Oxfam Canada’s Feminist Principles

Oxfam Canada first created its Feminist Principles in 2018 as an aspirational framework to guide our work both internally (e.g. organizational culture, policies and practices) and externally (e.g. how we work with partners, supporters, donors and the people in countries where we operate.  In 2021, the Oxfam Canada’s Feminist Principles Committee started a process to review the 2018 version of our principles to better reflect the changes we wanted to see and support; to move beyond the binary categories of male and female; to ensure complementarity with our Anti-Racism and Anti-Oppression Principles; and to bring intersectionality much more to the center of our feminist work and approaches.

We are pleased to present this updated version of Oxfam Canada’s Feminist Principles. They incorporate our own learning and adaptation over the past five years. While imperfect and non-exhaustive, they are our attempt to outline what we aspire to. We understand that each step we take to implement our Feminist Principles is part of a journey on a path that is far from linear. We know that we do not have all the answers, that there are no ‘one size fits all’ solutions, and that we will make some mistakes along the way, but we hope that these Feminist Principles will help to guide us to where we want to go. We are committed to promoting constant learning and to continue refining them. And more importantly, we are committed to doing the hard personal and organizational work and learning that is required to put these Feminist Principles into practice.

Oxfam Canada’s 10 Feminist Principles:

1. We tackle the root causes of gender inequalities and injustices faced by women, girls and gender non-conforming people, in all their diversity.
2. We take an intersectional approach to tackle discrimination and oppression faced by women, girls and gender non-conforming people, in all their diversity.
3. We recognize our power and privileges and seek to share and shift power to the most disadvantaged women, girls and gender non-confirming people, in all their diversity.
4. We put women’s rights, 2SLGBTQ+ rights, and feminist organizations and movements at the centre of our work.
5. We practice ’nothing about us without us.’
6. We prioritize safety in our organization and in our work.
7. We lead by example on feminist organizational transformation.
8. We connect the everyday barriers experienced by women, girls and gender non-conforming people, in all their diversity, to larger social and political issues, with the understanding that ‘the personal is political.’
9.  We take care of ourselves and each other and lift each other up as individuals and as a collective.
10. We uphold feminist climate justice as indispensable to achieve gender justice (and vice versa).

We know our Feminist Principles will never be a ‘finished project.’ They will need to evolve as society continues recognizing and deconstructing various forms of inequality and injustice. If you have any advice for us on the changes we can make to improve these Principles, please contact .