This document discusses the history of the women's liberation movement in Canada and the United States from the 1960s-1970s. It notes statistics showing women made up a small percentage of the workforce and earned much less than men in 1961. It describes how in 1964, Ruby Doris Smith Robinson spoke out against the mistreatment of women in the civil rights movement. The RCMP opened a file on women's liberation groups in Canada in 1969, identifying singer Rita McNeil as composing songs for the movement.

1. Anti-Capitalism, Socialist Feminist
and
the Women’s Liberation Movement
Challenging Neoliberalism
in the 2010s

6. No Women's Liberation
Without Socialism.
No Socialiam
Without Women's Liberation.

7. Canadian Labour Force Participation Rates
All Men, All Women, Married Women
1961
All Men: 81.1% All Women: 24.4% All Married Women: 20.7%
Women were 29.6% of the total labour force.
Women earned 55% of what men earned.
Statistics Canada: Historical Labour Force Statistics cat.no. 71-201, 1995

9. 1964 USA
Ruby Doris Smith Robinson presented
"The Position of Women in SNCC,"
denouncing the treatment of women
civil rights workers in
The Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee.
Stokely Carmichael responded,
"The only position for women in SNCC is prone."

10. "There seems to be an almost suicidal urge
for militant feminists to abandon all make-up,
to wear square heels, to deny the joys of flirtation
so that a very attractive young female feels compelled
to argue that she cannot accept a corsage because it
somehow degrades her as a "person".
Such a corsage does not deny a woman's capabilities.
It merely accepts and asserts the glorious, inescapable fact –
a fact that the truly successful women does not try to escape –
that off the job at least, there is nothing like a dame.
Equality, yes - unisex no." The Vancouver Sun 31 October 1969
Editorial response to a demonstration (24 October 1969)
at the Vancouver Manpower Office, protesting job segregation and unequal pay.

13. The RCMP opened the file "Women's
Liberation Groups — Canada" on May 13,
1969.
The file identifies Singer Rita McNeil, a
member of the Toronto Women's Caucus as
"She's the one who composes and sings
women's lib songs,"

14. Rita McNeil