After 35 years as our stalwart Coordinator & Executive Director at the Women’s Centre, Gwen O’Reilly will be retiring at the end of March. While she will be dearly missed day-to-day in the office, we wish her the best in her retirement! She has provided some poetry and reflections of her time at the Women’s Centre:
Well, it’s been a minute since I first came to NOWC: about 42 years, I think since I attended my first feminist potluck with the then Collective. I have been working as the Coordinator/ Executive Director here since 1991 – that’s about 35 years if anyone is still counting. It was about 1983, and at that time I had been working with a group of women to start a Women’s Centre on Lakehead University campus.
To give you some context: The year before (1982), “sex” had just been added to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a protected ground of discrimination. Pay Equity was not enshrined until 2001. At that time, many other identities were not yet guaranteed equality rights, including 2SLGBTQIA and pregnant people. It was before Women’s Studies existed; before women had reproductive choice; before gay marriage was legalized (or even imagined!) and of course, before we had access to internet or cell phones. Funders would not cover any work related to 2SLGBTQIA or anti-homophobia efforts and NOWC and the AIDS Committee of Thunder Bay were the only publicly queer friendly agencies in town. Most 2SLGBTQIA people were not out to their families or workplaces and socialized separately for safety (and fun!). A woman’s right to reproductive justice was not confirmed until 1989, the same year sexual harassment was recognized as sex discrimination. Sexual assault within marriage was just then being criminalized; it would be another 8 years before the use of a survivor’s sexual history was barred in criminal trials and 16 years before the laws around consent and sexual assault were developed. So, it was a different world then.
It’s all bit of a blur: the things that stand out were all the feminist potlucks, the conferences, protests, marches, panels, presentations and meetings – So. Many. Meetings! Things that are etched in memory are the Montreal Massacre – 14 young women engineering students killed at L’ecole Polytechnique, the same evening NOWC held it’s AGM in 1989. And the national repercussions we faced when we organized a women-only vigil following. Also unforgettable, the Harris Conservative governments 22 percent cut to social assistance rates and attempts to criminalize women on social assistance by implementing workfare and starting a witch hunt for so called “welfare fraud”. We created so many projects to respond to the myriad of issues women were facing. In the last 20 years, I have found food security work and the Good Food Box program to be a joyful counterpoint to work on violence and access to justice.
I really can’t imagine any other career or calling that could have held my interest and my commitment for so long. I remain humbled by the thousands of women who have trusted me to listen to their most difficult experiences: I hope NOWC has been able to make a difference to you. And if not, I hope that you have used your courage and strength to find your way regardless, knowing that your trail has blazed a path for those that follow.
I will miss this work. It has given me a deep sense of purpose in this world and has challenged me in many good ways. I will not miss media work or meetings or grant reports, but I will miss making things happen in the company of so many fierce, smart and committed women. Of course, I am not finished with Feminism, or even working for that matter, but it is time for me to step away from a leadership role and allow NOWC to transition to a new chapter. Our new Executive Director, Katie Bortolin, is eminently qualified to run the joint, and set NOWC up to thrive undaunted for another 50 years. (unless, of course, she first manages to end patriarchy!) I wouldn’t underestimate her, If I were you….
As for my future plans, I am not going to disappear completely! I intend to maintain some involvement in the Good Food Box program and plan to spend more time writing, in my garden, kayak and hanging out with my many friends. Maybe a little light consulting on the side. I hope to see you all at the next feminist potluck!
With great respect and much love,
Gwen O’Reilly
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