Barbara Frum vs Christina McCall
For two contemporaries, you nearly feel like they were operating on different planets.
Both Ontario-based female journalists during the same time period and supping with big wigs like the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Barbara Frum (1937 – 1992) and Christina McCall (1935 – 2005) seem never to have met, if you were to base your information solely on their would-be biographies.
Each of Frum and McCall is a University of Toronto alumnus and went on to become the mother of three children in a blended family. McCall was born and raised in Toronto with the bulk of her career unfolding in Ottawa. Frum was born and raised outside Toronto, in the Niagara Falls region, and her career unfolded in Toronto. Frum admitted to her daughter and biographer that she always considered herself American (presumably as well as Canadian?) while McCall, according to her husband and editor, was steadfastly Canadian.
Each journalist remarked extensively and publicly their disdain for the sexism they encountered in their chosen profession; each learning to combat it with her wit, intelligence and just the right shade of lipstick. Each woman rose to become pioneers for women in their medium: Frum in broadcasting and McCall in print. Neither of them expected to ever become a journalist, but each was whisked into their profession in tumultuous times between the sexes and deemed to be a natural in her area of expertise.
Barbara Frum died after a long battle with cancer in 1992. Christina McCall died after a long battle with cancer in 2005.
