{"id":23773,"date":"2019-05-09T19:07:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23773"},"modified":"2019-05-09T19:07:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T23:07:27","slug":"the-fight-isnt-over-says-activist-judy-rebick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/the-fight-isnt-over-says-activist-judy-rebick\/","title":{"rendered":"The fight isn\u2019t over, says activist Judy Rebick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\nBrock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judy Rebick used to hear a lot of young\nwomen distance themselves from the cause, saying, \u2018I\u2019m not a feminist,\u201d but,\nover the last five years, the tide seems to be turning \u2013 for better or worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More young women \u2013 and indeed young men \u2013\nare standing up as proud feminists, but conversely, Ms. Rebick said some of the\nfights she and her generation won might now have to be refought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The iconic Canadian activist, who became a\nsymbol for the pro-choice movement in the 1980s and has dedicated herself to\ngender and racial equality for the better part of four decades, was at the\nAurora Public Library last week to speak with this writer about her new book,\nHeroes in My Head, which charts her journey through abuse, trauma and\ndissociative identity disorder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Rebick told the audience that the\ntraumas she experienced as a child helped her to be fearless in her activism as\nwell as compassionate to individuals who might be marginalized. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI teach a class at Ryerson called\nMovements that Change the World,\u201d said Ms. Rebick. \u201cWhen I tell [students] that\nabortion was completely illegal until 1969 and mostly illegal until 1988, they\ncan\u2019t believe it. The comment I get from young women is always that they had no\nidea we had to fight so hard for the changes that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the fight, she says, is far from over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked how activists and, indeed, the\npublic at large, can combat instances of racism and intolerance around the\nworld, Ms. Rebick said the way to do it is \u201cby standing up to it on every\nlevel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certain political movements, she said, run\nthe risk of \u201cdestroying the world that we\u2019ve built, the country that we\u2019ve\nbuilt,\u201d and it\u2019s time to put a stop to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe most important thing we can do is\nstand up and work with those people who are being assaulted,\u201d she said. \u201cIn\nCanada, I think we\u2019re doing a pretty good job of that at the community level in\nsolidarity with the communities that have\nbeen assaulted. I think in the States, it is a lot scarier because of the gun\nculture and it is much more advanced.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another threat, she\nsaid, were changes to Ontario\u2019s health care system and funding cuts to bodies\nlike public libraries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are people\norganizing and there are demonstrations at Queen\u2019s Park practically every day\nnow,\u201d she said, noting that one of the most \u201ctragic\u201d cuts has been towards safe\ninjection sites, which will put many \u201cmarginalized\u201d people in peril. \u201cWe\u2019re in\na very precarious time and the left is weak. The movements, however, are\norganizing and I think that is good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People know a big change\nis needed and we have to decide what kind of society we want, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEither we\u2019re going\nto have a big change where the rich get richer and everyone else just fights it\nout on the streets \u2013 and I have no doubt in the United States that\u2019s where it\u2019s\ngoing \u2013 or we want a society where we take care of people and take care of each\nother,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I like the Green New Deal or the Leap Manifesto\nbecause it links the environmental, the social, talks about caring work as\nGreen work; to start talking about libraries and nursing as jobs that bring\nvalue to the society, that they\u2019re green jobs, they\u2019re caring jobs, they\u2019re\nhelping people. To put more value on that and to not accept their frame that\neverything is about money and success and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think my generation is the most privileged\ngeneration. Our parents lived through terrible discrimination, terrible abuse,\nstate discrimination and every generation before suffered terrible violence and\nlack of resources and everything else. Our generation was the lucky one and now\nI think it is our responsibility to stand up and make sure the generations to\ncome have a decent life \u2013 and it\u2019s not all about money and success.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judy Rebick used to hear a lot of young women distance themselves from the cause, saying, \u2018I\u2019m not a feminist,\u201d but, over the last five years, the tide seems to be turning \u2013 for better or worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6br","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 12:54:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}