How it all Started
Photo of Nicole boarding a Winnipeg Transit bus. Photographed by Bethany Daman.
Hi, I’m Nicole, half of the Women in Urbanism Canada team. The journey to publishing our first blog post was a long one, with many years passing between learning about urban gender inequalities, coming up with the idea for the organization, and finally launching.
This is the story of how it all started.
In the fall of 2017, I began a new position with an environmental non-profit, working in the field of sustainable transportation. Having grown up in rural Ontario, I had a whole lot to learn about cities and how people moved around them.
As I began connecting with colleagues, I learned that many of them referred to themselves as “urbanists”. I asked my new friend Mel, “what is an urbanist?”. She described it as “someone who loves cities and is working to make them better”. The next day, “urbanist” was added to my Twitter bio and I began connecting with many fellow urbanists on the platform.
Some time after, I picked up the book “Change of Plans: Towards a Non-Sexist Sustainable City”, edited by Margrit Eichler from the library. Written in 1995, the book shed light on the history of urban planning, the unique needs of women in cities, and how inequalities have been built into our environments.
I had considered myself a feminist for years, but this felt different. This felt like a new kind of awakening, where I was able to connect my lived experiences with what I was reading.
I thought about the many times I’d been scared while out alone at night.
I thought about the sexual things that men had yelled at me while walking.
I thought about the times I had been followed home.
Like many women, unfortunately, I had a lot to think about. I had years of experience navigating Canadian cities that were not built with me in mind, and even more years navigating everyday sexism. It was absolutely evident to me that a feminist lens was needed in the fields of urban planning, transportation, placemaking, and many more aspects of city life.
It was then that I came upon Women in Urbanism Aotearoa, based in New Zealand, that I learned this work was already being done by women-led organizations. The name “Women in Urbanism” stuck with me for weeks.
Then, on a snowy December evening in Winnipeg, when I was walking - rather, trudging through the snow - along a hostile urban highway, an unlit multi-use path, and a quiet residential neighbourhood, I thought that maybe I could do something similar in Canada.
I felt that there was a clear gap within the urbanist discourse in Canada, a country that brands itself as being progressive on gender equality, but the built environment found in cities from coast to coast tells a different story.
So, in late 2018, I created a Twitter account for Women in Urbanism Canada to get things started. For a while, I retweeted some things here and there, but I wasn’t ready to share the project with anyone until it was better established.
In the summer of 2020, I thought I finally had the time to really make a go of it. I purchased the domain name for www.womeninurbanism.ca and got started on designing the website. By the time my 30 day trial on SquareSpace had run out, I was leaving my job to pursue grad school and could not afford to get the website up and running. The project took a backseat once again.
Finally, in the fall of 2021, I teamed up with Sharee Hochman, a Winnipeg-based urbanist, who had the energy and enthusiasm I needed to get this project off the ground.
So, if you’re reading this right now on www.womeninurbanism.ca, it means that my dream - that came to me on a snowy walk in December - is finally a reality.
We are so glad that you are here.
We are a women-led community working to transform Canadian cities into more equitable, enjoyable, and sustainable places for everyone. You can learn more about us on our “About Us” page.
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