are placed in roles with higher levels of surveillance which puts them in a position where they are more likely to be faced with disciplinary actions and grievances. The telephone operators discussed in Chapter 5 reminds me of how much more at risk women are to be faced with disciplinary actions in client facing roles, such as waitresses and hostesses, because they are expected to behave in a certain way (“the customer is always right”). Due to this they tend to be at a heightened risk of discipline due to customer complaints against them should they not act “properly,” or they make a mistake. I also thought that the reference to the Calgary meat packing plant and the male dominated workforce entrenching certain behavioral beliefs, which also can tie back to the concept of “Aesthetic Labour,” was a great contrast to highlight between industries. You can also still see certain industries, and even job positions, advertising a certain level of “male bravado” as mentioned by Joan Sangster and how those traits can dominate the “desirable” traits of workers. Roughness, toughness, grit, backbones, these are all traits that are seen as necessary to be a CEO . However, we can see how these “necessary” traits fall into the “male bravado” category and want you to be a relentless employee. This fails to consider the nuances women face in the workforce because of how societal beliefs, such as these “desirable traits of a CEO,” reinforce many barriers women face in the workforce. Time management being one necessary trait , but without proper societal supports for issues like child-care and an increase in men’s participation in child-care at home, women will never have the option to manage their time the way men are allotted . Living and working in Alberta in the oil and gas industry you can see how a lot of those male centered beliefs about how an employee should behave have trickled into the realm of work and how it has been entrenched in the offices, especially the C-Suite . I can also see first-hand today in my own place of employment the example Joan Sangster provided of how women were criticized more than men for “not being in good humour” and how women are often talked about in my own place of work for exhibiting those behavior traits of a CEO. Yet roughness and toughness are seen as a “necessary” trait, but only if done by the right gender.
Overall, this book provided a very insightful look into the past and showcased many parallels that can be drawn into the beliefs still firmly entrenched in our society today. I am interested in looking into the 1970s as the conclusion mentions that was when a lot of the “fun” began. This is also a novel that left me thinking about the ways in which the mistreatment of women at work has spilled over into modern times and how far we still must go.

[AskHistorians]

Joan Sangster applies an historical materialist approach to the postwar period to deepen our understanding of women’s labour in Canada. She argues that class interpenetrated both gender and social relations, and that lessons can be drawn from the ways in which Canadian women “experienced” this reality.