Secondary & Post-Secondary
Making Their Voices Heard
The exhibition Changemakers: Women at the University of Toronto and the Struggle for Equity features interviews with former and current students and faculty members about challenging gender discrimination at the university. Listen to the voices of Linda Silver Dranoff, Ceta Ramkhalawansingh, Joan Simalchik, Vanda Vitali, Laurel MacDowell, Kay Armatage, Lorna Marsden, and Helen Breslauer as they discuss fights to win access to student services and university facilities, open the door to professional and educational opportunities. start Women and Gender Studies courses, and gain pay and employment equity.
Exhibition curated by Bryna Bernstein, Camilo Mejia, and Kes Murray
Secondary & College-Age
The Women’s Kit
The Women’s Kit is a hands-on, free-form, multi-media educational resource that promotes discussion on women’s history and the experiences associated with being a woman. Created at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) in1972-73, The Women’s Kit contains over 150 resources (pamphlets, images, articles, records and more) about women. The goal of the creators was to get high school and college-aged students to be aware of the positions and experiences as men and women, as well as to educate about women’s history.
Click on the image to see what each section contains and also to look at a particular item. Images can then be dragged to the desktop for closer viewing.
Secondary School
Canadian Centre for Gender+Sexual Diversity: Sharing the History and Voices of 2SLGBTQ+ Canadians
The mission of the Canadian Centre for Gender+Sexual Diversity (CGSD) is “to empower gender and sexually diverse communities through education, research, and advocacy.” The program Commemorate Canada: Sharing the History and Voices of 2SLGBTQ+ Canadians was funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage “to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. [It] is geared toward commemorating and sharing the history of the 2SLGBTQ+ community by focusing on key events that have significantly shaped the landscape we exist in today.”
The following materials are part of a much larger collection of historical and other resources available through the CCGSD website.
The booklets Sister Vision Press, Black Women’s Collective, 101 Dewson Street, and Historic Black 2SLGBTQIA+ Community in Toronto: Reflections tell the stories of different groups and events that are part of the history of Black 2SLGBTQIA+ activism in Toronto during the 1980s and early 1990s.
I Enjoy Being a Dyke is about The Brunswick Four – one of the first stories of resistance to homophobic treatment in Canada.
To the right, Voices in History is a short overview of QTBIPOC activism and history.
Middle to High School
Women in Canadian History Education Guide
This guide complements provincial and territorial curricula in middle and high school history and social science classes. The historical thinking framework developed by Dr. Peter Seixas and the Historical Thinking Project has inspired classroom activities to promote research and analysis, engage critical thinking, promote communication skills, and explore ethical questions. The lessons may be used sequentially or individually.
There are two parts to the resource – the education guide and supplementary worksheets.
Secondary School/Post-Secondary
The CBC Archives
The old CBC archives are still online and offer opportunities for teachers and students to access original broadcast materials and programming related to a variety of themes, including ones touching on feminist activism and issues. There is also a section for teachers which offers suggested lesson plans. We have compiled a list of links to some of the best resources on the CBC Archives website about the history of the Canadian women’s movement.
