“I don’t believe in the word ‘recovery’”: What you missed at Future of Good’s women’s economic resilience summit

Sherlyn Assam’s work on this story is made possible by the Future of Good editorial fellowship on women’s economic resilience, supported by Scotiabank, who was also the lead sponsor of the Women’s Economic Resilience Summit. See our editorial ethics and standards here.

Future of Good’s inaugural summit on Women’s Economic Resilience kicked off with a plenary reflecting on women and gender-diverse people as the forerunners of reciprocity work within their communities –– providing for themselves where the government falls short became a recurring theme over the course of the summit.

“Women have always been on the frontlines,” said Cynthia Eyakuze, Equality Fund’s co-vice president of Global Programs, who spoke about feminist movements. “They bear the brunt of these crises.”

Though lockdown restrictions have been lifted and COVID-19 cases are not rising exponentially, the impact of the pandemic is far from over –– especially for women and gender-diverse people who have taken a larger economic hit. 

And according to these social impact leaders, they are the ones who expected to be on the front lines of getting themselves back on track. 

“I don’t believe in the word recovery — because I don’t want to recover from a world and systems that have been very much in crisis and continue to be in crisis from what we see,” said Herleen Arora, co-founder of South Asian & Tamil Women’s Collective. “All the grief and the pain that we’ve witnessed so far in communities, and all lessons that have surfaced makes me believe we need to reimagine or restructure.” 

Over the course of two days, 30 speakers and up to 450 changemakers participated in plenaries to discuss feminist reciprocity, movements, social policy, funding, social purpose work and leadership, allyship, and recovery. 

Here are six takeaways from the Women’s Economic Resilience summit: 

Learn from how women and non-binary communities support themselves — but don’t leave the burden on them to do all the work

Throughout the summit, speakers from multiple panels spoke about how equity-deserving communities often have to support themselves in times of crisis — usually because formal care systems fall short. However, this form of mutual aid is often glorified, which can let philanthropic organzations and governments  off the hook,according to Caroline Shenaz Hossein, associate professor at the University of Toronto-Scarborough who spoke in the feminist reciprocity panel on day one of the summit. 

“There is this fine line of this bootstrap development: putting the onus on Black, Indigenous and racialized communities to fend for themselves,” said Hossein. “And that work is being done, but when do we start changing the funding model of philanthropy?” 

She added that, in fact, some forms of mutual aid amongst marginalized groups have even been criminalized for decades including alternative forms of banking led by Black women in Canada, and community support among sex workers.

Elene Lam, executive director of Butterfly, the Asian and Migrant Sex Workers Support Network, also said that mutual aid among sex workers has always been criminalized. “Advocacy is an important part of Butterfly’s work because the mutual support cannot happen when there is so many oppressive policies excluding migrants from participation and excluding sex worker by criminalizing them.” 

“Where is the state’s responsibility for amplifying and supporting these kinds of movements? Does it now make philanthropy redundant or the structured kind of philanthropy redundant? Should we be now focused on these people-led, community-driven types of institutions?” said Hossein. 

The social impact sector and governments need to recognize the vital role of community mutual aid, panelists agreed, that cannot be an excuse for large institutions to dust off of the responsibility to help communities needing support. 

Demystifying language is crucial to bring everyone into the conversation

For everyday people who aren’t in the social impact sector, jargon and complicated language can be hugely excluding and cut people out of conversations where their input is essential. When it comes to government consultations on things like feminist social policy, for instance, making them accessible means lowering the language barriers. 

If community members are invited to participate in discussions about issues they are personally dealing with, that conversation need to be accessible for them; people need to see themselves reflected in these spaces. This includes having translation services available to include Francophones or new immigrants who may not speak English or French. 

“We need to get rid of jargon when having these conversations; it is so difficult for people that have passion about a specific cause or community that want to see that their consultation means something and that their time is valuable…but the jargon is way over their head,” said Amanda Kingsley Malo, founder of PoliticsNOW. 

Meaningful change can’t always be measured, especially when it comes to grassroots movements 

In the social impact sector, change and impact are most commonly measured by statistics and numbers in reports, and while that’s a good starting point, it should never be where the work ends. When it comes to social movements and the work which activists do, how does one measure that systems change? 

Aisha Addoo, founder of the non-profit Power To Girls, explained that in the work her organization does to empower young girls, “it’s really hard for us to be able to show you that a girl’s confidence has risen from the time that she started our program to the time that we have to do this report.” 

Social change isn’t always seen through big impact reports with impressive numbers — sometimes it happens in conversations and incremental, systemic change that’s difficult to measure in metrics.  

“The work we’re doing isn’t always built for reports,” said Sarah Jama, co-founder of the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO).  

Jama added, “the answer is not how do we figure out a new metric to measure some of this. It’s how do we get the community foundations to believe us and to sit down with us and do the work on their own by following what we’re doing?”

Work culture needs to be physically and psychologically safe for women and non-binary people

As women and gender-diverse people’s employment rates begin to pick up, along with conversations about flexible workplaces, Maryann Kerr, chief happiness officer/CEO and principal consultant with the Medalist Group said that organizations need to consider how to make the return to work a safer space. She lists childcare options, diversity and inclusivity, and feeling that your input is valued is what makes a “psychologically safe” workplace.

Though innovative workspaces is a popular tagline these days, Kerr said, “We don’t create the kind of spaces that allow people to bring innovation into the space.”

Bailey Reid, co-founder of The Spark Strategy, a sexual violence prevention program for workplaces, emphasized the reality of sexual harassment women and gender-diverse people endure and how that shapes the way they see the workplace. 

While organizations are quick to bring in sexual violence training soon after a time of crisis, Reid says that employers need to start going beyond that and having conversations with employees to change the workplace culture in specific ways. 

Reid suggested for employers to encourage their team to co-create solutions together by questioning what kind of culture and rituals are already in place, and more importantly, who do they exclude? 

For example, if a workplace has a habit of consuming alcohol regularly, Reid said employers should consider how they can include people who are sober. Also considering the fact that alcohol is the most common drug used for drug-facilitated sexual assault, employers must think about how people can stay safe. 

“If your feminist funding isn’t intersectional, it’s just not good funding”

Maryam Pandi, executive director of Sexual Assault Centre Kingston shared what how funders can support women’s movements better. 

Though the women’s movement needs more funding, it’s important to make sure cis, white women aren’t benefitting disproportionately — and to acknowledge groups who are still left out of the conversation. Pandi emphasized that making a real impact on social causes must be ground by who are most impacted by that cause, such as Indigenous, Black, queer, disabled, racialized and racialized women.

“Whatever cause you’re funding, whatever is your purpose, if you want to make the most impact, you’ve got to apply this intersectional lens and get into who’s benefiting and who is suffering from you not actually applying that intersectional lens,” Pandi said.

Funding for ventures led by women and gender-diverse people also struggles with equity. 

Jacqueline Jennings, an associate of Raven Indigenous Capital Partners, shared that 1.8 percent of venture capital funding goes to cisgender white women. Black-led ventures may make up to one percent, and there isn’t concrete data for Indigenous- or queer-led ventures.

“Within the context of Indigenous sovereignty and liberation, our liberty is tied to other groups who have been historically underrepresented and marginalized,” said Jennings. “Feminist funding looks at all of the groups that have been excluded traditionally.”

Jennings said she continues to see a homogenization of investors in venture capital, private equity, and investing in businesses that look, think, and behave like them. “It’s entirely biased and based on a need and desire for security in those positions of honour and privilege,” said Jennings.   

Feminist organizations should prioritize coalition-building to improve their impact 

Some leaders spoke to the significance of organizations collaborating within the sector to improve impact within communities and increase their power when appealing to the government.  

“I think we’re getting better at building coalitions across causes and across sectors,”  said Fae Johnstone, executive director of Wisdom2Action. “On the queer and trans front, feminist sectors and organizations have come out in huge numbers and that makes a world of a difference on every level.”  

“I can tell you that those coalitions have made a massive difference, because it’s all about, ultimately, community building,” said Malo. “Community building is such an enormous part of advocacy, because we have never had more ability with social media to hold the feet of policymakers and politicians to the fire.”

This type of co-operation is not the default though. In the social purpose work and leadership plenary, Kerr, who has over 30 years of experience in the social impact sector, says that organizations can at times get in their own way about the change they wish to see.

“We have this organizational ego that says, ‘We do this better, we do it differently,’ rather than trying to find common ground,” said Kerr. “So we are in competition with each other…It creates a kind of environment where leaders are burnt out.”

Feminist reciprocity plenary

Feminist funding plenary

Lightning talk with Jake Stika

Feminist social policy plenary

Feminist social purpose work and leadership

Feminist movements plenary

Feminist movements fireside chat with Cynthia Eyazuke

Lightning talk with Paulette Senior

Feminist Recovery Plenary

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