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Quiet Rebels
Quiet Rebels: A History of Ontario Women Lawyers
by Mary Jane Mossman
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
540 pages, $95
It’s hard to say which is the more compelling aspect of Quiet Rebels: the stories of the first 187 women to be called to the bar in Ontario or the astonishing level of research involved in compiling them. Mary Jane Mossman, a professor emeritus at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, has researched her subjects with meticulousness and written about them with care. Detailed footnotes often take up one-third of a page, and the selected bibliography runs to more than 30 pages.
All of the women in Quiet Rebels were called to the bar between 1897 and 1957. Mossman draws out patterns in their experiences, ranging from sexism — and support — at school and in legal practice to the reality that most of these women were white middle-class anglophones who left the profession if they married.
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Quiet Rebels brings attention to the first women lawyers of Jewish, Black, Chinese and Indigenous heritage. It also highlights such prominent women as Judy LaMarsh, a sergeant in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps during the Second World War and the second female federal cabinet minister in Canada. Extracts from academic, legal and media sources remind us how often these accomplished women were diminished as “girls.”
Mossman’s chapter titles tell a story in themselves. They include “Challenging Male Exclusivity,” “‘Unlimited Possibilities’? The Depression Years” and “A Legacy of Gendered Patterns.” An index of the women profiled is a helpful addition to this important reference work.
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