The dissertation argues that co-operative equality, in philosophy and practice, was not extended to women on the same terms as it was to men in either the British Canadian Co-operative or the Antigonish Movement co-operatives. The examination of the British Canadian Co-operative, based in Sydney Mines, and the Antigonish Movement co-operatives, organized from the university extension department in Antigonish, illustrates a history of gender inequality.This examination of womens work in the two co-operative movements in the province of Nova Scotia, 1906 until 1944, indicates that women made important contributions to co-operatives, especially when they understood the rules and resources of the organizations they worked in or worked to change. Womens exceptionality, while important to enhancing womens positions and possibilities in co-operatives, served as a brake against challenges to gender constraints for women as a group. The examination of the discourse of co-operative equality, in relation to womens work in the organization of the British Canadian Co-operative Society and in the Extension Bulletin, shows that the organizational philosophy and practice of co-operatives were never stretched sufficiently, in either the working class movement or the church dominated movement, to fully challenge the conditions of womens inequality in co-operative organizational life.A detailed analysis of secondary literature provides the overview to the development of co-operatives in Nova Scotia. The analysis of archival documents and oral histories substantiates the argument that co-operatives failed to develop overtly their potential for gender equality and tended to mimic the inequitable gender relations of the society of which they formed a part.