Making and Breaking the Rules : Women in Quebec, 1919-1939

Levesque, Andree; Klein, Yvonne M. (TRN)

ISBN 10: 1442611383 / ISBN 13: 9781442611382

Published by University of Toronto Press, 2010

Unread book in perfect condition. Seller Inventory # 9933882

Synopsis:

During the interwar period, Quebec was a strongly patriarchal society, where men in the Church, politics, and medicine, maintained a traditional norm of social and sexual standards that women were expected to abide by. Some women in the media and religious communities were complicit with this vision, upholding the "ideal" as the norm and tending to those "deviants" who failed to meet society's expectations. By examining the underside of a staid and repressive society, Andrée Lévesque reveals an alternate and more accurate history of women and sexual politics in early twentieth-century Quebec. Women, mainly of the working class, left traces in the historical record of their transgressions from the norm, including the rejection of motherhood (e.g., abortion, abandonment, infanticide), pregnancy and birth outside of marriage, and prostitution. Professor Lévesque concludes, "They were deviant, but only in relation to a norm upheld to stave off a modernism that threatened to swallow up a Quebec based on long-established social and sexual roles."

About the Authors:

AndrÉe LÉvesque is a professor emeritus in the Department of History at McGill University.

Yvonne M. Klein is a retired professor of English and a professional translator and editor.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Making and Breaking the Rules : Women in ...
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Publication Date: 2010
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: As New