The Peacock and the Guinea Hen:
Political Profiles of Dorothy Gretchen
Steeves and Grace Macinnis
SUSAN WALSH

I n the wake of suffrage victories, many early twentieth century
Canadian women worked hard to make that equality meaningful and to
extend it to all areas of women's lives. For those who predicted great changes,
however, too few took their hard-earned rights further than the polling
station. Most expressed their concerns and goals within the more familiar
world of women's organizations. Dorothy Steeves and Grace Maclnnis were
among the notable exceptions. While maintaining important ties with
women's groups, they sought and won public office, pioneering important
paths for generations of Canadian women to follow. These political trail
blazers stand out for another important reason. They chose to establish their
careers and test their political rights in a socialist party--the Cooperative
Commonwealth Federation (CCF)--pledged to sexual emancipation and
equal opportunities for women. They were, in short, dual rebels--as feminists
and socialists--in a sex and class-ordered world.
Canada's third party gave these two women a very warm reception. Both
emerged as leaders within the British Columbia CCF after a relatively brief
apprenticeship. But the championing of both causes was at the same time
theoretically and, in practice, arduous. In a fashion resembling socialist
parties elsewhere, the CCF had difficulty living up to its promise of sexual
egalitarianism. When class aspirations clashed with gender ones, the latter
suffered. Nor did the majority of women within the party take the "great leap
forward" which socialist theory forecasted.
Party priorities clearly affected Steeves' and Maclnnis' options and
influenced the ways in which they investigated their loyalties to class and sex.
A discussion of the CC F's position on class and sex issues, however, is beyond
the scope of this essay. Rather, it focuses on personal attitudes and
experiences which inspired their career paths and approach to socialist and
Barbara K. Latham and Roberta J. Pazdro, Eds., Not Just Pin Money
Victoria: Camosun College, 1984

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Steeves & Macinnis

feminist causes. The political profiles which follow should, nevertheless, be
understood within the larger context of the CCF's half-hearted commitment
to sexual equality.
When Grace Macinnis first met Gretchen Steeves, a Dutch immigrant, in
1932, she was impressed with Steeves' European savoir-faire and knowledge
of a "great many things which didn't exist in Canada at the time. " 1 Steeves'
quick mind and strong public presence convinced Macinnis that this woman
could win the respect of many. Madnnis' first impression proved correct.
Upon the public platform, Steeves' sharp intellect, penetrating style and
broad education won considerable respect, including that of British
Columbia's voters who in 1934 elected her to the provincial house. Steeves'
political skill and flair proved most attractive to a young political party
challenging the status quo. Francis Aldman of the Vancouver Province
agreed, writing in 1936: "No other member of the legislature can match her
brevity and forcefulness ... she is probably the most effective member in the
present Provincial Parliament. "2
Several years later, Aldman presented a similar assessment of another
female MLA who likewise offered much to the young CCF. This time Grace
Maclnnis received the commendation. He noted: "She is an instinctive
politician, a tower of strength to the opposition ... Mrs. Macinnis is the equal
of any and none are ever quite ready to engage in a battle of wits."3
As these observations suggest, Steeves and Macinnis were a good match.
Although less aggressive in public approach, Maclnnis possessed the very
intellectual capacity, charismatic appeal, and political acumen she had so
generously admired in Steeves. Equally important, she had the drive and
courage necessary to exercise her talents. Indeed, like her CCF sister, once
immersed in active politics she took to it, as she put it, "like a duck to water
and never looked back. "4
Colin Cameron, a close associate of both during the party's early history,
once remarked to Madnnis: "You are like a guinea hen scratching around the
Legislature. "5 Thriving on public controversy and debate, Steeves
particularly relished the limelight and shone on stage. Maclnnis, on the other
hand, enjoyed behind-the-scenes decision-making and though a strong
speaker, was a backroom politician par excellence. Still, as this brief portrait
of their respective careers demonstrates through its delineation of their paths
to power and its analysis of their socialist and feminist goals, the "peacock"
and the "guinea hen" were fundamentally birds of the same feather.
Dorothy Gretchen Biersteker was born on May 26, 189 l, in Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, the first of three children and the only daughter of a Dutch
physician arid British school tea~her. The Bierstekers enjoyed the traditions,
prosperity :1,1d comforts of Dutch professionals and were thus able to offer
their new daughter a secure and intellectually rich home environment.
Household servants attended to the family's domestic needs, leaving ample
time for cultural, recreational and above all, academic pursuits. Gretchen
took foll advantage of her dass privileges, developing a curious and critical
intellect throughout her childhood and adolescence. 6
Like most upper middle-class parents in Holland, the Bierstekers

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367

encouraged, indeed presumed, that all their children would receive postsecondary education. They made no distinction between their daughter and
two sons. Gretchen thus followed the route of most wealthy and bright Dutch
children, attending the classical "gymnasium" stream in high school and upon
graduation, entering university. Her particular aptitude for complex analysis
guided her to professional training in law and economics and in 1916 she
graduated cum laude from the University of Leiden. 7
Shortly after receiving her law degree, she worked as a barrister for a law
firm in Amsterdam. Her apprenticeship there, however, was short lived. A
family move, soon after, took her to Den Haag (The Hague), Holland's
capital and center of national government. But her work for a private law firm
there was again brief. After only six months in the capital, she was appointed
to the Dutch Government's Wartime Prices and Trade Board, a position most
appealing to a talented, ambitious and increasingly politically conscious
young lawyer.
Employment in the civil service during the war years was indeed
challenging. Her energies were nevertheless spent on more than her
professional responsibilities. A growing concern with social injustice and an
increasing appetite for public affairs, whetted in university, led to
membership in the Socialist Party of Holland as well as to two other fast
growing movements in the second decade of the twentieth century: the
women's suffrage movement and the peace movement.
Gretchen's youthful enthusiasm for the socialist cause did not lead,
however, to an especially profound commitment to the party. She focused
greater attention on suffrage and pacifism. In fact, the Socialist Party's
endorsement of female enfranchisement influenced her decision to join party
ranks. 8 Yet, once again, her involvement in both, which was prominent
enough to include public lectures, was not terribly systematic. Not until she
was fully immersed in a more practical, less comfortable and less affluent
world, did the young lawyer seriously commit herself to the collective process
of social change, to the cooperative building of a new social order.
The event most immediately responsible for Gretchen's move to an
environment which was to nurture a more profound political, social and
feminist consciousness, was that which altered the lives of not a few young
Dutch women at the end of the Great War: marriage to a Canadian POW,
Rupert Steeves. Unsure of what to expect, like most young war brides, she
was carded on a romantic cloud of excitement and new adventure. The
adventure and challenge ahead, however, was not quite the kind the new Mrs.
Steeves had anticipated. The "primitive cultural conditions"9 she witnessed
during her endless train trek across Canadian cities, mountains, farms and
'>Vildemess disappointed the more sophisticated European. When she finally
reached the coast in the winter of 1919, her enthusiasm was, at best, markedly
circumscribed. Faced with tasks she had always counted on servants to
perform, and appliances like a wood stove "with no due how you lit the damn
thing," 10 romance dissipated and reality set in with a vengeance. One letter
written to her mother shortly after her arrival encapsulates her dismay over
the isolation and primitiveness of British Columbia culture. Particularly

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Steeves & Macinnis

outstanding is her disdain for those women whom she considered slaves to a
maternal and domestic identity.
After a brief but precise description of her tedious journey on the CNR,
which included a stopover in Toronto at "the first civilized house I'd got to
since I came to Canada ... where there were nice servants" she announced:
I shall start housekeeping without a servant but have a
Japanese woman if I can a couple of times a week to
clean up .. .if needs be myself to pay her. I'm not going
to become a drudge like most Canadian women; they
look either dowdy or flashy; there is not one simple
aristocratic well-dressed English woman among
them. 11
Household management did take up much of Steeves' first few years in
Canada. But, true to her vow, she did not become the household drudge she
despised. She maintained an unusually active role in the community and for a
brief time in the wage labour force as a legal advisor to the Dutch Consulate.
The birth of her son, Hughie, approximately a year after her arrival in
Canada terminated her wage work. She continued her active interest in
voluntary bodies, however, always with an eye to greater public activity once
she was free of early child-care responsibilities. From 1926 to 1929, for
example, she served on the Point Grey Town Planning Commission, 12 aware,
perhaps, that such work would train her for larger community and social
planning.
The opportunity to engage in larger community planning and more
visible public activity arose during the second decade of Steeves' life in
Canada. The devastation of the Depression pushed Steeves into the public
arena, in particular, into socialist politics. Her initial response was to help
transform the informal left-wing study group to which she belonged into a
more formal organization called the League for Social Reconstruction
(LSR). Like similar groups forming across the country at the time, the LSR
was composed of left-wing and progressive intellectuals and academics
interested in a solution to the social and economic chaos of the 1930s. When
the CCF was formed a short while later, it was evident, as Steeves recollected
years later, that "it (the CCF) was the answer. " 13 To prepare for affiliation, in
1932, the LSR transformed itself into the Reconstruction Party (RP). "Its
platform was mildly socialist, but avoided the rigid Marxian terms of the
Socialist Party. "14
In 1933, the RP affiliated with the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC).
Later that year, the RP further expanded its base through amalgamation with
a loosely knit group of left-wing reform clubs collectively called the CCF
Clubs. Together they formed the Associated CCF Clubs of British Columbia.
Finally, in 1935, almost two years after affiliation, the Associated CCF Clubs
and the SPC of British Columbia merged to become the British Columbia
section of the CCF, a full-fledged member of the federal party.
As key contributor to the organization of the RP and to its affiliation
with the SPC, Steeves, along with two other RP colleagues, Mildred
Ousterhout and Frank MacKenzie, was invited to represent her group's

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369

interests at the first national convention in Regina in 1933. Her experience
there was inspiring. From that point, there was no turning back. Challenged
to help create a strong and viable third party alternative for British Columbia
and Canada's citizens, she returned to Vancouver convinced, as Ousterhout
remembered, that "we were going to bring about great changes in our time. " 15
Before long, she ran for provincial office and in a 1934 North Vancouver byelection, on a CCF slate, she was elected to the British Columbia Legislative
Assembly.
In the provincial House, Steeves was an outspoken politician, respected
and, to some extent, feared. As a socialist, she had no tolerance for class
privilege. As a strong, fiercely independent woman she also had little time for
discrimination on the basis of her sex. Evidence of either met with her wrath,
and as Bruce Hutchinson of the Vancouver Sun noted in his assessment of
Steeves' first speech, her anger was not easily dismissed:
Mrs. Steeves dispelled the boredom which threatens
the house with a flash of wit, a certain feminine charm,
a penetrating satire, sharp as a razor and a burst of
indignation such as we have seldom heard ... What
Mrs. Steeves said was a well-bred sneer at everything,
a cry from the depths, for make no mistake about the
sincerity of her protests, the bitterness of her hate. 16
Most observers of Steeves' years in government and office remember her
love for the platform--her passion for a stage to express her views and for an
audience to absorb them. Many similarly often recall the sharp voice, at times
filled with venom, which could easily intimidate those she challenged. Her
friends and colleagues who knew her best, however, also remember her wellplanned legislative contributions, the two most outstanding being her
instrumental role in the introduction of housing cooperatives and Credit
Union legislation. In 1937, for example, she introduced the first Credit Union
Act, inspiring Harold Winch, the CCF's Provincial Leader, to call Steeves the
"Mother of Credit Unions."17 Nor can these contemporaries forget her fight
for better employment, education, and social welfare or her ceaseless
championing of women's rights. One of her favourite bills for this period in
fact called for the inclusion of domestic servants, "the most exploited class of
workers," in minimum wage laws. 18 She clearly had come a long way from the
uppity war bride who first greeted Canadian shores.
Steeves' legislative activities were not restricted to home-based ills. She
also shared her knowledge of and concern over international issues with the
government and members of the House. Well versed in international law and
economics, she excelled when she addressed these matters. Yet her "radical"
opinions and what, to many, were shocking proposals on foreign policy also
roused the greatest opposition. Though Steeves could champion a fairly
moderate approach to domestic issues, she largely rejected compromise on
international matters. She could accept the need for immediate domestic
reform, but to cooperate with capitalist parties on international policies
would be to deny fundamental socialist principles. While others increasingly
compromised, she steadily abandoned the Fabian socialism which inspired
her early plunge into politics. As Jessie Mendels, CCF Caucus Secretary in

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Steeves & Maclnnis

the 1940s, aptly concluded, "with Gretchen it was a constant radicalization of
her ideas. " 19 Together with her colleague and close friend, Colin Cameron,
Steeves emerged as the intellectual leader of the British Columbia CCF's left.
Steeves' impatience with those adopting a more moderate stance was
particularly evident in 1939 when, in the Provincial Assembly, she and
Cameron lashed out at all those supporting Canada's participation in World
War Two, including her own party. It was not only the aggressor nations who
were the enemy, she argued, but those who refused to abandon capitalist
production practices and exploitive profit motives. To members of the
House, caught in the fervour of a war to save democracy, her words were
treasonous. In fact, according to Harold Winch, CCF House Leader, she and
Cameron came to within a hair of being charged with treason.
Nor did members of her party welcome her remarks. Some considered
them treasonous, if not to the country, then certainly to the Party. Grace
Maclnnis was among these critics and had this not uncommon reaction:" .. .!
believe that while Mrs. Steeves' speech was pleasing to many members of the
CCF, it did considerable damage to our cause both within and outside the
movement. "20
In the interests of party unity, Steeves refrained from further public
pronouncements on the war. Her cooperation coupled with the otherwise
high level of respect she had previously won from both provincial and federal
members eased somewhat the tension and division which had erupted. This
awkward incident, however, marked the beginning of an uneasy relationship
between Steeves and those who, like Grace Maclnnis, held more moderate
views.
The Liberal-Conservative coalition opposing the CCF in the 1945
provincial election defeated many CCF MLAs. Gretchen Steeves was among
them. She never again sat in the Legislature nor, with the exception of a year's
membership on the Vancouver Parks Board, did she ever manage to sit in
civic or national government. But her electoral setbacks did not weaken her
commitment to socialist causes or the CCF. Refusing to retire, she turned her
energy and attention to internal organizational work. She served, for
instance, on the BC CCF's provincial council as vice-president in 1949 and
president in 1950, sat on the National Council and devoted considerable
amounts of time and attention to the editorship of the CCF News.
Within the narrower, yet still significant, arena of internal party politics,
Steeves seized all opportunities to move party policy and practice in a
leftward direction. To meet the demands of common people, the party needed
forthright socialist policies. Her editorials frequently criticized doctrinal
moderation while her public addresses barely hid the contempt she felt for
those advancing gradualist policies. For, in Steeves' view, the CCF was
becoming complacent when it needed to be stronger than ever. A letter
written in October 1955 clearly illustrates her deepening disillusionment. She
wrote in part,
Did you hear on Saturday a week ago the play about
Joe Hill, the IWW leader on CBC Focus .. .it was a
shattering performance. I couldn't help weeping,

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371

thinking of the sacrificial and inspiring lives of the old
working class leaders compared to our present
stultification and complacence. 2 1
Despite her growing frustration with the party policy and stands, Steeves
did not abandon ship. She continued to take an active role in the party until
and after the CCF's transformation into the New Democratic Party in 1961.
Until her death in 1978, at eighty-seven years of age, she appears to have
retained a touch of optimism that democracy and peace would some day
triumph.
The slow process of intellectual discovery Steeves underwent throughout
the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, deepened her commitment to socialism. It also
helped her to discover the working class. Her support of workers, in fact,
appears to have taken precedence over the cause which initially attracted her
to socialism: women's rights. She did not, however, abandon feminist causes.
Though her attention to class inequities overshadowed her attention to sexual
discrimination, her legislative contribution, public addresses and work within
women's groups suggests that feminism found a significant place in her
personal and public quest for a new social order.
Among the more straightforward illustrations of Steeves' commitment
to women's emancipation were the many bills and resolutions she forwarded
in the Provincial Legislature. She consistently championed such causes as
access to birth control, adequate child-care support and facilities, equal pay
for equal work and fair employment practices. 22 She stressed changes
especially beneficial to working-class women but also spoke as a determined
feminist insisting upon women's fundamental right to full equality. During
one talk to the Vancouver Business and Professional Women's Club she
argued that "Women have the same physical, mental, and spiritual desires as
men and demand to be freed from the ancient taboos and superstitions being
used against them. Among other things they are demanding ... to undertake
any kind of work according to their ability."2 3
Of course, women's ability to undertake "any kind of work" was not
simply a matter of social recognition of their skills. Ending her speech with "I
doubt whether, logically speaking, the capitalist system can give women the
opportunity they desire," 24 she agreed with generations of socialist feminists
that the liberation of women necessitated the restructuring of society.
Socialism, by redistributing wealth and ensuring fair and equal economic
opportunities for both men and women, would ensure economic
independence and thus freedom from stifling dependence on men. "No longer
would women's actions be governed by economic necessity."25 It was thus
crucial that women assist men to solve the social question.
Attitudinal changes naturally went hand in hand with practical steps to
sexual equality. Without major ideological shifts, the introduction of socialist
measures would hardly free women from second-class citizenship. "Women
of today," Steeves posited, "[are] not only wage slaves but in a measure, slaves
of men as well...enslaved on all sides by social as well as economic
conditions. "26 Women, therefore, had to challenge century-long myths and
assumptions about the feminine mystique. "It is up to women if they want

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Steeves & Macinnis

their future freedom --that emancipation which they have not--to make up
their minds to solve the problem."27
Steeves' mind, of course, had long been made up. From young adulthood
to senior citizenship, she individually and collectively challenged sexual
stereotypes and discrimination. However, she found individual challenge to
sexual injustice considerably easier than cooperative feminism. Although
planting both feet in a number of women's organizations, with few
exceptions, she failed to develop strong intellectual or emotional ties with the
middle-class women these groups housed. In short, she never felt at home in
women's organizations.
This hesitant sisterhood stemmed in part from her strong identification
with socialists wanting to advance the larger socialist goal. But it was also the
intellectually superior woman or, in contemporary terms, the "Queen Bee,"
who found wholehearted participation in the middle-class women's
movement difficult. The comparatively narrow, inexperienced, and maternal
views of many of its representatives then, endlessly, at times understandably,
frustrated and irritated the intellectually advanced, sophisticated, and
relatively undomestic politician.
Having made her own way to the top of the ladder, Steeves was unable to
recognize the discrimination which made it difficult for many middle-class
women to even climb the first few rungs 28 and thus held serious reservations
about her own sex. Her commitment to feminist causes was consequently
circumscribed by an inability to identify with, or relate to, the majority of
women she encountered. In fact, she never really lost her youthful disdain for
women who lacked her sophistication and worldy experience. Her loyalty to
the CCF and socialist causes was predictably deeper than that to a movement
composed of women with whom she felt few intellectual and emotional
bonds. The "peacock" of the British Columbia Legislature was, first and
foremost, a dynamic and confident spokeswoman for the working class. Her
feminist identity, though significant, was pale beside her socialist one.
Socialism also came first for the "guinea hen" of the British Columbia
legislature. Like the "peacock," she forged new paths for women, advanced
women's rights and assisted feminist campaigns. But her political activities
and choices, to an even greater extent perhaps, reflected a preference for
socialist fellowship and goals and a flight from a really profound
identification with women's groups and women's causes. Grace Winona
Macinnis' active political life, like that of Steeves', began during the
Depression with the birth of the CCF. While first finding formal expression
during the 1930s, it was perhaps inevitable. Born on July 25, 1905, to James
Shaver and Lucy Woodsworth, she spent the first twelve years of her life in
North Winnipeg, a community which a wakened her to the difficult lives of the
city's unemployed or underemployed. She also found inspiration in the
tireless assistance and support her parents gave to the otherwise-forgotten
poor who gathered at her father's Methodist All Peoples' Mission. Yet,
throughout her high school, normal school and university years, Maclnnis
shied a way from really active political involvement. She concentrated instead
on her primary goal at the time: the successful completion of her studies.

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Macinnis believed that if she divided her energies among several activities she
would excel in none. If she was to give her all, choices had to be made!
When the eldest Woodsworth child finally did immerse herself in
political life in 1932, it was with whole-hearted enthusiasm and single-minded
drive. Her attention to the party and cause was undivided. At first she worked
for her father in Ottawa, behind-the-scenes. She gradually assumed duties
and responsibilities for the entire federal CCF caucus and before long,
stepped into front-line activity. According to Maclnnis, her marriage to
Angus Maclnnis, popular MP from Vancouver South, in 1933, accounted for
this rapid move into the foreground and onto the speaker's podium. 29 Her
natural talent, quick mind, and obvious compassion, however, ensured her
presence there for many years to come.
Maclnnis' first opportunity to speak came during a speaking tour she
and her husband, of four days, made to promote the CCF in 1933. Her
initiation was very thorough. During an arduous whistle-stop train journey
from Ottawa to the Pacific, the Maclnnises greeted forty-five different
audiences in as many days. She had not originally intended to speak. When
pressed to do so by members anxious to hear the daughter of the CCF's
founder and "prophet," she was "scared to death and reluctant. "30 With
Angus' encouragement, however, she ventured forth to afternoon meetings
on her own and evening meetings in company with her spouse.
Afternoon gatherin~s, intended for housewives, were for Macinnis both
informative and enjoyable. Her recollections of this first trip, however, dwell
more on the mixed evenings. Their exchange of ideas, controversy and debate
finally held the greater appeal. This response foreshadowed her consistently
stronger identification with mixed rather than predominantly female bodies.
Since Vancouver was to be the Maclnnis'headquarters for at least half of
the years Angus held federal office, Maclnnis wasted little time in
familiarizing herself with BC's policy and concerns. It was soon clear that
Angus' wife and J .S. 's daughter had, in her own right, much to offer the young
CCF. Persistent requests to run for office followed. She did not consent,
however, until almost a decade after she first entered the political realm.
Finally, in the fall of 1941, she accepted the CCF nomination for VancouverKingsway and shortly thereafter was elected to the British Columbia
Legislature, there joining Steeves and another female CCF MLA, Laura
Jamieson.
Throughout her three year term which, as with Steeves and Jamieson,
ended at the hands of the notorious Liberal-Conservative coalition of 1945,
Maclnnis concentrated on many of the same issues addressed by her two
colleagues. Her ideas on socialist economics, human rights, living conditions,
especially housing and nutrition and women's rights joined theirs, echoing
through the halls of the Legislature. 31 Like her older CCF sisters, she also
made clear her stand on international issues. There were, however, differences
of opinion between Maclnnis and Steeves. In fact, their clash over foreign
policy brought to the fore different approaches to the process of political and
social change, and as suggested earlier, ultimately placed them on opposite
wings within the CCF. In tum, their considerable influence within each camp

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Steeves & Macinnis

made them major antagonists in the battle. Needless to say, early intimacy
between Macinnis and Steeves was destroyed in the process. 32
Macinnis addressed, in her first speech of January 1942, the issue which
was perhaps the greatest, although not the single, source of controversy
within the party and between Macinnis and Steeves: Canada's participation
in international conflict. She emphasized the building of civilian morale
through adequate social services, rather than through military and Imperial
affairs. Nonetheless, she did endorse Canada's involvement in World War
Two, arguing that Canadians were fighting the war so that democracy might
be born.
To those who complained that her stance, like that of the National
Council, fell short of the teachings of its leader, she replied:
This is not a black and white world where we can say
"this is so or that is right." It is a grey world. We can
follow the teachings of those who have gone before us
but we can change our own beliefs as we see them, if we
are true to our own thinking in 1942. 33
Macinnis' call for flexible thinking illuminated two significant
characteristics of her political personality and socialist goals. This was her
very pragmatic approach to CCF policy and her profound commitment to the
survival and success of the party.
In Steeves' eyes, this pragmatism represented a fatal compromise with
liberal thinking. Aware of her opponent's influence on policy, she saw
Macinnis' endorsement of flexibility and gradualism as a threat to the
realization of principles laid down in the Regina Manifesto. In turn, for
Macinnis, Steeves' position reflected an "uncritical acceptance of
Marxism."34 While with Steeves, she strongly objected to capitalist
economics and values, arguing in 1939, for example, that these were
responsible for "this story of human misery, degradation and waste,"35 like
her father and husband, she believed that, given the conservative nature of the
Canadian worker and general public, gradualism or evolutionary socialism
was the only realistic route to the cooperative commonwealth. 36 Socialdemocratic countries such as those in Scandinavia were on the right track.
Their pragmatic acceptance of a mixed-economy prepared their citizens for
the eventual transformation from capitalism to socialism. Thus, when Steeves
editorialized in 1949 that the "right-wing" was discrediting the spirit of J.S.
W oodsworth through its abandonment of the basic principles of the Regina
Manifesto, which was in her view, "derived from Marxist theories," Macinnis
retorted that the fundamental principles of the Manifesto varied considerably
from Marxist theory. In particular, she pointed out that the Manifesto's
insistence on democratic action directly opposed Marxist theories advocating
the overthrow of the existing society. Returning to the response she gave to
critics of the CCF's war policy she argued:
He or she who would follow the spirit of J.S.
Woodsworth must be ready to break with past
traditions and past beliefs, no matter how firmly held,
when today's conditions call for new methods and new
convictions. 37

i

1
,

j

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375
1',
I,',

She concluded with the words her father spoke a decade earlier: "ls not the
fear of breaking old beliefs the most insidious kind of belief? Faith is a
confident adventuring into the unknown. ''3 8
Macinnis' approach to the route to socialism was clearly at odds with
that of Steeves. Her strong links with the center and support from moderates
within the British Columbia section of the CCF ensured that her position
triumphed. Ironically, while their ideas about the process differed
significantly, their vision of the goal was remarkably similar. Macinnis' claim
that in addition to economic equality "the central core of socialist philosophy
lies in the idea that every human being is entitled to certain rights and is
expected to assume certain responsibilities"39 squared with Steeves'beliefthat
the socialist ideal means more than economic rights: it also means equality of
social rights. 40 Particularly striking about these two women is the extent to
which, in their strategy, in their rallying of forces to their respective side, in
their indirect correspondence through the media, in short, in their tenacious
battle for control, they were alike. They also shared one other characteristic,
an understanding of which is critical to a complete portrait of Macinnis. Both
were socialist feminists who resisted feminist sisterhood, preferring the
fellowship of mixed, socialist circles. For Macinnis, like Steeves, was finally
more comfortable with class liberation and its socialist advocates than
women's emancipation and the feminist champions of that cause.
Throughout her career, Macinnis emulated her older CCF sister by
personally defying sex-typed conventions and publicly supporting women's
rights, within the Legislature, outside it, and within women's groups. Having
grown up with parents who, according to Maclnnis, did not distinguish
between their sons and daughters when assigning household chores,
discussing social questions and encouraging career goals, she generally had
little time for sexist attitudes and laws. She was taught independence at an
early age particularly by her mother who in her words, "taught that there
wasn't anything men could do in the world that women couldn't do if they
wanted to. "41 Several speeches in the Legislature reflected her strong critique
of legal inequities especially those which victimized working-class women.
Improved working conditions, equal pay for equal work, equal employment
opportunities, and playschool cooperatives, were among her demands. 42
Maclnnis' personal defiance of sex-ordered norms and her legislative
demands reveal clear feminist aspirations Indeed, writings and speeches
which included such statements as "[Under the CCF] women could have just
as much opportunity to work as men and receive equal remuneration for
equal work,"43 and "only through having full employment can women find
equality"44 placed her squarely in the socialist feminist tradition. There was,
however, a significant imbalance between her socialist and feminist
aspirations. Unlike Steeves, she completely tied her feminist goals into her
socialist ones, believing that one battle--the socialist one--was sufficient for a
class and gender-free society. She never admitted Steeves' sense of superiority
over women and claimed respect for women who found it "necessary" to work
in autonomous women's groups. But she considered such an approach, "less
mature" and preferred working in mixed groups. 45 "The first thing any man or

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woman needs in the line ofliberation," Macinnis argued, "is to be liberated
from the notion that they are just a man or just a woman ... there is something
much better than being either and that's being a full human being."46
Underlying this insistence that men and women should be regarded as
"people" struggling for the same ends was also firm conviction that sexual
exploitation was just another manifestation of the larger social problem:
capitalist exploitation and the values accompanying it. In an article written
for a German socialist publication, she cautioned:
We as socialists know, however, that the differential
treatment is not directed at women as such but against
the majority of humans, men, women, and children,
who could have a higher standard ofliving if the riches
of this land would no longer be invested privately but
used for the general welfare of the public. Our
objective in the CCF is to convince men and women of
the necessity for fundamental social changes. 47
She clearly blamed capitalism, not patriarchy, for women's oppression.
Socialism, then, satisfied both her objectives: equality between the sexes and
a classless society. She was unwilling to admit the possibility that a dual battle
had to be waged and thus directed almost all her energies within the CCF
towards the class battle. Two closely related factors also appear to have
reinforced her position.
The first and perhaps most significant explanation was Macinnis' very
profound identification with and commitment to the CCF. Success for the
party, which to her meant the emergence of a cooperative commonwealth,
and, more personally, the realization of her father's dream, could only be
achieved through the cooperative efforts of both men and women. To admit
discrimination and differential treatment on the basis of sex within the CCF
or socialist movement would logically demand a recognition that two
struggles existed. For a party already in need of unity and support, such
potential division both amongst party members and within members' homes
was prohibitively expensive. Moreover, the party could little afford the time,
energy and funds a strong commitment to women's rights' issues required.
Macinnis' attitude toward the family offers a final explanation for her
apparent unwillingness to recognize socialist vulnerability to sexual
stereotyping and discrimination. Her socialism developed as a result of the
sense of social responsibility her parents encouraged and lived. Using her own
family as a model, she became convinced that the "family was the seedbed of
citizenship. "48 Believing in its crucial role in the search for a better world, she
was thus reluctant to critique its sex-ordered and imbalanced power
hierarchies. Too, while Maclnnis promoted women's ability to succeed in
time-honoured male domains, she could not entirely escape prevailing
attitudes about women's critical role in the child-rearing process. She agreed
that men could and should share in this activity. But she feared the
ramifications of major changes to family structures, radical life-style
alternatives and institutional child-care. The entry of large numbers of
women in the political arena, though theoretically appealing, in practice
threatened family stability, child-welfare and responsible citizenship.

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Macinnis' claim that the "body politic should ideally consist of a
working partnership between men and women, "49 while liberating in intent,
was, in practice, deficient. She refused to investigate the gaps between the
theory and practice of sexual equality within the CCF. She largely rejected
autonomous women's groups designed to facilitate women's assumption of
equal partnership. She viewed the nuclear family and women's role in the
child-rearing process through fairly conventional eyes. Her approach to the
woman question did not match her approach to the social one. She made the
class struggle a priority. The clarity of her feminist vision subsequently
suffered.
In their strategies and attempts to steer the party in a direction each
considered to be the most appropriate and in their approach to the "woman
question," the "peacock" and the "guinea hen" were clearly two-of-a-kind.
Talented and tenacious, they helped engineer important gains for both
workers and women. Personal, political and party ambitions, however,
worked against a whole-hearted campaign for sexual equality. Socialism
came first. Their discovery of workers was considerably more profound than
that of women. The emancipated womanhood of their dreams was not quite
within reach.

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Footnotes

l. Interview with Grace Maclnnis, November 18, 1981.
2. Vancouver Province, December 12, 1936: 4.
3. Vancouver Province, January 29, 1944: 8.
4. Maclnnis Interview, op.cit.
5. Ibid.
6. Public Archives ofCanada(hereafter PAC), CCF /NDP Records, Vol. 104, Mrs.
D.G. Steeves, 1943-1950. Steeves to Betty Irwin, November 29, 1949.
7. Ibid.
8. PABC, Interview with Dorothy Steeves by Marlene Karnouk, April 4, 1975,
track I: 3.
9. Steeves to Irwin, November 29, 1949, op.cit.
10. Karnouk Interview, op.cit., p.6.
11. UBC, Special Collections, Steeves Papers, Box 2, Outgoing Correspondence,
Steeves to Mrs. Biersteker, March 26, 1919.
12. PAC, CCF/NDP Records, Vol. 144. Research: Biographies Misc., 1944-1953.
13. Steeves to Irwin, November 29, 1949, op. cit.
14. Dorothy Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel, (Vancouver, 1960): 79.
15. Interview with Mildred Farnhi, March 31, 1982.
16. Vancouver Sun, February 18, 1935: l.
17. Across Canada, January, 1950. Interview with Harold and Jessie Mendels
Winch, May 18, 1982.
18. The Democrat, April, 1975; See also Daisy Webster's biographical sketch of
Steeves in Growth of the NDP in BC, 1900-1970, (Vancouver, n.d.). (UBC SC)
19. Winch Interview, op.cit.
20. PAC, Macinnis Papers, Vol. 22, Personal and Political, Macinnis to David
Lewis, December 19, 1939.
21. UBC Special Collections, Colin Cameron Papers, Box 1, Incoming
Correspondence, Steeves to Cameron, October 9, 1955.
22. See Victoria Times, March 17, 1936; Federationist, November 17, 1938; Victoria
Times, March 7, 1943; Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1978 and Daisy Webster's, "Women
in Politics in British Columbia," UBC Special Collections (unpublished manuscript).
23. Vancouver Sun, October 9, 1934: 8.
24. Ibid.
25. Victoria Times, April 25, 1935: 9.
26. Ibid.
27. Victoria Times, March 24, 1936: 7.
28. When asked about discrimination against women in the political arena, the then
eighty-five year old Steeves replied: "Oh, not any more, I think. I think those women
are looking for discrimination. I've always been of the opinion that I'm as good as any
man." Karnouk Interview, op.cit.
29. Macinnis Interview, op.cit.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. · Ibid.
33. Vancouver News-Herald, February 16, 1942: 7.
34. Maclnnis Papers, op.cit. Vol. 86. Correspondence Re: CCF News. Macinnis to
the Editor of the CCF News, October I, 1950.
35. Canadian Forum, June 1939.

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36. See Eleanor Godfrey's biographical sketch of Macinnis in the New
Commonwealth, September, 1942.
37. Maclnnis Papers, op.cit. Vol. 86, Maclnnis to Editor of CCF News, October 1,
1950.
38. Ibid.
39. Maclnnis Papers, op.cit. Vol. 22, British Columbia, 1939-1951.
40. Steeves Papers, op.cit., folder on Cuba.
41. Maclnnis Interview, op.cit.
42. See: Vancouver Province, March 13, 1943: 9; Vancouver Sun, September 26,
1944: 7; Victoria Colonist, February 13, 1945: 7; Harold Winch remembers Maclnnis
as the one who was most pronouned on women's rights within the Legislature. Winch
Interview, op.cit.
43. Grace Maclnnis and Charles W oodsworth, Canada: Through CCF Glasses.
(Vancouver, 1935): 68.
44. Victoria Colonist, February 13, 1945.
45. Maclnnis Interview, op.cit.
46. Ibid.
47. PAC, CCF/NDP Records, Vol. 309. Grace Macinnis, "Frauen und
Sozialisimus in Kanada," Gleicher, January l, 195 l. Translation for author by Elvira
Eheman-Burklin, Simon Fraser University, 1981.
48. Maclnnis Interview, op.cit.
49. Ibid.