The Poverty of Protection: What I Learned When My Boss Blamed Me
I thought the system would protect me. I was wrong. This is the first of seven stories about the hidden poverties that keep women — and mothers — stuck.
There are seven kinds of poverty that no one talks about. Not income poverty — though that's real too. The poverties that live underneath the numbers: the ones that shape what you believe you're allowed to have, ask for, and expect from the world.
I've lived all seven. This is the first one.
The night I stopped believing the system would protect me
I was working at the Fairmont. I was attacked at work. I reported it. My boss didn't believe me. In fact — he blamed me. And I sat there in that office and watched the system I'd been told would protect me do the exact opposite.
I quit. I packed my car. I drove from Calgary to Golden, British Columbia — a small mountain town where I knew almost no one. I didn't have a plan. I just knew I could not stay in a place that had told me, clearly, that I was on my own.
More than 60% of women who experience workplace harassment do not report it
The primary reason cited isn't that they don't think it's serious. It's that they don't believe anything will be done — or that reporting will make things worse. They are, statistically, correct. (Statistics Canada, Gender-based violence in the workplace / EEOC Select Task Force Report)
What protection actually costs when it's absent
When a woman isn't protected — by her employer, by the state, by the people she thought were on her side — something else happens. She starts protecting herself. She makes herself smaller. She stops raising her hand in rooms where she might be doubted. She stops reporting things she doesn't believe will be taken seriously. She routes around the system entirely, which is exhausting, and which leaves her more isolated and more vulnerable than before.
The poverty of protection is not just physical safety. It's the accumulated cost of living in systems and environments that signal: you're not worth protecting. That signal shapes everything — your income, your health, your willingness to fight for yourself.
“If you've ever left a job, a relationship, or a city because no one had your back — that's not weakness. That's what survival looks like inside a system that was never built to protect you.”
Momera exists because I know what it feels like to have no one in your corner. This series — the Seven Poverties — is my attempt to name the things that kept me stuck, long before money was even part of the conversation. Because if we only talk about income, we miss everything that comes before it.
Becky Tsadilas
Founder, Momera — Movement of Mothers Ending Poverty. Based in Cochrane, Alberta. hello@momera.ca