On May 27, Canada was shaken out of its coronavirus haze by a press release from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops Indian Band) stating that the remains of 215 children had been found buried on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The school, operated by the Catholic Church in Kamloops, British Columbia, housed …
Indian Residential Schools: Canada’s National Disgrace Read More »
There are some significant barriers that people living in poverty face when it comes to managing their finances. However, these may not always be obvious, so let’s talk about them. Let’s consider what it might look like to be living in poverty here in British Columbia, Canada, where I live. Provincial income assistance payments, including …
Lately, white privilege has been a hot topic. The people I’ve come across who take a stance against the idea of white privilege seem to have in common the line of thinking that they haven’t been handed anything, so how can they have social privilege? Wikipedia describes social privilege as: “a special, unearned advantage or …
Social Privileges as a Counterpoint to Social Burdens Read More »
Through our shared humanity, all lives matter. So why is it important to say Black lives matter? When lives don’t matter All lives should matter equally. That is the ideal, and probably most of us would agree that it’s the “right” thing. Unfortunately, though, in practice, not all lives are given equal value. An obvious …
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is sometimes referred to euphemistically as female circumcision, but it’s drastically different from male circumcision in form, function, and consequences. FGM involves cutting or removing parts of the external female genitalia, including some or all of the clitoral glans and clitoral hood, inner labia, and outer labia. The diagram below shows …
Black feminist researcher Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw first proposed the concept of intersectionality in 1989 to represent the many different layers of social stratification that can combine to disadvantage people. This includes factors like race, sexual orientation, social class, age, disability, and gender. Expanding on this concept, sociologist Patricia Hill Collins described the intersectional points as the matrix …
Intersectionality and What it Means for Mental Health Read More »
Social determinants of health represent those factors that, whether we have control over them or not, can significantly influence both physical and mental health outcomes. Differences produced by social injustice can (and does) produce systemic health inequities between rich and poor, with a “social gradient” in between. The social determinants of health The Government of …
Far too many people with mental illness will experience homelessness at some point. Why is that, and why on earth is it acceptable? Risk factors for homelessness According to the Homeless Hub, 30-35% experiencing homelessness have a mental illness. Among women, that figure jumps to 70%. How does society allow this to happen to some …
Homelessness & Mental Illness: We All Deserve a Roof Over Our Heads Read More »
It’s easy to think of feminism as something that’s solely about boosting up the status of women. I would argue, though, that feminism is something that can lift us all up. Gender stereotypes People may enact feminist beliefs in different ways, but at its core, feminism recognizes how traditional gender roles, stereotypes, and expectations have …
