Separate spheres and mutuality : farm families in rural British Columbia from 1940 to 1960
Date
2001
Authors
Jackson, Holly Elizabeth
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Abstract
Historical research on women and gender during the Second World War and the post Second World War periods has primarily focused on urban women's experiences and has rarely explored farm women lives. Through an analysis of prescriptive literature, oral history interviews, newspaper accounts and records from one local Women's Institute, this thesis studies the construction of farm women' s femininity from 1940 to 1960 in the rural areas surrounding Kamloops, British Columbia. For the most part, women' s and gender historians have used the construct of separate spheres or the construct of mutuality to examine notions of womanhood on the family farm. By moving beyond the separate spheres/mutuality dichotomy and employing both constructs, a fuller understanding of farm women's lives can be gained. This thesis explores the dominant notions of femininity as prescribed through the pages of Country Life in British Columbia as well as how white, English-speaking women hrough their work, family and community.