08/26/2026
Women’s Equality Day is August 26th.
Women's Equality Day is an opportunity to recognize the progress that has been made toward gender equality while acknowledging that true equality cannot exist while sexual violence continues to disproportionately impact women and girls.
Every person deserves to live free from violence, have their boundaries respected, and feel safe in their homes, workplaces, schools, and communities. By supporting survivors, promoting consent, challenging harmful attitudes, and advocating for systemic change, we move closer to a future where equality is not only a right- but a lived reality for everyone.
Equality means more than equal rights- it means creating communities where everyone can live free from violence, discrimination, and fear. At Aurora, we stand with those impacted by inequality and sexual violence by providing compassionate, trauma-informed support while working to prevent violence before it happens.
Women who have made an impact:
🟠 June Callwood – One of the earliest prominent public figures to speak openly about violence against women, including sexual assault, and to advocate for services for survivors. She co-founded shelters and crisis services in the 1970s and helped bring public attention to these issues.
🟠 Lee Lakeman – A founding member of the Vancouver R**e Relief & Women's Shelter and a leading voice in Canada's anti-r**e movement beginning in the 1970s. She was instrumental in advocating for survivor-centred responses and legal reform. Her work focused on supporting survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, developing r**e crisis services, advocating legal reforms, and organizing public education campaigns about male violence against women.
🟠 Rinelle Harper – After surviving a violent assault in 2014, she became a nationally recognized advocate for survivors of violence and for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
Lee Lakeman also helped establish one of Canada's early women's emergency shelters in Woodstock, Ontario, during the 1970s before moving to Vancouver, where she became a long-serving collective member of Vancouver R**e Relief & Women's Shelter.
'sEqualityDay
