Product Description

This is the first Canadian pop culture book to focus exclusively on the lives of Canadian women.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #349686 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-10
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .61" h x 7.02" w x 8.66" l, .99 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

Amazon.ca
If it wasn't already spoken for, the catchphrase "You've come a long way, baby" would be an ideal subtitle for Ann Douglas's Canuck Chicks and Maple Leaf Mamas. Canadian women may not stand alone in the arena of female accomplishment, but as Douglas tells it, Canada's unique geography--not to mention the Jurassic patriarchal laws they dwelled under until the '60s--make their successes that much more dramatic. Essentially a book of lists, Maple Leaf Mamas painstakingly chronicles the achievements (some dubious) of Canadian women in politics, medicine, sports, entertainment, media, and industry over the last two centuries. Endless magazine and newspaper articles are quoted, countless books are footnoted, to encyclopedic (albeit lighthearted) effect. Douglas--always on the prowl for a laugh--sparkles when exposing the silliness of Canada's stuffy forefathers, gleefully skewering so-called experts who debated whether it was prudent for doctors to see a female's genitalia during childbirth, or whether marriage was "a painful and unnatural state for a man." The suffragette angle is a bit dog-eared, but one is willing to forgive Douglas in exchange for the wealth of trivia on tap. In fact, if one complaint can be made about Maple Leaf Mamas, it's that digesting page after page of deeply sourced factoids can be overwhelming. Still, history lessons are seldom this fun. --Kim Hughes

About the Author
Ann Douglas is an award-winning journalist and the author of 21 books, including The Mother of All Pregnancy Books, The Mother of All Baby Books, The Mother of All Toddler Books, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Canadian History. She lives in Peterborough, Ontario, with her husband and four children.