The Women’s Centre at UBC is a resource group of the AMS. The Centre is for all who identify as women and those who experience gender-based oppression at UBC. The Centre provides support and resources for women on campus, including tampons and Diva Cups for any women who need them, as well as a small library of feminist literature that visitors may read. The Centre has organized events such as the screening of the film Highway of Tears last term, which looks at the missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, as well as a subsequent panel discussion regarding the film.
Photo Credit: UBC Women’s Centre
Although some may have heard of this resource group being called “The Womyn’s Centre”, the Centre’s collective changed the spelling of its name from “Womyn” to the standardized spelling “Women” two years ago. This change was made to avoid associations with trans woman-exclusive feminisms with which the word “womyn” is sometimes associated.
The Women’s Centre collective has many initiatives on the go at the moment. For example, the Centre has put a strong emphasis on self-defense. While it is important to recognize that the burden should not be on victims to prevent themselves from getting raped, the Centre believes that given the existence of rape culture, women can and often do feel safer knowing they could potentially defend themselves. The Centre has hosted self-defense workshops in the past and is holding another one on Monday, February 1 at 5:00pm in The Performance Theatre in the AMS Nest.
The Centre has also been very active on campus when it comes to activism against sexual assault. They held a sit-in at President Gupta’s office in April of 2015, and in the wake of the depressing manner in which UBC has responded to sexual assaults on campus this past year (which you can read about here), the Centre has called for letters from UBC students to the administration to express our disappointment/frustration/outrage with the way UBC has been handling reports of rape on campus.
The sit-in held at President Gupta’s Office. Photo credit: UBC Women’s Centre
Another initiative that the Centre is organizing is a consciousness-raising group. Starting in the first week of February, they will be re-starting up the group, which began last term. Consciousness-raising is a practice that gained popularity among feminists in the late 1960s. Essentially, it is a practice where a group of women share their experiences with each other on a particular topic. Topics in the past have included racism, motherhood, and sexual assault. During this group, participants share their experiences on a particular topic to help each other to understand that as women we struggle against systemic issues and that the struggles and problems of structures, like patriarchy and white supremacy, are huge societal issues that do not just affect us individually, but collectively as women. To learn more about UBC’s Women’s Centre and to get involved, check them out on their Facebook page and website.