Moving Forward


CCLOW's National Congress on
Women in 1999

A CONGRESS FOR WOMEN
November 4-7, 1999 in Toronto

As a means of paving the way for the revitalization of the organization, CCLOW is calling a Women's Congress. Its purpose is to provide a forum where committed women will transform CCLOW into a different model of an organization - one which can respond more effectively to women's interests and needs around education and training as we move into the next decade. In the same way that CCLOW was originally formed 20 years ago, we are now entering into a similar process to both honour our herstory and provide a foundation for the coming years.

A series of "themes" relating to women's education and training will be developed for the Congress:

  • Violence
  • Literacy and ESL
  • Technology
  • Older Women
  • Child Care
  • Labour Market Adjustment: Equity Approach
  • Post-Secondary
  • K to 12-13
  • Young Women
  • Community, Private and Workplace Training
  • Gender-based Analysis

You are invited to participate in the work leading up to the Congress and to be a part of this important milestone on our herstory. To indicate your interest in participating, either contact us through your local Provincial/Territorial Director, whose addresses are listed on the inside front cover, or through our Website at http://www.nald.ca/cclow.htm

Women's access to education is still fraught with barriers, especially for those who face discrimination based on race, ability, ethnicity, sexuality, class, religion, gender, etc. The dissolution of Women's Education des femmes is no indication of the dissolution of inequality. If anything, it indicates less access to resources, to stories, to venues for the publication of research, to connection with other women. Though folding the magazine was a difficult decision for CCLOW's Board of Directors, and seen at the time as financially necessary, it is often still hard to accept that something so useful and so valued by women in all parts of Canada should have to disappear. Its demise was a result of the conservative, budget-cutting, backlash times we're in, but its failure to rise again is in part due the divisiveness and sense of competition that can emerge when funds are scarce and survival is at stake.

I still believe in the importance of a publication addressing feminist issues in education, just as I'm sure every member of CCLOW's Board of Directors believes in the continuing importance of "a national voice for women's education and training in Canada." Unfortunately, work of a political nature is hard to maintain when the prevailing environment grows less and less sympathetic to the need. But it's precisely in such environments that we need to hang on to our sympathy for each other and to our solidarity, in its combined meanings of unity and firmness.

We are not living in a post-feminist era, if that term means an era in which feminism is no longer relevant. If anything, it grows more and more necessary to be vocal advocates if only because oppression and disadvantage are becoming less and less acknowledged. To do that without our organizations or publications is extremely difficult and perhaps what we are passed is the "golden era" of feminist organizing. But we must adapt, metamorphose if necessary, and arrive into the 21st century with a commitment to support all efforts towards equality, independent of governing priorities.

Christina Starr was the editor of Women's Education des femmes (WEdf) for over nine years.


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