Canadian Research Institute For The Advancement Of Women (CRIAW)

Published purpose

Through this 42-month project, the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) will increase its ability to prevent or address gender-based violence against women and girls by countering regressive anti-feminist ideologies and movements through feminist participatory action research methods. This will be achieved by first hiring a researcher to complete background research on the subject. Once completed, CRIAW will engage with diverse women’s organizations across Canada through regional discussion groups to assess, reflect and analyze the internal dynamics and relations of power within the feminist movement, as well as systemic and societal barriers. CRIAW will proceed to analyze the data to establish how these movements operate at the intersections of sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism and perpetuate systemic inequality and violence. The action component of this type of research method will enable organizations representing diverse women (e.g. Black women, Indigenous women, racialized women, immigrant and migrant women, women with disabilities, young women, senior women, low-income women), as well as women’s organizations working in different areas (education, advocacy, front-line services), to be actively involved in the research and in creating solutions. Thematic webinars based on policy areas identified in the discussion groups will also be hosted to deepen the collective understanding of the risks and threats brought on by these ideologies and movements. Lastly, CRIAW will develop and publish clear language materials and resources to best equip women’s rights organizations across Canada in their application of feminist intersectionality in collectively working to end systemic inequality, and in countering the anti-feminist regressive ideologies and movements.