The women's movement has accomplished many things in the last 13 years, but our perception of how much farther we need to go has partly obscured our accomplishments from us. In education the situation of middle and upper-middle class women has improved. Most of the medical schools in Canada now have classes of almost 1/3 women. In 1967 it was fewer than 12%. The numbers of women in law have increased astronomically, and there are law schools in which almost half the students are women. In 1967 it was fewer than 5%. The same thing is beginning to happen in business schools as well. The increased availability of part-time studies, which was one of the areas of change women pressed for, has brought enormous numbers of women back into the educational system. In fact the CAUT estimates so that 95% of the increases in enrollment in post-secondary education in Canada from 1970 to the present are accounted for by the return of women into the post-secondary educational system. At this point the average age of under graduates in Canada is 28, and more than half the students in universities are women. In 1967 that figure was just over 1/3 women. This, of course, is progress of a very significant sort. The bad news remains that the average salaries of women with B.A.s are the same as the average salaries of men with high school diplomas. And for working-class women the post-secondary education system has done very little. For women who want training in non-traditional job areas, access to training in the high-technology areas, apprenticeships, and skills education related to upgrading on the job, the situation is bleak. In many corporations and even some parts of government, the money spent on training women for higher-paying jobs is less than 10% of the money spent in training men. Federal government training programs often specify only 20 or 30% of the seats for women, and don't have affirmative action programs to find, encourage and train women for better-paying work. The unavailability of good and affordable child care, and the lack of flexibility in the delivery of education programs, still mean that women get fewer opportunities for advancement in and through education and training.

For women in the family there is some good news: in some households work is beginning to be shared more. Equitably and some young fathers are taking more time-with their children than before. The family law bills across the country have begun to recognize the financial value of women's work at home in their divorce settlements. The changes in do the family law are one tangible result of the persuasive force of the women's movement on this issue since the Irene Murdoch case. Women working in the home now usually as divorce settlements, or the family assets. The bad news is that the divorce rate continues to rise, that a man's business assets are rarely added to the list shared assets after divorce even though many women contribute to growth of family businesses very significantly. Beyond that men in Canada after a few years do not pay the maintenance cost which the court has awarded their ex-wives and enforcement is very weak.

It was the pressure of women's groups which gave us the child tax credit, a small recognition of the value of raising children in our society. It was the pressure groups which has finally given us the Canada Pension Plan drop-out vision for women raising children the age of seven. But do not recognize the contribution made to our society by people raising children -- we do not recognize work of full-time mothers in the Canada Pension Plan, and we have adequate maternity leave provisions and parental leave in labour codes and employment standards acts. The family allowance eroded by inflation and the tax system which allows a man a spousal deduction if his wife works at home sends the money to him rather to her. Most importantly, the law does not make all assets jointly owned by both spouses within a viable marriage. Assets are shared divorce but not by law within on-going marriages.