Blogs

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is #PledgeForParity. The theme highlights the gender parity that women still struggle to achieve economically, socially, culturally, and politically.  The theme is timely.  Financial abuse is a common tactic that is often used to control the woman in domestic violence situations.  If she wants to leave an abusive relationship, her choices are limited by her ability to leave the relationship, earn a living and make a new life for herself and children. We also know that abuse impacts work performance and income as well as potential job loss.

On Family Day February 15, 2016 Make It Our Business (MIOB) is recognizing the 100 Organizations who have recently completed workplace trainings. Since we launched our Make It Our Business workplace training program five years ago, over 400 companies have participated in our trainings to learn how to recognize and respond to domestic violence in the workplace!

The 16 Days of Activism is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute coordinated by the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. The year 2015 marks the 20-year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the most progressive road map to gender equality we have.

There are a lot of factors that go into answering this question. Some factors are specific and immediate: wages/salary; comprehensive benefits; flexibility of work hours and/or ability to work from home when needed. Other qualities are more long term, such as job security, professional development opportunities, and the potential to move up over time. The physical environment also matters (Is the workplace accessible? Is it a pleasant space to spend time in?), as do co-worker relationships and workplace atmosphere.

Every Mother’s Day, we recognize the hard work, emotional labour, and unconditional love that goes into mothering, and celebrate mothers for their integral role in our own lives and in society. After all, being a mother is a job that never ends and sometimes goes underappreciated.

Improve our health. Spend time with loved ones. Develop work life balance. We often make personal New Year’s resolutions that focus on what we need to be healthy, happy, productive individuals. But what about New Year’s resolutions for the workplace?

December 6 is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. As Status of Women Canada explains, December 6 marks the anniversary of the murders in 1989 of 14 young women at l'École Polytechnique de Montréal.

*TRIGGER WARNING*

We chose to release the results from our survey about the impact of domestic violence on workers and the workplace results in the days leading up to December 6, Canada's National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women, our deadliest single, gender-based violent crime. 

As we remember the day of the Montreal Massacre, many of us also remember personal violence that we’ve experienced, or continue to experience.

As we reflect on the past weeks and the events surrounding the brave women who spoke out to make allegations of violence by former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi, we are reminded of the responsibility organizations have to protect their workers from workplace hazards. When people are afraid to talk about what is happening to them, at work or in the community, we all pay the price.

Challenges to Women Speaking Out

Recent high profile cases including Ray Rice and the NFL and Jian Ghomeshi and the CBC have helped us to understand that happens in peoples’ private lives can have an impact in the workplace. The media coverage has highlighted the reputational damage that an offender or an alleged offender can do to his workplace. But, we’ve given less attention to an issue raised by the Toronto Star among others that the women making allegations against Jian Ghomeshi feared a negative impact on their careers.[i]

- See more at: http://makeitourbusiness.com/content/what-about-workplace-responsibility...

Challenges to Women Speaking Out

Recent high profile cases including Ray Rice and the NFL and Jian Ghomeshi and the CBC have helped us to understand that happens in peoples’ private lives can have an impact in the workplace. The media coverage has highlighted the reputational damage that an offender or an alleged offender can do to his workplace. But, we’ve given less attention to an issue raised by the Toronto Star among others that the women making allegations against Jian Ghomeshi feared a negative impact on their careers.[i]

- See more at: http://makeitourbusiness.com/content/what-about-workplace-responsibility...