In honour of #InternationalWomensDay I searched canlii.org for all the mentions of "woman" in Canadian statutes. There were 91 hits in statutes in force. First up is The Married Women's Property Act which abolishes the common law rule that married women could not /2
own property separately for their husbands. Self-id was not a big thing back in 1870. Next is the Womens Institute Act of Alberta which allows women to establish institutes for the study of " home economics, including home nursing, household science, sanitation, food values, /3
sick room cookery, house furnishing, sewing and other matters..." Each woman who signs the application for incorporation is to pay a the sum of $0.25 to be held in trust for the institute. There are various acts creating advisory councils of the status of women /4
Alberta has the Protecting Choice for Women Accessing Health Care Act which restricts protests around abortion clinics. The Vital Statistics Acts in various provinces contain rules for the registration of the birth of a child of a married woman. Quebec has a Midwives Act and /5
Act respecting clinical and research activities relating to assisted procreation, which refer to the reproductive functions of a woman. The Family Services Act of New Brunswick provides that a court may declare a man to be the father of a child and a woman to be the mother /6
of a child. The Labour Standards Code of Nova Scotia says that an employer may require an employee to take a leave of absence where the duties of her position cannot reasonably be performed by a pregnant woman. The Placer Mining Act of the Yukon provides that no female shall /7
be searched except by a suitable woman. This is quite a mixed bag but overall it looks like Canadian legislatures have(or at least had) an understanding of the word woman grounded in reproductive biology.
