Women to Form Feminist Coalition

The Telegram (St. John's)
Metro/Provincial News, Wednesday, June 1, 2005, p. A4

SOCIETY
Stokes Sullivan, Deana

A group of Newfoundland and Labrador women, proud to call themselves feminists, are laying the groundwork to bring women's issues to the forefront of public policy discussions.

Sixty women met in Port Blandford during the weekend to develop a plan to further women's equality and to create a Newfoundland and Labrador Feminist Coalition.

"Women came from throughout the province," said the organizing committee co-chairwoman Lana Payne, communications director with the Fish Food and Allied Workers' union.

"These were young women, retired women, women who work in women's centres, union women, women with disabilities, as well as women from the multicultural and aboriginal communities," Payne said.

Women attending the weekend meeting decided a coalition of women's organizations is needed as a vehicle for networking and mobilizing around advocacy to advance a women's equality agenda in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Women were resolute," said co-chair Joyce Hancock, president of the Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

"We all believe that we have to find new ways to ensure that women's voices are heard and that is not happening now. The structures put in place to advance women's equality are not sufficient and women are feeling a need to organize and mobilize. This is just what this past weekend provided."

Hancock said Tuesday an organizing meeting is planned for Friday at the advisory council's offices in St. John's. "Some women are saying that will be the founding meeting," she said.

With provincial politicians likely getting into election mode in 2006, Hancock said, women need to be ready to make sure women's issues are on the political agenda and they shouldn't be divided or split up into issues such as labour, disabilities, rural and Labrador issues.

In the 1980s, women's groups were strong but over the past decade, Hancock said, fiscally driven government agendas have hurt women, with government funding and services being cut and the burden of maintaining services in communities "falling on the backs of women" to do either voluntarily or for low wages.

"Women have been trying to do survival work," she said, and as a result many women have had little energy to put into advocating for women's issues.

The theme of the weekend conference was to develop strategies around organizing and mobilizing women.

Hancock said she was impressed to see many young women, under 30, at the meeting supporting the idea of forming a coalition.

The conference heard from Stephanie Hunter of FemJEPP in Nova Scotia, Huberte Gautreau of the Pay Equity Coalition in New Brunswick, Frances Ennis, who has been involved in women's equality work in Newfoundland and Labrador for more than three decades and Judy Rebick, a well-known feminist activist, author and broadcaster, who gave a keynote address to the women Saturday night.

"Women have been feeling as if they are disappearing from the public policy debate and those of us involved in equality-seeking work have been feeling isolated and disconnected," Lorraine Michael, a member of the organizing committee, said.

"A feminist coalition is a way for women involved in equality work to connect and remain connected. We believe we need to co-ordinate our efforts, share information and become a powerful advocacy voice for the equality of Newfoundland and Labrador women," Michael said.

'Very energizing'

Hancock described the weekend meeting as "very energizing" and said she's excited to see the coalition formed quickly.

"We formed a committee, got some money from Status of Women Canada to have a little organization just to see if women wanted to talk about this and overwhelmingly they said yes, whether they were coming from women's centres or individual women who worked in governments or in other agencies. Without it, we end up being easy to separate out, that's an issue for disability, or that's an issue for Labrador. They very clearly wanted to have it broad based and able to respond quickly and that we would not spend a whole lot of time on developing structures," Hancock said.

© 2005 The Telegram (St. John's). All rights reserved.