Violence

Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) was a feminist organization active especially in Toronto and Vancouver.

This section contains material on the nature and extent of physical, emotional, and sexual violence committed against women and children, as well as the fight by feminist organizations and activists to end it.

More about Violence

Key themes include:

  • Advocating for social, legal, and political change to prevent gender-based violence and support survivors
  • Fighting for services, resources, and funding for survivors of gender-based violence, including women-led rape crisis, sexual assault centres, and shelters,
  • Campaigning and education around systemic causes of violence against women
  • Police and justice system treatment of women reporting partner violence, sexual assault, and harassment
  • Incidence of gender-based violence against women and girls who are Indigenous, racialized, poor, homeless, disabled, and LGBTQ+

Sub-Issues

Partner Violence
Sexual Assault & Harassment
Shelters & Services
Anti-Violence Organizing

Archival Materials

Buttons
Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Violence Against Women – No Excuse – CUPW

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English

Documents
AGM & Lobby (1992): NAC Campaign Proposals – Strategies for Change: Part II

  • Year created:

    1992

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English
AGM & Lobby (1992): Substitute Resolution Re: Canadian Panel on Violence

  • Year created:

    1992

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English and French
Alternatives to Assault: The Utilization of Emergency Shelters by Immigrant Women in Toronto (1982)

  • Year created:

    1982

  • Author(s):

    Marilee Reimer

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Are These Your Stories?

  • Year created:

    1991

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
thumbnail of Beating the Odds: Violence against Women with Disabilities
Beating the Odds: Violence against Women with Disabilities

  • Year created:

    1989

  • Author(s):

    Jillian Ridington

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English
thumbnail of DAWN TORONTO PAPER ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES
DAWN Toronto: Violence Against Women With Disabilities

  • Year created:

    --

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
thumbnail of DAWN-violenceagainstwomenfacts
DAWN Toronto: Violence Against Women with Disabilities Fact Sheet

  • Year created:

    --

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
thumbnail of Violent Acts Against Disabled Women
DAWN Toronto: Violent Acts Against Disabled Women

  • Year created:

    1987

  • Author(s):

    Joanne Doucette

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Drop the Charges on the Nov. 5 Cinema 2000 Arrests

  • Year created:

    1978

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Emergency Public Notice: Evacuation of All Men from Metro Toronto

  • Year created:

    1986

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Female Genital Mutilation As a Form of Gender-Based Persecution

  • Year created:

    1994

  • Author(s):

    Judith Ramirez

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
International Women’s Day Toronto (1981) – Pamphlet

  • Year created:

    1981

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
International Women’s Day Toronto (1981) – Pamphlet

  • Year created:

    1981

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Issues and Campaigns (1992): Canadian Panel on Violence

  • Year created:

    1992

  • Author(s):

    Judy Rebick

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English
The Mayor’s Task Force on Women’s Issues (1988)

  • Year created:

    1988

  • Author(s):

    Doreen Hamilton, Larry Schneider

  • Region:

    Saskatchewan

  • Language:

    English
Vis-À-VIS – Vol. 5, Number 4 – Winter 1988

  • Year created:

    1988

  • Author(s):

    Raymond Obomsawin , Marte-Louise Obomsawin

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English
Vis-À-VIS – Vol. 7, Number 1 – Spring 1989

  • Year created:

    1989

  • Author(s):

    Louise Guénette, Tracy Heffernan, Jorge Corsi, Sandra Horley

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English and French
Voices of Aboriginal Women: Aboriginal Women Speak Out About Violence

  • Year created:

    1991

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

  • Language:

    English
Women in crisis

  • Year created:

    1981

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English
Women with Disabilities: Physical and Sexual Assault (1994)

  • Year created:

    1994

  • Region:

    Ontario

  • Language:

    English

Ephemera

The banner For Every Woman Raped in Every War was produced by the Feminist Action Collective and used in an action with the poem of the same name on November 11, 1979, at the War Memorial on Wellington street, Ottawa. The banner was sewn at the Ottawa Women's Centre by a number of women who dropped in and picked up a threaded needle. - Wendy McPeake fonds 10-032, Canadian Women’s Archives, University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections
For Every Woman Raped in Every War: Banner

  • Year created:

    1979

  • Region:

    Ontario

Films

Still from the film "A Score for Women's Voices" featuring a multiracial group of women marching towards an underpass with their fists raised in solidarity. Above, them more women stand on a bridge cheering.
A Score for Women’s Voices

  • Year created:

    2000andafter

  • Filmmaker(s):

    Sophie Bissonnette

  • Language:

    English

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)
Screencap from A Scream from Silence
A Scream from Silence

  • Year created:

    1979

  • Filmmaker(s):

    Anne Claire Poirier

  • Language:

    English

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)
Film still of a woman sitting on a couch, holding her head with her right arm, staring down.
Beyond December 6

  • Year created:

    1991

  • Filmmaker(s):

    Catherine Fol

  • Language:

    English and French

  • Region:

    Quebec
Still from the film "Conspiracy of Silence" featuring a blurry image of two white men walking in the snow with a dog.
Conspiracy of Silence – Part 1

  • Year created:

    1991

  • Filmmaker(s):

    Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

  • Language:

    English

  • Region:

    Manitoba
Still from the film "Conspiracy of Silence" featuring a judge and a lawyer, both middle aged white men with moustaches, in a courtroom.
Conspiracy of Silence – Part 2

  • Year created:

    1991

  • Filmmaker(s):

    Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

  • Language:

    English

  • Region:

    Manitoba
Title card from the film "The Burning Times" featuring a medieval etching of a man persecuting a woman perceived to be a witch.
The Burning Times

  • Year created:

    1990

  • Filmmaker(s):

    Donna Read

  • Language:

    English

  • Region:

    National (all of Canada)

Periodicals

Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario Newsletter

Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario (FWTAO) Newsletter – Vol. 9, No. 3 – December 1990 / January 1991

  • Year created:

    1990

  • Publisher:

    Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario

  • Author(s):

    Mary Labatt, Carolyn Crippen, Heather-Jane Robertson, Lorayne Robertson, Anne Wilson, Ruth Mattingley, Gail Lennon, Barbara Dekker, Joan Westcott, Gay Harper, Catherine Stewart, Fran Newman, Elaine Batcher, Vicki Wright, Marion Boyd, Pat Kincaid, Trudi Don, Aruna Papp

  • Language:

    English