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OUR HERSTORY

The Yukon Status of Women Council started in the 1970s when a group of women came together in a series of meetings to discuss the key issues that impacted women of the Yukon.

The key issues at the time were:

  • the high cost of living,

  • lack of formal child care,

  • lack of public transit,

  • lack of legislation preventing workplace discrimination based on sex or marital status, and

  • the male-oriented and male-dominated decision-making power across the Territory.

 

Check out the issues that have shaped the Yukon Status of Women Council's work over the decades.

1970s

The Issues​

  • Child care

  • Isolation of people in the community (i.e. transit)

  • Access to abortion

  • Equal pay for equal work and labour standards and employment

  • Adequate housing

  • Legal rights

  • Medical attention and information

  • Money and marriage, family law, and matrimonial law

  • Sexism

  • Rape

  • Environment (pipeline)

  • Women in trades

  • Sex education

  • Getting women’s opinions to the public

1980s

The Issues

  • Human rights

  • Sexual orientation

  • Pay equity, labour standards

  • Marriage law, divorce law, change of name law, children’s last name (hyphenate with both parents' last name, not just the father’s)

  • Socio-economic status

  • Gender equality

  • Charter of Rights (1984)

  • Access to abortion

  • Women in trades and in non-traditional work

  • Sexual assault and violence against women

  • Racism

  • Funding

  • Childcare

  • Ongoing process on how to collaborate with First Nations women

  • Women’s health, mental health, and birth control

  • Pornography

  •  Justice system

1990s

The Issues

  • Poverty, unemployment, pay equity and money

  • Oppression and racism

  • Violence against women and domestic violence,

  • Homelessness

  • Racism

  • Sexual orientation

  • Environment

  • Justice system 

  • Teen parents

  • Women with disabilities

  • Family

  • Women’s health (breast cancer), mental health, women and aging, women’s body

  • Child care

  • The Constitution

  • Abortion, birth control and sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS

  • Midwifery

2000s

The Issues

  • Poverty

  • Homelessness

  • Violence against women and domestic violence

  • Family

  • Environment

  • Justice system

  • Racism

  • Childcare

2010s

The Issues

  • RCMP and Yukon women and oversight of Yukon legal system

  • Sex worker support

  • Economic exploitation of women and financial literacy

  • #metoo and #timesup

  • MMIWG

  • Homelessness and housing shortages

  • Access to reproductive health care

2020s
and beyond

The Issues

  • Heading into the new decade, YSWC has some major projects on the go.

  • Many of the same issues that we were fighting to change persist.

  • Rates of sexualized and domestic violence remain high in the North, while the mining sector has little in the way of regulations on their social impacts.

  • We are also researching how stigma affects people who trade sex and what we can do about it.

Press Play to learn more.

Press play then use your mouse or trackpad to scroll through this interactive timeline. Zoom in and out to read the details and click and drag to continue through the different years.

Prezi-timeline.png

OUR STORY

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308 Hanson Street

Whitehorse, YT, Y1A 1Y6

info@yswc.ca

Tel: 867-332-3163

We gratefully acknowledge the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta'an Kwächän Council on whose traditional territories we reside and do our work. We respect each nation's sovereignty and the long history of land and community stewardship and knowledge that shapes this beautiful place.

TROUBLE ACCESSING ANYTHING?
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©2024 Yukon Status of Women Council

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