Category: News

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Spring/Summer 2020

For Spring and Summer 2020, the Canadian U*U Feminist Book Club has transformed itself into a club for exploring poetry, TedTalks, online videos and movies, and other free sources of learning. In particular, we are learning together about intersectionality and the lives of racialized and Indigenous women, Queers, and femmes.

On July 12, 2020, we will be continuing our discussion from June 14 on intersectionality, privilege, and the lives of Indigenous and racialized women through a video by Pam Palmater on MMIW, Ted Talks by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Peggy McIntosh and others, and the movie 13th. The list of links can be found below.

This time we will focus our learning by checking in with one experience during which we were aware of your own privilege and our need to learn more, and then each of us will briefly talk about what we learned from one of the media resources below. We will allow ourselves to be inarticulate. We will acknowledge that we are all learning.

Contact us for the Zoom link.

Kimberlé Crenshaw: The urgency of intersectionality
TEDWomen 2016 • 18:49 • Posted November 2016
https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality

Peggy McIntosh: How to recognize your white privilege — and use it to fight inequality
TEDxTimberlaneSchools • 18:27 • Posted June 2020
https://www.ted.com/talks/peggy_mcintosh_how_to_recognize_your_white_privilege_and_use_it_to_fight_inequality

Dolores Huerta: What we can learn from the history of feminism
TEDxOakland • 6:31 • Posted December 2019
https://www.ted.com/talks/dolores_huerta_what_we_can_learn_from_the_history_of_feminism

Roxane Gay: Confessions of a bad feminist
TEDWomen 2015 • 11:28 • Posted June 2015
https://www.ted.com/talks/roxane_gay_confessions_of_a_bad_feminist

Mwende “FreeQuency” Katwiwa: Black life at the intersection of birth and death
TEDWomen 2017 • 7:49 • Posted February 2018
https://www.ted.com/talks/mwende_freequency_katwiwa_black_life_at_the_intersection_of_birth_and_death

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: We should all be feminists
TEDxEuston • 29:28 • Posted April 2017
https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_we_should_all_be_feminists

Pat Mitchell: Dangerous times call for dangerous women
TEDWomen 2019 • 17:14 • Posted January 2020
https://www.ted.com/talks/pat_mitchell_dangerous_times_call_for_dangerous_women

Alyson McGregor: Why medicine often has dangerous side effects for women
TEDxProvidence • 15:29 • Posted October 2015
https://www.ted.com/talks/alyson_mcgregor_why_medicine_often_has_dangerous_side_effects_for_women

Jen Gunter: Why can’t we talk about periods?
TEDWomen 2019 • 11:42 • Posted January 2020
https://www.ted.com/talks/jen_gunter_why_can_t_we_talk_about_periods

There’s also a video of Pam Palmater I’d ask you to look at on the Kairos website:
https://www.kairoscanada.org/missing-murdered-indigenous-women-girls/videos

or on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dULLnpG9Hg&feature=emb_title

Added last month:
Deconstructing White Privilege with Dr. Robin DiAngelo (especially for those, like me, who haven’t read her book)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwIx3KQer54

Angela Davis – “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” hosted by The University of New England
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u1aHpEtWyA

13th, which is available on Netflix or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8
There are also some live videos related to it here: https://www.facebook.com/13THNetflix/

March 2020

Please note that our March meeting is cancelled; join us instead for an online Worship service for International Women’s Day.

Earlier meetings

January 12, 2020:

Book: Judy Rebick, Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution

Topic: 20th Century / Second Wave Feminism

Canadian U*U Feminist Book Club

Welcome to our low-stress, low-maintenance, open, intentionally queer-positive and intersectional, feminist-in-its-broadest definition book and chat club. We explore books by feminists and about feminism and, perhaps even more importantly, share our experiences as feminists. You are free to join us whenever you can, whether or not you have read the book selection, whether you want to share or listen… We meet for about an hour most months throughout the year. Check out our selections and topics here.

Day and Time: We meet most months on the second Sunday at 8 pm Atlantic, 7 pm Eastern, 6 pm Central, 5 pm Mountain, and 4 pm Pacific time.  Jan 12, Feb 9, April 12, June 14, etc. 2020 
Details: Email Jo-Anne, message us on our Facebook page, or join our Google group for confirmation of the date, information about the book, and the Zoom link

Join the CUUWA for a conversation on Privilege and Gender, as part of IWD/Women’s Month. The conversation will be facilitated by Catherine Strickland. Before our discussion, please watch this sermon Catherine gave to North Shore Unitarians on this topic.

These calls are open to all members and friends of the CUUWA and are free of charge. The discussions are designed for us to work through the various layers of privilege in our own lives, develop empathy for and learn from others, and share our personal experiences and reflections with other feminists. They take place on Zoom; here is the link and the details for Monday’s chat:

March 25, 2019 at 3:30 PM Pacific time, 4:30 Mountain and Saskatchewan, 5:30 Central, 6:30 Eastern, and 7:30 Atlantic

Join Zoom Meeting on the web at https://zoom.us/j/373322268 or on the phone at 6475580588 with meeting ID 373 322 268.

March is just around the corner! To mark International Women’s Day, the CUUWA has planned a number of activities to take place in March 2019. Materials for worship and study are available free to the public at:

Announcing the 2019 International Womens Day Service Package

March 3, 2019, and March 10, 2019. Congregations are encouraged to do a service for International Women’s Day. Materials in the package include original words for Chalice Lighting, Responsive Reading, Blessing, Joys & Sorrows, the Offering, and the Closing, as well as options for sermons or a panel of presenters, and an abundance of poetry. Other materials are included for individual reflection and for study, discussion, and small ministry groups.

From March 3 to March 10, special postings on IWD and Journey will be posted on our Facebook page. Share your experiences in response to a series of reflection questions.

March, tbd. IWD Edit-a-thon: Women editing Wikipedia. Details forthcoming from Mary Bennett.

March 10, 8:00 pm. Atlantic, 7 Eastern, 6 Central, 5 Mountain, 4 Pacific. First meeting of the monthly online Canadian U*U Feminist Book Club at at https://zoom.us/j/328662153 At our first meeting, we will be discussing two books by indigenous women of two different generations: read one of them or both, if you have time, or feel free to join and listen! Books: Lee Maracle, I Am Woman, Press Gang, 1988; Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries: A Memoir, Counterpoint, 2018. Open to all.

March 25, 2019, 3:30 Pacific, 4:30 Mountain, 5:30 Central, 6:30 Eastern, 7:30 pm. Atlantic. CUUWA discussion on Privilege and Gender, led by Catherine Strickland, NVC practitioner. Watch Catherine’s sermon on the topic here before attending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn0H48XlW6c&t=772  Open to members and friends of the CUUWA. https://zoom.us/j/373322268.

Looking past March, please save the date for our Annual Tea and AGM, on June 8, 2019. Organize a cluster in your community, serve “subversive tea,” and attend the online Cross-Canada CUUWA Check-in and AGM. Starting at 10 am Pacific time, 11 am Mountain, 12 noon Central, 1 pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic.

The CUUWA is governed by a national Council currently composed of the following regional representatives:  Atlantic (shared):  Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, Chair and Anneke Elder-Gomes; BC: Lillie Lentz; Prairies: Christine Mishra; Ontario: Kathy Sage; At large: Margaret Linton (Treasurer/ Membership), as well as Ministerial Liaisons Rev. Linda Goonewardene and Rev. Christopher Wulff.

Membership is $25 per year, with reductions for longer periods and additional family/household members. Support our efforts to improve human lives.

KNIGHT AWARD RECIPIENT – 2018

Dr. E. LISBETH DONALDSON, Professor Emerita, University of Calgary

Betty, as she is called, was an active member of the Unitarian Church of Calgary and became a member of the Comox Valley Unitarian Fellowship upon retirement. She served on the Board of each of those societies as well as several committees.

During her period in Calgary, she was a participant and leader in the Prairie Woman’s Gathering. She was also a trained facilitator for the two UUWF programs:  Cakes for the Queen of Heaven and Rise Up and Call Her Name.

In the 1990s, Dr. Donaldson won the UUWA Feminist Thealogy Award, the first Canadian to have ever done so.  She used the financial foundation from that award to develop the award -winning play  “Images of the Goddess” and to create a follow up video, which also gained international recognition

Betty was the last Canadian representative on the Board of the UUWA and when it changed its focus, she urged the CUC to develop a women’s organization to provide continuing education and programs for women in Canada and to support women’s equity issues.

Ultimately, working with women living in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba who had established the Prairie Women’s Gathering, as well as women leaders in Ontario, B.C. and Nova Scotia and other regions, the Canadian Unitarian Universalist Women’s Association (CUUWA) was organized.  Betty was the founding president, served seven years on that Board, and continues as an active member.

In addition, for more than a decade, Betty served as chair of the CUC Choices in Dying Monitoring Group, and conducted workshops, “What is a Good Death”.  After her retirement to Courtenay, this work allowed the CUC to be one of only three groups permitted to make representation to the BC Supreme Court regarding freedom of choice in dying. She continues to be active in the MAID issue and in the Green Burial movement.

 

The CUUWA (Canadian Unitarian Universalist Women’s Association) invites all congregations across Canada to celebrate International Women’s Day in a service on one of the Sundays close to March 8, International Women’s Day.

This year, we have compiled a theme package to help congregations and individuals plan their IWD activities. Our theme is Risk. You can find a large packet of materials to use in services and programs in March and throughout the years to come at:

CUUWA RISK package 2018

We hope that, one day, there will be International Women’s Day services in all congregations of the Canadian Unitarian Council. We provide outlines for services and other resources for IWD on the CUUWA website under Resources and on our Facebook page, Canadian UU Women’s Association

We would love to hear if/how you have used any of these materials, what your congregation did to recognize IWD, photos from your activities, and service ideas focused on women and/or feminism. Please send them to eldergomes@yahoo.com, and let us know if you give us permission to use them on our website and/or Facebook page.

Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, Chair,  Reverend Kathy Sage, ret., Ministerial Liaison and Chris Mishra

Canadian Unitarian Universalist Women’s Association

with help from Anneke Elder-Gomes and Caroline Jondahl, CUUWA Council members, and many others. Thank you!