Impacting the Female Community: Lennoxville’s own Women’s Centre

As I have stated in previous articles, the Canadian government’s current neoliberal thinking posits that Canada has achieved equality and thus feminism is no longer needed. The general population seems to have also embraced this thinking. However, race and gender inequality persists. One particular inequality that currently exists is that of violence against women. Over the past thirty years, many organizations have formed to help women who have experienced violence. Although this form of activism began occurring during the Second Wave of feminism, it can also be considered a part of the fluid and flexible stage that feminism has now entered. This stage is what many feminists refer to as a third—even a fourth—wave of feminism. Categorizing feminism in such a way can often be limiting; however, in order to speak more generally about women’s plights, it is almost impossible not to categorize feminism at all. As Barbara A. Crow and Lise Gotell state in their book Open Boundaries: A Canadian Women’s Studies Reader, anti-violence activism today is complex. However, my goal in this article is neither to address these complexities in detail, nor is it to do discuss solely the violence and other inequalities that exist today. Rather, it is to address and inform Bishop’s students about a current activism that is helping Anglophone women in Lennoxville and across la région de l’Estrie.

The Lennoxville & District Women’s Centre, located at 300-257 Queen Street near Pep’s Restaurant, provides health, violence and sexual assault counseling and intervention. In other words, those involved in the Centre help many local and, for the most part, Anglophone women manage the extreme violence, poverty, or other crises, that they face. The Centre also acts as a resource centre for women by offering information and referrals. However, the Centre is not limited to these things. Because they are the only Anglophone non-profit organization out of the 101 women’s shelters and centers in Quebec, they cover a range of issues, from violence and poverty, to women who have difficulty raising and taking care of their children, to those who deal with anxiety, depression, and other health problems. Often, those who work at the Centre encounter women with problems that they cannot handle because the Centre is not a frontline organization; it provides no rooming or housing. If this happens, they take the issue to the local bilingual and frontline women’s shelter, L’escale de L’Estrie, in Sherbrooke.

Although the Centre itself has been running since 1981, Boutique Encore, one if the Centre’s many projects, has opened only recently. Located at 178 Queen Street, Boutique Encore sells gently used clothing and invests all of its profits into the Women’s Centre. Whatever they do not sell, the Centre donates to a variety of local organizations. So, if students have any used items, such as clothing, bed and bath products, furniture, etc., please bring them to the Centre. Hopefully very soon there will be a station on campus where students can easily drop off these items. I will keep those interested informed on where this station will be.

In addition to the Boutique, the Centre also organizes many other fun and creative activities and support groups. For further information about these activities, feel free to pick up their monthly newsletter, which can be found at either the Centre itself or Boutique Encore. To become a volunteer, which the Centre greatly encourages and appreciates, application forms can be filled out at these two locations.

Although I want to create awareness about the Centre for those people who are interested in becoming involved in it or who feel that they are in need of support from it, I also want to emphasize what seems to me like a lack of awareness about the Lennoxville community as well as the female empowerment that the Centre encourages. Many Bishop’s students, myself included, do not seem to realize the amount of poverty, among other issues, that exist within this community. After speaking with Terry Moore, the Executive Director of the Centre, I feel almost ashamed to have, in previous years here at Bishop’s, dismissed the issues that surround me. Terry also talked briefly with me about one particular goal that the Centre aims to achieve. In providing moral support, the Centre hopes to help women realize and achieve their own potential as individuals. This goal ties in nicely with a crucial point that Jane Doe makes in her article “The Ultimate Rape Victim. ”Doe states that raped women are often constructed as “victims” who are unable to assert agency and participate in social and political change. In encouraging self-determinism amongst women, especially those who have experienced violence, the Women’s Centre acknowledges that women, whatever their economical situation, cultural or ethnic background, and experiences, are active individuals in society, an agency that is usually denied them because of gendered and racialized inequalities.