The first Pan-Canadian Young Feminist Conference, Toujours Rebelles, has issues a manifesto – it’s damned impressive…
Feminists Unite!
DOWN WITH the colonial legacy of genocide and assimilation of Aboriginal peoples, particularly of Aboriginal women
DOWN WITH the sexism and racism of the Indian Act
DOWN WITH dishonoured treaties
DOWN WITH assimilation
DOWN WITH racial profiling
DOWN WITH Canada’s fake multicultural policy
DOWN WITH warmongers & military power
DOWN WITH racist child welfare policies
DOWN WITH stereotypes in the media
DOWN WITH genocide and femicide
DOWN WITH stealing women and children
DOWN WITH COLONIALISM
RebELLEs AGAINST banks for hijacking the world
RebELLEs AGAINST drug companies for institutionalizing women’s health
RebELLEs AGAINST public spaces that don’t accommodate all bodies
RebELLEs AGAINST development that destroys nature
RebELLEs AGAINST the class system that keeps us impoverished and deprives us of safe, affordable housing
RebELLEs AGAINST the state that forces other countries to adopt the capitalist system
RebELLEs AGAINST the devaluation of women’s paid and unpaid work
RebELLEs AGAINST corporations for making money off our backs
RebELLEs AGAINST the advertisers who destroy our self- esteem and then sell it back to us
RebELLEs AGAINST CAPITALISM
RISE AGAINST the industries that cause us to hate our bodies and our sexuality
RISE AGAINST heterosexism that makes it seem that there is only one way of living, loving and being sexual
RISE AGAINST the socialization of children in gender binaries, race categories and colonial erasures
RISE AGAINST the education that reinforces the heteronormative nuclear family
RISE AGAINST the religious Right and its influence on State policy and legislation
RISE AGAINST rape and violence against women
RISE AGAINST the objectification and control of women’s bodies
RISE AGAINST all anti-choice bills, laws and strategies
RISE AGAINST the sexual division of labour
RISE AGAINST poverty and women’s economic disadvantage and dependency
RISE AGAINST income support programs based on family status instead of individual status
RISE AGAINST masculinists, their false claims and demagogic arguments
RISE AGAINST sexual exploitation
RISE AGAINST PATRIARCHY
We envision communities committed to:
- Eradicating all forms of violence – including sexual, institutional, emotional, economic, physical, cultural, racial, colonial, ageist and ableist
- Challenging all forms of oppression, power and privilege
- Recognizing that others’ struggles against oppression cannot be separated from one’s own, because all people are intrinsically; and being conscious of how one fits into the different structures of oppression while fighting to eliminate them all
- Freeing our children and ourselves from the gender binary
- Building institutions and structures that promote the principles of Justice, Peace & Equality
- Eliminating economic inequality
- Funding and supporting affordable, accessible childcare, and the economic freedom to mother in the way we choose
- Learning and teaching true herstory and histories of our victories and struggles, especially those of women of colour and Aboriginal women
- Fighting the stigma and shame of mental health and psychiatric survivors and supporting their struggles
We will: Change our attitude: get pissed off, refuse, resist, walk out, speak up!
We will: Transform our daily lives and relationships: actions can take place in small interactions
We will: Encourage people to learn about, care for and love themselves and their bodies
We will: Support safe and accessible space for individuals to define and express themselves without fear of judgement
We will: Create alternatives, write poetry, articles, letters, make art
We will: Join with others, find common ground, build community, create feminist spaces and gatherings, raise awareness, educate, spread the word
We will: Believe that a better world is possible and work to achieve it
We will: Organize and struggle: build alliances with existing feminist groups and create new ones, fight together in solidarity, be seen and be heard, disrupt, trouble, destabilize established powers, become culture jammers
We will: Build solidarity based on the commonality of our diverse struggles and perspectives
We will: Value people rather than profits
We will: Demand massive State reinvestment in social programs and the end of privatization
We will: Organize pan-Canadian decentralized days of feminist action against the rise of the Right
We will: Protest and resist sexist bills and laws that threaten our reproductive rights, racist immigration laws, war, free trade, repression, the criminalization of political movements, corporate exploitation and plunder of the earth, and violence against women
We will: Champion safety, respect, justice, freedom, equality and SOLIDARITY!