The Rock Where We Stand: An Ethnography of Women's Activism in Newfoundland

Melvin Baker is an archivist and historian at Memorial University of
Newfoundland, and the co-editor of Dictionary of Newfoundland and
Labrador Biography.

A challenge at the best of times, making a living in Newfoundland became
even more difficult when the federal government imposed the cod
moratorium in 1992. The moratorium coincided with significant cutbacks
in social and public health services that provincial and federal
governments introduced to control their spiraling debts. It is against
this background that the author examines the policies and activities of
a women’s council (formed in 1985) in Stephenville, located on the
Port au Port Peninsula on Newfoundland’s west coast.

Led by several effective leaders, this council established a strong
voice with members active in community and provincial leadership and
development. George shows how in the early 1990s the council articulated
concerns expressed by local women about sexual abuse, violence toward
women and children, reproductive rights and choices, and took on
government bureaucracy in defending their rights in the areas of
education, justice, health, and social welfare. In addition to situating
the council’s origins and development within the history of the
region, George skilfully examines the relations between various ethnic
groups on

the peninsula. The Rock Where We Stand captures well the social and
economic changes in the province in the late 1980s and early 1990s.