International Women’s Day as we know it grew out of early 20th century action to promote women’s rights and suffrage. After that, its popularity waned. But feminist activism of the 1960s and UN sponsorship of the day in 1975 revitalized it as an occasion to promote women’s rights around the globe. We need to remember gender justice activism as more than a single movement, as many intertwined movements across many communities. It’s easy to forget how dynamic and evolving these movements have been. We are particularly thankful today to intersectional feminist thought-leaders for a ..read more

With Monica Samuel, Founder and Executive Director of Black Women in Motion. Understanding the abuse and discrimination Black women, girls, and gender-diverse people face offers insight on how we can better support their healing journeys. Misogynoir is a term coined by Dr. Moya Bailey to describe the distinctive form of anti-black sexism faced by Black women. As limited as race-based data collection in Canada is, the evidence is stunning. Black women more likely than other groups of people to live in poverty. They're more likely to be paid less than white women. Though they are highly educated ..read more

With Brianne Miller at Nada. In these rocky economic times, affordable, sustainable food seems elusive. Can you do food business in a way that does good? How are women and equity-seeking people leading the way? Lots of women and equity-seeking people get into entrepreneurship. It makes sense. Those who face barriers to stable, safe employment have to get creative. They often get entrepreneurial. They have dreams of not only running their own businesses, but doing good in the world while they do it. But these same entrepreneurs also face barriers to growing and financing their busines ..read more

With Munira Abukar at Stitch Lab T.O. Women are more likely to live in low-income households than men, especially single mothers. Indigenous women, racialized women, women with disabilities, and trans people also face a high risk of poverty. Economic stability is the ultimate goal of the Canadian Women’s Foundation’s Investment Readiness Program, funded by the Government of Canada’s Social Innovation/Social Finance Strategy. It equips women and Two Spirit, trans, and non-binary people to succeed in social entrepreneurship. When they launch their own business ventures, many of them think: how c ..read more

With journalists Garvia Bailey, Saba Eitizaz, Christina Frangou, and Salimah Shivji. Content note: this episode includes discussion of gender-based violence and sexual assault. It’s 2023 and we’re in Season 5. We start with online harassment and hate faced by women and racialized journalists. We need them to give voice to what’s often left unheard in Canada. This makes the harassment and abuse they experience at disproportionate levels particularly vexing. It’s harmful to them as people and as media workers, and it runs counter to the goal of making our world better and fairer. We ca ..read more

With Jennifer Delisle. An online search pulls up several news stories about women and girls who used the Signal for Help in dangerous situations. The Canadian Women’s Foundation launched the Signal in 2020 in the wake of rising abuse such as intimate partner violence and sexual assault as well as the rising use of video calls. The Signal for Help has gone viral more than once since then. But a signal is only as useful as its response. Can you respond to any sign or signal of abuse? Our research found that people in Canada believe that everyone needs to play a role in ending gender-based violen ..read more

With Corinne Ofstie. Content note: this episode addresses femicide. “December 6, 1989 was a terrible moment that became a transformative movement,” writes Canadian Women’s Foundation President and CEO Paulette Senior in The Toronto Star. “Every year on December 6, we need to revive the momentum anew. Advocates made sure that the 1989 massacre led to stricter firearm laws and new anti-violence efforts. We need the same energy in 2022 to end abuse in sports and male-dominated sectors, build safety for Indigenous women, Black and racialized women, women with disabilities, and others at ..read more

With Ziyana Kotadia and Karen Campbell. Content note: this episode addresses sexual violence. Too Scared to Learn: Women, Violence, and Education by Jenny Horsman (2013) uncovers how violence negatively impacts a student’s ability to learn. It focusses on women’s literacy, but the broader lesson is clear. None of us can properly learn when we’re scared and targeted. This has huge implications for girls, women, and gender-diverse students in all schools, as well as huge implications for post-secondary environments like colleges and universities, where sexual violence is a particular problem. It ..read more

With Kris Archie, Chief Executive Officer of The Circle on Philanthropy. In Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, Edgar Villanueva says, “What we can focus on with decolonization is stopping the cycles of abuse and healing ourselves from trauma.” He speaks to how finance, philanthropy, and the ways we “do charity” have been set up to uphold colonialism, systemic racism, and discriminatory outcomes. Philanthropy, giving, and charity work is often seen as neutrally “worthy”. To ask questions about it can seem like an attack on something inherently  ..read more

With guest Barbara Perry. White nationalism is on the rise in Canada. What does it have to do with women? Researchers Barbara Perry and Ryan Scrivens describe far-right extremism as “a loose movement, animated by a racially, ethnically, and sexually defined nationalism.” They go on to explain that it’s “typically framed in terms of White power, and is grounded in xenophobic and exclusionary understandings of the perceived threats posed by such groups as non-Whites, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals and feminists.” White nationalism is a core concept in this extremism. And many experts say it’s bec ..read more