Campus Cocktails with NAWL

Over the past four months, NAWL’s Campus Cocktails: Braving the Anti-Feminist Backlash in 2006–2007 tour visited 10 university campuses throughout the country to hear from young women about feminist advocacy in Canada, and to share with women NAWL’s past, present and future. The events were a success in garnering more support for feminist efforts, reflecting on NAWL’s contributions to equality-seeking policy and legal reform in Canada, and by sharing with women the current political climate that faces feminists in Canada today.

NAWL also took the opportunity to survey young women’s interests in political advocacy and women’s equality work. Many lessons came out of these discussions from young women as well as seasoned activists: we need to continue to work to improve childcare in this country; the changes to Status of Women Canada hurt Canadian women; we need to address pay equity, poverty, violence against women. Women also identified their concerns about women’s equality within the work environment as a key concern.

We plan to continue meeting with young women across the country in the fall of 2007 as a way to create new energy and visions for NAWL’s future and to play a role in creating space for women across the country to talk about women and the law and women in law.

Chi Nguyen, Jackie Steele and Sam Hendrickson