Kinnear presents five case studies of professional women in Manitoba: university teachers, physicians, lawyers, nurses, and schoolteachers. Although the unrelenting efforts of nineteenth-century feminists won women access to higher education and the professions, the author reveals that most women, whether in male- or female-dominated professions, were forced to accept subordinate positions. They responded with acquiescence, indifference, resentment, or resistance. Kinnear considers the reasons for and the cost of these various strategies. In addition to quantitative data culled from census and other records, Kinnear has collected testimony from more than two hundred professional women, a rich mine of information. A significant contribution to the growing literature on women and the professions, In Subordination helps explain why professional women continue to fight for equality today.

Mary Kinnear is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Manitoba.

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"Exciting, absorbing reading which offers new and important insights. In Subordination makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of women's history and the history of professional occupations." Janet Guilford, Department of History, University of New Brunswick. "A wonderful book." Alison Prentice, Department of the History of Philosophy, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.