Show Your Support for Gender Equity!
We’ve got some exciting news! Thanks to years of work from advocates across the city, Toronto City Council is *this close* to establishing Toronto’s own Gender Equality Office and creating an Intersectional Gender Equity Strategy! Both would help make sure our city services and programs are more effective and help to create a more equal city.
Use our form on this page to show your support and scroll down to get the details (and our AOC-inspired shareables).
After more than 1,300 people sent in their messages of support, the Mayor’s Executive Committee voted unanimously in favour of this item on Wednesday September 18.
Now, the final vote is happening at City Council on October 2!
You can send your own letter of encouragement and support to the Mayor and your local city councillor by using our form. We’ve made it easy. And you can edit the sample message included to make it your own (but you don’t have to!).
Scroll down to download and post our AOC-inspired shareables to your social media.
Some Details!
We’ve pulled out some highlights from the City’s report on their work. You can read the full report here and see all the appendices here.
A Commitment to Eliminating Intersectional Gender Inequities
The Gender Equity Strategy and Gender Equality Office would help address intersectional gender equity in key areas such as housing, shelter, governance, transit planning, recreation, urban planning, youth, violence against women, affordable child care, and budgeting. They would also solicit public input from diverse women, girls, trans and non-binary Torontonians to inform priorities, outcomes, and the establishment of an ongoing advisory committee.
Download and post our AOC-inspired shareables below!
Gender Inequity in Toronto
Women, girls, trans and non-binary individuals make up more than 52% of Toronto’s population and yet, face disproportionately higher rates of violence and poverty, and are underrepresented in political and professional leadership positions.
An intersectional approach to gender inequity, recognizes the inseperability of various identities (e.g. race, gender, class, ethnicity, disability and sexuality) and that women with intersecting identities often experience compounded discrimination and more complex challenges in accessing programs, jobs, and services.
The City of Toronto’s report details gender inequities in Toronto including:
Violence, harassment, and discrimination experienced by trans people is at a much higher rate than cisgender people
Women working in the City of Toronto currently earn just over 78 cents, on average, for every dollar a man makes and in Ontario, racialized women earn only 85 cents for every dollar non-racialized women earn
Women occupy only 31% of available positions on Toronto City Council
Toronto women held only 35.3% of management positions in 2017
In 2016, one in five Toronto women (20%) lived with low income
The gender wage gap disproportionately affects women who are Black, Indigenous, or racialized
Toronto has the most expensive child care in Canada and 75% of families cannot afford regulated child care, which has a major economic and social impact for women who carry out the majority of child care responsibilities
Toronto’s women’s shelters are consistently at or above 99% capacity
See more stats on gender inequality in Toronto here.
Cities Around the World
Cities around the world have embedded a gender-based analysis into local municipal service planning and programs. Vienna, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and Edmonton have all developed structures to address gender inequities in their cities. It’s time Toronto joined them with a made-in-Toronto approach to building a more equal city.
Find out more about what other cities are doing here.