York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, and over 325,000 alumni worldwide. It has eleven faculties, including the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Faculty of Science, Lassonde School of Engineering, Schulich School of Business, Osgoode Hall Law School, Glendon College, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Health, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, Faculty of Graduate Studies, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, and 28 research centres.
The Mothers Matter Centre
The Mothers Matter Canada (MMC) is a Canadian not-for-profit organization that develops and oversees the implementation of innovative, evidence-based programming for economically vulnerable and socially isolated mothers and their children using its proven peer-to-peer approach. The MMC programs are delivered in local communities through a robust network of non-profit, social service agencies and associations, including settlement and Indigenous Social Purpose Organizations (SPOs) and First Nations communities. The MMC raises core funds, and leads the research, development, coordination, and capacity building for all its licensed programs while ensuring the highest level of program quality through applying rigorous performance measures and documentation.
Demeter Press
Demeter Press is named in honour of the Goddess Demeter, herstory’s most celebrated empowered and outraged mother. Demeter is an independent feminist press committed to publishing peer-reviewed scholarly work, fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction on mothering, reproduction, sexuality and family. Demeter is partnered with Journal of the Motherhood Initiative and sistered with IAMAS - International Association of Maternal Action and Scholarship.
Demeter was the Greek goddess of agriculture and fertility who unleashed her power when her beloved daughter Persephone was abducted and taken to the underworld by the god Hades. Overcome with rage and grief, Demeter withheld the coming of Spring leaving the chief god Zeus, who was now faced with the plight of the earth’s barrenness, with no choice but to demand that Hades return Persephone to her mother. In her classic book Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich interprets the Demeter/Persephone story as a compelling representation of every daughter’s “longing for a mother whose love for her and whose power were so great as to undo rape and bring her back from death,” signifying “every mother’s longing for the power of Demeter and the efficacy of her anger.” In patriarchal culture, where there are so few examples of empowered mothering, in both life and literature, Demeter’s triumphant resistance serves as a model for the possibility—and power—of empowered mothering.
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