Virtually all depend on partnerships. The patchwork effort involved in crafting and maintaining multiple partnerships with funders and supporters of every shape, size and political persuasion is not easy. It demands high levels of skill, an enormous amount of time, and inordinate patience.

Most importantly, however, we found that training can make a difference to women's lives. We were thoroughly impressed by the program quality, creativity and the dedication we encountered during the study in the face of considerable financial and bureaucratic adversity. On a practical level, women who receive good training have found that their capacity to find and keep a good job is enhanced. On a strategic level, the models and best practices, together with principles identified earlier in the project, provide a coherent argument for a women's training strategy which is meaningful, useful and inclusive of the diversity of women's needs and interests. As problems with training for women in Canada have been well-documented over a distressingly long period of years, it was very reassuring to affirm - that training which contributes to good labor market relationships for women is taking place in locations all across the country (3).

Labor Market Letdown

Good training certainly is needed. Throughout the recent thirty-year period in which women have been entering the labor market in large numbers, it has continued to let us down miserably. Between 1990 and 1992, women's labor market participation decreased for the first time in 25 years. We would have good reason to reject the labor market. Despite pay equity provisions, low wages for women persist. Where the "wage gap" is lessening, there is evidence to show that it is because average male wages are dropping, not because women's wages are rising (4). Part-time and temporary work is increasing in clerical work and services, which have traditionally been women's employment, while full-time full-year jobs are disappearing. In goods-producing jobs, women are concentrated in textiles, clothing, and food processing, areas particularly vulnerable to job loss based on global economic restructuring and technological change (5).

However, it is more likely that the labor market is rejecting women. As a group, women seek jobs in order to try to avoid poverty. And, as a group, our experience has been disappointing. A good job is very hard to find. Since 1991, the number of full-time jobs in Canada has been declining steadily, while the number of women living in poverty has been increasing (6). Even higher education is no sure ticket to a good job. In 1990, nearly 30% of all unattached women who had at least a high school diploma were living in poverty, while nearly half of all single parent mothers who had at least a high school diploma were poor. Between 1971 and 1986, the number of women who were working and poor rose by a shocking 160% (7).

In 1972, Indira Ghandi stood up at the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and told the delegates to that august gathering that poverty is the worst form of pollution. At the time, very few people understood her. Now, over twenty years later, we understand much more clearly that the experience of poverty is a violation of the right of all living beings to draw the sustenance that we need from the earth which supports us. Persistent poverty removes from people the security they need to maintain the quality of the resources on which we all depend. Poverty is an experience of social, economic and environmental violation and moves us further and further away from the socially just, ecologically vibrant, economically viable communities which we want for ourselves, for our children and their children.

Employment Abuse

One of the accomplishments of the women's movement in Canada during the past twenty years has been to make domestic violence a public issue. Community standards now support the idea that no woman should be forced to remain in an abusive or violent relationship. Recognizing that as many as six out of every ten spousal relationships involve some form of abuse, the social welfare system now provides a number of supportive services which were originally initiated by community-based women's groups on a voluntary basis. Transition houses, sexual assault centres, counseling for women and for their abusive partners and support groups to assist women to remove themselves and/or transform their spousal relationships have all become accepted parts of the broader network of social and community services.