Women's Centers: A Critical Appraisal and A Case Study

Women's centers can play an important role in counseling and educational development services that promote equity. Not all programs that carry the name “for women” automatically provide nonsexist or quality services for women. This article provides a critical overview of existing women's centers and the key problems regarding quality of services, organization, and funding. A model, financially self-supporting center, which was designed to address these problems, is described. The article suggests that financial self-sufficiency will be necessary to the long-term success of the women's center on a national scale and that model centers such as the one described can be used by communities for developing their own self-supporting women's centers.