From invisibility to equality? Women workers and the gendering of workers' compensation in Ontario, 1900-2005

THE ADVENT OF A MODERN workmen's compensation system in Ontario in the mid-1910s was a moment of significant gain for injured workers. With the passage of the 1915 Workmen's Compensation Act (WCA), injured workers would no longer have to rely on an uncertain, even hostile, judge and jury system to receive some form of compensation from their employers. The WCA was, however, a gendered, i.e., discriminatory, statute. As the paper outlines, the …