French Canadian women

French Canadians, also known as Québécois, reside mostly in the Canadian province of Quebec and in the northeastern and midwestern United States. (Another, much smaller French-speaking group known as the Acadians resides primarily in the Canadian Maritimes.) As a group, French is the primary language of the French Canadians and Catholicism is their dominant religion. According to the 2016 census, French Canadians constituted 7.2 million (about one-fifth) of Canada’s total population of 36.11 million that year. Québécois feminists are concerned with such women’s issues as rape, physical harassment, abortion rights, gender equity, political representation, family issues, and women’s health.

While Québécois feminists and other feminists share much in common, national concerns also help shape Québécois feminist views, particularly the struggle for autonomy for the French-speaking people of Canada. The Quebec Act of 1774 allowed French Canadians to retain their own language, religion, and civil law, but the Meech Lake Accord, which would have provided constitutional protection for French language and culture, was defeated in 1990. This defeat led to the Charlottetown Accord in 1992, which would have extended constitutional recognition of Quebec’s “distinct society” but it was also defeated. A resolution granting Quebec full independence was defeated in 1980, another in 1995.

Several prominent feminist organizations have formed in French Canada, such as the Fédération des Femmes du Québec (FFQ). The FFQ withdrew from the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), the principal Canadian women’s umbrella organization, in the early 1980s but reaffiliated with NAC in the mid-1980s after a constitutional controversy had subsided. The FFQ withdrew from the NAC again in 1989, triggered by opposition from the Front de Libération des Femmes (FLF). The FLF is a vehicle for the radical Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), which was established in 1963. Both groups share a basic commitment to an independent socialist Quebec and remain separate from groups that do not support the same objectives. The FLF works to reshape gender dynamics and eradicate all forms of domination. The organization states its ultimate goal is to to champion the right of every woman to complete autonomy in all facets of life. Thus, the FLF has organized its own protests against Canada’s abortion policies, deliberately excluding anglophone feminists in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.

Although Franco-American groups in the United States are decidedly less separatist than their Canadian counterparts, they nevertheless promote Franco-American interests based on the belief that Franco-Americans are a distinct minority group. Like their sister organizations in Canada, Franco-American women’s groups in the United States have sought solidarity with American Indian groups. Other Franco-Americans compare their struggle to that of African American women and display political characteristics not unlike those found among Black separatists in the United States.

Bibliography

Baillargeon, Denyse. A Brief History of Women in Quebec. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014.

Dumont-Johnson, Micheline, Nicole Kennedy, and Sarah Swartz. Feminism à la Québécoise. Ottawa: Feminist History Soc., 2012.

“French Canadians in Canada.” Minority Rights Group, Jun. 2019, minorityrights.org/communities/french-canadians/. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.

Matthews Green, Mary Jean. Women and Narrative Identity: Rewriting the Quebec National Text. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 2001.

Minahan, James. "Québécois." Ethnic Groups of the Americas: An Encyclopedia Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2013. 309–11.

Strong-Boag, Veronica. “Women’s Movements in Canada.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 7 Feb. 2006, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/womens-movement. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.