In developing criteria for reviewing the resources on this site we drew from two bodies of theory; Cultural Relational Theory and Intersectional Analysis. This PowerPoint presentation outlines the principles of each and explains how they relate to our

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In developing criteria for reviewing the
resources on this site we drew from two bodies of
theory Cultural Relational Theory and
Intersectional Analysis. This PowerPoint
presentation outlines the principles of each and
explains how they relate to our work of promoting
healthy equal relationships.
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Promoting Healthy Equal Relationships

• A Relational Approach

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Our Theoretical FrameworkRelational-Cultural
Theory

• Relational-Cultural Theory, (RCT) emerges from
  the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI)
  at the Stone Centre, one of the partners in the
  Wellesley Centres for Women at Wellesley College
  in Boston.
• The theory has been developed by a group of
  feminist psychologists who began meeting in 1978,
  shortly after the publication of Jean Baker
  Millers groundbreaking book, Toward a New
  Psychology of Women.

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A Gendered Understanding of Human Psychology

• Relational-Cultural Theory incorporates an
  understanding of gender in the study of human
  psychology.
• Nurturing and care giving are gendered
  responsibilities in our society.
• Nurturing and care giving are relationship
  building skills.

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Relationships, Respect and Cooperation

• Traditional psychology sees growth as a process
  of separation and individuation.
• This leads to an ethic of competition and a
  division of the world into us and them.

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Relationships, Respect and Cooperation

• Relational-Cultural Theory sees growth occurring
  as we work through and towards connection (not
  toward separation).
• Understanding relationships as growth fostering
  leads us to an ethic of respect and cooperation.

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From Gender Differences to Gender Discrimination

• We socialize males and females differently
• We expect females to be submissive, emotional,
  sensitive and to care for others
• We expect males to be dominant, aggressive and
  achievement oriented

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From Gender Differences to Gender Discrimination

• We have devalued the relationship building and
  sustaining roles females are expected to assume.
• We have devalued girls and women themselves,
  often viewing and treating them as less than
  males.

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The Critical Role of Relationships In Our Lives

• Although the work of building and sustaining
  relationships has been devalued, it is critical
  to the functioning of all aspects of life
• in the home
• in the community
• at school
• in the workplace

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Being Authentic in Relationships

• In a healthy, equal relationship we stay
  connected to our own experience.
• We do not shape ourselves to fit a particular
  situation or to fit someone elses needs.
• We must bring our personal experience into our
  relationships with others and at the same time we
  must be aware of our impact on others.

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Responding and Growing in Relationships

• Mutual empathy allows us to respectfully respond
  to others experience and to acknowledge others
  impact on us.
• Mutual empathy is at the core of healthy equal
  relationships and growth.
• Mutual empathy is a quality that males and
  females need in order to build and sustain
  healthy equal relationships.

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All Relationships Face Challenges

• Disconnections are endemic to human
  relationships they happen all the time.
• Repairing disconnections can be a place of great
  growth, if empathy and responsiveness are at
  work.
• This theme emerges through conflict resolution
  strategies in anti-violence resources.
• The impact of gendered experience must be
  acknowledged in conflict resolution strategies.

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The Characteristics of Healthy Equal
Relationships

• Growth-fostering relationships are characterized
  by The Five Good Things
• zest
• clarity
• productivity
• enhanced feelings of worth
• a desire for more connection

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The Characteristics of Healthy Equal
Relationships

• We want to assess the degree to which
  anti-violence resources promote the five
  qualities characteristic of growth fostering
  relationships.
• We believe these are the characteristics of
  healthy, equal relationships.

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The Complexity of Girls and Boys Lives

• Initially at CREVAWC we were concerned primarily
  with how gender shapes experiences.
• Through listening to girls in our research we
  quickly learned that there is not an essential
  girl.
• Neither is there an essential boy that
  represents the experiences of all boys.

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The Complexity of Girls and Boys Lives

• Girls and boys have many different social
  identities and these identities shape experiences
  in a multitude of ways.
• We needed an analytical framework that could
  capture this complexity.

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Relational Cultural Theory Incorporates
Principles of Intersectionality

• An intersectional analysis recognizes that all
  relationships are shaped and informed by a
  socio-political context that either promotes
  well-being or undermines it.
• When differences are stratified (or ranked),
  people are injured by these stratifications or
  rankings.

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The Interplay Between Societal and Interpersonal
Relationships

• Experiences of being the other lead to chronic
  disconnections at a societal level.
• These disconnections are destructive to the
  individual and the community.

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Applying an Intersectional Analysis

• An intersectional analysis requires an
  understanding of the concepts
• Intersections
• Violence
• Power

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What is an Intersection?

• Intersections can be conceptual spaces or
  physical spaces.
• They are the socio-political, ideological,
  cultural, and intellectual spaces where
  marginalized people create communities.

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What is an Intersection?

• Members of the dominant group(s) occupy the
  center of our society. They are the invisible
  norm.
• Intersections are the symbolic and sometimes
  actual physical spaces that marginalized people
  occupy in relation to the norm.
• Intersections are characterized by structures of
  domination.

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How Are Intersections Created?

• The dominant culture has the power to define one
  group as better than the other.
• One way we frequently do this is through
  presenting images that form our impressions of
  whole groups of people. Patricia Hill Collins has
  called these, Controlling Images. They are also
  stereotypes.

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How Are Intersections Created?

• The world as we know it divides people based on
  the notion that some are better than and some
  are less than. Some of us are deserving of
  privileges and opportunities, others less so.
• We are a world divided into camps of us and
  them.

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How Are Intersections Created?

• Who becomes other is determined by values that
  define social norms and organize us into social
  hierarchies.
• Aspects of social identity such as gender, race,
  sexual orientation, ability, religious
  affiliation, citizenship status or class, become
  tools for identifying difference and for
  determining worth.

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How Are Intersections Created?

• Western patriarchal values place the white,
  able-bodied, not yet elderly, affluent male at
  the centre of society, granting him greater
  access to power and privilege.
• At the same time as this invisible social
  hierarchy creates norms and greatly influences
  the flow of power, it remains invisible to most.

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Understanding Violence

• In the Violence against Women movement we have
  often defined violence as having power and
  control over someone. We have not however,
  consistently described the dynamics that lead to
  one person having control over another.
• Control is gained through a process of using
  differences to make some people into the other
  and then devaluing that other.

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Understanding Power

• To understand how violence operates, we also have
  to understand power.
• Power is simply, the ability to act.
• We have a choice about how we use the power we
  have.

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Understanding Power

• We can use it to dominate and control others.
• This is often referred to as power over. It is
  a use of power that perpetrates violence.
• We can also use the power we have to seek harmony
  and balance in our relationships. This is often
  referred to as power with.
• It is a use of power that fosters growth and
  development in ourselves and in others.

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Understanding Violence

• This hierarchal ordering of humankind, this
  normalization and acceptance of dominance is
  structural violence.
• Structural violence is manifested in many ways
  including the extremes of wealth and poverty that
  characterize our society, the disproportionate
  number of Aboriginal people in our prison
  systems, the wage gap between men and women and
  other social inequities.

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What Is an Intersectional Analysis?

• An intersectional analysis looks at how
  difference and otherness is constructed in every
  domain.
• It recognizes and takes into account the multiple
  and interconnecting impacts of policies and
  practices on different groups because of their
  gender, race, class, ability, sexuality,
  religion, culture, refugee or immigrant status,
  or other status.

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What Is an Intersectional Analysis?

• An intersectional analysis moves away from only
  examining identity to look at the structural
  impact of an individuals experience.
• An intersectional analysis does not focus on
  individual personality traits or attributes.
• An intersectional analysis does focus on the
  opportunities or lack of opportunities for an
  individual.

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What Is an Intersectional Analysis?

• Each individual belongs to many groups and
  communities. This framework recognizes that our
  life experiences occur in multiple and
  compounding spheres.
• The intersection is different from the concept of
  layered oppressions because it offers the
  potential for those is marginalized groups to
  simultaneously experience privilege and
  oppression, depending on the context.

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What Is an Intersectional Analysis?

• Although we may lack privilege and be
  disadvantaged in some circumstances and contexts,
  we are not always victims
• In different circumstances or contexts, we can
  find ourselves in a position of relative power
  and we have the potential to oppress others with
  this power
• In one space, an aspect of our identity may be an
  advantage and in another space it may become a
  disadvantage

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What Is an Intersectional Analysis?

• An intersectional analysis acknowledges the
  central role of relationships in creating and
  structuring our world.
• The need to pay close attention to relational
  dynamics led us to merge ideas from
  Relational-Cultural Theory in our intersectional
  analysis.

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One womans Structurally Defined Disadvantages
Working class background
Structural Disadvantages or Intersections
Contract worker
Single mother
Gender
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The Same Womans Structural Advantages or Access
to Power
White
Christian Heritage
English speaker
Building Blocks of Power
Born in Canada
Access to formal education
Temporarily abled (No DisAbility)
No conflict with the law
Employment at a University
Not living on a fixed income
Access to information
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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• Although the margins can be oppressive spaces,
  they also have the potential to liberate.
• Intersections, or the margins may be chosen
  spaces that can provide strength and valuable
  insight for understanding and critiquing dominant
  societal values and oppressive social norms.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• Oppressive beliefs and behaviours can be
  intentional or unintentional.
• Developing a critical awareness of our values and
  naming what is valued and privileged by the
  society we live in is the first step to
  dismantling attitudes and behaviors that oppress
  others.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• Its important to remember that social norms are
  not static.
• Dominant social norms can and do change, even if
  progress is slow.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• We do not want to use an intersectional analysis
  to assign a permanent victim status to some
  groups and individuals.
• We want to demonstrate how power flows, but keep
  open and encourage the possibility of change.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• Girls and boys, young women and young men need
  safe spaces to grow and learn about themselves
  and each other.
• We can work to create spaces where differences
  are not viewed as deficits, but rather respected
  and explored with mutual interest.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• In these spaces, girls and boys can begin to
  understand and appreciate their unique
  identities, their unique challenges and their
  unique strengths.
• They can learn to question the social norms that
  shape their existence and they can learn how to
  negotiate and navigate the power imbalances they
  face.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• Girls and boys can learn that mutual cooperation
  and an openness to the other is a more enriching
  and rewarding experience than being isolated and
  separated through a drive to be better than
  others.
• These are spaces where girls and boys can grow
  emotionally and intellectually through exchanges
  with others who are different from them.

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Using an Intersectional Analysis to Foster
Resistance and Resiliency

• In these safe spaces boys and girls can learn and
  practice empathy.
• This will help them to build and sustain healthy
  equal relationships.