Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie: The Legal Pioneer Who Overcame Barriers to Fight for Women’s Rights
Akshay Kalbag
Born on October 19, 1867, Marie Lacoste Gérin-Lajoie was a pioneering feminist, social reformer, educator at the Université de Montréal, and author.
Denied access to higher education due to the exclusion of women from Francophone universities in Quebec, she became a self-taught legal expert, drawing knowledge from the law books of her father and husband, both of whom were lawyers.
Her early awareness of the injustices faced by women led her to establish a girls’ school in 1908, providing young women with the opportunity to pursue higher education.
Gérin-Lajoie played a key role in founding the Fédération Nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a Francophone organization dedicated to advancing women’s rights, including education, legal equity, and suffrage.
During the Quiet Revolution, she remained an active figure in the Quebec feminist movement.
She passed away on November 1, 1945, at the age of 78.
Margaret Atwood: A Literary Force for Justice and Freedom
A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together— Margaret Atwood
Born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18, 1939, Margaret Atwood is a celebrated novelist, poet, and literary critic.
Her works explore themes of gender and identity, religion and mythology, language, climate change, and political power.
In 2018, she signed an appeal by PEN America advocating for Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, a political prisoner in Russia.
In July 2020, she was among 153 signatories of the “Harper’s Letter” (officially titled A Letter on Justice and Open Debate), which warned against increasing restrictions on the free exchange of ideas in liberal societies.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Atwood addressed the war on social media, sharing a link to Ukraine’s state aid fund. She continues to use her platform to spread awareness about the conflict.
Louise McKinney (née Crummy): First Woman Elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The purpose of a woman’s life is just the same as the purpose of a man’s life: that she may make the best possible contribution to the generation in which she is living —Louise McKinney
Louise McKinney (née Crummy) was born in Frankville, Ontario, on September 22, 1868.
Initially aspiring to become a physician, she faced barriers to medical school admission due to her gender. Instead, she pursued a career in education before becoming a temperance organizer. In 1903, she relocated to Alberta, where she became president of the Alberta branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a role she held from 1908 to 1930.
McKinney entered politics through the ironically named Non-Political League and, in 1917, became the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, serving a four-year term. Notably, she was the first woman to hold a seat in any legislature within the British Empire.
She later became one of the Famous Five, the group of women who successfully campaigned for Canadian women’s right to be appointed to the Senate.
McKinney passed away in Claresholm, Alberta, on July 10, 1931, at the age of 62. In 2009, the Senate of Canada posthumously recognized her and the other members of the Famous Five as Canada’s first honorary senators.
