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The Medal for Excellence in Feminist Scholarship in Canada

The Medal for Excellence in Feminist Scholarship is awarded annually by the Centre for Feminist Research and honours the outstanding contributions of York University faculty Ena Dua, Bonita Lawrence and Meg Luxton. Through their anti-racist, Indigenous feminist and feminist scholarship, they have transformed our understanding of women’s everyday realities and struggles for more just relationships.


Meg Luxton is a professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. She was one of the founders of Women’s Studies and has contributed to developing feminist political economy as an important current in feminist theory and politics. As an activist in the women’s movement in Toronto and Central Ontario since the 1970s, she has been involved in The Women’s Press, Campus Community Co-operative Day Care Centre, The National Action Committee on the Status of Women and a variety of community organising activities. She has also been involved in the international efforts to get women’s unpaid work measured and valued in relation to the United Nations National System of Accounts.  Her research interests include: sex/gender divisions of labour and the relationship between paid employment and unpaid domestic labour; working class lives, communities and class politics; feminist theory and political economy; the history of the women’s movement, in Canada and internationally; and social policy.   

Bonita Lawrence teaches in the Indigenous Studies Program. She is Mi’kmaw, with Acadian and English background as well. Her research and publications have focused primarily on urban and non-status identities, and federally unrecognized Aboriginal communities. She is the author of “Fractured Homeland: Federal Recognition and Algonquin Identity in Ontario” (UBC Press, 2012) and “Real” Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native People and Indigenous Nationhood (University of Nebraska Press and UBC Press, 2004). She is also the author of N’In D’la Owey Innklan: Mi’kmaq Sojourns in England, a historical novel spanning 500 years of Mi”kmaq history both in Atlantic Canada and in London. 

Enakshi Dua is a Professor and Graduate Director in Sexuality and Women’s Studies in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. She teaches critical race theory, anti-racist feminist theory, post colonial studies, and feminist theory.


Nomination Process

This annual award of $500 is presented to one scholar working in the areas of Indigenous feminisms, anti-racist feminism, socialist feminism or feminist political economy. The adjudication committee welcomes nominations and self-nominations for the Medal.

Nomination Requirements

  • CV of nominee
  • Nomination letter (self-authored or authored by 1-3 supporters) outlining scholarly contributions in the areas of Indigenous feminisms, anti-racist feminism, socialist feminism and/or political economy

Please submit CV and letter to cfr-coor@yorku.ca with the subject line “Nomination – Medal for Excellence in Feminist Scholarship in Canada.”

Nominations will be accepted commencing September 2024 stay tuned for more information.