RADICAL HOUSEWIVES, A PLAY
Tuesday May 3rd, 7PM
Thursday May 5th, 7PM
Sunday May 8th, 2PM
United Steelworkers Hall
Registration required.
What happens when women have had enough with rising prices? At many points in history, they rose up angrily and demanded justice. Toronto had an example of that kind of action that has been almost forgotten. In 1937 hundreds of housewives came together to protest the high cost of food in the city. For the next decade the Toronto Housewives Consumer Association defied gender stereotypes of passive women and mobilized thousands of housewives to keep the prices of domestic goods under control. After World War Two they led huge national demonstrations in Ottawa to demand that price controls stay in place and laid out clear proposals for a more economically just society. What they got instead were withering blasts of Cold War hysteria that undermined their efforts.
The Toronto Workers’ Theatre Group (TWTG) has revived the story of these determined women in the hopes that their passion and commitment can inspire new struggles for social justice for working people in the 21st century.
Written by
CRAIG HERON (IN COLLABORATION WITH TWTG MEMBERS)
Directed by
AIDA JORDÃO
Based on the book Radical Housewives: Price Wars and Food Politics in Mid-Twentieth-Century Canada (University of Toronto Press 2019), by
JULIE GUARD
Cast