Welcome to our Website

Welcome to Women's Network PEI. You'll find lots of information on our site about our current projects, Trade HERizons and Girls Unlimited. You can also find information about our referral service, past projects, fundraisers, board and staff as well.

Visitor's Notice

To find out more about Trade HERizons please click on the Trade HERizons tab on the menu above, or click on the links below if you...

• are an interested woman wanting to explore a career in trades or technology
• are an employer who wants to support women in trades and technology 
• want to be a mentor to women in trades and technology
• want to make a referral to Trade HERizons

Understanding and Addressing the Challenges of Developing Healthy Masculinity

What are PEI boys and men saying about what it means to be a man? Women’s Network PEI released research findings at a conference on Thursday, February 16. What About the Boys? Understanding and Addressing the Challenges of Developing Healthy Masculinity is a project designed to understand the needs and challenges PEI boys face in order to create a community response to build respectful, healthy boys who will be less likely to become involved in violent relationships with girls and women.

Women’s Network gathered information from 20 men and 20 boys from across the Island about how PEI boys define masculinity; the effects media and mainstream society has on those definitions; and opportunities communities are providing young men for positive role modeling and programming.

“The stereotypes about masculinity that exist on PEI are similar to what you would see in mainstream society everywhere”, says Pam Atkinson, the project’s coordinator. “The men and boys I interviewed overwhelmingly told me they felt they were not supposed to show emotions other than anger and they are tired of being emotionally constrained.  They wish to shed the idea that to be considered masculine they need to be tough, competitive, dominant and uncaring.”

The consultations also found that boys and men would like to be able to show a more nurturing side and not fear showing a range of emotions but are afraid to expose their true selves in public.

Says Atkinson, “ ‘gay-baiting’ is the common practice of using words like ‘gay’ or “queer” as a derogative name if boys do not fit the common stereotype and from our conversations with PEI boys, being gay is just about the worst thing you can call a heterosexual male.  We also heard that parents/caregivers have typically had a difficult time knowing how to support a child on PEI who is not interested in stereotypical male activities or is homosexual/transsexual because there are not many role models for boys outside of competitive sports.”

“We chose to release our findings during Family Violence Prevention Week, to highlight the connection between violence against women and girls and the rigid view of masculinity as one of being in control and unemotional”, says Michelle MacCallum, Executive Director of Women’s Network. “In order to eliminate violence we must help boys and girls learn healthy ways of expressing themselves.”

The conference also included a presentation from Dr. Bill Patrick, researcher and member of the New Brunswick Gender Justice Collaborative and Lorraine Whalley, Executive Director of the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Center. The “Man-to-Man” toolkit they developed explores male gender socialization and sexism and has proven useful in involving men in anti-violence work.

Building on the input from conference participants, Women’s Network will use their research to create programming that addresses key health and social issues specifically for boys, including self-esteem, emotional literacy, positive male identity, healthy living, media literacy and healthy relationships.

Read full report: Understanding and Addressing the Challenges of Developing Healthy Masculinity

For further information, please contact: Pam Atkinson or Michelle MacCallum at Women's Network PEI

Trade HERizons graduates achieve success at Holland College during 2010-2011 academic year

Congratulations to our 2010 Trade HERizons participants on completing a successful year in their respective programs at Holland College.

Front row (kneeling left to right): Shasta Brennan graduated from the Carpentry program and is employed with a local construction company; Sarah Nuesch finished her first year of the Welding Fabrication program and is working with a local welding business. Back row (left to right): Lynn Bradley graduated from the Correctional Officer program; Kim Arsenault upgraded in the Adult Education program, has been accepted to the Bioscience Technology program and is working with a local bioscience company; Wanda Ellsworth completed her first year of the Computer Information Systems (CIS) program and is working with the college’s Computer Services Department this summer.

Videos - Women and Employers in Trades

Click on the links below to see videos of women working in the trades and what trades employers say about women in the trades.

• Welder - Kristy Doyle
• Power Engineer - Liz Clements
• Machinist - Marianne Folland
• Apprentice Carpenter - Shasta Brennan-Squires
• Women in Trades - All four women and employers featured in our videos

Looking for Research Interviewees

A PhD student with the Faculty of Health Science, School of Nursing at Dalhousie University is doing research that looks at women with children becoming lesbian headed step‐families. If you are interested in being interviewed for this research, please contact: Tracey Rickards by calling collect at (506) 471‐6401, or by email: srickar1@unb.ca. For more info, please see this research project's  llletter of Introducation-Information (134,5 kB).