Two firsts : Bertha Wilson and Claire L'Heureux-Dubé at the Supreme Court of Canada / Constance Backhouse.

Toronto, Ont. : Second Story Press, 2019.

1st edition

89328

Wilson, Bertha, -- 1923-2007.

L'Heureux-Dubé, Claire.

Canada. -- Supreme Court.

Judges -- Canada -- Biography.

Women judges -- Canada -- Biography.

1. Childhood and early schooling: Scotland and Quebec

2. Bertha Wilson, the minister's wife

3. The decision to study law

4. Clair L'Heureux and Laval University Law School

5. Bertha Wilson and Dalhousie Law School

6. L'Heureux-Dubé's practice in Quebec City and marriage

7. Bertha Wilson's practice in Toronto

8. Practising as a woman

9. First judicial appointments: "No woman can do my job!"

10. Claire L'Heureux-Dubé and the Quebec Superior Court

11. Claire L'Heureux-Dubé: family tragedy and the Quebec Court of Appeal

12 Bertha Wilson and the Ontario Court of Appeal

13. Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada, 1982 and 1987

14. Contrasting family lives

15. Chilly reception at the Supreme Court of Canada

16. Bertha Wilson's Supreme Court decisions

17. Claire L'Heureux-Dubé's Supreme Court decisions

18. The conundrum of feminism and the complexities of race

19. Retirement and after.

Bertha Wilson and Claire L'Heureux-Dubé were the first women judges on the Supreme Court of Canada. Their 1980s judicial appointments delighted feminists and shocked the legal establishment. Polar opposites in background and temperament, the two faced many identical challenges. Constance Backhouse's compelling narrative explores the sexist roadblocks they faced in education, law practice, and on the courts. She profiles their different ways of coping, their landmark decisions for women's rights, and their less stellar records on race. To explore the lives and careers of these two path-breaking women is to venture into a world of legal sexism from a past era. The question becomes, how much of that sexism has been relegated to the bins of history, and how much continues? - Publisher's website.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9781772600933

298 p. : ill., portraits ; 23 cm