Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada. . - Reviews - book review

Journal of Social History, Summer, 2002 by Wendy Mitchinson

Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada. By Nancy Christie (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. xiv plus 459 pp. $65.00/cloth $27.50/paperback).

This is an ambitious book. It discusses the development of welfare in Canada from 1900 to 1945, the years before the major social insurance schemes were introduced but during which the social/cultural underpinnings of those policies were established. Through the lens of gender, Christie investigates the way in which government policies privileged the male wage earner.

When the century opened, the image of a mother-centered home was ideologically dominant. World War I created a sensitivity to the plight of families with absent soldier-husbands/fathers which eventuated in the passage of mothers' allowance legislation at the provincial level. While the absence of the father was the major justification for the allowances, what made those particular women deserving was the fact that they were mothers. Canadians were formally recognizing the importance of the maternal contribution to society.

The Great Depression changed this. As many historians have pointed out, women's plight was overlooked in face of the massive problem posed by male unemployment. No longer were women owed by the state for the work they did through reproduction. Men's work became the central concern. Even when policies were eventually implemented that seemed centred on the family, reproduction, and women, such as the Family Allowances of the Second World War, Christie argues that, in truth, they were designed to bolster the fiscal policy of the government and to create employment for men rather than responding to the needs of women in the family. Wives had become adjuncts to their husbands. They were owed money because they were dependent not because they were productive through their reproductive actions. What Christie is tracing, then, is the decline of maternalism and its replacement by a man's responsibility to support his dependents. A privileging of paid work and family wage resulted.

While I do not have difficulty with the outline of the argument put forward by Christie there are elements I find problematic. First, the author seems to have a rather monolithic conception of the state and equates it with government rather than seeing the state as a conglomeration of varying/competing levels of bureaucracy. Second, she makes a point of refuting a social control perspective. I don't disagree with her rejection of social control but in recent years it has had few adherents in Canada so it is unclear why she feels the need to emphasize the point. Third, Christie argues that "Religion was the dominant factor determining the contours of Canadian family welfare policy prior to 1920" (p. 32). If so, what happened to its influence? And why does she see it in a Protestant guise? Canada is a country in which Catholicism was very strong. What was happening in French Catholic Canada and English Catholic Canada?

The most controversial aspect of her argument will be her criticism of what she sees as the feminist interpretation of the past. She questions both the significance of women's work in World War I and historians' acceptance of that significance. But how many women workers are necessary to be significant? Apparently twenty-two percent of women who registered with the Women's War Registry were wives and mothers of soldiers but she refers to this as 'only'. Why 'only'? In a subsequent chapter she refers to the deskilling of labour during the war as a result of women's employment--so which is it? With respect to World War II, as well, she believes she is arguing against the "canonical historical interpretation, inspired by feminists' modern-day preoccupation with workplace rights for women, that women were active agents in dismantling traditional gender norms" ( p. 314). According to her, married women did not enter the work force in large enough numbers to challenge gender norms--but how many have to do so? By 19 44, 26.9 percent of female workers were married. Surely that is a significant percentage. And if it is not then why not?

Despite these caveats, the strengths of her analysis are many. First, more than other historians she places developments in Canada within the broader context of what was happening in the United States and Great Britain. Second, for Christie gender includes both men and women and is not simply a code word for the latter. As a result, the book has more nuance and texture than otherwise would be the case. Third, the cast of characters takes on a complexity that will revise previous interpretations. For example, Leonard Marsh, whom some have credited for providing the blueprint for social insurance in Canada during the World War II, appears more conservative in the analysis that Christie provides. And fourth, the detail which she bring to the fore goes beyond simplistic categorization. She argues quite convincingly that, for many women, mothers' allowances did not result in a decline in their standard of living; to the contrary, for women whose husbands had been unskilled or seasonal workers they provided a measu re of financial security. As she points out, for other women this would not have been true.