Inquiry and Seminar

Mid 1960’s to Mid 1980’s

Organizations – Feminist Consciousness-Raising Groups

    • Carol Hanisch said that consciousness-raising worked because it destroyed the isolation that men used to maintain their authority and supremacy. She later explained in her famous essay "The Personal is Political" that consciousness-raising groups were not a psychological therapy group but rather a valid form of political action.
    • Arguing that ‘the personal is political’, women began talking about who cleaned the house, made the coffee at work, or looked after the kids. They discussed health, sexual behaviour, and how women were expected to dress. Matters that had not been seen as political were suddenly the subjects of debate.
    • In the late 1960s, discovering that "sisterhood is powerful," women from Vancouver to Halifax began forming groups.
    • Feminists protested in the streets and at rallies, hearings, marches, sit-ins, legislative sessions, or even the Miss America Pageant.
    • The Vancouver Women's Caucus was organized in 1968 and published The Pedestal from 1969 to 1973. reclaim the night
    • The Montréal Women's Liberation Movement was founded in 1969; the Front de libération des femmes du Québec published a feminist manifesto in 1970.
    • Centre des femmes edited the first French-language radical feminist periodical, Québécoises deboutte! (1971-75).
    • Some were consciousness-raising groups, but others quickly turned to concrete action, providing abortion services, health centers, feminist magazines, militant theatre, day-care, shelters for battered women and rape crisis centers, and organizing for equal pay.

Some of the national groups include:

  • National Action Committee on the Status of Women
  • Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women
  • Canadian Congress for Learning Opportunities for Women
  • National Association of Women and the Law
  • Canadian Day Care Advocacy Group
  • Federation nationale des femmes canadiennes-francaises
  • National Organization of Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of Canada
  • National Watch on Images of Women in the Media Inc.
  • Women's Legal Education and Action fund Disabledwomens art revolution
  • Women's Network Canada
  • National Congress of Black Women of Canada
  • Native Women's Organization of Canada
  • National Council of Women
  • Voice of Women
  • Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centers
  • and many more
  • The National Organization for Women (NOW) set up a Task Force on Legal and Political Rights at the time of its formation, in 1966. Legal and political rights have always been a significant part of feminism. In fact, most aspects of the Womenメs Liberation Movement are remembered as being in some way related to legal or political rights. This may be why feminists of the 1960s and 1970s popularized the slogan モthe personal is political.ヤ
  • In 1970, NOW established the Legal Defense and Education Fund as a separate non-profit entity, which used law and public policy to work for women’s legal and political rights. Throughout the 1970s, NOW engaged in the struggle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, a battle that continues today.
Brown - stamp

"We must open the doors and we must see to it they remain open, so that others can pass through."   Rosemary Brown, politician, activist

Check out our other pages on the Women's Movement by clicking on the related topic on the navigation bar to the left or on one of the links below:

Influences

Organizations

Social Justice