by Allison Smith –
Gender was on our Editorial Team’s minds at our 2022 planning meeting, late last year. When the subject of our annual Women to Watch issue came up we asked ourselves: “Do we need this issue anymore?” After all, equality has come such a long way and maybe it doesn’t make sense to separate out women (and then men, in our June Men to Watch issue) based on gender.
Women’s rights in Canada certainly have come a long way. Some of our country’s earliest “Women to Watch” include Dr. Emily Stowe, who in 1867 became the first woman physician to practise in Canada; Clara Brett Martin, in 1897, who was Canada’s first female lawyer; and Agnes Macphail, who was the first woman elected to the House of Commons in 1921. Over a 100 years ago – things must be balanced in more recent years, right? Maybe not: all Canadian women weren’t able to vote until 1960, a woman didn’t lead the country until 1993, and there wasn’t a task force appointed to address the issue of pay inequity until 2001.
So, after this progress, is a gender-based special issue focus still relevant? We ultimately decided that that question should be decided by our readers and clients. That “focus group” has shown us year after year that they love the Women to Watch issue, and love supporting the women in our community. Female entrepreneurs have made many strides in the small business world – one only needs to look around at our amazing shops and services to see that – and it is still important and necessary to celebrate that success.
Hopefully, this issue, in which we highlight some of those outstanding local business women, and focus on some issues that disproportionately affect women, is one more small step towards true equal rights.
