Dorothy Inglis (; 15 April 1926 – 22 May 2013) was a Canadian feminist, activist and author born in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, and raised in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. She spent most of her adulthood in

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...

Political roles

Inglis was active in advocating for

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...

. She was a founding member of St. John's Status of Women Council and the Newfoundland Status of Women Council, and served on the

National Action Committee on the Status of Women The National Action Committee on the Status of Women was a Canadian feminist activist organization that existed from 1971 to 2007. History It was founded in 1971 as a pressure group to lobby for the implementation of the 167 recommendations m ...

from 1982 until 1986, acting as vice-president from 1984. In 1988, she represented

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (), also known as the Voice of Women or VOW, is a Canadian anti-nuclear pacifist organization that was formed in 1960. The organization was created in response to an article in which Lotta Dempsey, a journalist f ...

as a delegate to the 1988

Conference on Disarmament The Conference on Disarmament (CD) is a multilateral disarmament forum established by the international community to negotiate arms control and disarmament agreements based at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The Conference meets annually in ...

. She also had leadership roles in the

Newfoundland and Labrador New Democratic Party The Newfoundland and Labrador New Democratic Party (NL NDP) is a social democratic political party in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in 1961 as the successor to ...

. For eight years, she wrote the feminist column for ''

The Telegram ''The Telegram'' is a weekly newspaper in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, published by Postmedia Network. First published in 1879, it was the first and longest-running daily in Newfoundland. In August 2024, following its sale to Postme ...

'' in St. John's. In 1996, Killick Press published a selection of 58 of her columns in a volume titled ''Bread and Roses''. It was awarded the Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Award in 1997. A vocal opponent of pornography, Inglis was concerned that material she had seen as "innocent titillation" in the 1950s had become disturbingly graphic by the 1980s.

Honours

Inglis was honoured with a Governor General's Persons Award and a

doctor of laws A Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is a doctoral degree in legal studies. The abbreviation LL.D. stands for ''Legum Doctor'', with the double “L” in the abbreviation referring to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both canon law ...

degree from

Memorial University Memorial University of Newfoundland, or MUN (), is a Public university, public research university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook ...

Personal life

She was married to Gordon Inglis and died in

on 22 May 2013.

References

External links

Dorothy Inglis papers
at Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland {{DEFAULTSORT:Inglis, Dorothy 1926 births 2013 deaths 20th-century Canadian writers 20th-century Canadian women writers Canadian columnists Canadian women columnists Canadian feminist writers Canadian feminists Activists from Calgary Activists from Vancouver Activists from Newfoundland and Labrador Writers from Calgary Writers from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador Writers from Vancouver Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case winners