Our History

The Vancouver Women’s Health Collective was founded in 1971, emerging from the women’s liberation and feminist health movements that were taking root across North America. At the time, many women experienced the medical system as dismissive, paternalistic, and inaccessible—particularly around reproductive health, sexuality, mental health, and bodily autonomy. In response, women in Vancouver came together to create a collective, peer-based alternative grounded in shared knowledge, mutual aid, and self-advocacy.

In its early years, VWHC functioned as a grassroots, volunteer-run collective, emphasizing women’s self-help and the belief that people are experts in their own bodies and lives. The Collective provided information, counselling, and support outside of traditional medical hierarchies, prioritizing consent, choice, and feminist analysis of health and power. Decision-making was collective, reflecting a broader commitment to non-hierarchical organizing and shared leadership.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, VWHC became an important site of feminist health activism in Vancouver. Its work expanded in response to community needs, while remaining rooted in principles of accessibility, inclusivity, and political consciousness. The Collective increasingly served women facing intersecting barriers related to poverty, trauma, violence, mental health challenges, and social marginalization, while continuing to challenge dominant biomedical models that overlooked social determinants of health.

Over time, VWHC evolved into a registered non-profit organization, balancing the realities of funding, accountability, and infrastructure with its foundational values. While its structure and services have adapted across decades, the Collective has consistently remained committed to its original purpose: supporting women and gender-diverse people to access care, knowledge, and community in ways that affirm dignity, autonomy, and collective care.

Today, VWHC’s work is informed by this history of feminist organizing, community responsiveness, and resistance to systems that exclude or harm. The Collective’s past continues to shape its present—anchoring its approach in over fifty years of grassroots health advocacy in Vancouver.