Share:

Browse by category

Share:

Wages Due Lesbians

Wyland, Francie. 1976. Motherhood, Lesbianism, Child Custody: The Case for Wages for Housework. Toronto: Wages Due Lesbians. Cover woodcut by Anne Quigley. CLGA collection, in monographs, folder M 1985-054].

Photo: Wyland, Francie. 1976. Motherhood, Lesbianism, Child Custody: The Case for Wages for Housework. Toronto: Wages Due Lesbians. Cover woodcut by Anne Quigley. CLGA collection, in monographs, folder M 1985-054].

By

Jessica Taylor

Women's heritage

Published Date: Mar 20, 2018

Wages Due Lesbians was a Toronto activist group (mid-1970s to early 1980s) affiliated with the international Wages for Housework movement. Wages for Housework came out of an Italian Marxist feminist organization in the 1970s and held common cause with the 1960s’ American welfare movement led by Black women. Their main argument was that women’s household labour – emotional and physical – supported the capitalist system and the nation, yet they were not paid for it.

While the Marxist feminist analysis was fundamentally based on an analysis of the heterosexual family’s division of labour and an analysis of the category of woman that left out trans women, Wages Due Lesbians made space for cisgender lesbians in the movement. Dependency on men’s wages, they argued, restricted the choices of lesbians – especially lesbian mothers. They were vulnerable to the poverty of women’s wages at the time and to the homophobia of the custody courts.

Wages Due Lesbians put out pamphlets, held meetings and conferences and protested cuts to the Family Allowance, among other things. The Lesbian Mothers Defense Fund (1978-87), which provided support to mothers in the court system, emerged from Wages Due Lesbians. While we don’t yet have free childcare or full wages for the work of social reproduction, groups like Wages Due Lesbians were an important part of movements calling on the province and federal government to support women doing essential work.

“No lesbian or any other woman should face the blackmail of losing custody of her children, in court, through social pressure or through poverty. We demand from the government the money we need to keep our children without being forced to depend on a man” (resolution from a 1976 conference run by Wages Due Lesbians (Motherhood, Lesbianism, Child Custody: The Case for Wages for Housework by Francie Wyland, 1976)

RelatedStories

Kathleen Blake Coleman “Kit"

Kit Coleman: Journalism pioneer

Kathleen Blake Coleman, known to her readers as “Kit,” stood out among Ontario’s women journalists of her day because of her obvious talent, lively writing...

“Mayor Oliver: Wonder who told them we didn’t encourage the suffragette movement in Toronto?”, [photograph], ca. 1910, Newton McConnell fonds, C 301-0-0-0-996, Archives of Ontario.

Key dates and figures in the women’s rights movement in Ontario and Canada

1851: Women were officially excluded from voting in all Canadian legislative elections in British North America. 1853: Mary Ann Shadd Cary established the Provincial Freeman...

Dr. Molly Shoichet (middle) at the University of Toronto, 2016. Photo courtesy of the author.

Shining a light

When I was young, my mother strongly encouraged me to pursue a career. She knew that for her generation, even after graduating from university, there...

Elizabeth Bagshaw (Photo courtesy of The Hamilton Spectator)

Elizabeth Bagshaw: Fighting for reproductive rights in Canada

When Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw retired in 1976, she was the oldest physician practising in Canada. In her illustrious 70-year career, Bagshaw treated thousands of patients...

Dominion Scientific Temperance Committee, Ephemera, 192-, English. Toronto Reference Library, Baldwin Collection (192-?, Temperance, Item 12.M). Photo courtesy of the Toronto Public Library.

Working for the greater good: Women’s voluntary organizations in the early 20th century

In 1911, women made up 13.5 per cent of the workforce in Canada. By 1951, that number had risen to 22 per cent. While few...

Doris McCarthy 1910-2010 (Photo: David Lee)

The cult of Doris

Living to 100 is only the latest feat in the life of the singular painter Doris McCarthy, who once cut off her finger for her...

Women’s March in Toronto in January 2018. Photo: Tanja Tiziana.

Practices and attitudes die slowly: Sexual assault legislation and activism in Canada

In 1967, during a decade of social change and revolution, the federal government launched the Royal Commission on the Status of Women to address the...

F 2076-16-3-2/Unidentified woman and her son, [ca. 1900], Alvin D. McCurdy fonds, Archives of Ontario, I0027790.

We’ve always been here: Black women’s history of voting rights and politics in Canada

The history of Black women’s voting rights in Canada must be understood in the context of their evolving social status in the nation’s preceding French...

Dr. Wesley-Esquimaux (left) with Elizabeth Penashue, who was born into an Innu hunting and trapping family that lived at Kanekuanikat, between Esker and Churchill Falls, Labrador. Penashue moved to Sheshatshiu in the 1960s when her family and her people were encouraged to relocate in order to integrate them into Canadian society through education and a more settled lifestyle. Photo courtesy of the author.

Suffrage and Indigenous women in Canada

What has it been like to grow up in a society only now beginning to take note and respect the contributions of Indigenous women? When...

Mary Fulford dressed for presentation to the court of Queen Victoria circa 1900

The women behind the estates

Across the fabric of Canadian society, a definitive shift occurred between the 19th and 20th centuries that began a reconstruction of social gender roles as...

Raheel Raza outside of the United Nations Office in Geneva

A Canadian Muslim woman reflects on 30 years in Canada

I am a Pakistani by birth, a Canadian by choice and Islam is my spiritual path. My family and I migrated to Canada 30 years...

Women from Fleck Manufacturing leading the 1979 International Women’s Day Parade in Toronto. Photo: Frank Rooney

Women in organized labour

Before the First World War (1914-18), women had few rights and they could not vote or hold public office. Policies were overtly discriminatory toward women...

The Honourable Jean Augustine.

From Happy Hill to Parliament Hill: An interview with trailblazer Jean Augustine

Among her many accolades, the Honourable Jean Augustine has the distinction of being Canada’s first Black female Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister. An educator...

The Lieutenant Governor poses with Ontario delegates to the Daughters of the Vote conference and parliamentary simulation.

The journey of women’s empowerment

The year 2017 was, to say the least, one to remember, providing a myriad of opportunities to celebrate, but also to critically examine Canadian history...

Members of the Voice of Women, Women’s Liberation Movement, New Feminists and Young Socialists demonstrated at Queen’s Park in April 1970, asking support for a bill to ensure that women get equal pay for equal work. (Photo: Dick Darrell/ Toronto Star via Getty Images).

Women’s rights are human rights – The fight for an equal voice

Did you know that women in Canada couldn’t vote in federal elections until 1918 – just 100 years ago? They could vote in some provinces...

Elsie Knott, Canada’s first elected woman chief

Canada’s first elected woman chief

Elsie Knott was born at her Curve Lake home on September 20, 1922 to George and Esther Taylor, the fifth of six siblings. Because of...

Dr. Peters adjusting a patient for radiotherapy. Collection of Dr. Charles Hayter.

Vera Peters and the fight against breast cancer

Today, women with early breast cancer are usually treated with breast conserving therapy (removal of the cancerous lump followed by radiation). This approach is a...

Wilma Morrison received a Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007 from the Ontario Heritage Trust, presented by The Honourable Lincoln M. Alexander (left) and The Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.

Wilma Morrison: A life of activism

By now, many people in the heritage community and the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario are familiar with the woman who is practically synonymous with...

Doris McCarthy at Fool’s Paradise, May 2005 (Photo: David Lee)

Doris McCarthy’s Fool’s Paradise will inspire future generations of artists

With the passing of Doris McCarthy on November 25, 2010, the country lost a revered and talented artist, best known for her landscape paintings. McCarthy’s...

This 1958 provincial plaque unveiling to commemorate Catharine Parr Traill was attended by Mrs. Anne Atwood and Miss Anne Traill, the author’s granddaughters. Also in attendance (shown here second from left) was the then-editor of the Peterborough Examiner – Robertson Davies – who, in time, became a literary giant in his own right.

Literary giants

Catharine Parr Traill is one of Canada’s literary luminaries. Her life story spans most of the 19th century, crossing oceans, battling cholera and journeying through...

Share:
Share: