Marie Gérin-Lajoie

Barred from university law schools because of her gender, Marie Lacoste educated herself in the civil code from her father's extensive library. In 1902, she published Traité de droit usuel (Treatise on Everyday Law), which became an indispensable text exposing the legal subordination of married women.

In 1907, she co-founded the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, coordinating Francophone women's charitable and professional societies. For decades she petitioned the Quebec government, culminating in the 1931 Dorion Commission that began dismantling married women's legal incapacity.