2023 Kitty Lundy Memorial Lecture – Leading in the Tension: Conundrums of (In)visibility for Black Women Leaders

Paulette Senior, York University alumna and President and CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation, has devoted her life and career to breaking down systemic barriers and building gender justice for women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Her personal experiences as a child ignited her interest in social justice, setting her on the path to growing belonging for marginalized people.

But even as she leads Canada’s national public Foundation for gender equity, Paulette navigates in a white centric world where Black women’s leadership is undervalued. Every day, she negotiates the tension of high visibility in her role while being underseen in the world. She has found herself grappling for space as a leader, wrestling with her own humbling learning and growth, while sustaining a prominent voice for intersectional feminist social change. It is a constant negotiation where power, strength, and displacement collide.

This is the tension that pulls at many Black women leaders today. After years of leadership in the national movement for gender justice, Paulette will reveal how she leads in that tension, facing the strain in the hopes of holding herself and others close, of never being wrenched apart. Her insights will offer an inspiring vision for the future of truly inclusive feminist action as a site for equity-seeking people and communities to thrive.