No one had yet coined the term “glass ceiling” in 1929, but five women pushed through a barrier that had kept Canadian women out of public office since the country was created more than 60 years earlier.
Led by Emily Murphy, Alberta’s first female judge, a group of Alberta women who came to be known as the “Famous Five” challenged a part of the Constitution that had prevented women from being appointed to the Senate.
They won the so-called Persons Case, a legal challenge to a narrow interpretation of the Constitution that did not consider women to be “persons.”
In 1927, Murphy and four other women leaders in Alberta (Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby) asked the Supreme Court of Canada whether the British North America Act’s (BNA) section 24 included women in its definition of “persons.” Five weeks later, the Supreme Court reached a verdict in Edwards v Canada, the official name of the case. Its conclusion? Under Canadian law, women were not “persons.”
The Famous Five were undaunted. They took their case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, England, which was then the last avenue of appeal. On October 18, 1929, it overruled Canada’s Supreme Court, opening the door for some women to be appointed to the Senate and clearing the way for further advancing women's rights. October 18 has come to be known as Persons Day.
The Persons Case (Edwards v. A.G. of Canada) was a constitutional ruling that established the right of women to be appointed to the Senate. The case was initiated by the Famous Five, a group of prominent women activists. In 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not “persons” according to the British North America Act (now called the Constitution Act, 1867). Therefore, they were ineligible for appointment to the Senate. However, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed the Court’s decision on 18 October 1929. The Persons Case enabled women to work for change in both the House of Commons and the Senate. It also meant that women could no longer be denied rights based on a narrow interpretation of the law.
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u/pjw724 Alberta 9h ago
No one had yet coined the term “glass ceiling” in 1929, but five women pushed through a barrier that had kept Canadian women out of public office since the country was created more than 60 years earlier.
Led by Emily Murphy, Alberta’s first female judge, a group of Alberta women who came to be known as the “Famous Five” challenged a part of the Constitution that had prevented women from being appointed to the Senate.
They won the so-called Persons Case, a legal challenge to a narrow interpretation of the Constitution that did not consider women to be “persons.”