We are representing a group of eight students from the McMaster School
of Social Work. Since January we have been working alongside the
Women’s Interval House in preparation for this day. We have been
preparing a video which you are about to see which we feel informs on
women’s issues and celebrates women’s achievements over the last one
hundred years.
We had quite the experience in the making of this video. The research
process began as a somber one, as we found that the plight of women’s
inequity remains all over the world. We also found startling facts –
how the wage gap still widens, how one in three women around the world
have experienced some form of abuse, and how the UN Millennium Goals
are still so far from being met worldwide.
But we also read about great women – about women who have changed the
world in many ways. We learned about Louise Arbour, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Senator Anne Cools, the first black
person elected to the Canadian senate and a founder of one of the first
women’s shelters in Canada, Dr. Samantha Nutt, the founder of World
Child International which provides humanitarian aid to children
affected by war, and Margaret Atwood, a critically acclaimed Canadian
writer. These stories inspired us and reminded us that social change
is possible.
We’ve been learning in the classroom that social change is slow.
Problems must be viewed as public, not as private, and this can be done
through “consciousness raising”. People must remember that their
problems are not unique and result from oppressive structures. As
experiences are shared, people begin to mobilize to create change. So
where do we go from here? The inequities do not have to last forever.
Global attitudes must change towards women. Abuse can end. The wage
gap can disappear. We’ve come far in the past century. In this
country, we’ve gained the right to vote, the right to hold office,
we’ve had a female prime minister, we travel to foreign countries
alone, we’ve become CEOs, and we’ve left the home to go to work. We
can keep moving forward and removing the barriers that are in our way.
There’s three and a half billion of us after all.
So without further ado, here is our video:
of Social Work. Since January we have been working alongside the
Women’s Interval House in preparation for this day. We have been
preparing a video which you are about to see which we feel informs on
women’s issues and celebrates women’s achievements over the last one
hundred years.
We had quite the experience in the making of this video. The research
process began as a somber one, as we found that the plight of women’s
inequity remains all over the world. We also found startling facts –
how the wage gap still widens, how one in three women around the world
have experienced some form of abuse, and how the UN Millennium Goals
are still so far from being met worldwide.
But we also read about great women – about women who have changed the
world in many ways. We learned about Louise Arbour, the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Senator Anne Cools, the first black
person elected to the Canadian senate and a founder of one of the first
women’s shelters in Canada, Dr. Samantha Nutt, the founder of World
Child International which provides humanitarian aid to children
affected by war, and Margaret Atwood, a critically acclaimed Canadian
writer. These stories inspired us and reminded us that social change
is possible.
We’ve been learning in the classroom that social change is slow.
Problems must be viewed as public, not as private, and this can be done
through “consciousness raising”. People must remember that their
problems are not unique and result from oppressive structures. As
experiences are shared, people begin to mobilize to create change. So
where do we go from here? The inequities do not have to last forever.
Global attitudes must change towards women. Abuse can end. The wage
gap can disappear. We’ve come far in the past century. In this
country, we’ve gained the right to vote, the right to hold office,
we’ve had a female prime minister, we travel to foreign countries
alone, we’ve become CEOs, and we’ve left the home to go to work. We
can keep moving forward and removing the barriers that are in our way.
There’s three and a half billion of us after all.
So without further ado, here is our video:
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