“Feminism caught my mind and heart back when we still called it Women’s Liberation.  Feminism provides me with an intelligent, compassionate and artful approach to life, to love and to revolt.”- Lee Lakeman 

Earlier this morning (December 20, 2024), Lee Lakeman, our close ally and former collective member, passed away.

Lee joined Vancouver Rape Relief when she moved to Vancouver in 1978. Prior to that, she founded and ran the Woodstock Women’s Emergency Center. Her experience was instrumental in the collective’s decision to own and operate a transition house for battered women and their children. Lee developed and co-chaired the House Funding Alliance, a group of pro-feminist men who fundraised the money needed to buy our house.

Lee was a member of Vancouver Rape Relief for 34 years and in that time supported hundreds of women in their escape and resistance to battering and sexual assault. Her insistence that women deserve state protection and autonomy over their own lives shaped how the collective conducted its front-line anti-violence work. Her legacy continues to offer vital instruction in our fight against male violence.

Lee chose to be part of a feminist collective for most of her adult life because she believed deeply that it was, and still is, the best form to enact a feminist vision of the world. She considered a group structure based on consensus decision-making, mutual aid, and the sharing of knowledge, skills, and power to be the best route towards achieving women’s collective freedom.

Since joining the collective, Lee has guided and fostered the activism of many collective members. When women left the group, Lee encouraged them to keep acting and organize as feminists. For decades Lee facilitated our alliances with other feminists on the local, national, and international level as a means to build and sustain the women’s movement.  

The collective of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter has faced waves of harsh backlash through the years. Lee’s bold leadership and commitment to the collective, its feminist principles and practices, including women-only organizing, have been crucial to our survival and thriving. 

While Lee formally retired from Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter in 2012, she remained a devoted ally and a friend to us until her very last days. As we mourn her passing, our hearts are full of admiration and gratitude.