Women in Translation

Why write about women in translation? Aren't women in the majority in the Translation Bureau? Hasn't the TR group consisted mostly of women since 1990? Isn't the male an endangered species in Canadian translation schools? The answer to all these questions is "yes," and yet, not so long ago, there were very few women in translation. In fact, in the Bureau in 1934, there were only five. Things certainly have changed in 75 years.

A legal matter

Translators were few and far between in the Government of Canada before 1900, especially working in Parliament, translating legislation, debates and budgets (the "Blue Books"). With very few exceptions, they were journalists and lawyers. Achille Fréchette, Chief Translator in the House of Commons from 1903 to 1910, said that at the time, you had to study law in order to become a journalist. However, women were not allowed to practise law until 1941.

The first law student in Quebec was Annie Langstaff. She was a stenographer in Montreal and enrolled in McGill University in 1911. When she finished her studies three years later, she wanted to take the Bar exams. This was impossible. She went to court but her case, heard before the Court of King's Bench, was rejected. Annie was determined and appealed to the Supreme Court; however, her case was rejected again. Annie Langstaff never became a lawyer.

Ms. Langstaff worked until retirement in the law office that had sponsored her. She wrote a number of articles, and in 1937, wrote the first French-English, English-French legal dictionary in Canada. She signed it "A. Macdonald - Langstaff, B.C.L."

Translation in the departments

Translation was established in the departments around 1900. There was nothing that prevented women from working in this field. Even if they were only translating correspondence, which was often the case, women still had an entry point to translation. In the 1910s, there were female translators in the Department of the Interior and the Department of Railways and Canals; in the 1920s, there were even more women in National Defence, Colonization and Immigration, Agriculture and the Post Office. In National Defence, Chief Henri Grignon's team consisted entirely of women!

When the Translation Bureau was established in 1934, five women joined the Bureau's workforce. None, however, worked for Parliament.

Pioneers of parliamentary translation

Around 1930, Évelyne Bolduc, folklorist, author and Yale University degree-holder, entered the Blue Book Division, where her contract was renewed annually. In 1937, she moved to Debates. Évelyne Bolduc, who passed away in 1939, paved the way for other women to have a career in Parliamentary translation, including Rosette Renshaw, translator in Debates in the 1940s, and Irène de Buisseret, author of Deux langues, six idiomes.

Terminology and interpretation

Though women had to fight to become translators, this was not the case for terminology and interpretation. Rachel Lévesque and Nada Stipkovic were among the Bureau's first terminologists, beginning in the 1950s.

Women had been represented in interpretation for quite some time. Moreover, in a 1941 issue of the journal Le Mouvement féministe, published in Geneva, young women were encouraged to think seriously about enrolling in the interpretation school that had just opened. In Canada, two women, Valérie Sylt and Marguerite Ouimet, were part of the first team of parliamentary interpreters.

Women in translation schools

Translation has been taught in Ottawa since 1936 and in Montreal since 1940. Women enrolled in great numbers. In 1963, out of 186 registrations, there were 152 women!

Women in Bureau hierarchy

The Bureau and its home department—the Department of Secretary of State from 1934 to 1993 and Public Works and Government Services thereafter—quickly made way for women in its hierarchy. The first female federal minister, Ellen Fairclough, was Secretary of State in 1957-1958; Judy LaMarsh also held this position shortly afterwards, from 1965 to 1968. Two women were also deputy ministers in that department: Huguette Labelle in the 1980s and Michèle Jean in the 1990s. It was the same for Public Works and Government Services, where Diane Marleau was minister in the 1990s.

In the Translation Bureau, women were section chiefs beginning in the 1960s. In the 1980s, a number of women were part of senior management and, since 1996, two women in a row have been the President-Chief Executive Officer: Diana Monnet and Francine Kennedy. Mrs. Kennedy is still the head of the Bureau in this 75th anniversary year.