October is Women’s History Month! We were happy to celebrate the induction of Elinor Barr, Ruth Tye McKenzie, and Gwen O’Reilly into the 2025 Women’s History Month Exhibit. This project is hosted by the Archives Centre and the City of Thunder Bay.
NOWC Executive Director, Gwen O’Reilly, was nominated by the staff and Board of the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre. O’Reilly delivered a speech to the crowd, highlighting forestry, feminism, food and farming as key interests that have shaped her activism. Here are some excerpts to share:
“To prepare for this event celebrating Women’s Herstory Month, I read through some lists and summaries of the work Feminist advocates and other activists in Northwestern Ontario have accomplished over the last 50 years. It is too long a list to even summarize, but it represents a hurricane of social change. Northwestern Ontario has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to grass roots organizing. Protests, conferences, trainings, workshops, talks, every manifestation of art and culture, establishment of new services, political representation, access to justice, policy change and law reform, recognition of oppressed identities and circumstances – all these things in every field and sector – all in resistance to an oppressive status quo and in support of human rights. I was part of some these efforts … – but always in the smart, determined company of so many other activists – because that is what a movement is, the work of many building or re-building the road ahead while supporting one another. “
“I have been privileged both to be paid to do this work, and to be able to do it. It has provided me with a deep education and made me feel as though I have a useful place in the world … I am not done with this work. Especially in these difficult times, when the hard won rights of women and so many others are being erased. As Robert McFarland says: “Despair is a luxury, hope is a discipline.” I intend to remain disciplined, stick to the truth and keep moving forward”
Read Gwen’s full profile on the Women’s History Month Exhibit project here
In an interview with TB Newswatch, O’Reilly shared: “I have a few things left to do, but I think it’s great that the city is recognizing Women’s History Month and making sure that local advocates and activists are included in the record … it’s important that it doesn’t get lost, because in this world today, we’re looking at a nature of many of those basic rights that we’ve fought really hard for, and we don’t want to lose the knowledge of how to do that because the fight continues,”
“We have to work together,” O’Reilly said. “A movement is comprised of people building the road together and moving forward together, and so no change happens without that group effort and supporting one another.”
Read the full interview and article from TB Newswatch here
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