Margaret Benston

Margaret "Maggie" Lowe Benston (1937–1991) was a professor of chemistry,

Margaret Lowe Benston
computing science, and women's studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada.[1] She was a respected feminist and labour activist, as Born 1937
well as a founding member of the Vancouver Women's Caucus, in 1988, the Died 1991
Euphoniously Feminist and Non-Performing Quintet in 1970, Simon Fraser Residence Vancouver, British
University's Women's Studies Program in 1975, and Mayworks in 1988.[2] For thirty Columbia, Canada
years, Benston worked locally, nationally, and internationally writing articles, giving
Nationality Canadian
speeches, and lobbying politicians on behalf of the women's and labour
movement.[3] Benston died of cancer on 7 March 1991.[4]
Citizenship Canadian
Scientific career
Fields Chemistry, computer
Contents science, women's
studies, labour studies
Academic work
Institutions Simon Fraser
Personal life and activism
University
Legacy
Publications
Books
Book chapters
Articles
Papers
Further reading
References

Academic work
Margaret Benston obtained an undergraduate degree in chemistry and philosophy and a PhD in theoretical chemistry from the
University of Washington in 1964.[5][6] Following this, she worked as a post-doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin.[5]
Benston joined Simon Fraser University as a charter faculty member in 1966 in the Department of Chemistry. She was one of the
founders of Women's Studies program in the mid-1970s, and taught in the program part-time. Best known for articles such as
"Infrared Spectroscopy" in The Annual Review of Physical Chemistry and "New Force Theorem" in The Journal of Chemistry and
Physics, Benston continued as a practicing scientist throughout her life, but also went on to be more involved in feminism and
activism.[6] Her 1969 essay, The Political Economy of Women's Liberation, was one of the first Marxist feminist critiques from a
Canadian perspective.[7] This article helped establish the framework for much of the feminist debates in the 1970s, as it was one of
the first to use a Marxist parameter to explain the oppression of women.[4] The article was later reproduced in books such as
Liberation Now? Women in a Made-Made World and Feminist Frameworks, it was also translated into Spanish, French, Italian,
Swedish, German, and Japanese.[6]

In the 1980s, Benston became interested in computer science. She switched fields and received a joint appointment in the Women's
Studies and Computing Science departments. Thereafter she explored the relationship between computerization, women, and work.[8]

Benston was the first to argue that women formed a reserve army of labour, a group that could be manipulated in a certain way
because women are responsible for the reproduction of labour power.[6] She argued that women's domestic and wage labour were
essential to the flow of capitalist production and that women could not be fully integrated into wage labour without a full
transformation in both of the forms of labour, which ultimately would mean a transformation of capitalism.[6] In turn, this created the
, this became known internationallyas the domestic labour debate.[6]
view that women form a class because of their domestic labour

Personal life and activism

Committed to social justice, Benston was a founding member of the Euphoniously Feminist and Non-Performing Quintet, groups
who taught feminist labour and anti-war songs to audiences at picket lines and rallies.[9] As a labour activist, she helped found
Vancouver Mayworks (a cultural festival celebrating workers), the Vancouver Women's Caucus, a New Left political craze that swept
Simon Fraser University in the late 1960s,[10] and Women's Skills Development of British Columbia.[4] A music fan, she played a
leading role in establishing the Vancouver Folk Music Festival.[8] Benston also helped start the Vancouver Mayworks, a festival that
celebrated workers' culture.[6] Mayworks is currently a Festival of Labour and the Arts, with active participants in Parksville, Comox
Valley and Campbell River, on Vancouver Island.[11]

With five other women (Mary Vickers, Hilda Ching, Abby Schwarz, Mary Jo Duncan, Diana Herbst), Benston founded The Society
for Canadian Women in Science and Technology (SCWIST) in Vancouver in 1981,[12] which aims to "support and promote the
education of girls and women through programs and activities that we develop in partnership with the community."[13] Benston died
.[8]
in 1991 at age 52, after a long battle with cancer

Legacy
The Maggie Benston Centre at Simon Fraser University was the second campus building named after a woman at the university (the
first being the Madge Hogarth residence).[8]

The Margaret Lowe Benston Memorial Graduate Bursary in Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies is named after her.[14] The
purpose of this award is to provide financial support for students in the MA and PhD programs in the Department of Gender,
Sexuality, and Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University.[14]

Begun in 1994, the "Margaret Lowe Benston (MLB) Lecture Series in Social Justice is financed by an endowment established in her
memory.[14] Until the final lecture in 2008, there was a total of nine speakers, including Marilyn Waring and Leslie Feinberg.[14]
[14]
Over the course of the series, the lectures were highly successful, having a general attendance of between 200 and 320 people.

Publications

Books
Benston, Margaret; Jasteenmaki, Moira K., eds. (1972).Quantitative chemistry. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
OCLC 251684.
Benston, Margaret; DeBresson, Chris; Vorst, Jesse, eds. (1987). Work and new technologies: other perspectives
.
Toronto: Between the Lines.ISBN 9780919946835.
Benston, Margaret; Tomm, Winnie, eds. (1989). The effects of feminist approaches on research methodologies.
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 9780889209862.

Book chapters
Benston, Margaret (1978), "Introduction",in Connelly, Patricia, Last hired, first fired: women and the Canadian work
force, Toronto: Women's Educational Press,ISBN 9780889610446
Benston, Margaret (1982), "Feminism and the critique of scientific method", in Miles, Angela; Finn, Geraldine,
Feminism in Canada: from pressure to politics, Montréal: Black Rose Books,ISBN 9780919619005
Benston, Margaret (1983), "For women, now the chips are down",in Zimmerman, Jan, The Technological woman:
interfacing with tomorrow, New York: Praeger Press, ISBN 9780030628290
Benston, Margaret (1983), "Women Scientists, Machines and Technology", Proceedings, First National Conference
on Women in Science, Vancouver: SCWIST, OCLC 25433607
 Benston, Margaret (1985), "Power to the end user",in Wilson, Donna M., Democratic socialism: the challenge of the
eighties and beyond: proceedings of a conference, Vancouver, Canada: New Star Books,ISBN 9780919573451
Benston, Margaret (1988), "Women's voices/men's voices: technology as language",in Kramarae, Cheris,
Technology and women's voices: keeping intouch, New York London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
ISBN 9780710206794
Benston, Margaret (1989), "Feminism and system design: questions of control",
in Benston, Margaret; Tomm,
Winnie, The effects of feminist approaches on research methodologies
, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, ISBN 9780889209862

Articles
Benston, Margaret L.; Kirtman, Bernard; Cross, Paul C. (October 1961). "Vibration-rotation spectroscopy". Annual
Review of Physical Chemistry. Annual Reviews. 12: 285&ndash, 302. doi:10.1146/annurev.pc.12.100161.001441.
Benston, Margaret L.; Kirtman, Bernard (1 January 1966)."Diatomic forces and force constants. II. V ariation—
perturbation method". Journal of Chemical Physics. American Institute of Physics. 44 (1): 126&ndash, 129.
doi:10.1063/1.1726435.
Benston, Margaret L.; Kirtman, Bernard (1 January 1966)."Diatomic forces and force constants. I. Errors in the
Hellmann—Feynman method". Journal of Chemical Physics. American Institute of Physics. 44 (1): 119&ndash, 125.
doi:10.1063/1.1726434.
Benston, Margaret (1 February 1966)."New force theorem". Journal of Chemical Physics. American Institute of
Physics. 44 (3): 1300&ndash, 1301.doi:10.1063/1.1726821.
Benston, Margaret; Chong, Delano P . (January 1967). "Off-diagonal constrained variations in open-shell SCF
theory". Molecular Physics. Taylor and Francis. 12 (5): 487&ndash, 492. doi:10.1080/00268976700100621.
Benston, Margaret L.; Kirtman, Bernard (15 January 1967)."Extended‐average‐energy method for perturbation
problems". Journal of Chemical Physics. American Institute of Physics. 46 (2): 472&ndash, 477.
doi:10.1063/1.1840691.
Benston, Margaret; Chong, Delano P . (1968). "Multi-configuration self-consistent field theory with non-orthogonal
orbitals". Molecular Physics. Taylor and Francis. 14 (5): 449&ndash, 456. doi:10.1080/00268976800100561.
Benston, Margaret; Chong, Delano P . (January 1968). "Parameters for multiple constraints". Theoretica Chimica
Acta. Springer. 12 (2): 175&ndash, 177. doi:10.1007/BF00539389.
Benston, Margaret; Chong, Delano P . (1 August 1968). "Off‐diagonal hypervirial theorems as constraints". Journal of
Chemical Physics. American Institute of Physics. 49 (3): 1302&ndash, 1306.doi:10.1063/1.1670224.
Benston, Margaret (September 1969)."The political economy of women's liberation". Monthly Review. Monthly
Review Foundation. 21 (4): 13&ndash, 27. doi:10.14452/MR-021-04-1969-08_2.
Benston, Margaret; Chong, Delano P .; Wang, Pearl S.C. (15 August 1973)."Constrained variation method for
excited‐state energies of atoms and molecules" . Journal of Chemical Physics. American Institute of Physics. 59 (4):
1721&ndash, 1725. doi:10.1063/1.1680254.
Benston, Margaret; Chong, Delano P .; Scott, William R.; Yue, Chee P.; Wang, Pearl S.C.; Palke, William E. (January
1974). "Application of the distinguishable electron method" . International Journal of Quantum Chemistry. Wiley. 8 (1):
137&ndash, 150. doi:10.1002/qua.560080114.
Benston, Margaret. "Strategies for social change".Second Wave. 2 (2): 10&ndash, 15.
Benston, Margaret; Davitt, Pat J. (June 1975)."Women invent society". Canadian Dimension. Dimension Publishing
Inc. 10: 69&ndash, 79.
Benston, Margaret; Davitt, Pat J. (1978)."Single working women and the industrial revolution" . Makara. Pacific
Women’s Graphic Arts Co-operative.
Benston, Margaret (1983)."Technology in the workplace: chipping awayat women's work". Herizons.
Benston, Margaret (1983). "Artificial intelligence and dehumanization".Journal of Community Communications.
Benston, Margaret; Lowe, Marian (1984)."The uneasy alliance of feminism and academia" . Women's Studies
International Forum. Elsevier. 7 (3): 177&ndash, 183. doi:10.1016/0277-5395(84)90008-6.
Benston, Margaret (1984)."The myth of computer literacy". Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 5 (4):
20&ndash, 24.
Benston, Margaret (Fall 1984)."Review of Still Ain't Satisfied: Canadian Feminism T oday by Maureen Fitzgerald,
Connie Guberman, Margie Wolfe". Labour/Le Travail. Canadian Committee on Labour History (CCLH).14:
243&ndash, 245. doi:10.2307/25140499. JSTOR 25140499.
Benston, Margaret (Spring 1985)."Review of Science and Gender and Women and Minorities in Science". Atlantis:
Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice. Mount Saint Vincent University. 10 (2): 171&ndash, 172.
Benston, Margaret (November 1986)."Questioning authority: women and scientific expertise" . Resources for
Feminist Research Journal.
Papers
Benston, Margaret (1988), "Empowering women in the practice of science and technology", Memoria de labores de
la primera Conferencia Centroamericana de la Mujer en la Ciencia, laecnología
T y la Medicina[Proceedings of the
first Central American Conference on Women in Science, echnology,
T and Medicine], Seattle, Washington:
Kovalevskaia Fund, OCLC 23372704

Further reading
Christiansen-Ruffman, Linda (Winter 1993)."Community Base and Feminist Vision: The Essential Grounding
Science in Women's Community". Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2): 16&ndash, 20.
Lebowitz, Andrea (Winter 1993)."1975 and All That". Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2):
29&ndash, 30.
Balka, Ellen (Winter 1993)."Cappuccino, Community and Technology: Technology in the Everyday Life of Margaret
Benston". Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2): 62&ndash, 65.
Tripp-Knowles, Peggy (Winter 1993)."Margaret Benston's Feminist Science Critique: A Review and ribute".
T
Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2): 86&ndash, 90.
Miles, Angela (Winter 1993)."Margaret Benston's "Political Economy of W
omen's Liberation": International Impact".
Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2): 31&ndash, 35.

References
1. Cox, Sue (1983). "Maggie Benston collection"(https://www.sfu.ca/archives2/F-69/F-69.html). Simon Fraser
University Archives. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Simon Fraser University
. Retrieved July 1, 2014.
2. Portrebenko, Helen (1998).Letters to Maggie. Vancouver: Lazara Press.ISBN 0920999344.
3. SFU Women's Studies Department; SFU Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. "Margaret Lowe
Benston (MLB) Lecture Series in Social Justice (1995-2008) - Summary"
(http://summit.sfu.ca/item/10627).
4. Balka, Ellen (Fall 1991)."Margaret Lowe Benston: 1937-1991"(https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/LL
T/article/viewF
ile/4811/5684). Labour. Canadian Committee on Labour History(CCLH). 28: 11&ndash, 13. JSTOR 25143505 (http
s://www.jstor.org/stable/25143505).
5. Lowe, Marian (Winter 1993)." "To understand the world in order to change it"" (https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.p
hp/cws/article/viewFile/10441/9530). Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2): 6&ndash, 10.
6. Luxton, Meg; Armstrong, Pat (1991)."Margaret Lowe Benston, 1937–1991"(https://doi.org/10.1080/19187033.1991.
11675449). Studies in Political Economy: A Socialist Review
. Taylor and Francis. 35 (1): 7&ndash, 11.
doi:10.1080/19187033.1991.11675449(https://doi.org/10.1080%2F19187033.1991.11675449) .
7. Holmstrom, Nancy (March 2003)."The Socialist Feminist Project"(https://doi.org/10.14452/mr-054-10-2003-03_4)
.
Monthly Review. Monthly Review Foundation.54 (10). doi:10.14452/mr-054-10-2003-03_4(https://doi.org/10.1445
2%2Fmr-054-10-2003-03_4).
8. "Who was Maggie Benston?"(https://www.sfu.ca/archive-sfunews/sfnews/1996/Sept19/benston.html). Simon Fraser
News. 7 (2). Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Simon Fraser University
. September 19, 1996. Retrieved July 1,
2014.
9. Davitt, Pat (Winter 1993)."Songs for Ourselves, Revisited: A Dialogue Between Maggie Benston and the Rest of the
Euphoniously Feminist and Non-Performing Quintet"(https://cws.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/cws/article/viewFile/10
444/9533). Canadian Woman Studies. Inanna Publications. 13 (2): 21&ndash, 24.
10. Sethna, Christabelle; Hewitt, Steve (September 2009). "Clandestine Operations: Theancouver
V Women's Caucus,
the Abortion Caravan, and the RCMP".The Canadian Historical Review. 90 (3): 463–495. doi:10.1353/can.0.0189 (h
ttps://doi.org/10.1353%2Fcan.0.0189).
11. "Mayworks" (https://www.facebook.com/pages/MAYWORKS-VANCOUVER-ISLAND/121141981236180?sk=info&ref
=page_internal).
12. "Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology fonds" (https://www.sfu.ca/archives2/F-39/F-39.html).
Simon Fraser University Archives. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Simon Fraser University
. Retrieved July 1,
2014.
13. "What is SCWIST" (http://www.scwist.ca/about-scwist/what-is-scwist/). scwist.ca. Society for Canadian Women in
Science and Technology.
14. "Margaret Lowe Benston Memorial Graduate Bursary in Gender , Sexuality and Women's Studies" (https://www.sfu.c
a/dean-gradstudies/awards/privateawards/all-awards/benston.html)
. Graduate Studies & Postdoctoral Fellows:
Private Awards. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: Simon Fraser University
. Retrieved July 1, 2014.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_Benston&oldid=871396823

"

This page was last edited on 30 November 2018, at 19:45(UTC).

Text is available under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of theWikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.