Thrity Years of Social Change: Contributions of Northwestern Ontario Women 1973-2003
Excerpts from a talk by Lisa Bengtson at the NWO Women's Centre AGM, October 16th, 2003
summarized by Jodi Martin

Let us begin this story in 1973 ...a watershed year for the women's movement in Northern Ontario. Prior to this year, the Women’s Liberation Group was based at Lakehead University. In 1973 the Northern Women’s Conference as held here in Thunder Bay. Organizers had hoped for 100 participants (although were prepared to be pleased with 50 women). It was a welcome shock when six hundred women (homemakers, politicians, students, grandmothers) arrived to participate in the conference. From this conference the Northern Women’s Centre, the Northern Women’s Journal, the Thunder Bay Physical and Sexual Assault Centre, and Mothers on a Budget were borne. The Women’s Centre’s first meeting at Confederation College was attended by over 50 women, and ten politically based consciousness raising groups were planned. The 70’s in Northwestern Ontario was a time of social justice movements - aboriginal rights - the Friendship Centre movement, womens rights, francophone rights and multicultural rights - it was also a time for anti nuclear activists, organizing the unorganized communities, environmental, and social action. There was a wave of social activism throughout Canada and no where was it more vibrant and alive than in Northwestern Ontario. During this time Thunder Bay was also a centre for mobilizing the provincial Native Women's Movement. Ontario Native Women’s association organized as an autonomous women’s group to represent status, non status and Metis women. This dynamic and political movement challenged the male leadership of the Indian Rights movement and addressed section 12 1(b) of the Indian Act. Locally, Thunder Bay Anishnabequek took the lead on Native women's issues.
In November 1974, Northwestern Ontario women met again in Thunder Bay to plan for International Women’s Year. A large variety of organizations participated and created the foundation for the emergence of the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Decade Council, and resolutions for a Battered Women’s Shelter (later Crisis Homes), a traveling information caravan, and an Equal Pay Committee. Participants in these activities were varied, but the agenda for work was a liberal or reform feminist agenda - resolutions focused on changes to institutional as well as government policy and decision making - bringing women’s concerns to the table. There was a belief that accommodation of women’s issues and concerns within the existing system would result in substantive improvement to women’s lives. Women from the Women’s Centre were involved as resource women and workshop leaders in many different gatherings of the 70’s: First Regional Childcare Conference, Life Begins at 40 and Women and Pensions, the Working Women’s Conference, Christian Feminism, and Women Against Violence. Groups were organizing in district communities such as Atikokan, Nipigon-Red Rock, Rainy River District, Dryden, and Ignace. The seventies saw women conference, network and organize at several other key events such as the Kenora Women’s Conference in 1975 and the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Art Festival. On a national scale, groups like the National Action Committee were mobilizing women nationally. Groups were lobbying the government and the government was now consulting groups. The major issue that emerged out of the 70s was violence - one not even mentioned in the Royal Commission Report tabled a decade before.
The 1980’s met the issue of violence with the development of anti violence groups and services throughout the North. The North was also a very significant and vocal part of the anti-violence lobby with OAITH and resulted in the funding to shelters in 1984. Women were still setting their own agenda in the early 80s and continued to conference and organize: Women and the Economy Conference, Women and Disabilities Conference, North Shore Women’s Conference, Young Women's Conference. Many organizations and gatherings also focused on women’s health: Northwestern Ontario Women’s Health Conference in Dryden, Women and Stress Conference in Kenora, and the North western Ontario Women’s Health Education Project. The 80s was a time of diversification in the movement. Mainstream groups worked to become more inclusive, but many women were seeking arenas for collective voices in the founding of their own organizations: Les Elles du Nord, Women with Disabilities Steering Committee, Women’s Committee of the District Labour Council, and the Immigrant Women’s Organization. The second half of the 1980s saw the institutionalization of women’s groups and services, and a growth of government agencies for women - OWD, Women’s Health Bureau, and Inter-ministerial Committees on Family Violence. It also seemed like we were being consulted on everything: violence, day care, free trade, privatization, budgets - but with minimal impact. "Feminist Action, Institutional Reaction" , a paper by Jan Barnsley, summed up the new strategies governments developed to deal with women’s groups. Women continued to put issues on the agenda only to have them redefined and improperly implemented by government agencies. Through funding decisions, consultations and lack of response the government was now deciding the women’s community agenda. The late 80s were challenging times. First , R.E.A.L Women attempted to have the equality agenda ended and government support from women’s groups withdrawn, which resulted in a cross-country hearing. December 6, 1989 the tragedy of the Montreal Massacre resulted in an incredible backlash to women only spaces, services and gatherings - evident in the backlash to Thunder Bay’s women only vigil. Despite these growing challenges there were also victories in the late 80s. These victories continued to be the result of feminist collective action: funding for transition houses, the Ontario Women’s Centre Network, and the midwifery lobby. In the midst of these challenges women were re-grouping and re-energizing. A major regional conference in 1991 - "Women Uniting for Change" led to the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Decade Council convening the first ever meeting between women's groups and the provincial cabinet in February 1992. Fourteen briefs were presented at this meeting, by a diversity of women's groups speaking on a myriad of issues to the Ministers in English, French, and Ojibway.
In the 1990s however, things got really complicated. The government had become very skilled at dealing with women’s (and other) advocacy organizations - they now had their own mechanisms such as the Ontario Women’s Directorate as well as key people in each ministry to deal with the community. There was growth of gender specific services such as shelters and rape crisis centres but there was also institutionalization of these services and the adjacent growth of mainstream agencies. Everyone was getting funding for violence programs and services - not just women’s services. Eighteen ministries were giving out funding for violence and most of this funding went to groups other than women’s organizations. OWD funding also diversified to include groups without a gender or equality seeking mandate. Then came 1995 and cuts, cuts, cuts! These cuts saw the end of the Canadian Advisory Council, the end of the Ontario Advisory Council, and the downsizing of the OWD. The new fiscal measures resulted in a loss of core funding both federally and provincially for advocacy groups who had previously been sought out for consultations by ministries. These groups and organizations were now identified as “special interest” groups and dismissed, or sidelined. Years of institutionalization had created not only a government adept at dealing with community and women’s groups, but a government that now had their own professionals and “experts” to consult. They no longer consulted the women’s community. Welfare and other supports to individuals were cut as were community based programs and services designed to assist women: housing, education and training. The Northern Women's Journal - an important voice for northern women, folded after many successful years. The women’s community struggled through the 90s for survival and to maintain their voice for women. They were up against clear strategies to neutralize their effectiveness and silence their voices.
Despite the struggles and cuts, feminists and feminist organizations valiantly struggled on and survived - violence, child care, training, poverty, child custody and access remained highly visible as women’s groups organized at the local, provincial and national level. A new Faye Peterson House and New Starts for Women Shelter in Red Lake opened. Economic development Issues from women’s economic literacy to entrepreneurship were on the agenda from Thunder Bay to Kenora. The PARO community loan fund emerged from a lending circle initiative at the Women’s Center. Throughout the 1990s, Aboriginal Women organized and mobilized around violence in the Treaty #3 area and political representation and self-governance in NAN, with great success. Thunder Bay women organized a successful march as part of the National Women’s March Against Poverty. Revolution Girl Style emerged as a voice for young women in the late 90s. A regional francophone women’s organization, Centre des Femmes, was formalized after many years and received four year funding for anti-violence work for francophone women in the north.
In 1999, Decade Council hosted a major regional conference: “Women of Yesterday, Today, and Tommorrow.” Three hundred and fifty women came from corners of Northwestern Ontario to participate. Despite the backlash, the cuts and the challenges, women were still conferencing, strategizing, and finding their voices - again lesbians were overlooked in the planning but organized their own workshops on the spot. The music and energy were great, the workshops were thought provoking and the cross section of women who had worked together through thick and thin was still evident.
And here we are 2003 - regrouping, rethinking and renewing our visions and strategies. Womens advocates who have borne the brunt of the backlash for the last 15 years are tired, but still here and still committed to speaking the truth about women’s lives. The world is far more complicated than it was 30 years ago - we were so naïve to think that if we could just tell the decision makers how it was they would certainly make the necessary changes: violence would end and child care would be universal. We certainly learned the power of the patriarchy through its institutions. Institutions, governments, and media also learned well. They are a great deal more sophisticated in dealing with the challenge of dissent and attacks on the patriarchy than when we began, but they still use the same tactics - minimize, isolate, and dismiss the experience and perspective of women. What do I see ahead? As my mentor Millie Barrett often chided me: "remember that this is a women’?s liberation movement with an emphasis on both liberation and movement". WE need to claim and reclaim our voices and our agendas and find new ways of creating space for women to speak their truth and organize - we must collectively recommit to a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression - a daily struggle. WE must continue the work of so many northern women - our mothers, elders, and sisters who have given and continue to give and risk so much to better our lives and transform our world.

Stopping Sexual Abuse in Costa Rica
by Monique Russell

There is a collective sigh as the last little boy finishes his presentation. He has told a story about a nine or ten year old girl who was sexually abused by her stepfather, and the abuse was only discovered when she became pregnant. This presentation marks the end of yet another elementary school workshop run by the staff from Defence of the Children International in Costa Rica.
The children were asked to present stories of sexual abuse, as they understand it. Every story had a female victim and an older male abuser. It is a familiar story that although still horrifying, it is one that the world is relatively comfortable with. The power struggle is clear, and people are strangely willing to accept that older men can and may abuse weaker or younger females. However, according to the staff of DCI and other human rights organizations, a form of sexual abuse that is sadly often overlooked is when children abuse other children. It is much harder to imagine children hurting other children in this way, to distinguish abuse from children’s games or even what path of treatment is most appropriate.
In an attempt to begin a global change in attitude, DCI Costa Rica recently held an International Training Seminar on sexual abuse in San Jose, Costa Rica. Representatives from 10 different countries were invited to present their research on sexual abuse and to work together to create an international protocol on sexual abuse. The proposed “declaration of San Jose on Sexual Abuse” will be an agreement on the best methods to monitor and prevent sexual abuse within public and private institutions, such as residential schools, orphanages and remand homes.
The initial presentations made by each country reminded how cultural differences present immense challenges when trying to create an international protocol. In some parts of Africa sexual abuse was simply never discussed, let alone treated or prevented. In some regions the tradition of marrying very young women presents an additional challenge. In Eastern Europe it is suspected that much abuse goes unreported because of the reluctance of children to step forward and make a report. Overall, the incidents of reported children against children abuse were incredibly low especially versus the estimated number of incidents by staff and children of the various institutions.
The protocol that is being created will include guidelines for the detection, reportage, and treatment of sexual offenders, with the goal of creating a world free from the sexual abuse of children. It is expected to be completed in 2004.
DCI is a non profit organization dedicated to promoting and defending the rights of children and adolescents in Costa Rica.
Monique Russell is in San Jose, Costa Rica on an internship through Human Rights Internet.