The Business Of Women Summary

Melanie Buddle

The Business of Women: Marriage, Family, and Entrepreneurship in British Columbia, 1901-51

Vancouver UBC Press, 2010

Women, Defying their Position In Business

Throughout history, women have inhabited a theoretical space divorced from the world of business. Accomplishments and success amongst female entrepreneurs has been disregarded and overshadowed by businessmen. The book, The Business Of Women: Marriage, Family and Entrepreneurship in British Columbia, by Melanie Buddle, provides an insight on how entrepreneurial women were defined and how they had defined themselves in the early twentieth century. Buddle provides a much-needed corrective to business history,…show more content…
These professional women’s clubs were scattered across Canada, with a large number of clubs being located in British Columbia. Buddle had spent a large part of her book discussing the importance of these organizations on an entrepreneurial women’s success. In the book, The Business of Women, Buddle states, “BPW functioned as spaces for women to negotiate, and contest, the gender inequalities of the male-defined business world”(91). Buddle focuses on the idea that these women’s clubs acted as outlets to release frustrations that women had towards the economic arena in which they had made their livings. Ultimately the BPW provided women with the opportunity to “assume a public life without too deeply challenging traditional gender roles”(85). In these public groups women could speak freely in their own private space without being scrutinized by males. Although many women chose to be involved in these professional groups, there had been controversies surrounding self employed women and how they felt about the BPW not representing the experiences they had. Buddle went on to argue that the experiences and activities of the BPW club members did not represent the experiences of most self employed women in the province, however their actions and their interests reflect the concerns of working women and, in some cases, the specific concerns of self…show more content…
Immigration trends in Canada had grew considerably in the twentieth century, including British Columbia. Women relocating into Canada had to find work, as their husbands and households needed support. In this case women had become more independent and were relied on weather it was for self-employment or in wage earning jobs. In terms of history, the book The business of women expresses the defiance of women in the field of business through their intersections of marriage, class, gender and self employment. We can look at the improvements in technology as a factor resulting into the increase of women in the labor force. In lectures we go into depth how railroads and manufacturing industries opened up more job opportunities for the Canadian population. Another area where women defining their position in the business world come into importance is after the great depression and World War 1. In order to revive the economy, women were given greater roles which included positioning themselves into the labor force, which at the time was male, dominated. In class we had focused on the great depression and how Canada was affected in many different ways. We had also discussed the impacts of immigration and how settlers affected the labor force. Buddle does a great job of describing a very significant part of Canadian history regarding women. Understanding the place of female