BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is from Aurelia Stec regarding International Women's Day.
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To be a woman in Barrie is to be loved; this I can say with absolute certainty and I am not alone. This is not flattery or some misplaced loyalty, but a reflection of lived experience. This truth is realized by the deliberate efforts and dedication on part of a public and its leaders to promote women, to press for equality and to embrace diversity.
Life cannot be measured according to lists and inventories. There are those who will analyze statistics and tell you that you should be disappointed and that the City of Barrie has done irreversible harm to the status of women. They choose to emphasize failures rather than point to the progress that comes from falter. Have we made mistakes? More importantly, have we learned from them?
The collective experiences that make up our culture are far more nuanced than infographics that paint bleak portraits of womankind. We are inextricably linked to the communities that keep us, for it is here that we find the security to live and build, to dream and manifest our hopes. As we celebrate women in 2021 on International Women’s Day, I want to say thank you to the home where I choose to live and where I am raising my family.
Younger generations have a debt to pay to their predecessors, to the women who chose to be trail blazers, to the women right here in Barrie who populate seats of council and executive branches of our city and businesses, to our mothers and daughters. In a year when we are called by the international community to “choose to challenge," we pause to consider examples that have dared us to explore and inspire us to lead change through participation in non-traditional fields.
Do you know the name Lorraine Joseph? If we fail to take this opportunity to shout her name, then we are robbing our girls of a hero. If we do not take the time to acknowledge our heroes then we are destined to argue over policy and trip over protocol rather than see the face of progress. A true protagonist and champion of women’s rights, Lorraine, a Guyanese woman, emigrated to Barrie in the 1980s.
By her own initiative, she forged a path that defied prescribed female roles, building and selling two successful commercial businesses while balancing her responsibilities as a single mother of two boys. She was one of the first woman of colour to become a mortgage broker in Ontario and a founder of the Independent Mortgage Brokers Association. Until her retirement, she was the president of Anthem Mortgage Group, seating many of us in our homes whilst building a legacy she leaves to her sons.
Reminiscing upon her efforts, Lorraine credits her success to the widespread community support she received during her life in Barrie. It was important for her to give back to the community by volunteering at the Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie.
Her story is remarkable. Unremarkable are the preoccupations of those who would drag our community into the grips of gossip and disparagement. We are a city whose economy has depended on predominantly male industry, but we are not stagnant and it is unfair to denounce Barrie as a bad place for women. That is nothing more than a badge bestowed by the ignorance of those who would have us disregard the momentum that is putting women in the driver’s seat.
There has been a lot going on at city hall. In a city of more than 150,000 people, there will be conflict. Should we be critical of outdated procedures that fail to meet our expectations on the forward trajectory of change? Indeed, this is our responsibility, but it cannot be a campaign to break the people and spirit of a community. When we set our minds to vengeance, we lose the best of humanity and the very qualities we should be aspiring to and celebrating in the people who make us whole.
We should not measure ourselves by lists but rather by people.
To this effect, I would invite you to celebrate International Women’s day by celebrating a community who has positioned women in seats of power. Not the kind of power that subdues, but one that elevates and encourages us toward our potential. We can be proud that at Barrie City Hall, the vast majority of the city's executive management team are women. The chief of police is a woman. The deputy chief of fire and emergency service is a woman. The president and CEO of Georgian College is a woman. The president and CEO of Royal Victoria Hospital is a woman. The executive director of the MacLaren Art Centre is a woman. I could go on.
On International Women’s Day, I love Barrie.
Aurelia Stec
Barrie
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