Driven Apart

From the outset of second-wave feminism in Canada, women have advanced analyses of employment inequality that embrace their labour in both the public and domestic spheres. Activists have argued that only when the Canadian state takes account of their roles as care-providers can women's full potential as worker-citizens be realized. Drawing on a wealth of interviews and close analysis of primary documents, the author demonstrates how women's calls for family-friendly employment policies have translated into inaction, inappropriate action, or insufficiently holistic action on the part of successive federal governments. This book explains why federal governments have been able to implement employment equity policies, but failed to develop a national system of child care.