In the twentieth century, Canada began a shift to a more ‘modernized’ society, acquiring a capitalist economy which would result in the deliberate segregation of women from the workforce in many parts of the country.

This process can be seen as early as the 1930s, in Newfoundland when unemployment insurance implemented a stereotype that men were the only real breadwinners in the household[1]. Originally, these stereotypes arose from the need for an inshore resident fishery, resulting in a work-based gender division in which the men caught the fish and the women and children split and salted it[2]. However, as Newfoundland’s fishing practice transitioned into an industrialized fishery norm, the women’s role in the work force was dramatically reduced[3]. The reduction was especially pushed by government officials, who viewed the original gender division as a sign of poor economic development, and the physical effects it presented on the women to be unseemly[4].

A similar scenario occurred in Toronto in the 1930s; due to the labourists considering the ways of the past to be effeminate, there was a massive societal push for men to acquire what we consider to be traditional masculine traits such as rationality, virility and autonomy[5].

These events are an example of what Marx considered to be ‘fetishization’ in which society overlooks a societal value’s social origins in order to meet a present ideal[6].  Meaning that what we currently perceive as the gender roles are not that old to begin with, they’re something that we created for convenience.

[1] Wright, “Young Men and Technology: Government Attempts to Create a ‘Modern’ Fisheries Workforce in Newfoundland, 1949-70,” Labour/Le Travail, 43 (Fall, 1998): 144.

[2] Wright, “Young Men and Technology: Government Attempts to Create a ‘Modern’ Fisheries Workforce in Newfoundland, 1949-70,” Labour/Le Travail, 43 (Fall, 1998): 145.

[3] Wright, “Young Men and Technology: Government Attempts to Create a ‘Modern’ Fisheries Workforce in Newfoundland, 1949-70,” Labour/Le Travail, 43 (Fall, 1998): 145-146.

[4] Wright, “Young Men and Technology: Government Attempts to Create a ‘Modern’ Fisheries Workforce in Newfoundland, 1949-70,” Labour/Le Travail, 43 (Fall, 1998): 147-148.

[5] Belisle, Donica. 2005. “Exploring Postwar Consumption: The Campaign to Unionize Eaton’s in Toronto, 1948-1952.” Canadian Historical Review 86, no. 4: 642-643.

[6] Belisle, Donica. “Toward a Canadian Consumer History,” Labour/Le Travail, 52 (Fall 2003): 185.