for the worse.

Dismantling systems of oppression and uplifting voices which have been oppressed takes all of us.

Due to the erasure of indigenous people, their voices, and their cultures, we are called to make this acknowledgment as part of bringing more awareness and recognition in ourselves and our community.

Indigenous people are more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness, die by suicide, suffer incarceration, and have less access to healthcare and health insurance than white populations.

Womankind was founded on, and continues to occupy, land appropriated and colonized as Concord, New Hampshire.

We acknowledge and honor the first stewards and storytellers of this land; the Abenaki (Alnobak in native language) and Pennacook peoples of N’Dakinna.

There are thousands of indigenous people within the New Hampshire borders.

Nine octogons with warm and cool colors with lines and arrows connecting them suggesting a network

A map of the area of new england which does not show state lines, it shows native populations

artistic, horizontal green branch with red leaf nodes

The genocide and violent displacement of indigenous people has stripped generations of people of the right to life and liberty, a home, an identity, a sense of belongingness, generational progress, and to feel attached within a place and community.

graphic illustration of 3 orange and red flowers on a green stem

Stylized art of a purple oxalis plant with 4 leaves with red centers on a green stem

Womankind does not exist free from labor stolen unjustly as part of existing systems. We aim to decrease our investments in harmful labor practices.

The complexities of intersectionality underline that anyone’s oppressor is our own oppressor. The statue of Hannah Duston is also part of our local community. The statue is the first statue in the New Hampshire paid for with public funds to recognize a woman, but celebrates violence perpetrated against indigenous people.

Stylized flowers with 3 large pink flowers, 6 small purple flowers on green stems

Stylized fern in purple with light pink veins

Harm against oppressed populations has taken the form of research experimentation, diagnoses, treatments (e.g. conversion therapy, sterilization, lobotomy), gatekeeping, exploitation of labor and bodies, and dismissal of non-Eurocentric understandings of health which invalidate other ways of being, knowing, and healing.

Marginalized populations have experienced violence and harm from the mental health field in many insidious forms including abject racism, sexism, ableism, perpetuation of a gender binary, and heteronormativity.

Through our work, we aim to respectfully recognize, acknowledge, and support wellbeing from the profound, harmful implications of oppression, genocide, forced displacement, and other forms of violence against people.

stylized billy balls plant with green leaves and stem with 6 flowers

stylized orchids with green leaves and 7 pink, purple, and red blooms

We honor nothing about us, without us.

We work to promote egalitarian therapeutic relationships, honoring intersectionality in all its evolving forms. We work in the therapeutic space, through policy transformations, with education, and through advocacy to better recognize and remove barriers to human rights and healthcare equity for our communities.

Stylized flower with pink, red, purple, turquise, and yellow petals

These acknowledgments are not sufficient to capture the harm and challenges they briefly touch upon, nor do we pretend that acknowledgments are enough action for change or clarity of conscious.

We act to liberate people and our communities from oppression and imagine new, liberating ways to promote and support mental health.

These acknowledgements are part of our ongoing, evolving work to provide care and support to our community. We hope that these statements will continue to guide us and to inspire others to find meaningful actions in the complex process of Feminism.