The Women’s Education and Research Foundation (WERF) is a registered charitable organization that supports feminist projects in education and research that improve the status of women and girls in Canada. All donations to WERF receive a charitable receipt for tax purposes. We welcome donations, legacies, partnerships, and ideas for future projects that focus on improving the health, wellbeing, and equality of women in Canada.

Current Activities

The Directors of WERF are Lorraine Greaves, Diana Majury, and Nancy Poole. WERF is actively seeking donors and project ideas in the areas of women’s health and women’s equality. To learn more, to donate, or to suggest project ideas, please contact: Lorraine Greaves via email at bccewh@gmail.com

WERF Projects

WERF was founded in 1982 by four feminists from London, Ontario (Constance Backhouse, Lorraine Greaves, Gail Hutchinson, Diana Majury) to acquire funds and administer feminist projects, and has since supported, seeded, or funded over 15 projects such as:

  • The Battered Women’s Advocacy Clinic (now the London Abused Women’s Centre) to offer advocacy services for survivors of violence, established in 1983
  • Support for the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) in 1984
  • London Women’s Monument to memorialize the deaths of women engineering students at l’Ecole Polytechnique built in Victoria Park, London ON in 1994
  • The Miss G___ Project to introduce women’s studies into high schools in Ontario, 2007
  • The Feminist History Society Project, creating 17 books managed and edited by Beth Acheson, Constance Backhouse, Lorraine Greaves and Diana Majury, and published by Margie Wolfe at Second Story Press, 2012-2022.

The Feminist History Society (FHS) was a 10 year project that created a lasting written record of the women’s movement in Canada and Quebec of the period between 1960 and 2010. The FHS objective was to celebrate 50 years of feminist activity and accomplishments by creating a written legacy for communities, students and future scholars.  Between 2012-2022 FHS supported a range of authors on a wide variety of topics, all celebrating feminist actions in Canada. FHS developed, edited and managed 17 books under the auspices of WERF.

Through the FHS, and with the generous donations of many Canadians, notably former Senator Nancy Ruth, and the late Shirley Greenberg, WERF launched 17 books under the Feminist History Society imprint, many of which were published by Second Story Press.  They include:

1. Feminist Journeys Voies feministes (2010)

Edited by Marguerite Andersen

 The first in the feminist history series, this is a collection of short stories from feminists across Canada and Quebec, describing how they came to feminism. The texts offer a kaleidoscopic picture of how a wave of feminism came to fruition between 1960 to 2010.
2. Writing the Revolution (2011)

Michelle Landsberg

 A groundbreaking feminist newspaper columnist, Michelle wrote with wit, passion, and incisive analysis for 25 years in more than 3000 columns and feature articles, using her platform to advocate fearlessly on behalf of women and children, peace and pluralism, human rights, and social justice.
3. Feminism a la Quebequoise (2012)

Micheline Dumont
Translated by Nicole Kennedy and edited by Sarah Swartz

 This volume is a translation of Le féminisme québécois raconté à Camille, published in 2008. Historian Micheline Dumont recounts the story of Québec feminism beginning in 1893 and follows Québec feminists through protracted struggles for suffrage and other legal change, through the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, and into the upsurge of the feminist movement that took Québec by storm in the ensuing decades.
4. Playing it Forward: 50 years of women and sport in Canada (2013)

Edited by Guylaine Demers, Lorraine Greaves, Sandra Kirby, Marion Lay

 Over the past 50 years, the struggles to achieve equity in sport have become central to the feminist mission. This book contains an inspiring collection of stories from the women on the front lines: athletes, coaches, educators, and activists for women’s sport, who have done so much to foster change.
5. Queen of the Hurricanes: The fearless Elsie McGill (2014)

Crystal Sissons

 Engineer. Women’s rights activist. Airplane designer. Elsie’s twin passions for aeronautical engineering and feminism drove her throughout her life. She was the first woman to graduate in engineering from the University of Toronto and to later earn a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering.
6. Resilience and Triumph: Immigrant Women tell their stories (2015)

Edited and compiled by the Book Project Collective: Rashmi Luther, Vanaja Dhruvarajan, Ikram Ahmed Jama, Yumi Kotani, Monia Mazigh, Peruvemba S. Jaya, and Lucya Spencer

 A fascinating collection of personal stories from 54 racialized immigrant women who have made Canada their home. Faced with adversity, isolation, marginalization, patriarchy, and racism, the women outline their struggles, display their courage, and reveal the strength, inspiration, and resourcefulness that have helped them claim their place and make meaningful contributions to the nation.
7. Marion Dewar: A life of action (2016)

Deborah Gorham

 A beloved mayor and later a Member of Parliament, Dewar worked tirelessly to bring about non-profit housing, better public transportation, support and encouragement for the arts, for peace, and for women’s rights. She also advocated for visible minorities, gays and lesbians, and refugees.
8. Fairly Equal: Lawyering the Feminist Revolution (2017)

Linda Silver Dranoff

 Brings to life the struggles around family law, pay and employment equity, violence against women, abortion rights, childcare, pension rights, political engagement, public policy, and access to legal justice. Knowing what this generation of women lawyers and activists achieved, and how easily it can be taken away, we are encouraged to ensure the many hard-won gains of the feminist movement are maintained and expanded for the women who follow.
9. Personal and Political: Stories from the Women’s Health Movement 1960-2010 (2018)

Edited by Lorraine Greaves

 Details the innovative, courageous and creative activism of the “second wave” women’s health movement in Canada between 1960 and 2010. This activism (re)claimed women’s bodies, created women-centred spaces and services and challenged the medical model.
10. White Gloves Off: The work of the Ontario Committee on the Status of Women (2018)

Edited by Beth Atcheson and Lorna Marsden

 Members of this committed volunteer organization tell the stories of how they came together, how they organized and lobbied for change, how they collaborated with other groups, how the issues changed, and what the work means for women in Ontario today.
11. Inside Broadside: A Decade of Feminist Journalism (2019)

Edited By Philinda Masters with the Broadside Collective

 Broadside: A Feminist Review was a groundbreaking Canadian feminist newspaper published between 1979 and 1989. Broadside helped reinvent journalism to make room for a feminist voice.
12. Two Firsts: Bertha Wilson and Claire L’Heureux-Dubé at the Supreme Court of Canada (2019)

Constance Backhouse

 Explores the sexist roadblocks these two Supreme Court judges faced in education, law practice, and on the courts. And profiles their different ways of coping, their landmark decisions for women’s rights, and their less stellar records on race.
13. Our 100 Years: The Canadian Federation of University Women (2020)

Dianne Dodd

 A lively exploration of a unique organization founded by early women leaders in higher education who offered friendship, community engagement, and lifelong learning.
14. The Abortion Caravan: When women shut down government in the battle for the right to choose (2020)

Karin Wells

 The story of a group of women who pulled off a national campaign for abortion reform that brought women together across the country.
15. Because they Were Women: The Montreal Massacre (2020)

Josee Boileau

 Fourteen young women, murdered because they were women, are memorialized in this definitive account of a tragic day that forced a reckoning with violence against women in our culture.
16. The Unconventional Nancy Ruth (2021)

Ramona Lupkin

 Like Nancy herself, this book is rich in surprises and contradictions about a remarkable woman who used her privilege to support social change and the battle to better women’s lives in Canada.
17. No Second Chances, Women and Political Power in Canada (2020)

Kate Graham

 No Second Chances shares the stories of the rise and fall of women in Canada’s most senior political roles and examines the obstacles that prevent more women from reaching for and achieving these goals.