Canada has a past in which women and men were not treated as equals. We can see demonstrations of this in the article “Young Men and technology: Government Attempts to create a ‘modern’ Fisheries Workforce in Newfoundland” by Miriam Wright. The main assertion in the article is the male breadwinner ideology, which is the thought that men should be the sole family breadwinner. Women were once part of the fishing experience, being on shore to cut and cure the catch. Women’s place in fisheries changed when the transition happened from salt fish to frozen fish. Government programs wanted new technologies used and to teach the young men who could be out on the sea for weeks at a time. The problem with being a trawler was the time away from family was hard on relationships and friendships, and until the 1970’s trawlers had no guaranteed wage. There was reluctance to teach older fisherman because of illiteracy rates and stubborn old men not wanting to venture out of their old habits. But the new Unemployment Insurance Programs enforced the idea that fishery labor belonged to men and not women.
In Donica Belisle’s article “Toward a Consumer History” we see sexist remarks regarding scholars view on men and traditional goods. Some authors wrote that traditional ways were meant to be masculine and the cultural products of the time were feminine and emasculated men when consumed. Distributors focused on the types of people they were selling to and categorized them based on gender, race, and spending brackets. Consumption became about one’s self expression through the clothes people wore of cars they drove, everything a person owned said something about themselves.
The link between these two articles is the movement toward modernity in a society confused with gender roles.