Two Firsts cover art

Two Firsts

Bertha Wilson and Claire L'Heureux Dubé at the Supreme Court of Canada (A Feminist History Society, Book 9)

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Two Firsts

Written by: Constance Backhouse
Narrated by: Annelise Noronha
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About this listen

Bertha Wilson and Claire L’Heureux-Dubé were the first women judges on the Supreme Court of Canada. Their 1980s judicial appointments delighted feminists and shocked the legal establishment. Polar opposites in background and temperament, the two faced many identical challenges.

Constance Backhouse’s compelling narrative explores the sexist roadblocks both women faced in education, law practice, and in the courts. She profiles their different ways of coping, their landmark decisions for women’s rights, and their less stellar records on race. To explore the lives and careers of these two path-breaking women is to venture into a world of legal sexism from a past era. The question becomes, how much of that sexism has been relegated to the bins of history, and how much continues?

©2019 Constance Backhouse (P)2020 Second Story Press Americas Canada Law Professionals & Academics Women
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Very important firsts for Canadian women here!
I thought the approach was interesting, to tell the stories of the two women together, weaving both into each chapter. I thought it worked.
One odd thing about the audio is that the chronology was read before the first chapter. I almost bailed on listening to the book because I thought this was what the whole book would sound like (it should have been at the end)…. keep listening, it gets better.

Important Canadian history

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This book was a struggle. For reasons that escape me, the reader announces every endnote, and describes every photograph. The recording even included a description of an organization chart of the Canadian court system. If I wanted these, I could have read the book. If the photographs were so crucial, they could have been included in a PDF. Oddly, after announcing each endnote in the text, the actual notes are all recorded together in a separate 3 1/2 hour chapter. What a waste of time. As a result, the listener is forced to listen to a choppy and distracting production. I had been looking forward to a good book about two important Canadians, but poor editorial decisions have marred this production.

Poor editorial decisions mar the audiobook

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