Feminism: The Black Candle By Emily Murphy

“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people” as infamously quoted by Marie Shear, a writer for feminist magazine New Directions For Women. While feminist ideology is more widely accepted in modern society, the quest for women to be legally recognized as persons wasn't always so attainable. Emily Murphy was a Canadian women's rights activist and the leader in a group of five women who sought out legal action to answer the question of whether women were indeed considered persons in the eyes of the law. When taken to the Supreme Court of Canada, the final vote was to dismiss the motion. After the British Privy Council overturned the Supreme Courts's decision, Murphy and the other women (known as the Famous Five) were victorious in

However, while the book starts out as a factual piece to inform the public of the dangers of drug use, Murphy later began using the war on drugs as a platform to spread her racist views. While in parts of the book she writes “The Chinese, as a rule are a friendly people and have a fine sense of humor that puts them on an easy footing with our folk” (Murphy 81-82), she later states “But if you claim that the oriental pedlar, and opium sot are abandoned and irreclaimable--mere black-haired beasts in our human jungle--then, it is quite plain that we should insist on their exclusion from this continent.” (Murphy 47). The Black Candle played a contributory part in the spreading her racial ideology to a larger Canadian audience. Her book was highly influential, which lead to the prohibition of marijuana and more restrictive immigration control. Murphy publicly supported laws to exclude Asian immigrants, and the following year in 1923 the Chinese Immigration Act was created- with strong enforcement on her part (MacDonald and O'Keefe 9-21). Moreover, her “feminist ideology” applied only to white women as she used The Black Candle as a means to actively argue against the rights of women of colour in order to advance her own goals. She believed multiculturalism would taint the purity of the white race and wished for “exclusion of people of colour from the

Her maternal grandfather Ogle R. Gowan founded a local branch of the Orange Order, a eugenics organization that was closely related to the Ku Klux Klan (Library and Archives Canada). Because of this, Murphy herself was involved in the group and often participated in discussions on law and politics. Later on in her life, she took on a more active role in eugenics through her letters, articles and petitions. She strongly discriminated against mentally ill people and believed they were inferior. In her paper Overpopulation and Birth Control she stated “Some of the opponents to the Sterilization Act had a good deal to say about private liberty, quite forgetful of the fact that social necessity is one of infinitely greater moment. Since I know of no way of driving home a nail other than by hammering it, let me emphasize again that insane people are not entitled to progeny.” In practice of selective breeding, she enforced compulsory sterilization on mentally ill women, sometimes unknowingly. This practice fell under the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act of 1928. Additionally, in a petition to the Ministry of Agriculture and Health she claimed mentally ill children were “A menace to society and an enormous cost to the state… science is proving that mental defectiveness is a transmittable hereditary condition” (New World Encyclopedia). Her disdain for those she believed to be inferior to her was what drove her to