Canadian Federation of University Women

Since its founding in 1919 by early women university graduates, the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) has been a strong and consistent voice for the educational and professional advancement of Canadian women. It provided social and educational support to women in the university community and was an early and longstanding provider of scholarships to Canadian women and girls, which allowed them to pursue advanced degrees and research. The CFUW also lent decisive leadership to the movement for recognition of women’s equality in Canadian society and the creation of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1967.

While Canadian universities began opening their doors to women in the late 19th century, women were not always warmly welcomed on campus and upon graduation, they encountered obstacles to the further development of their education or academic careers. Across the country, early female graduates established women’s University Clubs, which offered social, educational, and other support to women graduates. In 1919, the CFUW was established as a national federation of these clubs. Margaret McWilliams served as the new federation’s first president and helped found the International Federation of University Women, ensuring Canadian participation in this body. As part of its advocacy for female university students and graduates, the CFUW established a scholarship program to assist women in pursuing educational studies, particularly at the post-graduate level.

Believing that as a privileged group, university-educated women had an obligation to give something back to society, the CFUW encouraged its members to take an active leadership role in society at all levels. It believed that discrimination would end if women demonstrated competence in positions of importance in society, academics, and politics. As the early clubs became established, the organization shifted its emphasis from the education and social support of university-educated women and became increasingly involved in social reforms of various kinds. Actively promoting women’s status issues through the Depression and into the 1950s, the federation provided a link between the first wave of feminism (1880-1920) and the second wave which emerged in the 1960s.

In the 1960s and 1970s the federation contributed to the emergence of a renewed and strengthened feminist movement in Canada. The federation’s president Laura Sabia called together a diverse group of Canadian women’s organizations in 1967 to put pressure on the Pearson government to appoint the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. Over the next three years the commission held hearings across Canada and published its report in 1970. Its 167 recommendations, meant to increase women’s choices in employment, health, education, and family law, served as the agenda for the Canadian feminist movement. To oversee the government’s implementation of the commission’s recommendations, various governmental and non-governmental organizations emerged, including the influential National Action Committee on the Status of Women, founded by Laura Sabia in 1972.