Ableism: The systematic oppression of a group of individuals because of what they can or cannot do with their minds and bodies.

Ageism: Discrimination against people on the grounds of age.

Ally: An ally is a member of the dominant group who acts against oppression out of a belief that eliminating oppression will benefit the targets of oppression and dominant group members.

Anti-Racism: A process that acknowledges the existence of systemic racism and, through policies and practices, seeks to actively identify, challenge and reduce systemic racism in all its various forms.

Anti-Semitism: The systematic discrimination against Jewish people, Jews, Judaism and the cultural, intellectual and religious heritage of Jewish people.

Assimilation: A process by which a person or group totally adopts (or is absorbed by) the culture, values and patterns of another linguistic, national group, religious or social group.

Bias: An inclination, learning, opinion, perspective, preference, prejudice formed without reasonable justification that then influences a person’s or group’s ability to evaluate a particular situation accurately or objectively; an unfounded preference for or against. It must be noted, however, that every piece of writing, image and audiovisual production has a bias and it is important that authors, readers or viewer be able to identify this bias.

Classism: Discrimination of group of persons sharing a similar social position and certain economic, political and cultural characteristics.

Colonialism: A process by which a foreign power dominates and exploits an indigenous group by seizing their land and resources, extracting their wealth and using them as cheap labour. Also refers to a specific era of European expansion into the overseas territories between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Racial dogmas that reinforced patterns of superiority and inferiority have often been invoked to explain, justify and promote the exploitation of indigenous minorities.

Cultural Competence: A set of congruent attitudes, behaviours and policies that come together in an agency, system, or among professionals to enable them to effectively work on cross-cultural issues.

CWWA: Children Who Witness Abuse

Discrimination: The manifestation of prejudice. The granting and/or denying of civil liberties and opportunity to individual or groups with respect to access to services, goods and facilities, education, employment and health care. Discrimination may occur on the basis of age, developmental or mental diAbility, ethnicity, gender, marital or family status, nationality, physical, race, religious or political affiliation, or sexual orientation. Discrimination becomes more blatant when two or more facts (ex. Economic status, class and/or racial visibility) coincide. This behaviour results in minorities being maltreated/mistreated or excluded.

Domestic violence:  A term used to describe violence against women usually referring to violence perpetrated by a woman's intimate partner but may also include others in the family home who are abusive/violent.  May also be referred to as “violence against women.”

Ethnicity: A social and political contract used by individuals and communities to define themselves and others. Ethnicity is also a process, which is changed over time both by social conditions and individuals. Ethnicity tends to be based on common culture, language or nationhood.^[1] 
[1] PDHRE, Passport to Dignity-Working with the Beijing Platform for Action for the Human Rights of Woman, New York: PDHRE

Heterosexism: The belief that heterosexuality is the norm.

IFF: Intersectional Feminist Framework 

Misogyny: A term used to describe women hating. It is sometimes used to describe sexism and sexist oppression.

Oppression: The domination of one individual or group by another, more powerful, individual or group, using cultural, economic, physical, psychological, or social threats or force and frequently using an explicit ideology to justify the oppression.

Prejudice: A frame of mind that tends to prejudge a person, or a group, unfavourably, by attributing to every member or a group characteristic falsely attributed to the group as a whole. These unfavourable are frequently not recognized as such because of the frequency with which they are widely accepted and are used to justify acts of discrimination.

Race: A social category used to classify large groups of people according to common ancestry and reliant on differentiation by distinctive hereditary physical characteristics such as colour of skin and eyes, hair texture, stature and facial features.

Racialization: Racial identities are not fixed categories. They are shaped by history, nationality, gender, class and identity politics and racial designations often differ from country to country. The term “racialization” makes explicit that this is not about inherent characteristics but about the ways in which we are socialized to differentiate groups of people on the basis of physical characteristics. It emphasizes the active process of categorizing people while at the same time rejecting “race” as a scientific category. 

Racism: A system in which one group of individual’s exercises power over another group on the basis of skin colour. A set of actions, erroneous assumptions and implicit or explicit beliefs based on a ideology of inherent superiority of one racial group over another. Racism is manifested within organizational and institutional structures and programs as well as within individual thought or behaviour patterns.

Safe Home: Short term [generally, not to exceed 5 days] emergency housing in private   home [or in rental units]. Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Juristat, 2001/02, Vol.23, no 4.

Second Stage House: Long term (generally 3-12 months) secure housing with support designed to   assist women while they search for permanent housing. Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Juristat, 2001/02, Vol.23, no 4.

Sexism: Any action, attitude, behaviour or language that depicts women as inferior. It is attitudinal and institutional.

Social Justice: A concept based upon the belief that each individual and group within a given society has a right to civil liberties, equal opportunity, fairness and participation in the educational, economic, institutional, social and moral freedoms and responsibilities valued by the community.

Systemic Discrimination: The institutionalization of discrimination through policies and practices which have become historically entrenched in systems (systemic), resulting in barriers to equality of opportunity for members of minority groups.

Systemic Racism: Consists of practices and policies, entrenched in established institutions, which result in the advancement or exclusion of specific groups of individuals. It manifests itself in two ways: 1) institutional racism; 2) structural racism.

Travesti (Brasil); Hijra (India); Vestido (Mexico); Binabe (Filipino); Mke-SIMume (Swahili); Katoeys (Thai); Faka Fafin (Polynesian); Transformista (Spanish); A few of the many terms used to describe “Trans”, or “alternate” gender roles; Creating Inclusive Spaces Provincial Training Series- Information Package. OAITH. 2000. Berdache (Navojo).

Third Stage House: Supportive housing for women who have left violent relationships and who no longer need crisis service supports.

Transgender: Transgender is frequently used as an umbrella term which serves as a banner to cover all those who transgress [break the rules] society’s notions of how biological sex, gender and sexual orientation link together, ex. Anyone who crosses society’s gender imposed norms. A transgendered person may feel society is limiting her or his personal expression by maintaining two distinct gender constructs. The 519 Church Street Community Centre TS/TG 101 by the Meal Trans Programme

Transition House: Short to moderate term [in BC a short to moderate term is 30 days] first stage emergency housing. Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Juristat, 2001/02, Vol.23, no 4.

Transphobia: The aversion to or prejudice against transsexuality or transgender people, such as the refusal to accept the individual’s expression of their gender identity.  It can be direct or indirect, and is often seen in the dominant Canadian culture when people are forced to express their gender according to someone else’s perception or assumption of their gender. SHARP Access Project A Partnership between Prism Alcohol & Drug Services and BC Non-Profit Housing Association. 2009.

Two-Spirited: A term used by some First Nations people to describe themselves in a way that is closer to their cultural construct of sex/gender/sexuality than the dominant Western view. Many of the languages of First Nations of North America include specific terms for gender and sexual diversity; some First Nations people may use both the general term Two-Spirit and the culturally specific term from their nation to describe themselves. The term Two-Spirit can have specific meaning in some First Nations cultures that is not about sexuality or gender, but rather describes the spiritual makeup of a person.  In acronyms, sometimes abbreviated as 2-S or 2S. Access Project A Partnership between Prism Alcohol & Drug Services and BC Non-Profit Housing Association. 2009. 

Violence Against Women: Refers to gender based violence against women which both reflects and perpetuates women’s subordinate status in society. Violence against women includes physical, emotional, economic, financial, sexual, spiritual abuse due to their gender. Violence against women may also be referred to as “domestic violence”, “family violence”, “intimate partner violence”, and “gender-based violence”. 

VIP: Violence is Preventable Project 

White Supremacy: White supremacy is a constructed system that is based on assumptions/messaging and systemically embedded/enshrined beliefs that White people are better than everyone else in the world. The resulting effect is that white people benefit from political, economic and social systems that provide them with more privilege and power than racialized people. Many of us think of the term “white Supremacy” as sonly being linked to extreme racist group such as the heritage front or the KKK. The reality is that wherever there is a social hierarchy, this includes Canada, where white people are on top, there is white supremacy.