Ensuring Equal Protection Under the Law
The Women’s Center is committed to ensuring that everyone is afforded equal protection under the law, and our intersectional mission to empower women demands that we show up to advocate against the oppression that many groups and individuals endure, including through recognizing the interconnected experiences of discrimination and disadvantage that women face from their overlapping identities. Too often, stereotypes, biases, and racial power dynamics are embedded in our laws and public policies. They are also reflected in the use of racial profiling, heightened surveillance tactics, targeted enforcement strategies, and other practices that increase policing of certain racial and ethnic communities (but not others) that lead to criminalization and often the death of people of color.
Our counseling services are provided for little to no cost for our clients. We do this because lack of insurance is seen as one of the biggest barriers that people with low-incomes and people of color have to receiving mental health care. Approximately 535,000 people in Michigan do not have healthcare, and this does not count those who are under-insured either. Additionally, 9.7 percent of Black Americans did not have insurance in 2018. We believe that everyone deserves mental health care, no matter their income or employment status.
At the Women’s Center, we demand a world of equity and human decency. We envision a world of opportunity. We commit ourselves to the work of racial justice. We will get up and continue to do the work until injustice is rooted out, until institutions are transformed, until the world sees women, girls, and people of color the way we do: Equal. Powerful. Unstoppable.
Learn more about our racial justice and civil rights priorities
Take a stand for racial justice and civil rights
- Take advocacy action
- Support community services that uplift and empower women of color
- Support your local leaders of color and people of color lead organizations
- Stand against racism in every day experiences
- Fight racial profiling in your community with YWCA’s Racial Profiling Community Watch Checklist
Download these resources to learn more:
