Emily Murphy

Emily Murphy

Emily Murphy (born Emily Gowan Ferguson ; born March 14, 1868 in Cookstown, Ontario , † October 17, 1933 in Edmonton , Alberta ) was a Canadian women's rights activist, lawyer and author. In 1916 she became the first female judge in Canada and the British Empire. She became known for her contributions to Canadian feminism , specifically on whether women are "persons" under Canadian law.

Together with Irene Parlby , Henrietta Muir Edwards , Nellie McClung and Louise McKinney , she was one of The Famous Five (also known as the Valiant Five ). The Five pushed a petition in 1927 that clarified the term "person" in the Constitution Act of 1867 , allowing women to become members of the Canadian Senate . Until then, this section had ensured that women were excluded from political office. The petition was successful and enabled women in Canada to get involved in politics.

Early life

Emily Murphy was born the third of six children in Cookstown, Ontario, to wealthy landowner and businessman Isaak Ferguson and his wife Emily. As a child, Murphy often accompanied her two older brothers Thomas and Gowan on their adventures, her father encouraged them and often his sons and daughters alike had their share of responsibility. With her family involved in law and politics, it was no surprise that Murphy became one of Canada's most influential suffragettes . Murphy grew up under the influence of her maternal grandfather, Ogle Robert Gowan , a politician and founder of a local branch of the Orange Order (1830), and two uncles, one of whom was a Supreme Court Justice and one of whom was a Senator. Her brother also became a lawyer and a member of the Supreme Court. Her family were prominent members of society and she benefited from her parents who supported her daughter's academic education. Murphy attended Bishop Strachan School , an exclusive Anglican private school for girls in Toronto . Through a friend she met her future husband Arthur Murphy, who was eleven years older than her. They married in 1887 and had four daughters: Madeleine, Evelyn, Doris and Kathleen. Doris died young of diphtheria. After Doris' death, the family decided to try a new route and moved west to Swan River, Manitoba in 1903 , and finally to Edmonton , Alberta in 1907 .

Dower Act

Statue of Emily Murphy, part of the Memorial to The Famous Five , Parliament Hill, Ottawa

While her husband Arthur worked as an Anglican priest, Murphy explored her new surroundings and became increasingly aware of the existing poverty. At the age of 40, with her children becoming independent and leading their own lives, Murphy began actively organizing women's groups where housewives could meet, discuss their ideas, and plan group projects. In addition to these organizations, Murphy began to speak openly about the disadvantage and poor living conditions that existed in society. Her keen interest in the rights and protection of women and children increased when she was made aware of the unjust situation of a woman from Alberta: Her husband had sold the family's farm; the man left his wife and children, who were left destitute and homeless. At the time, there were no property laws that would allow women to get their property back through legal channels. This case motivated Murphy to launch a campaign to guarantee married women property rights. With the support of many rural women, Murphy began pressuring the Alberta government to keep women right to their property after the wedding. In 1916, Murphy successfully persuaded the Alberta Legislative Assembly to pass the Dower Act, which legally granted women one-third of their husbands' possessions. Murphy's reputation as a suffragette was secured by this first political victory.

Persons case

William Lyon Mackenzie King unveils a plaque for the Famous Five [front, LR]: Mrs. Muir Edwards, daughter-in-law of Henrietta Muir Edwards; Mrs. JC Kenwood, daughter of Judge Emily Murphy; Hon. WL Mackenzie King; Mrs. Nellie McClung. [Back, LR]: Senators Iva Campbell Fallis, Cairine Wilson (Ottawa).

Murphy's success in the fight for the Dower Act, along with her work for women in the city government and her awareness of women's rights, influenced her desire for a female judge at the women's court. In 1916, Murphy and a group of women watched a trial of women suspected of prostitution and arrested on "questionable" circumstances. The women were asked to leave the courtroom on the grounds that the statements were not “fit for mixed company”. This was not acceptable to Murphy and she protested to the provincial attorney general. “ If the evidence is not fit to be heard in mixed company, ” she argued, “ then the government must set up a special court presided over by women, to try other women. ”(“ If the evidence is not suitable to be heard in front of a mixed audience, then the government must set up a special court presided over by women judging women. ”) Murphy's motion was approved, and it was approved the first female judge in the British Empire. In her first case in Alberta on July 1, 1916, she found the defendant guilty. The defendants' attorney questioned whether her judgment was valid at all, as she was not legally a person at all. The Provincial Supreme Court dismissed the appeal.

In 1917, she led the struggle to have women declared "persons" in Canadian law and thus eligible to sit in the Senate. Attorney Eardley Jackson questioned her position as a judge because women were not considered "persons" under the British North America Act of 1867 . This understanding was based on the British Common Law Act of 1876, which stated that " women were eligible for pains and penalties, but not rights and privileges " ). The only hope for women to play a role in federal government was that the British North America Act would be changed.

Murphy began working on her plan to clarify how women are seen in the British North America Act and how they could become senators. For her concern she needed at least five citizens in order to be able to submit them as a group. She received help from four other Alberta women and on August 27, 1927, human rights activist Nellie McClung , suffragette Louise McKinney , Henrietta Edwards and Irene Parlby signed her petition to the Supreme Court of Canada . The women asked, "Does the word 'person' in Section 24 of the British North America Act include women?" The campaign came to be known as the Persons Case and reached the Supreme Court in March 1928. The judges interpreted the section as they did Drafters of the North America Act 1867 intended that the women bring the case to London before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council , then the highest judicial authority for all areas of the British Empire outside the British Isles. There the committee decided on October 29, 1929 that the section on persons should be read in such a way that it also includes women and these were thus entitled to serve in the Senate.

The women, known as the Famous Five , were involved in the introduction of social reform and women's rights, setting an important precedent in Canadian history. In the chamber of the Canadian Senate there is a plaque for the five women with the inscription “ To further the cause of womankind these five outstanding pioneer women caused steps to be taken resulting in the recognition by the Privy Council of women as persons eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada. “The Famous Five are immortalized on the $ 50 bill. In October 2009, the Senate decided to appoint Murphy and the other members of the Famous Five as Canada's first honorary senators, among other honors.

Drugs and Race

Murphy's views on the breed changed in the course of her life, her views can be found in her book Black Candle , which is considered to be very momentous. A series of articles in Maclean’s magazine under their pseudonym "Janey Canuck" formed the basis for Black Candle . Using extensive anecdotes and "expert" opinions, Black Candle painted an alarming picture of drug abuse in Canada, detailing Murphy's understanding of the use and effects of opium, cocaine and drugs, and a "new threat", marijuana. Murphys began to concern herself with the drug issue when she began to come into "disproportionate contact with the Chinese people" in her courtroom because of the disproportionately high frequency of these in the criminal justice system. In addition to expert opinions and her own observations, Murphy was given a tour of the opium dens in Vancouver's Chinatown from the local police. Vancouver at the time was the focus of the moral drug panic that was part of the anti-Oriental campaign that eventually led to the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Canadian drug historian Catherine Carstairs argues that Murphy's role in drug policy was "exaggerated" because she had no impact on the Vancouver drug panic, yet "her article marks a turning point and her book ... brought the Vancouver drug panic into one larger Canadian audience. "

The breed permeated Black Candle and, in Murphy's analysis, is closely related to drug trafficking and drug addiction. But she is ambiguous in her view of the non-whites. In one passage, for example, she chastises the whites who the Chinese use as “scapegoats”, while in another passage she points out to the Chinese that they are “visitors” in this country and that it would be wise to expel them from this country when this visitor was found to be "carrying poisoned lollipops in his pockets and feeding them to our children". Drug addiction, not the Chinese immigrant, is "a scourge so terrible in effect that it threatens the very foundations of civilization," and the law must therefore aim to eradicate it. According to Murphy, drugs bully everyone, and members of all races are drug traffickers. At the same time, however, it did not distance itself from the prevailing view of the white middle class that "races" were separate, biologically determined categories that formed a natural hierarchy. In this scheme, the white race was threatened with degradation through racial mixing, while the more productive “black and yellow races can still rise” and thus “wrest the supremacy of the British in the world”.

Murphy's ambiguity about non-whites is reflected in the scientific debates. What is not disputed is that Black Candle was written “for the express purpose of raising public awareness of the need for stricter drug laws,” and it has been successful to some extent.

The eugenics movement

In the early twentieth century, scientific knowledge was of great social importance. Advances in science and technology were seen as the solution to current and future social problems. Murphy was among those who believed that society's problems, such as alcoholism, substance abuse, and crime, were caused by mental deficiencies. In a 1932 article entitled "Overpopulation and Birth Control" she says, "... Overpopulation [is] everyone's fundamental problem ... none of our problems can be resolved until it is fixed". Murphy, the pacifist, theorized that the only reason war was because it was necessary for the peoples to fight for land to accommodate their growing population. Their argument was that if there was population control, people wouldn't need that much land. Without the constant need to provide more land, war would cease to exist. Their solution to this social question became eugenics . Selective breeding was seen as a progressive scientific and social approach, and Murphy supported the forced sterilization of those who were considered mentally disabled. Believing the spiritually and socially inferior to reproduce more than "thoroughbred human beings," she appealed to the Alberta Legislative Assembly for eugenic sterilization. In a petition, she wrote that mentally retarded children are "a threat to society and a huge cost to the state ... Science shows mental deficiency is a communicable hereditary disease." She wrote to Secretary of Agriculture and Health, George Hoadley , that two female "feeble-minded" patients produce several offspring. She called it: “A neglect like a crime to allow these two women to bear children. They are both young women and are likely to have numerous offspring before they leave the hospital ”. Part of their strong advocacy of forced sterilization, thousands of people in Alberta who were suspected of lacking intelligence were unknowingly sterilized until the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta was repealed in 1972.

legacy

Murphy's legacy is controversial today, her important contributions to feminism contrasted with her nativist views. In addition to being against immigration, she was a strong advocate of sterilization legislation in Alberta at a time when forced sterilization was practiced in some North American countries. However, it has been argued that Murphy's views were a product of their time.

New memories of the Famous Five, such as the illustration on the back of the fifty dollar bill, prompted a reassessment of Murphy's legacy. Marijuana decriminalization activists here specifically aim to criticize Murphy for being part of marijuana prohibition. They complain that today's drug laws are based on Murphy's racist foundations and that the war on drugs harmed more women than they benefited from the Persons Case. Conversely, Murphy's followers point out that she wrote at a time when white racism was typical and therefore nothing out of the ordinary, and that Murphy's views were more progressive than many of her contemporaries. Furthermore, Murphy's views on race or drugs in no way negate her positive achievements in advancing the legal status of women.

Emily Murphy House

Emily Murphy's home in Edmonton , Alberta was listed on the Canadian Register of Historic People and Places. She lived in this house from 1919 until her death in 1933. It is on the University of Alberta campus and is home to Student Legal Services.

literature

• D. James: Emily Murphy. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Toronto 2001
• A. Karamitsanis: Emily Murphy: Portrait of a social reformer [microform]. National Library of Canada, Ottawa 1992.
  • - 1991. microfiches. (Canadian theses on microfiche; no.70075). MA thesis, University of Alberta.
• C. Mander: Emily Murphy: Rebel. Empire. Simon & Pierre, Toronto 1985.
• Emily F. Murphy: The black candle. Thomas Allen, Toronto 1922.
• B. Sanders: Emily Murphy, crusader: "Janey Canuck". Macmillan, Toronto 1945.
  • - Famous Women: Canadian Portraits. Clarke, Irwin & Company, Toronto 1958.

Web links

Commons : Emily Murphy  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Statues of the Five, temporarily relocated. Short biographies. Library and Archives Canada
• Historica Heritage: minutes: Emily Murphy . Historica Canada
• The History of the Persons Case Library and Archives Canada
• The Famous Five at Library and Archives Canada (English; French can also be set at the top right). Accessed September 16, 2019
• Famous Five

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Janice M. Horowitz: Women in Law and the Justice System . In: Lois Decker O'Neill (Ed.): The Women's Book of World Records and Achievements . Anchor Press, 1979, ISBN 0-385-12733-2 , p. 352.
2. ^ Petition of August 27, 1927 to the federal Cabinet
3. ^ Alberta's Famous Five named honorary senators. In: The Globe and Mail , October 11, 2009.
4. ^ Alisa Dawn Smith: Rethinking First-Wave Feminism Through the Ideas of Emily Murphy . MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1997, 49.
5. ^ E. Murphy (1922). The Black Candle. ( Memento from July 30, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Chapter XXIII. Toronto: Thomas Allen.
6. ^ Alisa Dawn Smith: Rethinking First-Wave Feminism Through the Ideas of Emily Murphy . MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1997, 53.
7. ^ Ian MacDonald, Betty O'Keefe: Canadian Holy War: A Story of Clans, Tongs, Murder, and Bigotry . Heritage House, Vancouver 2000, pp. 9-21.
8. ↑ Catherine Carstairs: Deporting 'Ah Sin' to save the White Race: Moral Panic, Racialization, and the extension of Canadian Drug Laws in the 1920s . In: Canadian Bulletin of Medical History , 16, 1999, p. 71.
9. ^ Alisa Dawn Smith: Rethinking First-Wave Feminism Through the Ideas of Emily Murphy . MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1997, p. 56.
10. ^ E. Murphy (1922), Chapter XIII.
11. ↑ Quoted in Catherine Carstairs: Deporting 'Ah Sin' to Save the White Race: Moral Panic, Racialization, and the Extension of Canadian Drug Laws in the 1920s . In: Canadian Bulletin of Medical History , 16, 1999, p. 72.
12. ^ E. Murphy (1922), Chapter VI, Section II.
13. ^ E. Murphy (1922), Chapter VII, Section II.
14. ^ Constance Backhouse: The White Women's Labor Laws: Anti-Chinese Racism in Early Twentieth-Century Canada . In: Law and History Review , 14, no. 2, Fall 1996, pp. 315-368.
15. ↑ Quoted in Alisa Dawn Smith: Rethinking First-Wave Feminism Through the Ideas of Emily Murphy . MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1997, p. 56.
16. ↑ Jennifer Tooley, Demon Drugs and Holy Wars: Canadian Drug Policy as Symbolic Action . MA thesis, University of New Brunswick, 1999, p. 36.
17. ^ E. Murphy 1932. Sterilization of the Insane . Alberta Online Encyclopedia. Retrieved: April 5, 2007.
18. ^ Wong, J. 1998. Jan Wong, April 17, 1998 ( Memento of March 21, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Speech presented as part of the Famous Five Foundation Mentorship series. Retrieved: April 5, 2007.
19. ↑ Debra Harper: Emily's Paradox . Cannabislink approx
20. ↑ Tony Cashman, quoted in Erik Floren: Emily Murphy's Legacy . In: Edmonton Sun , October 3, 2004
21. ↑ University of Alberta Campus Map: Emily Murphy's House ( Memento of November 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive )