Immigrant and Black Women Status in Workplace Term Paper

Immigrant and Black Women Status in Workplace - Term Paper Example Canada enacted flexible policies to allow a considerable number of immigrants to enter the country. The massive immigration brought in people with diversified cultures and ethnic backgrounds. The ethnic factions extended to the workplace. The immigrants and black women suffered the brunt of ethnic divisions in the labor force in Canada. Before industrial revolution, gender segregation was very high and it was women’s role to perform household chores only1. The black women did not get enough attention to secure jobs because the popular patriarchal ideologies in the workplace. Most of the work was a reserve for the masculine gender. However, things took a positive turn for women with advent of Industrial Revolution. The industries required varied skills in their operations. This paper seeks to analyze the status of immigrant and black women’s status in the workplace and their developments after industrialization in Canada. First, the report will endeavor to reveal the exp eriences that brought about the women’s desire to challenge their status in the workplace. Second, it will point out the process of their development after industrialization. Lastly, the paper will give its conclusion on black women’s developments in Canada2. Diverse cultural, legal, demographic, and ethno-racial influences shaped the history of women in the Canadian labor force. Like men, women in the industrial Canada contributed to their household and community economies through both paid and unpaid labor. However, cultural beliefs, social practices, and laws limited the material rewards. These practices subordinated women to men. The black married women could not sign labor contracts, own property or even claim their wages. The women who worked in the same type of work as their male counterparts earned lower wages than men did. The black women participated in heavy field labor that the Canadian natives could not work in. The immigrants faced a lot of discrimination and social prejudice from the employers’ suppressive policies. This made the employment status of the immigrant and black women uncertain3. During the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Industrial Revolution profoundly changed the conditions under which immigrant and black women worked. Industrial Revolution shifted the workplace away from farms, where men and women lived, to factories, mines, and other spaces away from home. This shift created two different spheres. These comprised of a domestic and a separate working sphere away from the home. Compelling was the strategy that Canadians used to get the Black women to enter the workplace mostly in the textile industries4. It was burdening to women because they served as homemakers and caregivers on top of working in the textile industries. In the middle of the 1800s, the number of women declined in the workplace. The wages of the industrial workers rose making the jobs desirable for men. Canada passed the laws restricting the n umber of workers for the black women and the number of lower-class working-women fell. A cult of domesticity, stressing that women place was in the home and men in the workplace dominated the Canadian culture. This was especially among the middle and upper class. This catapulted formation of strong and vigorous women’s movements that agitated for suffrage, equality to work, equal pay, temperance, and other issues. The women formed most prominent organizations such as National Council of women in Canada, Women Christian