By Rose Simpson
Community activist Debra Davis is on a mission to recognize the contributions of women in Canadian history. After all, women have been at the forefront in science, innovation, politics, business, labour and social justice for decades, yet their achievements have largely gone undocumented.
“We didn’t get here by accident,” says Debra, president and co-founder of The Women’s History Project, which is spearheading a national discussion on the history of gender equality. The project combines webinars, online interviews with change makers and in-person events to get women of all ages talking about the contributions made by women to Canadian society.
Launched in 2021, the living history project has attracted a Who’s Who of powerful and influential women who share their experiences as change makers. Interview subjects include former prime minister Kim Campbell, author Denise Chong, historian Charlotte Gray, Senator Marjorie LeBreton, feminist icon Judy Rebick and lawyer and reproductive rights activist Maureen McTeer.
“Our aim is to explore the lives and accomplishments of women across Canada, the organizations that promoted gender equality, pre- and post-colonial periods and the issues and challenges women faced and overcame throughout the decades,” Debra says.
As a prelude to a traditional bricks-and-mortar, museum-style approach to commemorate these influential women, the project will take women’s history right to its target audience, young Canadians, who can sample its content on their smartphones and on social media. There is a lively video podcast that features trailblazers talking about their personal experiences and involvement in societal change.
Kim Campbell talks about being the first woman prime minister of Canada and how she worked her way up from a brainy student in Port Alberni, British Columbia, to law school graduate then onto the highest office in the land. She talks about the challenges of being minister of national defence in the 1980s during a time when Canada’s military was a very masculine, physical culture.
Not much has changed in 40 years, she admits, even though today’s military is more focused on technology and offers more opportunities for women.
“Today, there are no unskilled jobs in the forces,” she says. “So it’s important to expose (gender discrimination), forbid it and discipline people.”
She also reveals how she felt, serving as Canada’s minister of state for Indian affairs.
“I always felt uncomfortable about having anything to say about how Indigenous people live,” she says. “I wasn’t a colonialist at heart.”
Acclaimed best-selling writer and historian Denise Chong is another fascinating interview subject, who describes what led her to investigate her cultural background in the first non-fiction narrative account of the Chinese in Canada.
“Maybe it’s the writer in me,” she says. “Maybe it’s how my grandmother nearly fell into the dustbin of history; it’s the voices of the women who weren’t heard; it’s the ghosts in the landscape that ought to come alive again—that’s what I am curious about.”
The Women’s History Project includes a regular feature on the popular Substack site, as well as webinars that teach women the best way to learn about women’s history.
“We want to make it interesting to young people, to get them involved through TikTok, Instagram, and to teach them how to use resources like the archives which hold a treasure trove of diaries and letters.”
The project couldn’t come at a more pivotal time, given threats to the hard-fought programs and resources that affect women worldwide, such as reproductive rights and technologies.
“It’s for newer audiences to learn how we got here,” Debra explains. “There was a time when women didn’t have their own bank accounts or property rights. There were controversies around divorce laws, child custody, domestic violence, shelters, the whole debate around our charter rights. The idea is to create a digital platform where we can profile the women who were at the forefront of fighting for these rights.”
She is hoping to expand the project to ensure it represents the experiences of women from diverse cultural backgrounds and genders. She is also looking for financial assistance and volunteers to help make the project fully bilingual.
The Women’s History Project is a non-profit organization that depends on contributions from individuals, private and public foundations, associations and universities. Its success will also depend on women of all ages, backgrounds and professions who want to make a difference in promoting and understanding gender equality.
Debra says she also hopes to launch a Women’s History Production Fund in 2026-2027 that will offer grants to projects annually under a formal application process overseen by a volunteer board from industry, university and feminist organizations. It has partnered with the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, which provides charitable receipts for donations earmarked for The Women’s History Project.
The project has been short-listed for the Governor General’s History Award for Excellence in Community Programming.
If you are interested in getting involved or learning more about the project, visit www.womenshistoryproject.ca.
