Landscape-Changing Women. Our city teems with them, and has done so for well beyond the past century. We had Emily Murphy, who, in 1916, became to be the British Empire's first female judge, and with the Famous Five, went on to secure the status of women as persons in Canada along with their right to vote. Fast forward through many unsung women who daily shifted career landscapes through the latter half of the twentieth century to 1992, when Juno- and Grammy-award-winning k.d. lang came out as homosexual. Edmonton-born and Alberta-raised lang championed gay and animal rights when neither were popular, while winning listeners over with her unmistakable voice.
What does it mean, then, to change the landscape?
And how are women uniquely suited to the role?
In the relatively short history of Edmonton as a populated establishment (roughly, the 1890s forward), women had been seen to be the managers of the households. Anecdotal histories tell of women with ranging degrees of power over their domains, but cultural standards seem to die slowly. "Official" positions for women in places of social and political power have been harder to carve out.
Organizing team
-
Lori-Ann Claerhout
Co-organizer