Legal Information Session: March 18th

We are excited to welcome Dr. Frances E. Chapman who will join us to talk about her new paper, “Coercive Control, Parental Alienation & Institutional Gaslighting:  Hyper-Vigilant Mothers, Unregulated Wives and Court Imposed ‘Feminized Irrationality.’” 

Despite some changes to the Divorce Act, and some attempts to understand coercive control and parental alienation, “many parents are still being gaslit by a system designed to protect them.” In this session, Dr. Chapman will share a case study to explore how these concepts intersect in the family law system and diminish the credibility of mothers who are trying to protect their children.

Learning objectives:

1. Identify the role of the system in parental alienation and those engaged in Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).

2. Review the role of “feminized irrationality” in the court system.

3. Examine the intersectionality of the pandemic, an Indigenous mother, coercive control, and parental alienation.

Dr. Frances E. Chapman, Full Professor of Law, Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada

Dr. Chapman obtained her JD and LLM degrees from The University of Western Ontario in 2002 and 2006, respectively, and her PhD from Osgoode Hall law school at York University in Toronto Ontario in 2009. Her graduate work focused on criminal law defences including automatism, duress, and necessity. She completed her Master of Laws degree at the University of Western Ontario while teaching part-time at Fanshawe College. She then moved to Toronto, Ontario to complete her Ph.D. in law at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. Dr. Chapman began teaching full time at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo in 2007 and completed her PhD in 2009. 

After six years at UW, in 2013 Dr. Chapman left Southwestern Ontario to become a founding professor at the first new law school in Ontario in 44 years at the Bora Laskin Faculty of Law, Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She remains a founding faculty member after welcoming ten classes of students. Her areas of interest are in family and criminal law and she focuses on the intersectionality of women and the law including topics such as parental alienation, coercive control brainwashing, automatism, duress, necessity, intoxication, and mental disorder. Dr. Chapman teaches tort and criminal law in addition to a new seminar titled “Family Violence,” and she researches criminal law defences, wrongful convictions, psychological coercion, violence against women and domestic violence. 


Weekly Drop-In Sessions

We’re hosting Thursday afternoon drop-ins from 1-3pm at the Women’s Centre for all women, Two-Spirit, trans and non-binary folks! With funding from the Canadian Women’s Foundation, we are excited to host these free sessions as informal opportunities to connect with others, do some artmaking or crafting, and have coffee/tea and snacks. Sometimes we’ll have a guest speaker or watch a short film or video, sometimes we’ll just make things and chat. No registration is necessary. Materials, refreshments, and bus tickets provided. Join us anytime between 1pm and 3pm, and stay for a bit or the full session.

Remember: The Women’s Centre is a non-judgmental and welcoming space where we are all teachers and learners. Absolutely no art, writing, knitting or group experience is required to come and hang out with us. Feel free to just come for a coffee! We would love to see you!


Questions and suggestions welcome: email Stacey at [email protected]


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Investing in Women’s Futures Program, Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services