Content warning: femicide, intimate partner violence

If you need support during or after listening to this episode, or any time, please reach out to our 24/7 Crisis Line at 1-800-265-7233 or 519-836-5710.

In this episode, Public Educator Cindy McMann sits down for a conversation with Mia Goulden. Mia is the daughter of Marianne Goulden, who was a G-W WIC client who stayed at the shelter after leaving an abusive relationship, and who then went on to give back to women in the Guelph community as a volunteer and a staff member at the shelter before she was killed by a partner in 1992.

Mia talks about her incredible mother, about the tragic end of her mother’s life, the impacts of femicide on her family and about the ways her mother’s beautiful spirit shines on.

In this episode, public educator Cindy McMann sat down with Ariel Oleynikov (she/her), formerly of WHAI (The Women’s HIV/AIDS Initiative) and ARCH (HIV/AIDS Resources and Community Health), which closed in March after 35 years when their funding was discontinued.

Ariel and I talked about her activist work around women living with HIV/AIDS in Guelph and Wellington County, the links between gendered oppression and the HIV epidemic, the beauty of collaborative, community-based health care, the impacts of ARCH closing on Guelph and a lot more.

And then, after the podcast recording, Ariel became G-W WIC's brand new rural public educator! We're so glad you get a chance to meet her!

Resources:

CATIE (The Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange)

WHAI (Women's HIV/AIDS Initiative)

Your Downtown Guelph Friends: yourdowntownguelphfriends

The ArQuives

Marlee Liss on Instagram: marleeliss

The movie Pride

In this episode, Public Educator Cindy McMann chats with Amber Spence, a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Guelph who specializes in sexual violence.

We talk about how philosophy helped Amber in her journey as a survivor, what tools it can offer other survivors, how philosophy misses the mark in academic research on sexual violence and why that matters for the rest of us.

Content Warning: sexual violence, trauma and sexual harm

Resources:

Susan J. Brison, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self

Karyn L. Freedman, One Hour in Paris

“Rethinking the Wrong of Rape”

"The Harm of Disempowerment," "The Problem with Consent," Amber Spence, forthcoming

Linda Martin Alcoff, Rape and Resistance

Nicole K. Jeffrey, “Is Consent Enough: What the Research on Normative Heterosexuality and Sexual Violence Tells Us”

Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score

Nicole Dular, “One Too Many: Hermeneutical Excess as Hermeneutical Injustice”

Madeleine Kenyon, "Speaking of ‘Violence:’ Figleaf Use in Sexualized Violence Contexts""

In this conversation, Public Educator Cindy McMann sits down with the University of Guelph’s 2024 Activists in Residence, Nneka MacGregor and Marsha Hinds Myrie. We talk activism, disrupting systems and making survivor voices the centre of efforts to end GBV at the local, national and international level.

Resources:

Operation Safe Space

WomenatthecentrE

Frantz Fanon (from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Joy James

Marcus Garvey (from the U.S. National Archives)

Walter Rodney (from the Walter Rodney Foundation)

Andaiye (from Red Thread)

C.L.R. James (from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute)

Rania El Mugammar

Raja Benjamin

Patrina Duhaney

Robyn Maynard

Ocama Collective

Rachel Zellars

Myrna Dawson

Rhythm & Blues Cambridge

Chelsea Tobin

Voices in Exile (interview with Dr. Hinds Myrie)

Happy Pride Month! This month’s episode of the WIC-Ed podcast features Nealob Kakar, talking to public educator Cindy McMann about queer communities of care, transformational change and why the word resilience makes us suspicious and tired.

Resources:

Building Accountable Communities video series, Barnard Center for Research on Women

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next), Dean Spade

Abolition. Feminism. Now., Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie

Insurgent Love: Abolition and Domestic Homicide, Ardath Whynacht

May is Sexual Violence Prevention Month! This month, Public Educator Cindy McMann sat down with Kate Crozier of Community Justice Initiatives (CJI), along with 2 guests with experience in restorative justice processes.

Kate and her guests take us through restorative justice alternatives to the criminal legal system, what the process is like for people who have experienced sexual harm and for people who have caused harm, how restorative justice can empower survivors of sexual violence, and what we can do to make this option more widely available to survivors.

Content Warning: sexual violence, sexual harm to minors, incarceration

Resources:

G-W Women in Crisis 24/7 Crisis Line: 519-836-5710 / 1-800-265-7233 (SAFE)

Community Justice Initiatives

The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence. Judith Levine and Erica Meiners

Bernard Center for Women, “What is Accountability?”

adrienne maree brown

Mia Mingus

In this episode, Christina Hennelly from the Brain Injury Association of Waterloo Wellington talks with Public Educator Cindy McMann about Christina's work on the connections between brain injuries and intimate partner violence (IPV).

We talk about the impacts of brain injuries, how common they are in relationships where there's physical violence, tools people can use if they think they or someone they love might have a brain injury and what service providers can do to better support people.

Content Warning: physical violence, impacts of physical injuries due to violence

Resources: The Brain Injury Association of Waterloo Wellington

HELPS Screening Tool

Ontario Brain Injury Association

Traverse Independence

ABI Toolkit

In this episode, we hear from Jacob Pries, from the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region's Male Allies program. Jacob chats with WiC Educator Cindy McMann about masculinity, talking to men and boys about gender-based violence, and Jacob's work on consent education with Hockey Canada.

Resources:

The Male Allies program at the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region

Brené Brown's whole canon of work, which you can see on her website

The Man Enough podcast with Justin Baldoni and Liz Plank

Justin Baldoni's books, Man Enough and Boys Will Be Human

Liz Plank's book, For the Love of Men

Everything Starhawk has written, which you can check out on her website

The 2Rivers Festival presents a podcast in partnership with Guelph-Wellington Women and Crisis and Protect the Tract that explores the relationship between colonization, gender-based violence, land violence and consent. Host Jensen Williams discusses the role of consent in movements to end gender-based violence and ensure land rights with Courtney Skye of Protect the Tract and Emma Callon and Horeen Hassan of the 2Rivers Festival.

In this episode we chat with Myrna Dawson, the Founder and Director of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. Dawson is a leading expert on femicide and leader in research and advocacy on violence against women and femicide prevention both nationally and internationally. Have a listen as we unpack the term femicide, the work of the observatory, ways in which data on femicide is collected and pathways to femicide prevention. For more information on the Canadian Femicide Observatory, please visit their website and follow them on twitter @CAN_Femicide.