Policies
Our Anti-oppression commitment and structure is available below.
Click the highlighted text to bring up the appropriate documents:
Collective Agreement between CUPE 1281 and GRCGED
Other policies will be coming soon.
Anti-Oppression Commitment
The GRCGED operates from an anti-oppression analysis. There are interlocking systems of domination and oppression in this society and within ourselves, which we have to dismantle in order to bring social equality for all people. Patriarchy and misogyny cannot be separated from racism, classism, ableism, and homophobia.
An anti-racist analysis is crucial to unlearning oppression in the GRCGED. These interlocking systems of domination are grounded in a long continuing history of white domination and colonization— colonization of aboriginal people, people of colour, women, and the poor. A politics of refusal means using personal agency to interrogate white privilege and how this system of white domination is maintained and perpetuated by people personally and institutionally within this centre, this campus, this stolen land colonized and called “Canada.’
The GRCGED has zero tolerance for racism. The GRCGED strives to be a place which honours and respects the rights of indigenous women and women of colour. This includes operating from an analysis centred in an understanding of one’s identity and history as it relates to our work and interactions. This would include indigenous identity, indigenous cultural action, black consciousness and political resistance and a consciousness of one’s identity, and history as oppressor and oppressed. The GRCGED engages in active agency to interrogate and dismantle white privilege, white domination and colonization.
People of various communities face related but often distinct systemic barriers in their everyday lives. We believe that everyone should be able to access the resources they need to survive and thrive, and that people should have control over decisions that affect their own lives. While we fight for that in society as a whole, it is important that we operate on such a basis in the Centre. We strive to ensure that we have resources that are relevant and accessible to people from various communities.
We have made the following commitments with respect to this:
- Maintaining a wheelchair accessible space and ensuring that our events are held in an accessible location
- Transferring any materials to alternative formats upon request
- Providing information in a variety of languages based on an assessment of the Guelph community
- Using trans-inclusive language and not forcing transfolks to out themselves in order to participate in the centre
- Offering child-friendly space, on-site childcare or childcare subsidies for people doing office hours, attending meetings or events.
- Offering travel subsidies where possible
- Offering sliding-scale registration fees, which slide to $0 if possible. Inviting oppressed communities to organize closed events
- Offering workshops on issues relevant to oppressed communities and to being an ally to such communities
- Expanding our resource centre in specific areas such as: Indigenous and anti-colonial writings, Black Consciousness, writings on and by people with “disabilities”, trans-inclusive materials, anti-capitalist resources, anti-poverty issues, labour issues, Jewish studies, Muslim, Palestine, people of colour communities immigrant
The GRCGED also recognizes that each of us brings in our own prejudices, privileges, assumptions, and internalized oppression. We expect people in the GRCGED to be committed to doing personal work at breaking down their oppressive attitudes, making a personal commitment to being anti-oppressive and understanding their own self-interest in such a process. And while we do not believe that the oppressor should learn on the backs of, or at the expense of the oppressed, we do encourage people to confront, challenge, and interrogate one another. As a space for community, education and growth, we must foster an environment in which we can learn from one another and have at least a basic trust and regard for each other as well.
Further resources are available in the centre and include a variety of writings and handbooks such as the “TSITG 101” manual by the 519 Meal Trans Programme.
THE GRCGED STRUCTURE
Anyone, regardless of their gender, academic status, citizenship or identity can become a part of the GRCGED. In fact, the GRCGED recognizes that the “women’s movement” or first and second-wave feminism has a history of white dominance, transphobia, biphobia, classism and ableism and which is antithetical to our vision of feminism and anti-oppression in general. The centre strives to be a place where people from groups historically oppressed within mainstream North American feminist organizing are able to use and take ownership over this space.
Undergraduate and Graduate students at the University of Guelph pay a fee of between $1.65 and $2.65 semester (geared to the consumer price index). This money is paid through the University with tuition and other student fees. Anyone else who uses the centre is asked to pay the same amount.
- People participate in the centre in a variety of ways and often people’s participation changes overtime. Everyone is expected to abide by Centre policy.
- Users are people who access the centre for our services such as crisis support, the resource library or workshops and events, but are not part of organizing. Although our resources are primarily geared towards women and transfolk, anyone can access the Centre.
- Friends of the GRCGED are people who help organize events or contribute to the maintenance of the centre but are unable or unwilling to make a regular commitment to the Centre. Often, Friends of the GRCGED are also users.
- Volunteers have made a commitment to participating regularly in maintaining the centre and organizing events. Generally, this commitment involves attending core workshops, scheduling at least one office hour a week, attending at least 50% of volunteer/collective meetings and actively participating in centre activities, committees and development.
- Collective Members have the same responsibilities as volunteers but have participated in the centre for a period of time as a volunteer, have demonstrated a commitment to the Centre and are ultimately accountable for all of the GRCGED decisions. The Collective is the decision- making body of the Centre. Ultimately, the collective is accountable for the Centre as a whole. This includes being the official employer of any staff at the Centre. Being a collective member has added responsibilities and added benefits.