The rights and status of women in the Canadian society have improved considerably in the last century. However, gender equality is still being threatened. Blatantly sexist laws and practices are slowly being eliminated while social perceptions of "women's roles" sometimes continue to stagnate and even degrade back to traditional ideals. It is these social perceptions that challenge the evolution of women as equal on all levels.
             The staggering changes for women that have come over a few generations in family life, in religion, in government, in employment, in education did not just happen spontaneously. Women themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have not been the passive recipients of miraculous changes in laws and human nature. Generations of women have come together to affect these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and non-violent resistance. They have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they have succeeded hugely.
             It was not so long ago where the history of mankind included repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of the man toward woman. Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law; they were not allowed to vote; and had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation. Married women had no property rights and their husbands had legal power over and responsibility for them to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity. Divorce and child custody laws favoured men, giving no rights to women. Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes. Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned. Women were never allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law, and possessed no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept them as students. ...