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Day 14: How Shelters Help Women Make a Difficult Leap

Day 14: How Shelters Help Women Make a Difficult Leap

Anqi Shen2017-12-19T17:24:27+00:00December 8, 2015|Gender-based violence|

When a woman finds herself in a violent relationship, leaving is not as simple as many would think. Does she have a safe place to go if she leaves? Will her abuser retaliate? If she has children, how will she navigate the family court system? These questions, and more, make a difficult decision all the more grueling.

On top of the emotional stress, it’s a challenge for many women who leave their abusers to find affordable housing. Across Canada, housing prices have been steadily rising, with experts sounding alarms over a severe shortage of affordable housing to buy or rent. Many women face a difficult choice between living with violence and living in poverty.

Day 13: Illustrating How Emotional Abuse Feels

Day 13: Illustrating How Emotional Abuse Feels

Jocelyne Frank2017-12-19T17:24:46+00:00December 7, 2015|Gender-based violence, Guest bloggers, Women in media|

Controlling behaviours, jealousy, yelling, bullying, threats: these are just some of the aspects of emotional abuse. You might think that if you’re not physically hurt, you’re not the victim of abuse. This is not necessarily true. Emotional abuse can be just as traumatic as physical violence and lead to depression, anxiety and even suicide.

As an illustrator I express myself through my art and in these illustrations I show how a victim might feel in the midst of emotional abuse. It's as though you become a psychological punching bag for someone else's problems, absorbing the impact of threats and trying to dodge verbal assaults that reduce your self-worth. Your mind becomes locked in self-defence; you are 'up in the clouds' – like the women in my illustrations - and no one can really get through to you.

Day 12: Remembering the École Polytechnique Massacre

Day 12: Remembering the École Polytechnique Massacre

Jessica Howard2017-12-19T17:25:07+00:00December 6, 2015|Gender-based violence|

Armed with a rifle, a hunting knife and a hatred of feminists, Marc Lépine walked into Montreal’s École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989.

Lépine had a clear plan when he entered the engineering school that day. He strode into a classroom and separated the male and female students, asking the men to leave.

He asked the women if they knew what was going on. “I am fighting feminism,” he told them. After one of the women tried to reason with Lépine, he started shooting.

Day 10: Learning to Love Gender Diversity

Day 10: Learning to Love Gender Diversity

Julia Gonsalves2017-12-19T17:25:20+00:00December 4, 2015|Empowering girls, Gender-based violence|

There is a diversity of gender in our world! Diversity as in many, many more than two. Gender as in how one self-defines as perhaps a woman, man, both, neither or something else entirely, and as distinctly different from sex or sexuality.

Gender diversity is amazing! There are a zillion sorts of identities, expressions, bodies, voices, preferences, styles, and haircuts. Like many amazing things, gender diversity can also be confusing, especially for folks who maybe realized a little more recently than others that there are these zillion sorts. People often have some burning questions in the early days, like:

What do I call people?
How do I recognize who is like me and who is different?
How can I relate to people when I don’t know what they are?
What if I offend someone?

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