"Anne Francis" by Florence Bird, a trip into the past.
In connection with my work-in-progress, I am reading the 19973 autobiography of Florence Bayard Rhein Bird, better known as Anne Frances, the name she used in her broadcasting and writing career. Florence Bird headed the Canadian Royal Commission on the Status of Women, created in 1967, when I was just a mere girl, and given the mandate to inquire into and report on the status of women in Canada and to recommend what steps might be taken by the federal government to ensure equal opportunities for women in all aspects of Canadian Society. Researching for my 2023 novel, A Striking Woman, I found that when the commission reported, one of its recommendations was that an advisory council to the federal government be established. My central character says in that novel, "What we need is not a council responsible to the federal government, but a federal government responsible to Canadian women," and as a result of the more radical women wh...