Rise Up is pleased to encourage and facilitate the growing interest in the rich history of feminist activism in Canada from the 1970s to 1990s.

In 1972, the Women’s Press published its first book, Women Unite: Up from the Kitchen, Up from the Bedroom, Up from Under. It contributes to the historical record of the struggles that were central to the burgeoning women’s liberation movement in Canada in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

This past fall, Laila Vahed sat down with Rise Up Collective member Julia Aguiar to reflect on her time working as a Fundraising Assistant
with us in summer 2022. We’re happy to finally be sharing Laila’s farewell interview below.

About twenty years ago a group of women met at the home of a Broadside collective member to celebrate the life of a late co-founder of Broadside: A Feminist Review. Almost as an afterthought, someone asked why we didn’t digitize the newspaper.

Akosua Adasi recently sat down with Rise Up Collective member Julia Aguiar to reflect on her time working as an Archival Assistant with us in summer/fall 2021 and summer 2022. Read Akosua’s interview below.

Activism can feel like an uphill battle toward an elusive goal. Despite clear vision and strong resolve, the ongoing nature of the struggle for justice can lead us to wonder if we are, in fact, making progress or woefully spinning our wheels.

At Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Penhold in 1984, a group of military wives began discussing how to improve the quality of life

Rise Up now includes a series of collections about feminist organizing in Northern Ontario!

“We can no longer stand for this oppression and for this reason we, the aboriginal women, occupied the Department of Indian Affairs offices here in Vancouver.”

A driving force in initiating Toronto’s Take Back the Night marches, Women Against Violence Against Women was a feminist organization active in Toronto and Vancouver.

It’s been 37 years since the idea of a national child care program in Canada first received real consideration by a federal government.

This interview explores the important role the LMDF played in the 1980s, supporting lesbian mothers who faced systemic discrimination in all aspects of their lives.

Cathy Mulroy was one of the first women hired into a non-traditional job at Sudbury mining giant Inco

Intercede was an advocacy group of foreign domestic workers and their feminist allies that raised awareness about the exploitation of migrant domestic workers

This audio-only interview focuses on the international solidarity politics of the International Women’s Day Committee (IWDC) during the 1980s.

In June1974, Margaret Birch, Provincial Secretary for Social Development, delivered a proposal to change Ontario’s day care licensing requirements. The entire day care community across the province of Ontario rose up in opposition.  People thought that the policy would result in much reduced quality in day care centres.  Julie Mathien and Susan Caldwell, members of […]

In 1975, in response to the recognition that a lot of immigrant women were marginalized either because they were unemployed or underemployed,

In the 1970s, lesbians in Canada were speaking up about issues important to them more than ever before, mobilizing for change. Newfound visibility, and opportunities to come together, come out, and develop community, led not only to new services and support, but also to political action.

This interview focuses the 1978 landmark strike against Fleck Manufacturing, an auto-wiring plant located outside London ON, and the support that Organized Working Women mobilized on behalf of the women strikers.

Jeannette Corbiere Lavell describes to Rise Up her long struggle to regain her status under the Indian Act

In this interview Monique Mojica (Guna and Rappahannock nations), tells her stories of being an Indigenous playwright, performer and theatre creator in Toronto.

The Disabled Women’s Network (DAWN) was founded in Winnipeg in 1987 by women from across Canada. 

The focus of this interview is the founding in 1976 of Organized Working Women, an independent feminist labour organization of unionized women.

In 1990, seven Black and one Filipina nurse filed complaints of systemic racism against Toronto’s Northwestern Hospital at the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Oral history allows people to narrate their own experiences of the past in ways that are invaluable

Judy Rebick talks about the NAC campaign during the 1992 referendum on the Charlottetown Accord.

Chaviva Hošek talks about the 1984 federal election debate on women’s issues.

In this interview with Anjula Gogia, she tells the story of her involvement with the Toronto Women’s Bookstore (TWB)

In this new interview about Justice for Women in prisons, Joey Twins and Kim Pate speak about the 1994 events that led to an enquiry into the state of women’s corrections led by Louise Arbour.

We’re hiring two additional full-time archivist assistants for eight week contracts in the late summer/early fall

This interview focuses on the founding of Toronto Wages for Housework in 1975 and its organizing principles, networks, and campaigns.

This interview focuses on Cleaners’ Action, an advocacy group founded in 1975 to support Portuguese cleaners.

Canadian women began mobilizing in anticipation of constitutional reform in 1980.  After a series of mass actions, conferences and lobbying, women across Canada were successful in achieving significant amendments to the Section 15 equality rights by January 1981.

In this new Women Unite Interview Darlene Lawson and Deb Parent discuss the early history of creating crisis centres for women experiencing violence.

In April 1971. women from Canada and the United States met with Indochinese women to strategically collaborate

This podcast explores the 1970 Abortion Caravan on its 51st anniversary…

Marlene Green is one of five Black activists celebrated through the Akua Benjamin Project: 50 Years of Black Activism.

Justice and Dignity for All is a new documentary by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers about the workers, mostly women,

Sharing feminist history with new generations, students and researchers has always been an important goal for Rise Up! We are excited to announce the expansion of our Teaching Resources, including new lessons plans on Black Women’s Activism and the Feminist Movement, and Indigenous Women’s Activism. These lesson plans bring together historical materials on Black and […]

Claire Prieto’s film “Some Black Women” (1977) looks at the lives and roles of Black women in Canada during the mid-1970s,

The NFB documentary Sisters in the Struggle (1991- Dionne Brand, Ginny Stikeman) features a frank conversation among Black women active in politics as well as community, labour, and feminist organizing. The women share their personal experiences of racism and sexism, linking them to the fight to end systemic discrimination and violence. Two other NFB films […]

Sylvia Hamilton first became involved with the National Film Board in the mid-1980s. In Making Movie History, she reflects on her involvement

Forty years ago on February 14, 1981, during the debate over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

The Black Women’s Collective’s statement on state violence resonates in our current historical moment

In 1974, Norma Scarborough and Dr. Henry Morgentaler were among the founding members of CARAL

In June 1974, Margaret Birch—Ontario’s then-Provincial Secretary for Social Development—delivered a proposal to the legislature to slash the costs of childcare in the province. The so-called Birch Proposals included reductions in minimum staff-child ratios, the elimination of the required formal qualifications for most staff, the elimination of the requirement that day nurseries have kitchens on site, and altered licensing procedures pertaining to physical standards of care sites.

“Maybe one’s definition of reasonableness depends on where you fit in the system. Reasonableness is a device used by those who have money and power to confuse those who haven’t.” ~Pat Schulz

The Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada was established in February 1967.

“Approximately 20 Ottawa women participated in Remembrance Day ceremonies at Confederation Square on November 11. They carried a large black banner with white letters that read, “For Every Woman Raped in Every War”

September 26, 2020 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the 78-day blockade at Kanehsatake, known widely as the Mohawk Resistance, and sometimes as the Oka Crisis.

Rise Up! A Digital Archive of Feminist Activism provides links to many feminist films and filmmakers that emerged from the National Film Board of Canada, and particularly from Studio D. One of these documentary films—Donna Read’s The Burning Times —is an example that is particularly relevant as Halloween approaches.

The unprecedented shock of the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the federal and provincial governments’ woefully inadequate childcare strategies and their impact on working mothers.

The sports stories generating headlines this summer are not about the Olympics as planned, but rather, the growing activism forcing the sports world to acknowledge its sexist, racist, heterosexist, and ableist culture.

Today marks 20 years since the closure of the Prison for Women in Kingston, ON

Before same-sex marriage, before gay and lesbian couples could adopt children,

Rage and grief. Agony and anger.

To all those who mother (or want to mother, or have mothered), we hope you had a great day!

Over the last few weeks, there have been virtual events for the 50th anniversary of the Abortion Caravan, including celebrations of the publication of Karin Well’s extraordinary new book that details its history.

During this 50th Anniversary of the #AbortionCaravan — check out the anniversary organizers’ Facebook page, which includes news, archives, photos, and more. (They note that physical events have been postponed until the fall or next spring)

The creation of Studio D has been attributed to ongoing lobbying for a women’s studio at the National Film Board (NFB),

With the advent of CRISPR—a new, relatively simple-to-use gene-editing technology—it seemed like only a matter of time before the births of the first genetically edited children.

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution” – Emma Goldman

International Women’s Day is almost here and we need your help!

As blockades and other actions continue in support of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation’s opposition of the Costal Gaslink Pipeline, we are reminded of the long history of pipeline politics in Canada, and ongoing failures to address the opposition of Indigenous leaders to pipelines being built on their ancestral territory.

“Black History is not just for Black people – Black History is Canadian History”
-Jean Augustine

We’ve uploaded a wide range of new buttons and posters that chronicle events and campaigns from the women’s movement. They include (among many others):  A button reading “Justice for Albert Johnson” from protests following Johnson’s murder by police (1979) A button promoting the Company of Sirens, a social action, feminist theatre company in Toronto (1986) A […]

Feminists have been fighting for 50 years for the creation of a national universal child care program. Some version of a national program has been proposed by different federal governments over the years, but these proposals have never been realized.

The passage of Bill 21 in the Assemblée nationale du Québec in June 2019 has meant a range of provisions that, in name, are aimed at making Quebec a more secular province, although in reality the new law targets religious minorities.

“The reason Marc Lepine walked into that classroom in Quebec and separated the men from the women, proceeding to call them⁣ “a bunch of feminists” and systematically slaughter the women can be found not in his individual “psychological state” but in our gender divided society that legitmates violence against women. The reasons are also found […]

The Rise Up! organizing group would like to introduce you to the new Rise Up! homepage, which includes a number of changes that we think will improve your experience on the website and help you engage even better with the materials in the archive.

The newsletters, communiqués, and other documents in the Rise Up archive include materials reflecting how feminists organized around federal elections between the 1970s and the early 1990s. During this time, there were seven federal elections and each time the writ was dropped, feminists worked hard to make sure that political parties and their candidates addressed […]

September 2019 marks fifty years since the establishment of the Campus Community Co-Operative Day Care Centre on the University of Toronto campus. Several members of the Rise Up organizing group were involved in the Centre in its early days (and since), making this an issue and anniversary particularly dear to our hearts. As we move […]

The release of the final report of the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) on June 3, 2019 has drawn critical attention to wide range of historical and contemporary practices that threaten the lives and safety of Indigenous women and girls.