And on that farm he had a wife: Ontario Farm Women and Feminism, 1900-1970 (review)

This book is a welcome addition to the rather scarce literature on Ontario farm women. It makes a double contribution to our understanding of Ontario farm women's lives during almost an entire century. It shows the crucial roles farm women and their organizations have played in this period and it elucidates the ideology of social feminism ( SF) that informed women's lives in the home and on the farm, and their political activism in rural communities and beyond. This is a rich and solidly researched book and is a pleasure to read.

In her main argument Halpern juxtaposes social feminism to Equity Feminism ( EF), to show farm women's progressiveness and agency and to dispel accusations of conservatism. She does this with rich documentation and numerous quotes that testify to farm women's incisive perceptiveness of their essential but subordinate position in the farm family and about their social reformist missions in the rural community. Halpern also shows the misgivings farm women had about the androcentricism of rural culture. The study is set in the evolving socio-political and economic environment of Ontario and reflects the changes in farm, home, and women's ideology for the past century.

The book is composed of seven chapters. In the first chapter Halpern explains her reasons for undertaking this research and presents an excellent theoretical discussion of her framework. The bases of SF, the notions of 'separate spheres' and 'women's specificity' emerge clearly in her discussion. The origins, history, and essence of SF are traced, and voices of critics and detractors are also included. The second chapter provides and excellent description of farm women's everyday life in patriarchal farm families. The mental health consequences of drudgery and large workloads in home and farm are brought to light. Chapter three documents farm women's awareness of the essential nature of their work, the unfairness of its undervaluation and invisibility, and the resentment they felt because priority was given to modernize the barn before the home. In the fourth chapter Halpern presents the history and evolution of home economics, as an example of SF thinking and practice. The pioneering work of Adelaide Hoodless is also described, with her organization of the Women's Institutes ( WI), culminating with the founding of the Macdonald Institute at the University of Guelph in 1903, offering farm daughters college degrees in practical household skills, lending a sense of professionalism to homemaking. Here Halpern also points out the rich contributions they made to the improvement of family life and farm women's status and self-esteem.

Chapter five examines the WI as a successful social movement and farm women's organization, which indeed it was, considering the international influence of the WI in promoting farm women's organizations throughout the world. Farm women's weak support for women's suffrage and WI's longevity are seen as proof of farm women's aversion to EF. The longevity of Women's Institutesis compared with the rapid and successful emergence and equally fast demise of the United Farm Women of Ontario ( UFWO) in the interwar years. Here, I think, Halpern underestimates the importance to WI's success of the government's financial and legitimizing support, and WI's less adversarial and demanding political stance than that of the UFWOs. Further, Halpern describes the transformation of the WI's goals, away from enhancing family life to support for broader causes, such as the war efforts, and branching out into issues of community and policy reform. Here, says Halpern, is the progressive and radical aspect of SF and of farm women's political activism. It aimed to change the 'public sphere' by infusing it with superior feminine values and morals, thereby transforming society for the better.

Chapter six focuses on the drastic socio-economic and technological changes affecting farming in the years after...