In an 1896 mock parliament in Toronto, Dr. Emily Howard Stowe presided as attorney general, denying men the vote using the same absurd arguments real politicians used against women. It was classic Stowe: holding up a mirror to a broken system she had spent her life strategically dismantling.

This deep dive follows Canada's first female practicing physician from a Quaker-influenced childhood through repeated institutional rejection. Barred from Canadian medical schools, she trained in New York, ran an unlicensed Toronto clinic for years, survived a scandalous 1879 trial, and finally won her license, then built the institutions that let her own daughter earn a medical degree at home.

• Pivoting to teaching after Victoria College rejected her
• The vice principal's dismissal that radicalized her mission
• The Sarah Lovell  ...