Tanks R Us Sarah Beck on the Fine Art of Defence

New! Column by Mariko Tamaki WOMEN’S NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS • Winter 2006 • Vol. 19 No. 3 • Canada/US $5.95 TANKS R US SARAH BECK ON THE FINE ART OF DEFENCE

STILL AIN’T SATISFIED DORIS ANDERSON 35 YEARS LATER TRANSFEMINISM SHIFTING POLITICAL GROUND THE MUSE IS NOT AMUSED DI BRANDT’S WAKE UP CALL

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Made in Canada Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB R3C 2G1 Canada table of contents WINTER 2006 / VOLUME 19 NO. 3

VEHICLES OF CHANGE 24 Sarah Beck is a cultural activist who connects the dots between the militarization of daily life and the mass marketing of armaments to increase personal safety. Welcome to Öde, a multimedia project that includes a life-size tank parked in her parents’ driveway. by Roewan Crowe THE MUSE IS NOT AMUSED 28 Di Brandt eloquently describes the ecological and feminist inspiration for her latest book of poetry, Now You Care. by Mariianne Mays Doris Anderson threw her support behind the Royal Commission on the Status of Women 35 years ago. Where are we now? See page 16. Photo: CP ARTS & CULTURE WOMEN’S NEWS MUSIC REVIEWS 32 Wicked Lil Grrls by Esthero; Lucky Burden by Implant Panel Booby-trapped? by Penni Kim Barlow; This Time I’ll Forgive You… Again by Ash 7-12 Mitchell; Prison Conditions Busted by Riot; Burn by Fruit; Have You Heard by Toshi Reagon; Meagan Perry; Women In Print Out of Print by Alexis Arular by M.I.A. Keinlen; Campaign Updates by Penni Mitchell. ARTIST PROFILE 34 Passion Fruit by Karen X. Tulchinsky FEMINIST VIEWS WINTER FICTION STILL AIN’T 36 Eyehill by Kelly Cooper; The Jane Austen Book 16 SATISFIED Club by Karen Joy Fowler; Scorpion’s Claw by Myriam Thirty-five years after the Royal Commission on the Chancy; Cherry Bites by T.L. Cowan; Santiago by Status of Women, there still aren’t enough women in Simon Chaput. the corridors of power. Herizons talks to feminist icon Doris Anderson about the events that shaped ISSUES AND IDEAS the second wave. by Lisa Rundle 38 Code Pink: Stop the Next War Now eds., M. Benjamin and J. Evans; Our Bodies, Our Selves by The TRANSFORMING Boston Women’s Health Collective; Dark Age Ahead 21 FEMINIST POLITICS by Jane Jacobs; Sisters or Strangers: Immigrant, Ethnic Transgendered activists break down gender bound- and Racialized Women in Canadian History eds. M. aries and, in doing so, posit new feminist parameters. Epp, F. Iacovetta and F. Swyripa; Undoing Gender by by Krista Scott-Dixon Judith Butler. Managing Editor: Penni Mitchell Fulfillment and Office Manager: Phil Koch Accountant: Sharon Pchajek Board of Directors: Ghislaine Alleyne, Phil Koch, Penni Mitchell, Kemlin Nembhard, Valerie Regehr Editorial Committee: Ghislaine Alleyne, Gio Guzzi, Penni Mitchell Advertising Sales: Penni Mitchell (204) 774-6225 FEMINIST Design: inkubator.ca 43 CLASSICS Web Mistress: Rachel Thompson/BlueMuse The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy Retail Inquiries: Disticor (905) 619-6565 Proofreader: Phil Koch FILM Cover Photo: Darrol Hofmeister, sharpshooter photography 44 Me and You HERIZONS is published four times per year by HERIZONS and Everyone We Know Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. One-year subscription by Miranda July price: $24.26+$1.70 GST ($25.96) in Canada. Two-year subscriptions are $39.16+$2.76 GST ($41.92) in Canada. Subscriptions to US addresses are $29.99 Canadian funds or $25.96 in US funds. International subscriptions are $32.99. Cheques or money orders are payable to: HERIZONS, PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA R3C 2G1. Ph (204) 774-6225. Subscription-related inquiries: [email protected] Editorial-related inquiries: [email protected] COLUMNS Website: www.herizons.ca FIRST WORD HERIZONS is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. HERIZONS is available on CD-ROM through Micromedia 5 BY PENNI MITCHEL Ltd., 20 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5C 2N8. 1970 was a Big Year GST #R131089187. ISSN 0711-7485. The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire GLOBAL WARNING hope and foster a state of wellness that enriches women’s 13 BY NAOMI KLEIN lives; to build awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to Ethnic Cleansing, Cajun Style broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among other marginalized people; to ON THE EDGE foster peace and ecological awareness; and to expand the BY LYN COCKBURN influence of feminist principles in the world. HERIZONS 15 aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse, Reality Bites understandable and relevant to women’s daily lives. Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and GUEST ROOM do not necessarily reflect HERIZONS’ editorial policy. No 31 BY MARIKO TAMAKI material may be reprinted without permission. Due to limited resources, HERIZONS does not accept poetry or Tag Day fiction submissions. HERIZONS is a member of the Manitoba BODY POLITIC Magazine Publishers Association. 47 BY JUDY REBICK HERIZONS acknowledges the financial Looking Back to the Future support of the Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance Program (PAP) and the Canada COLE’S NOTES Magazine Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage toward mailing and editorial costs. 48 BY SUSAN G. COLE Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866, PAP Registration No. 07944. Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Literary Twin Peaks MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected]

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 1 letters

BODY CASTINGS wanted to work again in the States, I knitting or cooking. It had nothing to do Two articles in would have had to apply for a visa under with whether one chooses to make Herizons’ fall issue the same terms as any other Canadian. If “Lemon Fluff” or “thrifted statuettes.” It offered an interesting the States starts requiring Canadians to was, in fact, precisely the opposite—that contrast.“Casting Call: show passports at the border—as seems there was no choice. Art Transforms Body quite likely in the not-so-distant future— The problem was that women were (and and Soul” refers to an I would have to get a Canadian passport in still are in much of the world) told not only all-too-common phe- order to be able to visit my family. what we must do,but also how we will expe- nomenon in our culture: Women don’t I revoked my U.S. citizenship because a rience that compulsory behaviour:“You will accept their bodies because they’ve been sharp, clear cutting of the cord seemed to live isolated in your neighbourhood; you told by others that their bodies are unac- me a necessary part of my self-identifica- will rely on your husband’s judgement for ceptable. “Treasured Chest” deals with a tion as a Canadian. I judged the rights I everything (and you will have a husband!); less common phenomenon: people who was losing to be less important to me than you will raise the children; you will have can’t accept their bodies because their the personal benefits of affirming this dinner ready when he gets home, you will anatomy is alien to their psychological self-identification. I made my choice not have meaningful, paid work outside the gender.As a lesbian with a serious interest accordingly. home; and you will be happy with this life. in activism on issues of gender identity Any transition—of nationality, of gen- Why wouldn’t you be?” and expression as well as sexual orienta- der, of anything—involves choices. It is Of course the personal is the political. tion, I still struggle to wrap my mind hoped that such choices are always made And of course it’s important that those of around what this alienation might feel on the basis of informed and thoughtful us who choose to cook, sew or craft aren’t like from the inside. Kyle Scanlon’s article judgement. However, I strongly believe told what we can experience and how to gave me some clearer glimpses of insight. that having made a choice, a person must interpret that experience. But I remain However, I take issue to some degree take responsibility to accept the conse- convinced that it’s also important that, if with Scanlon’s statement,“I’m a man who quences of that choice. “sisterhood is powerful indeed,”we need wants to be welcome in lesbian spaces.”I Fish or cut bait. to continue our efforts on the problem immigrated to Canada from the States in SarahRose Werner that now has many names and faces but 1998, became a citizen in 2001 and Saint John, New Brunswick remains the same: the myriad socio-eco- revoked my U.S. citizenship in 2003.With nomic, religious and political realities the revocation, I lost certain rights. If I BITCH’N ABOUT STICH’N that keep so many of our sisters with nei- I’ve just re-read the ther voice nor say in their own lives. Summer 2005 issue Sheila Kappler of Herizons (for about London, Ontario the fourth time now!) and must respond to LOVE MY HERIZONS Jennifer O’Connor’s I am so impressed article,“Riot Prrls.” with your magazine! I appreciate her newfound joy in cook- I enjoy your ability to ing and other domestic arts. I am a cro- offer such a diverse cheter myself.But I’m struck by the collection of news incongruity of a feminist reclamation of that seeps into every what O’Connor refers to as “domesticity.” area of my interests: What really stopped me was O’Connor’s news, activism, books and music—even claim that “the fact that feminists are now humour. I have a paper beside my bed choosing to reclaim the trappings that scribbled with notes of what books and Betty Friedan referred to when she music to look out for.Many of those items described ‘the problem that no name’ is stem from enthusiastic write-ups in your proof that sisterhood is powerful indeed.” magazine from women whose opinions I The problem that has no name was never can trust.I have passed on your magazine

2 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS to a girlfriend,and she’ll then pass it on to their store after trying several others? Or them as such. another. that you appreciated the opportunity to SarahRose Werner I totally feel like my money on Herizons take advantage of a good price on specific Saint John, New Brunswick is well spent. Thanks so much for all that items? Hmmm, not so many hands. you do! Sure, I know that the clerk does not CORRECTION Allison Lyne make decisions regarding what merchan- The excerpt from “My Breasts,My Choice” Montreal, Quebec dise the store carries or how it’s priced.But (Sumach Press) in the last issue of if that doesn’t stop you from complaining, Herizons neglected to mention that the HELPLESS. why should it stop you from making a book was edited by Barbara Brown, SHMELPLESS. compliment? Maybe the clerk would like to Maureen Aslin and Betsy Carey. Bravo for Lisa Rundle’s piece,“Help for the know that people sometimes enjoy shop- We apologize to the editors for this Helpless”! Let’s have a show of hands: ping in the store where she spends so omission. How many of you reading this have ever much of her time. Maybe it would boost complained to a store clerk or cashier that her interest in her work—or at least make TELL US the store didn’t have what you were look- that work a little less stressful the next time WHAT YOU THINK ing for,or had it only at an outrageous she has to deal with an irate customer. Write Herizons a letter about your price? Okay, hands down. It’s been said that feminism is the radi- thoughts on what you’ve read! Challenge Now, another show of hands: How cal notion that women are people. Maybe us! Congratulate us! Tell us what we need many of you have ever taken a moment to it’s time for feminists to consider an to write more about! We’ll give you a year mention to a store clerk or cashier that equally radical notion: Store clerks and of Herizons free. you found what you were looking for in cashiers are people. And we should treat Write to [email protected].

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1970 WAS A BIG YEAR 1970 was the year the authors of the Royal arrangement the PM calls an “asymmetrical” daycare Commission on the Status of Women nailed 167 deal. And we have domestic workers forced to live grievances to Pierre Trudeau’s door. And it was the with their employers and 500 Aboriginal women year Sandra Lovelace jumped over the marriage whose killers have not been brought to justice. We threshold and moved to California. are nowhere near equal pay in any profession. And Soon after, Florence Bird signed off on the com- last month the UN clobbered Canada once again for mission report and Ottawa laid the groundwork for a its shoddy treatment of Aboriginal women whose new a framework for women’s equality. The kids are disenfranchised under the Indian Act. Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women Where is the visible outcry? The National Action drafted detailed blueprints on everything from Committee on the Status of Women, once funded to pensions to immigrant women, from Native women build consensus on behalf of women, closed around to women with disabilities. Then came NAC, the the time the federal women’s program was shut bricks and mortar of the feminist movement. down. And three million church ladies, immigrants The plan looked good on paper, but most promises and shelter workers lost their collective voice. How weren’t kept. The honeymoon was over for Lovelace, convenient that Ottawa also slashed program fund- too, who moved back to New Brunswick with her ing at the community level and then announced the children after her marriage ended, only to find that hugest corporate tax cuts in history. she’d been stripped of her Indian status for marrying The problem isn’t that third wave women don’t a non-Native man. Native and non-Native women’s give a damn, or that second wave women won all the groups fought to get the Indian Act amended, after battles. (Okay, we have the Charter and can take the esteemed white men on the Supreme Court had Ottawa to court, but litigation is expensive and upheld it in 1974. Lovelace took her case to the equality shouldn’t always be forced.) Human Rights Committee of the UN and finally, in To get equality back on the public agenda, women 1981, the UN found Canada in breach of the need power inside the system: 21 percent in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. House of Commons is appalling, and that’s why Doris It was 1985 before the Indian Act was changed. Anderson is lobbying furiously for electoral reform. What happened in the last 35 years? My copy of the We need to aim for something along the lines of the 84-page Royal Commission blueprint, typed on Senate, where women occupy 36 percent of seats, eight-and-a-half-by-14-inch paper, has four sta- including Canada’s newest senator, Sandra Lovelace! ples crammed in the left-hand corner. Right on page Federal Minister Responsible for the Status of one, the report calls for “revised methods of pay set- Women Liza Frulla is doing great work, but she can’t ting in professions primarily known as women’s do it all. We need a stand-alone ministry, not a cabi- jobs.” And last month, 6,000 clerical workers at net minister expected to do equality in her spare time. Canada Post, who’ve been paid less than men for And finally, we need restored funding to women’s similar work for 20 years, were told that the federal groups, including a national umbrella organization to government will appeal a $150-million settlement keep the pressure on. We need all of these things, plus by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Thirty-five implementation of the Parliamentary Committee on years later, we still don’t have pay goddamn equity. Women’s new reports on gender-based analysis, pay Yes, we got shelters so battered women can tem- equity and funding for women’s equality groups. porarily escape. We got crummy mat leave (most What we need—I can’t believe I’m saying this—is a women don’t qualify). We got a standardless funding new feminist infrastructure.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 5 news nelliegrams LEAF TRANSPLANTS DIRECTOR The Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) hired Review Panel Booby-trapped, Audrey Johnson as its new executive direc- Women Charge tor. Johnson was by Penni Mitchell Audrey Johnson executive director of the B.C. branch of West Coast LEAF for An advisory panel appointed by Health the past four years. Canada to consider scientific, health and Johnson has an extensive back- medical evidence regarding the re- ground in organizational management, approval of silicone breast implants for fund development and communica- the Canadian market includes at least tions. In addition to her 15 years of three members with financial ties to involvement in women’s organizations, implant manufacturers, women’s health including Vancouver Status of Women, experts charge. Public hearings took the National Action Committee on the place in late September. Status of Women and the National Three panel members reported that they Congress of Black Women’s received funds from manufacturers whose Foundation, Johnson has a master’s in products are under review. Dr. Harold business administration. Brandon from Washington University and “My biggest challenge in the job will Dr. Michael Brook from McMaster be to implement a new strategic vision University provided information to the developed by the board and branches U.S. Food and Drug Administration advi- over the last two years,” said Johnson sory panel in April 2004 in support of after taking the post. “LEAF is poised to Inamed’s application for silicone gel breast take its already stellar work to the next implants, five months before being level. I’m excited to be involved with appointed to the current Health Canada LEAF at this point in its 20-year history.” panel. And Dr. Mitchell Brown of Health Canada is contemplating putting silicone Before moving to Toronto, Johnson Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health breast implants back on the market. was a member of the City of Vancouver Sciences Centre received funds related to Photo: Getty Images Women’s Task Force. speaking engagements on silicone gel breast implants and for training surgeons time scientists of Inamed and Mentor on N.B. NDP TAPS on the devices in 2003, 2004 and 2005. the panel,” charged Dr. Diana Zuckerman, BREWER “This is an unacceptable conflict of who was responsible for the U.S. Allison Brewer was interest,” says professor Abby Lippman of Congressional investigation of breast elected leader of the McGill University, who is a member of implants in the early 1990s. “There is New Democratic Women and Health Protection, a group absolutely no way to justify their partici- Party of New that monitors Health Canada’s drug and pation on the panel with a straight face.” Brunswick in device regulation activities. Dr. Zuckerman met with officials at September. A social Allison Brewer In response to Inamed and Mentor’s Health Canada earlier this year to discuss activist and former applications to reintroduce silicone gel the need for a transparent process in director of the Morgentaler abortion breast implants, Health Canada set up the Canada that would include consumer and clinic in Fredericton, Brewer does not 13-member panel to advise the department expert input. The panel has consumer rep- hold a seat in the province’s legisla- about the safety of the new devices. Panel resentation that includes Madeline Boscoe, ture. She won on the first ballot with members were asked to declare any poten- executive director of the Canadian Women’s 248 votes out of a possible 397 and tial conflicts. Health Network. However, having three replaces outgoing leader Elizabeth “You would be hard-pressed to find a industry-sponsored consultants appointed Weir, who stepped down after 17 years more glaring, outrageous conflict of inter- to the panel “flies in the face of everything as leader. est other than having the CEOs and full- we know about having objective scientific

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 7 nelliegrams

LOVELACE APPOINTED review,”charges Zuckerman. Program (SAP). It gives special permission TO SENATE Women and Health Protection launched for medical devices or drugs which are not Twenty-five years a formal complaint. Health Canada spokes- otherwise permitted in Canada for emer- ago, she changed the woman Hripsime Shahbazian responded gency use or when alternative treatment face of equality with a letter saying that “in seeking out a has failed. Normally, this would be for life- rights in Canada; high level of expertise in issues such as threatening situations. Breast implants do today she is the those under examination by the panel, it is not cure a disease. newest appointment not unusual to find individuals who have Sandra Lovelace to the country’s had relationships of varying types with the SAFETY CONCERNS uppermost chamber. product manufacturers.” The letter admits “Silicone gel breast implants have greater Thanks to Sandra Lovelace, a that “several of the members of this panel risks than saline implants, with no long- Maliseet woman from the Tobique have provided advice to, or have participat- term safety data available from either Reserve in New Brunswick, Native ed in conferences or activities sponsored by company submitting its application,”says women in Canada no longer lose their the product manufacturers.”But it nonethe- Anne Rochon Ford, coordinator of status under the Indian Act if they less reports that panel members “have Women and Health Protection. “This is marry a non-Native man. pledged to be objective.” problematic, as the more serious health In 1970, Lovelace married an Member of Parliament Nicole Demers concerns with these implants—mostly American, Bernie Lovelace, and moved (Bloc Québecois), a related to rupture— to California. When her marriage ended, member the Commons tend not to show up Lovelace and her children returned to Standing Committee on “MORE THAN right away.” the Tobique Reserve, where they were Health who presented 10,000 SILICONE- A study of silicone refused housing, education and health testimony as a breast BASED implants conducted by care because Lovelace no longer had cancer survivor at the IMPLANTS WERE FDA scientists in 2000 Indian status. While Aboriginal women September hearings, has APPROVED FOR reported a failure rate of and their children lost their Indian sta- also questioned the USE IN CANADA 55 percent per implant in tus when they married non-Native men, impartiality of the panel. IN THE PAST TWO women who had breast Native men did not lose their status Women and Health YEARS THROUGH implants for augmenta- when they married non-Native women. Protection has also com- A LOOPHOLE.” tion for an average of 16 In the early 70s, Indian Rights for plained that Dr. George A. years. Other studies show Indian Women and the National Wells, an epidemiologist much higher rates of Native Women’s Association cam- and the chairperson of the Health Canada rupture, pain and other complications, paigned to change the law with the committee, signed an affidavit in a law including autoimmune disorders among support of the National Action suit launched by two women who had users. With more and more women pur- Committee and the Voice of Women. Dow Corning implants. The affidavit chasing implants for cosmetic reasons, In 1974, the Supreme Court of Canada states that “there is no reliable or reason- the health costs for removing the devices upheld the discriminatory provisions able scientific basis to conclude that sili- later and treating medical problems of of the Indian Act. Lovelace joined the cone breast implants cause the diseases, these women should not be ignored in campaign in 1977, and in 1985, despite signs or symptoms” identified by the favour of profits, women’s health experts the opposition of many male-domi- complainants. warn. nated band governments, the Indian Silicone breast implants were with- The British Columbia Centre of Act was finally revised. drawn from the Canadian market in 1992 Excellence for Women’s Health docu- Lovelace, appointed in September after serious safety concerns forced their mented the growing costs to provinces as as a Liberal, lists her background as removal from the U.S. A series of success- more women develop complications from “activist, carpenter and health care ful lawsuits against manufacturers fol- breast implant surgery and return to the provider.” lowed, including a $4 million out-of-court health care system for additional surger- settlement in B.C. in October. ies and other interventions and treat- CANADA RANKS Technically, only saline-filled breast ment related to implant rupture. “Would SEVENTH implants are licensed for sale in Canada. In any other medical device that failed in A first-of-its-kind report on global practice, however, more than 10,000 sili- more than half the people … ever be gender equality published by the cone-based implants were approved for use approved?” asks Lippman. Geneva-based World Economic Forum in Canada in the past two years through a Concludes Ford: “This is a violation of loophole: Health Canada’s Special Access public trust.”

8 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS nelliegrams

says Canada has the world’s seventh- Prison Conditions Lead smallest gender gap. The report meas- ures and ranks economic to Human Rights Complaint participation, political empowerment, by Meagan Perry educational attainment and access to health care for women. WHITEHORSE,Yukon—Since Justice Louise Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark Arbour released her scathing report on and Finland ranked highest, followed Corrections Canada’s treatment of women by New Zealand, Canada, the United prisoners a decade ago, the guidelines for Kingdom, Germany and Australia. prison administrators are clear: Women Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt scored should be housed separately from men, and lowest. The U.S. ranks 17th, behind they should have equal access to programs France, Latvia and Ireland. The report and work within the prison system. covers all 30 OECD countries and 28 Today, however, the Whitehorse other emerging markets. Correctional Centre is facing a human Google the report or, if you are very rights complaint for keeping women in patient, try typing the URL: their rooms around the clock and for http://www.weforum.org/site/home- excluding them from education, drug and public.nsf/Content/Global+Competitiv alcohol rehabilitation programs and work eness+Programme%5CWomen%27s+Em within the prison. powerment%3A+Measuring+the+Global Kim Mullholland filed the human rights +Gender+Gap complaint after being sent to the facility A human rights complaint was launched by an WOMEN’S PARTY while on remand for two months.“Guys get inmate in Whitehorse, charging unequal treatment GOES NATIONAL to move around the prison,”she notes. for women. Photo: Getty Images Prison administrators meet the spirit of The FemINist INitiative of B.C. is tak- Arbour’s recommendations by using a sep- Replies Perrin: “We try to compensate by ing steps to form a new federal party arate dormitory for women and by keeping making sure we have other programs,but it’s in response to demand from across men and women on separate hours for limited, based on the fact that [the women] the country. exercise.At first glance, it looks like a com- are in the dorm area,”Perrin replied. “Almost all ask the question: ‘Is promise in a remote location with few Walking into the dorm, it’s easy to see there anything like it here?’” says options, where the ruling Yukon Party halt- why staying in here for all but one hour a Chrystal Ocean, co-leader of the ed construction of a new prison at the start day would be unbearable. A three-by-3.6- FemINist Initiative of B.C.. “The answer, of its mandate. But in practice, women face metre room houses two couches, a televi- of course is ‘no’ and it inevitably leads more restrictions than men when they’re sion and a small bookshelf. To the right of to the explanation of just how difficult imprisoned. the entryway is a bathroom with a single it is to gain official provincial party “Basically, [they were] locked down 23 shower, sink and toilet. To the left, a door- status in a province other than B.C.” hours a day,” says Mullholland’s lawyer, way leads to the sleeping area. Eight beds In Ontario, 10,000 signatures are Gordon Coffin.“One hour for fresh air.They are crammed in, heads to the walls, and required on a petition before an appli- used to have gym time, but that was taken none of them more than two-thirds of a cation will be considered. In Manitoba, away because of the condition of the gym.” metre apart.Six are single beds,and crowd- it’s 2,500 signatures. Other provinces While giving a tour of the women’s dormi- ed against the back wall is a bunk.A 5.4-by- have similar requirements. tory, prison superintendent Phil Perrin six-metre sleeping area has been housing “We want everyone who wants to be described the inmates’ lives with best-case- up to eight women at a time. The situation represented by a feminist party to scenario patter. As the tour continues, is typical of small prisons across the coun- have that opportunity, which is why women on the other side of the cinder block try, according to the Elizabeth Fry Society. we’re creating a political space for all wall dividing their crowded sleeping area The prison is doing the best it can with feminists in Canada—our own federal from the tiny TV room correct him loudly. limited resources, according to Perrin. In party,” says Ocean. “We’re in here 23 hours a day!”calls out a fact, the day after the tour, the women were Log on to: FemINist INitiative of B.C. deep voice.After he moves on to talk about moved into a larger dorm with an attached at www.feministinitiative.bc.ca or call programs the prison can offer, another yard. However, two weeks later, they were 250-748-8093. voice shouts out:“We have no programs!” shuffled back.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 9 nelliegrams

BLAIR BLUSHING

Tony Blair and Meg Munn After making the position of a minister for women a “top priority,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair failed to place the new minister on the government’s payroll, instead Women in Print was the site of numerous author readings over the years, including Naomi Wolf (centre), creating a government position that seen with Carol Dale (left) and Louise Hager (right) in 1993. Women in Print will continue online. is “important” yet unpaid. The newly appointed minister, Meg Munn, receives only a member of parlia- Women In Print Closes Shop ment’s salary. Her new unpaid by Alexis Keinlin responsibilities require her to report to the Department for Trade and VANCOUVER—In September, British store has responded to the needs of book Industry as well as the Department Columbia’s last feminist bookstore closed its buyers in innovative ways. of Culture. Ministers are customarily doors after 12 years as the centrepiece of the Since the store is located next to the offered a £29,000 ministerial pay feminist community.Carol Dale, co-owner of University of Toronto, it stocks books for rise. —The Guardian Women In Print, along with Louise Hager, anthropology,sociology and women’s history said the decision to close was not an easy one. courses. This stable revenue source accounts STAGE LEFT IS “Our store is not a moneymaker,” Dale for 65 percent of the store’s revenue.The store CENTRE STAGE says. “Being an independent women’s also hosts courses in a variety of subjects, The founder and Artistic Director of bookstore in a time of big box stores is an from knitting, to writing, to explorations of Stage Left Productions in Calgary, uphill battle.” bisexuality. Hosting book launches and Michele Decottignies, has been chosen Dale attributes the store’s gradual rev- directing people to other community femi- as the recipient of the Alliance enue decline to the increased popularity of nist resources also help secure the store’s Atlantis Award of Distinction. big box stores, online ordering and the position in the community. An initiative of Toronto’s Abilities waning state of feminism in Canada. Anjali Gogia, TWB store manager for Festival, the Alliance Atlantis Award “People also have the idea that you will eight years, says the store’s mandate is to of Distinction is presented to a per- always be there, and don’t realize that you try give back to the community and to stay son who has made an outstanding need to be constantly supported,”she says. current with the times. Part of reflecting contribution to disability art and cul- When the store first opened its doors in the community includes an emphasis on ture in Canada. Kitsilano 12 years ago, there were five other hiring women of colour and First Nations “Michele has been a humble yet pro- feminist bookstores in B.C. They have all women. There is currently a trans person ductive contributor to Canada’s dis- closed.However,Women In Print will contin- on staff. Gogia says the store’s response to ability arts and culture movement,” ue to sell on the Internet at womeninprint.ca. the big box and online push has been to said Loretta Young, Stage Left’s diver- Toronto Women’s Bookstore (TWB) is look for new ways to grow and develop and sity director. “She has worked tireless- the largest and most successful independ- be visible in the community. “There’s ly and selflessly to create endless ent women’s bookstore in Canada. Staff always work, and we need to keep challeng- opportunities for disabled people and there know first-hand that running a ing ourselves,” she says. “Customers also disability artists to be actively women’s bookstore requires tenacity,strug- need to know that they need to support involved in Canada’s professional arts gle and creativity. The store, which was women’s bookstores,because we offer serv- community.” founded in 1973, continues to grow and ices that no one else does. Inevitably, we thrive because the collective that runs the end up being a community resource.”

10 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS nelliegrams

ORDER! ORDER! Campaign Update Rita Shelton Deverell, a leading STOP DEPORTATIONS The paper reports that in New Orleans, Canadian broadcast- er, is one of the The National Alliance of Philippine Women 56 percent of all families with children newest members of in Canada (NAPWC) is demanding that under 18 were headed by women, and four the Order of Canada. Canada stop deporting domestic workers in 10 female-headed families in the New Orleans metropolitan area live in poverty. Rita Deverell Deverell was one and that it protect the rights and welfare of of the first black women in Canada Log on to: www.iwpr.org. the migrant workers instead. to be a television host and a network NAPWC launched a petition to AFGHANI EDITOR JAILED executive. Since working in the 1970s Immigration Minister Joe Volpe to stop at CBC Regina, she has focused on The editor of a women’s rights magazine in the deportations. According to Cecilia telling the stories of those whose Afghanistan was arrested in October for Diocson, chairperson of NAPWC, domes- voices were not often heard. A publishing articles deemed blasphemous. tic workers suffer at the hands of unregu- founder of Vision TV, the world’s first Charges were filed against Ali Mohaqiq lated employment agencies that force multi-faith and multicultural net- Nasab after a complaint to the Supreme them to work without work permits. work, she held several senior posi- Court by a religious advisor to Afghani Arbitrary deportations of domestic work- tions there as well as the post of President Hamid Karzai. ers have increased, she says, often includ- network anchor. Until recently she ing their Canadian-born children. One article questioned the punishment was head of News and Current Affairs Canada should allow domestic workers to under Shari’a law for women found guilty at the Aboriginal Peoples Television enter the country as independent immi- of adultery, punishments such as stoning. Network, and has now mentored her grants and not force them to live with their Another argued that giving up Islam is not aboriginal successor. An inspiring employers, according to Joy Sioson of the a crime. In Afghanistan, local law bans mentor and teacher, she serves as a Philippine Women Centre of Ontario.“Doing comments deemed insulting to Islam; how- role model for young journalists and so would take away the basis for exploitation ever, legislation stipulates that journalists audiences alike. and abuse of domestic workers,”she says. can only be arrested after a commission Some women are not able to fulfill the has studied their case. GIRLS GO requirement under Canada’s Live-in This process was not followed in the case GLOBAL Caregiver Program (LCP) because of preg- of the monthly magazine Hoqooq-i-Zan nancy or illness; others are dismissed (Women’s Rights), which has appeared because of the passing away of elderly per- since the fall of the Taliban. sons in their care or changes to the finan- Rahimullah Samandar, head of cial circumstances of their employers. Afghanistan’s Independent Association of Journalists and a member of the coun- FLOOD OF POVERTY try’s media commission, called for the Women of New Orleans and the U.S. Gulf release of Nasab. Coast region were especially hard-hit by hur- An Australia-based initiative, “Girls Go ricanes Katrina and Rita, according to a CAMPAIGN OF THE DAY Global,” is bringing together contem- study released by the Institute for Women’s Word on the Hill in Ottawa is that Prime porary and popular-culture images of Policy Research (IWPR) in Washington,D.C. Minister Paul Martin may demote the min- global feminism from women and girls More than half of New Orleans families ister responsible for the status of women to across the world. The purpose is to with children under 18 are headed by single a minister of state, an arrangement under demystify feminism and promote a mothers, according to The Women of New which women were poorly served from positive and engaging connection with Orleans and the Gulf Coast: Multiple 1995 to 2004. To avoid a possible demotion the term “feminist.” Disadvantages and Key Assets for Recovery. the Coalition for Women’s Equality wants The affirming images that are col- The report used U.S. Census Bureau data to you to write to the PMO. lected will culminate in an exhibition provide a detailed portrait of poverty Currently, Liza Frulla is minister of her- to be part of the Beijing +10 celebra- among women and people of colour in the itage and also minister responsible for sta- tions in New York. city of New Orleans and the metropolitan tus of women. Under Frulla, the For further information, log on to areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas ParliamentaryCommittee on Status of www.girlsgoglobal.org hardest hit by the hurricanes. Women issued four strong reports in 2005 on

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 11 nelliegrams

ET TU OCTAVIAN? pay equity, core funding for women’s groups THE WAR ON WOMEN Distraught at the and dramatically improving Canada’s MADRE, a women’s human rights organiza- death of Mark approach to gender-based analysis. tion, is launching a campaign in support of Anthony and robbed The Coalition for Women’s Equality has women’s shelters in Iraq.Says MADRE exec- of her kingdom by created a web page on the lobby.Log on to: utive director Vivian Stromberg: “War and Caesar’s great www.canadaelection.net/pmo-actionalert. the rise of religious extremism have already nephew, Octavian, html. unleashed a wave of violence against women the last of the The Coalition is urging supporters to in Iraq.Two-and-a-half years after their ‘lib- Egyptian pharaohs, write a letter to the prime minister urging eration’ at the hands of U.S. troops, Iraqi Cleopatra, clutched a cobra and let its him to implement the recommendations of women are experiencing unprecedented lev- venom seep through her veins. the parliamentary committee and to els of ‘honour killings,’ domestic violence, Nice story, but is it true? After appoint a full minister of women’s equality rape, abduction and forced marriages.” spending a year applying modern in the next cabinet shuffle. MADRE’s partners in Iraq fear that this methods of criminology to the case, trend will escalate with the passage of Iraq’s U.S. criminal profiler Pat Brown WOMEN’S LIBRARY new constitution.It is expected to pose grave believes that the warrior queen (lover IN IRAN OVERDUE threats to women’s basic rights, including of Julius Caesar and, after his death, The Iranian Women’s their right to a life free of domestic violence. of Mark Anthony) was murdered—alas— Cultural Centre opened It posits Islamic law as a basic source of by Octavian. a library last Inter- national legislation and gives clerics a strong Brown believes it unlikely that national Women’s Day hand in interpreting and enforcing Iraqi law. Cleopatra, the descendant of a long in a rented house in To support Iraq’s only network of women’s line of Macedonian Greek royalty that Tehran. By May, the shelters—founded by the Organization of ruled Egypt for three centuries, would building’s owner said Women’s Freedom in Iraq, MADRE is mobi- commit suicide. Egyptians believed she was worried her lizing women to host house parties to raise suicide was a sin, and Cleopatra was “Send us your life could be endan- money.A tool kit for hosting a party can be too ambitious to stop fighting. When books, subscribe us gered by renting to ordered online. Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC to your magazines,” such a threatening says Khorasani For more information or to make a dona- Cleopatra set out to court the next cause. Post-election tion to MADRE’s campaign, please visit most powerful Roman—Mark Anthony. conservative Iran has become a danger- www.MADRE.org or call 212-627-0444. Together they ruled the Eastern Roman ous place for social and political activists Empire until the battle of Actium in 32 and those who support them. NO SHARI’A IN ONTARIO BC, when Octavian defeated them. The library started with more than 2,000 A women’s lobby campaign against an A venomous snake was supposed to books, 60 members and more than 10 vol- attempt to allow Shari’a law into the medi- have brought about Cleopatra’s unteers. The library project is just one ation process in Ontario was successful. demise, but Brown recounts that no working group of the organization and is The province’s Arbitration Act will no snake was found in her chambers. the IWCC’s biggest and most ambitious longer allow religious principles to guide Rather, evidence points to Octavian. project. By knocking at women’s doors and the mediation of family disputes,including After Cleopatra’s death, he tracked asking for donations, the library won the divorce and child custody. down her son, Caesarion—the only support of ordinary women. Nearly 100 women’s groups, labour direct descendant of Julius Caesar— Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani of the IWCC organizations,faith groups and community and killed him. library team wants women to “send us your organizations, including the Canadian “We’ll never know how he did it, but books, subscribe us to various women’s Coalition of Muslim Women, formed the I think he sent his men in to do the job, magazines.” No Religious Arbitration Coalition. “The then made it look like suicide,” con- The library will be home to a history of issue at stake was not Islam or Muslims,but cludes Brown. the Iranian women’s movement and is religious arbitration in all family matters,” receiving a lot of help on database creation according to Alia Hogben, co-chairperson and the management of its resources. of the Coalition.“Steering the discussion to To donate or offer support, contact: the heart of the democratic principles and Women’s Cultural Centre, P.O. Box 144335- away from prejudice or anti-religious senti- 851, Tehran, Iran. ment is the responsibility of us all.”

12 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS global warning BY NAOMI KLEIN

ETHNIC CLEANSING, CAJUN STYLE Outside the shelter in Baton Rouge’s River Center, a called for a second evacuation, the people streaming band is performing a version of Bill Withers’s classic back into dry areas were mostly white, while those “Use Me”—a refreshingly honest choice. “If it feels with no homes to return to are overwhelmingly black. this good getting used,” the singer belts out, “just This, we are assured, is not a conspiracy, it’s simple keep on using me until you use me up.” geography—a reflection of the fact that wealth in New Ten-year-old Nyler, lying face down on a massage Orleans buys altitude. Some dry areas, like Algiers, table, has pretty much the same attitude. She is not did have large low-income African-American popu- quite sure why the nice lady in the yellow volunteer lations before the storm, but in all the billions for T-shirt wants to rub her back, but “it feels so good.” reconstruction, there is no budget for transportation Since fleeing New Orleans after a tree fell on her back from the far-flung shelters where those resi- house, she has visited this tent many times. “I have dents ended up. So even when resettlement is per- what you call nervousness,” she explains. mitted, many may not be able to return. Nyler tells me what she is nervous about. “I think As for the hundreds of thousands whose low-lying New Orleans might not ever get fixed back.” “Why homes and housing projects were destroyed, not?” I ask, a little surprised to be discussing recon- Drennen points out that many of those neighbour- struction politics with a preteen in pigtails. hoods were dysfunctional to begin with. He says the “Because the people who know how to fix broken city now has an opportunity for “21st-century think- houses are all gone.” ing.” Rather than rebuild ghettos, New Orleans I suspect she is on to something, that many of the should be resettled with “mixed income” housing, African-American workers from her neighbour- with rich and poor, black and white living side by side. hood may never be welcomed back to rebuild their What Drennen doesn’t say is that roughly 70,000 city. An hour earlier, I interviewed New Orleans’ top of New Orleans’ poorest homeless evacuees could corporate lobbyist, Mark Drennen. As CEO of move back to the city alongside returning white Greater New Orleans Inc., Drennen was in an homeowners without a single new structure being expansive mood, pumped up by signs from built. The French Quarter, for example, has been Washington that the corporations he represents half-empty for years, with a vacancy rate of 37 per- were about to receive a package of tax breaks, subsi- cent. In the areas that sustained only minor damage, dies and relaxed regulations so generous it would there are at least 11,600 empty apartments and make the job of a lobbyist virtually obsolete. houses. If Jefferson Parish is included, that number Listening to Drennen enthuse about the opportu- soars to 23,270. With three people in each unit, that nities opened up by the storm, I was struck by his means homes could be found for roughly 70,000 reference to African-Americans in New Orleans as evacuees. With the number of permanently home- “the minority community.” At 67 percent of the less city residents estimated at 200,000, that’s a sig- population, they are in fact the clear majority, while nificant dent in the housing crisis. whites like Drennen make up just 27 percent. It was According to Malcolm Suber, a New Orleans com- no doubt a simple verbal slip, but I couldn’t help munity activist, taking over vacant units would do feeling that it was also a glimpse into the desired more than provide immediate shelter; it would move demographics of the new-and-improved city being the poor back into the city, preventing the key deci- imagined by its white elite. sions about its future from being made exclusively by New Orleans is already displaying signs of a demo- those who can afford land on high ground. “And that graphic shift so dramatic that some evacuees describe can only happen if we are back inside,” he says it as “ethnic cleansing.” Before Mayor Ray Nagin A longer version of this article was published in The Nation.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 13 The CAW – building Canadian workplaces and communities for 20 years

better wages bargaining job security socialdiversity political anti-racism child action justice care pensions education organizing working conditions famine benefits international bargaining solidarityde-mining seniority gay human pride

rights women health and safety environment www.caw.ca

Joss Maclennan Design CEP 91/CLC on the edge BY LYN COCKBURN

REALITY BITES Herds of powerful conservative pundits in the line-sounding first names). United States are more than a little upset by the new In fact, I think Mac does a fine job. Smart, funny, TV series Commander in Chief, which stars Geena decisive, thoughtful and honest, she is everything Davis as President Mackenzie Allen. the shrub in Washington is not. She does a fine job of They accuse this show of being nothing more than acting, too. a sinister plot to get Hillary Clinton elected in 2008. But is the United States ready for her? Is Canada? “The name of the lead character, Mackenzie Allen, Is James Dobson? sounds remarkably, poetically like Hillary Clinton,” Some years ago, when I was about to interview said James Dobson, head of the ultra-conservative Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister of Pakistan, a group Focus on the Family. Sikh colleague asked: “Why is it that countries like And some irate commentators see the show in a India and Pakistan, where women are often sup- much wider light, one which brazenly pushes the pressed, have managed to elect women leaders and idea that the United States might be better off with a not North America, which prides itself on its pro- woman president. In reality. gressive attitudes towards women?” “Shamelessly manipulative,” huffed Jonathan I didn’t have an answer for him then, but I do now. Storm of the Philadelphia Inquirer. None of those countries has ever aired a TV series “Commander in Chief seeks to accomplish more like Commander in Chief. than prime-time entertainment,” wrote one blogger. The reason that Pakistan, India, Israel and even For a comprehensive cross-section of opinion about Britain have all elected women leaders, when the a woman as president—on TV—check out the website U.S. and Canada have not (yes, we had Kim Mackenzie watch: www.mackenziewatch.com. Campbell, but she did not win a federal campaign as Meanwhile, Canada does not have a woman prime leader of her party), is that those countries were not minister. The United States does not have a woman terrorized by TV depictions of women at the helm. president. What we have instead is President Had the Brits been subjected to a TV series (I Say, Mackenzie Allen—on TV. And if people like Rod There’s a Bird in Downing Street), Margaret Lurie, the creator of Commander in Chief, has his Thatcher would never have made it. way, that’s as far as we’ll get. And had Israelis been mortified by a long-running With no concept of subtlety, much less any sensi- series (“Oy, a Woman’s Place is at the Top of the bility towards those who fear the thought of a Knesset) they surely would not have had Golda Meir as woman leader, Lurie, while denying any Hillary their PM from 1969 to 1974. Note that the ultra-ortho- promoting, blurted out: “If there’s any social agen- dox rabbis were successful in thwarting her earlier bid da to the show, it’s to be enthusiastic about the idea to run for mayor of Tel Aviv—as a result, no doubt, of of a woman president.” some short-run Israeli TV series I have not heard of. Rod, Rod, Rod. You should have consulted with me Therefore, it seems to me that the best thing before you made that statement. I could have told Steven Bochco (of NYPD Blue fame, and who has you to tread carefully, to go gently into that dark taken over from Lurie as the show’s producer) can night of gender politics. It is not always effective to do to promote the idea of a woman as president is to be pushy. These things take time. tone Mac down. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Maybe get her to resign—like she was supposed to Geena Davis being Prez Mackenzie Allen (surely I in the first episode. Better yet, just cancel the show. can’t be alone in wishing the dudes who run TV Sometimes TV is just too scary. Too pushy. Too would stop giving strong women characters mascu- demanding. Too shrill. Too emotional.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 15 Under Doris Anderson’s reign at Chatelaine (1957-1977), articles on abortion and child abuse appeared right alongside recipes. Anderson (centre) is seen at a meeting of the Canadian Women’s Press Club in 1971, with Stuart Griffiths (left) of Bushnell Communications and Peter C. Newman, then editor of Maclean’s. CP Photo

Still Ain’t Satisfied DESPITE A ROYAL COMMISSION, THE EMERGENCE OF A STRONG FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND A NEW CHARTER OF RIGHTS, WOMEN STILL DON’T HAVE ENOUGH POWER IN THE CORRIDORS OF POWER, SAYS DORIS ANDERSON by Lisa Rundle

After welcoming me into her downtown Toronto apart- from 1957 to 1977 it was jarring at first to see her editori- ment, Doris Anderson, former editor of Chatelaine and als on abortion appearing alongside recipes. But the one of Canada’s best known feminists, had some ques- packaging of the forward-thinking with the traditional tions for me. “Why don’t young women vote?” she asked. is so ... logical. And it’s a reminder that the two solitudes I wish I knew the answer. “I vote,” I said, and then ven- of regular women and feminists need not be as far apart tured: “A sense that it won’t make any difference?” By as the keepers of the status quo would like us to believe. the end of our interview, I suspected young women may Today, 35 years after the report of the Royal soon feel differently. Certainly, if Anderson has her way, Commission on the Status of Women, a document that all women will. gave shape to the second wave women’s movement and It might have something to do with the fact that that Anderson helped bring about, I wanted to know Anderson, 84, has long been a master at talking to your more about the woman, the magazine she guided, and average women. Flipping through copies of Chatelaine the times she did it in.

16 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS Herizons: What did it mean, in 1957, for you to become feminist stuff. We ran food and fashion like every the editor of Chatelaine? other magazine. We ran a Mrs. Chatelaine contest Doris Anderson: It was a job that I was thrilled to get. every year. It was incredibly popular with readers, I’d been looking at Chatelaine since I was a kid—my and it also brought the staff down to Earth about who mother always got it. And the editor for many years we were talking to. But we also tackled things that was a woman. But I had to fight for the job [I was astound me now—we tackled lesbianism and sex. already on staff]. They were going to give it to a man When Kinsey came out and reported only one woman on staff and, without even thinking about it, I said in four enjoyed sex, I thought, “That’s awful.” Then “If you do that, I’ll quit.” there were all these books to help women understand There were only two women editors in the whole of sex. It would have been better to educate the men. North America of women’s magazines at one point What Betty Friedan did was pull all this together in when I was editor. her book. But my managing editor read it and said there’s nothing in here we haven’t covered, except Chatelaine decided not to serialize Betty Friedan’s The how awful women’s magazine are for not covering Feminine Mystique because the editors looked at it and these issues. So we passed it up. thought: ‘We’ve covered these issues.’ What did it feel like to be ahead of the text that’s credited with sparking the I looked through several old Chatelaines, and it’s shock- second wave women’s movement in North America? ing to read your editorials about contentious issues, to see Doris Anderson: I was a feminist long before the word them in there beside the recipes and the knitting patterns. had been invented. And I decided that the one thing Doris Anderson: [Laughs] “10 Ways to Dress up we had going for us as a Canadian magazine (at a time Hamburger!” We used to joke about it: “O.K., if when Canadian magazines were losing money and we’re going to do this serious story, we better have readers to richer U.S. magazines) was to tell Canadian ‘16 Ways To Do Your Hair This Summer.’” women what was happening in Canada. And a lot of women used to say to me: “I never read women’s mag- You were writing about these vital issues, but you were also azines.” These were very bright women at home with getting letters from readers saying, “You’ve turned my nice kids, and they were climbing the walls half the time in women’s magazine into a feminist rag.” So when did it boredom. But they considered women’s magazines start to feel that the issues had broader public appeal? beneath them. So I thought: “You’re going to be read- Doris Anderson: The circulation kept going up and that ing Chatelaine when I’m through with it.” saved my skin. The guys upstairs didn’t care for what I In almost every issue we had an article that really got was doing. But they couldn’t argue with the circulation. women talking, and these were often about all the awful Maclean’s had always been the big money-maker, but things women had to cope with: the fact that you could- Maclean’s began to lose money and Chatelaine contin- n’t get an abortion if your life was in danger or you were ued to make money. I also got a lot of positive letters. raped (I published the first of those articles in 1958); a And we were committed to involving the readers, run- social worker couldn’t give out any information on birth ning their letters. We paid women—readers—the going control. I published one of the first articles in North rate for stories about their own lives. America on the abuse of children and I got a raft of letters saying I was being sensational, this didn’t happen. It’s 35 years since the report of the Royal Commission on But soon that became a very serious concern. And of the Status of Women and you, through Chatelaine, were course, battered women—nobody talked about that. instrumental in getting the commission called. You wrote an editorial in support of it. Can you evoke the time Where did you get the conviction to talk about these before the commission for readers—is there one particu- things no one else was talking about? lar injustice that stands out for you? Doris Anderson: What brought me into journalism Doris Anderson: There were all sorts of things. For was this idea that you could write about things and example, I didn’t get married until I was 36—I didn’t possibly change them. We tried to balance all this think marriage was a great deal for women—and I’d

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 17 been supporting myself for years. I had money in the worst child care systems—we only look good compared bank; I’d had a credit card for years. And yet when I to the United States. European countries have had—for got married, my husband had to sign it. And he owed decades—far better child care, and we’re still only talk- the bank a lot of money! I couldn’t get over it. And in ing about it. So if you don’t have women in Parliament, parts of the country, a father had to give consent for you don’t get these things addressed. There are still a child who needed an operation. So here’s a child in women living in poverty—single mothers, older danger and they have to find the father; the mother women—still too big a gap in pay between men and can’t give consent for the operation. It was ludi- women. So it was these types of things that the Royal crous. In some places in Newfoundland, a woman Commission set out to address, and did address. had to get her husband to sign if she was going to get a library card. Can you imagine? In 1970, you could buy a copy of the commission’s report for $4.50. What did that report mean to women?—Did It’s dangerous for a woman to have a library card! your average woman care? Doris Anderson: Yes! And the abortion law, of course. Doris Anderson: Let me backtrack a bit. The gov- The very first editorial I wrote was about how we ernment didn’t think we needed a Royal needed more women in Parliament. And as a matter Commission. It was Laura Sabia threatening to have of fact, I could run that editorial almost word for women march on Parliament that frightened them word today. It’s changed, but not enough. into doing it. But everybody—mainly men reporting on it—thought it was a joke when they first held their At that time, how did you argue that it was important to hearings from coast to coast. Christina McCall wrote have women in Parliament? a wonderful article in Chatelaine called “What’s So Doris Anderson: Well, [I argued] that women were 51 Funny about the Royal Commission?” percent of the population, and they were well-educat- The reporters thought it was hilariously funny that ed, and here was a great resource. We’ve got one of the there would be a royal commission about women at

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18 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS all. Why not have one about men? And then the stories started coming out about battered women, women in poverty, Native women, and it became more serious. They only printed 25,000 copies of the report. It was a cheap commission. So it sold out within a week and became one of the big sellers of the time. The government totally misjudged how important this commission was.

NAC, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, was created to organize around getting the commission’s recommendations implemented. The sense Doris Anderson is promoting electoral reform to ensure more women are elected. Check out www.fairvote.ca. CP Photo was that it would be a relatively short-term project, rather than that some of those recommendations, like a 80 years to get something similar and failed. But all national child care program, still would not have been of the cases won under the Charter had to be fought achieved in 2005. hard, right up to the Supreme Court. Doris Anderson: It was like everything else that’s happened. We’ve had over 30 years of organizing, try- Looking back, is there anything strategically that could ing to persuade political parties to involve more have been done differently? women, and we haven’t gotten anywhere. Well, we’ve Doris Anderson: I was so frustrated after being pres- gotten somewhere—now one in five MPs is a woman— ident of NAC and of the Canadian Advisory Council on but again, compared to most European countries we the Status of Women—asking myself, “Why do we still look pathetic. Compared to Rwanda, Mozambique.... have such lousy childcare and such a gap in pay?—that We’re 37th in the world. It’s terrible. Which is why I’m I wrote a whole book [The Unfinished Revolution]. I pushing for some form of proportional representa- went to 12 different countries and compared their tion [as opposed to our current first-past-the-post progress. The only thing I can truly say that I think we system]. It’s the only way we’re going to change it. could have done better is to change the electoral system; but of course that wasn’t on the radar screen at There’s a sense now that the government throws a royal all. But the countries that had proportional represen- commission at an issue as a distraction—a way of mut- tation automatically got more women in parliament. ing protest. Was that the sense with this commission? And more egalitarian policies followed. Doris Anderson: No. I think people took them much more seriously back then. And this was such an So, should women be calling for a royal commission on unusual one. We have royal commissions on fish, on the status of women now? Would that be a helpful tool? the mining industry. And women felt once the rec- Doris Anderson: No. I met with a group of women in ommendation came out, “Now that they know, sure- the Maritimes a couple of summers ago, and they ly something will be done.” But very little was done. were all gung-ho to call for another royal commis- Gradually, we’ve learned through the years. And the sion. But it takes two or three years to do it, and I equality provisions in the Charter of Rights and think we’ve got all the information we need. Really, Freedoms were a great example. We were told the what we need to do is move. That’s why I’m putting a wording in the Charter would be fine. But the word- lot of energy these days into changing the electoral ing was lousy. We had to fight like tigers to get it system [through Equal Voice]. Five provinces are changed. And we got a whole new clause (Section 28: seriously engaged in looking at proportional repre- “Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the sentation, and also the federal government. I’m con- rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed vinced we’re not going to get anywhere without it. equally to male and female persons.”) The American Lisa Rundle is a columnist at Herizons and the book- women are stunned we got it. They’d been trying for review editor at rabble.ca.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 19

TransForming Politics TRANSGENDERED ACTIVISTS BREAK DOWN GENDER BOUNDARIES AND RECONFIGURE FEMINIST PARAMETERS by Krista Scott-Dixon

Four years ago, Herizons asked, “Can a Transgendered For many trans people, the process of moving Person be ‘One of Us’?” That question underlies how through a transition from birth gender to destina- trans issues have been seen by some as something anti- tion gender provides opportunities for reflection on thetical to, irrelevant to—or simply outside of—femi- feminist critiques of sex/gender systems. For nism. Yet trans issues and activism raise new instance, while many trans women may have been possibilities for feminist political work, for ways of aware of, and sympathetic to, feminist issues before thinking about gender, and for solidarity and alliances. their transition to living full-time as women, post- Many feminists are now realizing that there are many transition experiences of sexism and gender-based parallels and connections between trans and feminist violence provide sometimes harsh reminders. struggles. Trans people can be feminists; non-trans fem- Lynnette Dubois, who survived a sexual assault inists can be trans allies; and there might even be some- and went on to become the founder of Artemis thing called transfeminism. While feminist and trans Services, a human rights advocacy organization, people and groups remain diverse and specific in their explains how the experience of trauma enabled her individual needs, they nevertheless share many common to more fully understand the horror of sexist vio- goals and much common language. lence. “In a rather starkly real if surreal way,” she I gathered some of these emerging ideas into an edited says, “my experience of being sexually assaulted collection titled Trans/Forming Feminisms, which will could be viewed [by some] as validating my presen- be published by Sumach Press in 2006. Here, some of the tation and belief in my identity as a woman. Many of book’s contributors reflect on the connections and chal- my thoughts and reactions were identical to those lenges between trans and feminist ideas and activism. some non-trans women might have in a similar cir- cumstance. I was flooded with doubts and fears, and Lately, the political and social struggles of trans frustrated in my inability to get the police and Crown people are more and more visible. In particular, attorneys to realize how serious this crime was.” trans people have organized against gender-based However, in Dubois’ case, she also experienced the violence and harassment, economic and political dual marginalization of being female and trans. discrimination, legal invisibility and the barriers to “I was left with the very real feeling that the circum- accessing sympathetic and quality health care and stances surrounding my gender presentation virtual- social services that they face. The experiences, ideas ly obliterated both the seriousness of the assault and and political struggles of trans people have not only any consideration of me as a human being.” drawn on feminist work in these areas, but have This event, she says, permanently affected her added new insights and dimensions. Despite the understanding of gender inequality. “The resulting shared concerns of feminist and trans movements, ordeal and the lessons it taught me have become the tensions between trans and non-trans feminists nucleus of my views on not just my transition, but still linger. We’ve got some issues to sort out. the entire notion of equal justice. I was suddenly

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 21 thrust into a different world—one populated by Noble believes that his background in feminist fears and discriminations—and that made me and anti-oppression scholarship provides him with become a feminist.” new opportunities to define his masculinity and For many female-to-male (FTM) trans people who work for change. “Trans men need to step up and identify as feminist, the process of transition involves into feminist subject positions as men. This is vital grappling with masculinity. Many FTM theorists, such if we want to be politically committed and, well, just as Henry Rubin or C. Jacob Hale, began their research better men. Feminism will need no less from us than careers with some connection to any other group of men.” Indeed, he women’s studies, and many trans believes that trans men have a men who are community activists also “ONE IS NOT BORN unique opportunity to redefine mas- A WOMAN, ONE began their activist careers in femi- BECOMES ONE.” culinity in a feminist way. nist/lesbian communities. — SIMONE DE Kyle Scanlon is a Toronto social Bobby Noble, who teaches women’s BEAUVOIR services worker whose client base is studies at the University of Victoria, primarily low-income and street- describes himself as “a guy who is half active trans women and sex workers. lesbian.” As a result of his own experience, he is He credits his women’s studies education as well as acutely aware of women’s concerns. “As someone who his prior experiences living as a woman in a lesbian walked the streets, sometimes late at night, in a community for the feminist standpoint that now woman’s body, I know all too well the fear of men shapes his world view as a trans man. “I have the walking behind me a little too closely. In that same unique experience,” he says, “of being a guy who was situation now, I cross the street or look away from raised as a girl in my culture, of being a guy who took women, or non-threateningly manoeuvre the situa- classes on feminism, and being a guy who can never tion so that I put as much distance as possible between take for granted all the privileges associated with myself and a woman out by herself.” passing as a white male.”

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22 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS Many trans and feminist activists speak of the connection. First is the importance of understand- importance of drawing on both principled world ing social inequalities as they relate to one another. views and experience to inform their politics. Joshua Second is the fluid nature of power and privilege. In Mira Goldberg, who co-founded three trans organi- the first case, the types of systems that permit and zations, says of the relationship between the two: “Of enable discrimination in one area also permit and course my life experiences shape my politics, and enable discrimination in another, therefore com- vice versa. But I think my positions on feminism and pounding the social marginalization of many people. trans issues come more from my principles, rather In the second case, activists have come to realize that than my personal experiences. It is not only possible people experience oppression in multiple ways, so but necessary to have principled positions, whatever that an individual’s power and privilege is subject to your life experience has been.” change depending on the context. Talia Bettcher, a professor of philosophy at As Bobby Noble explains, “trans women and non- California State University and a performance artist, trans women may be more likely to share many describes the link this way: “I have lived part of my things that trans men and non-trans men may not life as a man and part of my life as a woman. My experience: wage gaps, gendered and racialized vio- positions on feminism and trans politics are deeply lence and poverty. ...These are issues that trans informed by this experience, not only in terms of my folks need to take up, regardless of what gender we description of the issues, but also my political views make homes in.” about action and change.” Bettcher adds that politi- Goldberg stresses the importance of understand- cal views have to be tested against lived realities and ing the connections between various oppressions, circumstances. “Once political theory becomes rather than relying solely on a single shared identi- divorced from [this], it needs to be rethought.” ty. “Build movements rooted in principled solidarity— Two key insights of anti-oppression movements from the last few decades illuminate this important continued on page 45

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HERIZONS WINTER 2006 23 Vehicles of Change AN INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST SARAH BECK by Roewan Crowe

Sarah Beck is a cultural activist. The Saskatchewan- Herizons: How would you describe your work as an based artist makes crystal-clear connections between artist? themes of consumerism, the militarization of daily life Sarah Beck: At first I was—and in some ways still and the mass marketing of armaments. Beck’s latest am—really uncomfortable with the word “artist,” project is entitled “Öde,” a Swedish word meaning both and I really rejected it. I think of my work as a mod- waste and fate. This multimedia project consists of sev- ern form of protest. eral elements, including a website, a 32-page full- colour mail-order catalogue and an actual life-size How so? tank. Beck’s work deals with the commodification of Sarah Beck: To me, art seemed intimidating as an security, promising well-designed weapons for the institution. It didn’t seem like an act, or even some- masses and freedom through weaponry for the North thing to enjoy. It took living and working with other American consumer. A full-colour catalogue can be artists—specifically, at an artist residency at Banff— purchased from the Öde website, which convincingly to gain a sense of perspective on my own work. It was represents a pseudo retail chain Beck has created (see like pulling back the red curtain to see that the wiz- www.shopode.com). ard was just another person. I suddenly felt like I

24 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS TANK DIMENSIONS: 26’ x 10’ x 10’ WEIGHT: 2 metric tons SURFACE: easy-care melamine • available in a variety of finishes • easy assembly; requires one tool

had something to offer. Just because I don’t want to Central to Öde is a life-size, low-cost, environmentally friendly tank that Sarah Beck first constructed in her parents’ driveway in Saskatoon. do this whole art thing the way other people do it Modelled after the 1997 South African Rooikat, Beck’s tank is constructed out of white painted sawdust board. Beck has shown the tank in gallery doesn’t mean I can’t do it my way. I hesitate to criti- settings as well as in the suburbs. Photo: Sarah Beck cize or to claim I know the exact problems with art, because it’s different for everyone. But I did find a The message always drives my choice of medium. way that allows me to respect myself. I’m a trained photographer/cinematographer, yet photography plays only a small part in my work. If In what ways? art wears out, maybe I will enter politics, but for now Sarah Beck: For me, it’s not why I make art but how I it tells the story. make it that is important, and by that I do not mean I choose to make art that steps out of the gallery, the medium. I am a creative person and it’s easy for whether in language or signifiers, or physically so me to create, but I take my art practice very seriously. that my audience will be wider. I’m consistently sur- I work hard to make my work accessible because I prised by its diversity and have learned to never want it to be accessible. The message in my art is real- underestimate my audience. It’s easier to predict ly important—the vehicle (or medium) is secondary. how someone who is more like-minded—politically,

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 25 Can you talk about why you think art is a powerful tool? Sarah Beck: Art is not necessarily a powerful tool, but it is my tool for best communicating to the world. I have finally come to peace with that. Much of what other activists are doing seems far more important to me, and if my role seemed more useful in a different place I would be doing that instead. Protest is something I am not comfortable with, either. As an institution, it has been utterly co-opted, by what I can see. The signifier for protest, thanks to news reporting, is the image of a young punk causing trouble, when that is not real- “ÖDE is proud to offer peace of mind. Our new anti-tank fencing is designed ly the case. This has weakened protest for me and with safety and comfort in mind. Available in a variety of finishes, this fencing requires no tools for assembly.” — Öde catalogue made me look in other directions. Instead of expressing dissent, I have chosen to use art to spread ideas, or even information. I think of say—will respond. There is an excitement to sharing myself now more as a social barometer, and the new ideas with people and having them bring their artist thing is kind of new. ideas to the table, especially when they are different. I wasn’t comfortable with the term “artist” We all have more in common than we think when we because of all the significance and potential preten- use common language. sion attached to it. I am not particularly comfortable An example of what I mean lies in bringing Öde to in galleries, and neither are my family and a vast the U.S. Öde was completed in May of 2001, and majority of my audience. I feel challenged to make suddenly there were new and complex layers of art that does not need the context of the gallery, meaning being attached to the work after instead using elements of the culture so it can be September of that year. I was obviously nervous readily understood. Everyone speaks the language of about reaction so close to 9/11 and what the audi- advertising and retail—even children, as I have ence would think I was communicating as a learned through exhibitions. Canadian. Each person who came found a different entry point to access the work. For some it was What motivates your work? through involvement with the military and a knowl- Sarah Beck: The work comes from a place of need, edge of weapons. Other people readily identified really—a need to communicate what I believe to be with the material and had purchased desks or what- desperately important on the little soap box that ever made of Medium Density Fibreboard and being an artist has afforded me. This is a question I could commiserate. Some people quickly identified am likely to spend the rest of my life answering. with the lifestyle advertising and felt comfortable there. These points of entry really drew people in How have your experiences as a woman influenced and got them talking with each other. Word of your work? mouth led to people visiting the website and expe- Sarah Beck: As a 29-year-old woman in Canada, my riencing it in the comfort of their homes. experience is vastly different than women even a few

26 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS “MOST OF THOSE “AHA!” MOMENTS ARE HINGED AROUND A SEARCH TO COPE WITH WHAT I FIND DISTURBING IN THE WORLD.” — SARAH BECK

years older than me, and certainly different than those in other countries. I really believe things have changed, here in Canada, a great deal in the way we raise young women, and although there is still a lot of room for improvement. (Trust me, being the only female electrician on a film set brought this crashing home). I never was raised feeling limited by my gender—thanks mom and dad. The idea of complicity in my femininity, and even in consumer culture, is an issue I return to again and again.

What other ideas have influenced your work? Sarah Beck: I’ll bring it back to complicity. I can’t Beck’s poses with her life-size tank, featured in a 32-page full-colour mail-order catalogue on the Ode website (www.shopode.com). say how much this interests me. Watching myself as Photo: Darrol Hofmeister a sociological experiment, as I lived through my 20’s, was telling. It’s fine to be politically idealistic and noble, I suppose, but we create these identities unmarried and childless migrants. Breeyn is in for ourselves in a lot of subtle ways and participate in Saskatoon now, and we are in the early stages of pro- the culture so frequently in our consumption that it duction and anticipate being done shortly. begs examination. I’m very influenced by the news and political journalism, far more than by other art. Any artist/writer/activist heroes? Most of those “Aha!” moments are hinged around a Sarah Beck: One of the people I admire a great deal search to cope with what I find disturbing in the is Orson Welles, which may sound strange. It isn’t world. I suppose it takes away some of the power- that he conquered theatre, radio and cinema—all by lessness one can feel when faced with human nature. the age of 25; it’s what he did with his life after that. It’s one thing to be a wunderkind and be blessed What other projects do you have in the works? with wonderful talent, but his career was willfully Sarah Beck: This year I was the recipient of a grant and sunk and destroyed by the studio system after Citizen the Joseph S. Stauffer prize from the Canada Council. Kane and he didn’t give up. He essentially made an This grant and the award money will go towards pro- ass of himself in other people’s films and embar- duction of a new work, MOTHER, which is a collabora- rassing casino commercials to raise funds to com- tion with designer Breeyn McCarney. MOTHER is an plete the projects he really believed in. It’s so acronym—MakeOvers To Heal Economic Rifts. It’s important to believe in what you do, because talent designed to raise consumer awareness about the only goes so far. His passion and drive, especially in apparel industry and the hardships of young women disappointment, motivates me. Öde cost me over working in export processing zones. An export pro- $40,000, and everyone around me thought I was cessing zone is a restricted area in poorer countries crazy—which was discouraging at times, no matter where separate laws facilitate cheaper manufacturing how concerned they were for my well-being. I fol- of goods, especially clothing, to be exported for First lowed my instincts, and I can’t express how much World consumption. The employees are young, I’ve learned because of it.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 27 Di Brandt’s book of poetry Now You Care (2003) gained attention for its compelling take on ecological crisis. Photo: Coach House Press

shock to me and an urgent wake-up call. I didn’t know The Muse there were places in North America that are so environmentally stressed. I had to reinvent what it means is not Amused to write poetry in a place where the big corporate giants hold power over everything so visibly, so overtly, so AWARD-WINNING POET DI BRANDT close up. I had to work hard at standing tall and assum- SOUNDS ECO ALARM BELL ing a more authoritative voice than I’d been used to in the past, in order to address the reality of that scene. by Mariianne Mays The other striking aspect of Southwestern Ontario is commuting: Everyone spends so much time in Herizons: The group of poems that open your latest their cars or on the train, driving through that land- book, Now You Care, is called “Zone: .” They scape. I heard a brilliant lecture by London poet and are about the polluted border between Windsor and critic Cornelia Hoogland, who is looking at the motif Detroit, the glut of commercial traffic between the two of the car in Ontario poetry and has concluded that places, speed and its numbing effects, and the rush to the significant landscape in Ontario is no longer a globalized free trade and unbridled consumerism. Why pretty field or mountain you stand and look at or walk did you choose this set to begin the collection? through, as in Romantic poetry, nor a countryside Di Brandt: Now You Care came out of my experience of you drive through, but rather the car itself. She cited moving from the fresh-air, economically depressed the line from Zone 5, which describes driving to Prairies to the hyper-industrialized, factory culture of Detroit through the tunnel under the Detroit River, Southwestern Ontario (I moved there in the mid 90’s “our feet never leaving the car,” among other things. and lived there for nearly a decade). It was a great I found the commuter syndrome a terrible, violent

28 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS thing to get used to. Yet after I’d been there a few hard as the North American Great Lakes region. So years, I was doing it as much as anyone else. You start not all the eco-despair in the poems is intended to losing the sense of groundedness in a particular be pointing a finger at Slovenia. I really just meant to place there, or any good sense about the squander- weave in comments about the changing world order, ing of valuable energy resources. There’s an impulse and the various border wars now happening, and the to keep moving, to escape the terrible pollution, confusion about how to contain capitalism, now that perhaps. Now You Care begins with these poems communism no longer exists formally as an effective because this is where my environmentalist awaken- resistance to the greediness of the rich countries. ing happened. The 401 was my great muse! And I did feel very tender and protective toward the Slovenes, who didn’t seem nearly as worried The poetry cycle “Dog Days in Maribor, Anti (electric) ghaz- about Shell and McDonalds moving into their beau- als” describes environmental and political devastation in tiful old city as I was, in terms of the threat of multi- northeast Slovenia. You very effectively contrast the larger national globalization to their rich, amazingly political and historical picture with the particular and inti- well-preserved and flourishing local culture. mate present: “we who have lived without/ hope these long centuries,/ can we survive one more winter?” or “arthritic This poetry cycle begins: “Truly, in this age,/ why should symptoms/ could mean: mineral deficiencies,/ deer ticks, not all women be mad?// ... / The cherry trees have all genetic weaknesses,/ accumulated steroids,/ unexpressed been cut;/ bronzed epitaphs.// No more invasions!/ The rage.” and “What was it we wanted,/ before all the walls earth is spitting up blood.// Diamond rivers, uranium came down?” When were you there? Can you talk a little valleys,/ petroleum oceans.// Purple irises, Van Gogh, about your time there and how it inspired the poetry? radiant,/ beside the door.” There is rage here; it’s protest Di Brandt: I visited Slovenia three times: in 1999, 2001 art. It reminds me of the vehement etchings and drawings and 2003. I really love Slovenia—it’s a beautiful country of WWI German artist Kathe Kollwitz, “The Mothers,” or that spends its public money on the arts, rather than “Never Again War!” or Phil Ochs singing “I Ain’t fancy buildings! I was very struck by this, coming from Marching Anymore,” or Tracy Chapman singing “Rape of Windsor, Ont., to Maribor. The two cities are roughly the World.” Were you conscious of tapping into a tradi- the same size, one with lots and lots of money, the other tion of protest and protest art, and is there any protest art with very little, and yet the arts scene there is flourish- in particular that has informed your thinking? ing far beyond what we can manage in Windsor! Di Brandt: Thank you, that’s a fine company to be in! I don’t think Slovenia has been as hard hit by The opening lines are, of course, a riff on John environmental degradation as some of the northern Thompson’s brilliant ghazal sequence, Stilt Jack, and [former] Communist countries, and certainly not as especially ghazal XX which starts, “I begin again: why

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HERIZONS WINTER 2006 29 should not young men be mad?” I adapted his beautiful ghazal” to give herself permission to adapt the ancient adolescent male rage to the situation of “all women,” venerable Persian ghazal form to experimental purpos- and though I think it’s a similar rage to the kind es. The subtitle “Anti(electric) Ghazals” is meant there- Thompson enacts in his poems, nevertheless I wanted fore as implicit homage to her. Webb’s Water and Light to highlight the effect of environmental degradation ghazals and anti-ghazals are marvelous protest poems specifically on women and our reproductive capacity and have a brilliant knack of marrying innocent domes- and power, and to foreground the kind of political tic details like Mrs. Olssen, the neighbour lady, stopping vision women might bring to political discussions now. by for tea and a chat, and then zapping us to Iraq and “a There’s a recurring motif in the poems in Now You knocked off head of somebody on his broken knees.” Care about breast cancer and mastectomies. I’m There is shock and contemplation in her poems, appalled, frankly, at the way breast cancer has been and precise attention to images and rhythm, and a depoliticized in the mainstream media into a fund- kind of intellectual rigour—a philosophical note— ing drive for chemical-based research, instead of which was daunting to imitate, but necessary in addressing the causes and discussing alternatives … these poems, where I was trying to practise speaking like making polluters pay for the cleanup and devel- in a ‘public voice,’ as opposed to a personal, inti- oping more holistic models of being in the world. mate, relational one. Cancer in this sense is a powerful political oppor- Answering your questions in this way, incidental- tunity for discussing the healing of ourselves and our ly, makes it seem as if writing poems is a very delib- relationship to the natural world, which is suffering, erate act, in which you set out to elaborate certain like we are, with the toxic burden of over-chemical- ideas and techniques. But you don’t really choose ization. And it’s a reminder that we need to put poems; they come at you from the dark, they sneak women back into positions of geopolitical and bio- up from behind, they seduce.... medical influence and power so we can take better care of our concerns, for the health of our own bod- A recent collaboration is your music/poetry partnership ies, our reproductive interests, our children, the with musicians Carol Ann Weaver and Rebecca Campbell, Earth and the future of life on this planet. We should both in performance and to produce the 2003 CD entitled be much more vigilant as women about protecting Awakenings (after Dorothy Livesay). What was it like to our reproductive capacities and rights and long-term work in another medium and with other people in this way? goals and interests than we have been. “Equality” as a Di Brandt: Wonderful! Wonderful! I felt so happy slogan for women’s rights is simply not enough. The poet Phyllis Webb invented the term “anti- continued on page 46

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30 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS guest room BY MARIKO TAMAKI

IDENTIFIED Like most name tags, my corporate bookseller name Unfortunately, being unique does not always mean tag was a plastic square—a red one—worn clipped to you will be perceived as being unique, especially if my shirt, with my company’s name embossed on the you’re an Asian chick like me—or maybe, more top and my name, MARIKO, below. specifically, a Japanese chick who looks like an Kind of like a “property of”-type situation. The fact Asian chick—which means that if you’re not paying that my name was embossed was the only permanent attention, I could look like just about anything. part of my job, although it did not, in any way, imply Four years ago I worked in a store with a Korean that I was anything less than replaceable. The first girl who was half my height and weight and wore thing I noticed when I started wearing a name tag was glasses. Her name was Patti and, if I had wanted to, I that customers really liked reading it. It was the first could have rolled her up and shoved her into my thing people noticed. First my name tag, and then my pants for safekeeping. She was very wee. boobs, where the name tag hung. No one ever actual- Unfortunately, Patti’s wee-ness and my non-wee- ly called me by my name, but I often heard it men- ness did not deter customers from mixing us up. tioned to other mega-complex co-workers. And for a long time, Patti was my second Asian “Go to that man over there,” I’d tell customers. “He mixed-nuts name. specializes in needlepoint. He’ll find your book.” Patti, in turn, was often Mariko, or sometimes, dis- Every once in a while I’d walk away and hear a cus- turbingly, Marikah. After a while, both of us stopped tomer whisper, “Excuse me, sir? The Chinese girl correcting customers, opting instead to refuse to sell over there told me you could find this for me.” certain items to those who couldn’t identify us. Right after that happened for the third time, I Eventually, after several discussions, Patti and I stopped wearing my name tag out in the open. I devel- deduced that the clear difference between acquain- oped a reputation as a service rep with name tag issues. tances and friends was the ability to distinguish racial “Don’t you like your name?” a manager asked me. background, or, at the very least, the understanding I suppose my name is something that makes me that it was stupid to assume racial background. We unique, which I should find exciting. There aren’t a labelled this “Asian blurring,” a phenomenon that lot of Marikos around. I’ve had a lot of people tell me was especially useful when I was 16 and could borrow that there’s a lot to my name, aside from the literal random Korean and Chinese ID’s to get into bars. translation, which is either “happy” or “shiny and I guess it all comes down to identity politics—more bouncing.” specifically, Retail Identity Politics. Maybe it’s espe- About eight times out of 10, when I tell people my cially hard to identify someone correctly when name, they want to know what it is, which typically they’re wearing an ugly corporate uniform and name means what country it and I are from. Often, when I tag. Maybe I shouldn’t give a shit who thinks I’m say that the name and I are Japanese—I’m half Korean or Chinese. Maybe, if it really bothers me Japanese—they seem to feel that this confirms a sus- that much, I should just correct people instead of picion they had. passive-aggressively denying them retail product. “Oh well, you can see it in your eyes, of course,” Mariko does not know. they say. But in the meantime, Mariko will be switching “Of course.” name tags with Lorenzo in the warehouse, who Like, OF COURSE you’re Japanese. Sometimes they always wants to switch name tags with other clerks. say it like they’re mad they didn’t get it earlier. As though Everyone thinks Lorenzo is Spanish. He is not. this, my name, were a sort of game, like Clue or Sorry. © Mariko Tamaki, Fake ID (Women’s Press, 2005).

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 31 arts culture MUSIC

ESTHERO and groovy beats I associate with Esthero stark to the lush and whimsical. Wikked Lil Grrrls took over. On “Butterflies and Drunk Men,” she Warner, 2005 It’s entirely possible that the record celebrates “all the good men getting Review by Anna Lazowski label is using her first single to brand loaded after work” singing: Butterflies and drunk men weaving all It was about seven years Esthero as an edgy, outspoken artist to together ago that Canadian music appeal to music fans looking for some- Down a sunny dirt road in Keno 3 a.m. fans first met Esthero. thing different. I just wish they could have It’s beautiful to see them Her debut album, Breath done it with a little more subtlety and a Beautiful and silly From Another,incorpo- better leadoff single. Not a single straight line in summer- rated elements of jazz, pop, hip hop and time electronica. She didn’t do it alone, but after KIM BARLOW In Keno City. the success of the album, Esthero parted Lucky Burden Barlow’s guitar and banjo work are ways with her collaborator, Doc. Caribou Records/Fair solid,but it’s her storytelling—celebrating Since then, fans have been waiting for Godmother Productions, 2004 the trials and triumphs of “this rugged lit- another full-length recording. Maybe it Review by Cindy Filipenko tle resource town”—that distinguishes just took this long to line up the number of The lives of former hard her from many neo-folkies. Lucky Burden helpers who appear on the new album. rock miners and their would make Woody Guthrie proud. They include spoken word artist Jemeni, families in Keno City, Jully Black, Gerald Eaton, Cee-Lo Green once the epicentre of the and Sean Lennon. Yes, that Sean Lennon. Yukon’s silver mining THIS TIME I’LL He co-wrote and performs on one of the industry, make an unlikely topic for an FORGIVE YOU … AGAIN best, sunniest songs on the album: astoundingly likeable album. Kim Barlow Ash Riot “Everyday is a Holiday (With You).” spent considerable time hanging with the Riot Records, 2005 The first song on Wikked Lil Grrrls is locals and scouring the museum archives to Review by Cindy Filipenko also the first single. “We R In Need of a create Lucky Burden, a unique blend of actu- Oh, to be young enough Musical Revolution” perfectly captures al oral history and mythic Canadian themes. to truly enjoy the sound what a lot of people think of the music Opening in 1914, the Keno City mines of angry girl grunge. industry these days. Songs on the radio attracted workers from around the world. Ash Riot, an adolescent aren’t very good,and talent seems second- The result was a unique cultural melting bundle of angst with a ary to image. pot, a place where labourers could expect pierced lip and a chip on her shoulder, Maybe this was a marketing strategy of to make a decent wage until their retire- comes off like a less polished Avril some kind to get our attention. Esthero’s ment. Or so they thought. In 1989, the Lavigne. It’s hard to tell whether the raw- back and she’s mad! She’ll save the music mine closed and most of the residents of ness is contrived or real, but with songs world from its sorry slump! But it seems the small town 400 km north of like “Fix” and “Heroin Halo,”in which Riot like a strange way to reintroduce one of Whitehorse left. Today, Keno City sports a sings of a junkie girl who’s “prettier when Canada’s signature voices. Then things got population of 14. Kim Barlow’s Lucky she’s high,”my vote’s with the former. Riot a little weirder…. The second track, Burden showcases their stories. is trying just a little too hard-to be an “Dragonfly’s Intro,”is a spoken word piece Lucky Burden is as traditional as folk edgy, outsider. by Jemeni with no presence from Esthero music can get, using simple melodies and Her guitar-heavy compositions are pure at all. basic acoustic instruments to tell the tales punk, albeit, it’s punk that the fellows I was really excited about this record. of these ordinary people and their down at Cosmic Pig Studios added a But about 30 seconds into track two, I dreams—dared and lost. veneer of pop sensibility to, in order to popped it out of my stereo. I came back to Barlow’s approach to her creative make it more commercial. it the next day and picked up at the third process is similar to that of an ethical Riot’s growly vocals are reminiscent of track. “Blanket Me in You (Never Is So anthropologist.She doesn’t pass judgment Pat Benatar. Listen to how she stretches Soon)” sounded more like the singer I on the quirky town or on its eccentric res- out her vowels on “Liar With a Black remembered from 1998.And as the record idents; she merely presents their lives Heart” and you’ll hear what I’m getting at. went on, all the sensuality, smoky vocals using vivid imagery that runs from the This young woman can sing,but her song-

32 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS Out ‘n About Travel Inc. DOES NOT2XW¶Q$ERXW7UDYHO,QF CHARGE SERVICE FEES on'2(6127&+$5*(6(59,&()((6 Westjet, Jetsgo, Tango, Zip, Canjet writing is limited. While this lack of The arrangements emphasize Sue RQ:HVWMHW-HWVJR7DQJR=LS&DQMHW and Skyservice. breadth is to be expected in a young artist, Keynes, Mel Watson and Sam Loh’s DQG6N\VHUYLFH there are times when the cultural refer- shared ability to write hooky tunes. And ences in her work demonstrate just how the lyrics balance the weight of each com- much room Riot has to grow. position, giving Burn a familiar and wel- If you’re too old to put a Discman on coming feeling. and bounce around your bedroom hat- The group, which plays as an acoustic ing the world, you’re too old for Ash Riot. trio or backed by a full band,currently $PHPEHURIWKH,QWHUQDWLRQDO The again, if your mom’s car has a CD holds the record for most sales at *D\DQG/HVELDQ7UDYHO$VVRFLDWLRQ player and you’ve got it to cruise around WOMAD, Seattle’s annual folk and world with your girlfriends on a Saturday music festival, selling 680 CDs in two night…. days. It is easy to see why: Fruit is a pleasant departure from “good for you, BURN but not very good” folk music.Burnis Fruit an immensely listenable alternative folk Fruitmusic, 2005 CD. Review by Cindy Filipenko HAVE YOU HEARD ² 2VERUQH 6W 6 0F.LP &RXUW\DUG To truly appreciate the :LQQLSHJ 0DQLWRED 5/ < queer folk/pop trio Toshi Reagon SK WROO IUHH ID[ HPDLO RDW#PWVQHW Fruit,you have to accept Righteous Babe, 2005 the role that pop plays Review by Cindy Filipenko in the Aussie version of Toshi Reagon is a this genre. The type of spare production singer-songwriter that accompanies homo folkie icons such deserving of a huge wild women as Ani DiFranco and Indigo Girls is prac- audience. This sweet- expeditions tically unheard of down under. Instead, voiced woman has bands like Fruit and their contemporaries enough soul to take an old chestnut like Canada's Outdoor Adventure Company for Women Bluehouse receive far more lush engineer- “Heartbreak Hotel” and make it her own. ing. The result is a sound that has more in Her music has a strength of sensuality common with Everything But The Girl reminiscent of some of the great than Ferron. blueswomen that came before her,from This doesn’t mean the women who Odetta to Susan Tedeschi. make up Fruit are apolitical, pop star But Reagon’s prowess doesn’t end wannabes—far from it. The three les- with blues; she’s as comfortable with boriffic babes who make up Fruit pose on pop or funk. The song “Didn’t I Tell You” the liner notes with the phrase “we can has a bass line guaranteed to make the change the face of life”superimposed over most arrhythmic white girl—a.k.a. their familiar visages. Even in 2005, being yours truly—keep a foot-tapping out, queer musicians is still a political act, accompaniment.“Ooh Wee” continues in and it will be until same-sex love songs a similar vein. It’s a driving tune that start appearing in the Top 40. would undoubtedly get a live audience And love songs are what Burn is all on its feet. about. Thirteen of the CD’s 15 tracks take Among the 10 songs that make up Have 2006 online now! love and examine it from a variety of You Heard, any record executive worth her canoe trips • mountain biking adventures • sea kayaking • flyfishing • girls’ camps • artistic retreats • angles employing an array of styles: from keep would recognize that there are three cross-country skiing • dog sledding and more! the folk ballad “If For Only the Sun,” a definite singles: the aforementioned www.wildwomenexp.com paean to lost love, to the lusty, just itchin’ “Didn’t I Tell You,”“Soul-n-Deep” and “22 [email protected] 1-888-WWE-1222 to be remixed “A Thousand Days.” Hours.”

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 33 Of course, the music industry is always copies of her first disc ahead of the release a little nervous about artists that break the date. That debut, Arular,was nominated arts pop princess model, and Reagon certainly for Britian’s prestigious Mercury Music breaks the mould and celebrates it. Her Prize. She didn’t win, but it’s still been a culture band, BigLovely, got its name from a letter pretty good year for Maya Arulpragasm. ARTIST PROFILE a girlfriend sent her addressed to “My Born in London,her family went back to BigLovely.” Big and lovely are also fitting Sri Lanka when she was still young. They descriptions of this eclectic songwriter’s moved again—this time to India—but sound. As the daughter of one of the would return to Sri Lanka to visit. On one founders of Sweet Honey in the Rock, of those trips, war broke out and her fami- Passion Fruit Reagon probably understands the value of ly was split up. They reunited in London, the freedom to create music outside the and that’s where Maya stayed. She began by Karen X. Tulchinsky mainstream. studying art and was heavily influenced by Having toured with Lenny Kravitz, Dar what she’d seen during the Tamil rebellion. night, with a band play- Williams and Ani Difranco, it’s time for She got into the music business by doing ing, lights dimmed, folks Reagon to move from opening act to head- graphics for different musicians, and ulti- At dancing and sipping local liner.Buy Have You Heard, and I guarantee mately ended up making music herself. beer, the Anza Club in Vancouver you won’t be taking it out of rotation any- Her music is an unusual mix of dance- feels hip, urban and trendy. In the time soon. able beats backing up heavy subject mat- late afternoon, though, as I sit with ter. Images of war, violence and revolution the members of the Australian band M.I.A. dominate the album and are punctuated Fruit, the club looks a bit, shall we Arular by a retro keyboard sound. It’s an odd mix say, rundown. Paint peeling on the XL, 2005 of influences, melding her Sri Lankan walls, faded beer-stained carpet, Review by Anna Lazowski background with the sound of the London slightly torn, vinyl-covered chairs; a It’s rare to be faced with streets. stage just large enough for a band; a new artist who defies It’s rare to hear a woman forging her Plexiglas spit guard between the comparison, but M.I.A. own path in the music world, and it’s not bartender and the stage. is one of those artists. just critics and awards committees taking I’m here in time for the sound No one sounds like her. notice. Style icon and No Doubt front- check.A technician counts to 10 into Her unique style even had hard-to- woman Gwen Stefani is touring Canada a microphone, purposely popping impress music critics trying to track down this fall with M.I.A.as her opening act. her p’s to set levels. Sam Lohs, Susie Keynes and Mel Watson, the three principle members of Fruit, hop down from the stage to join me. EATING THE WEDDING GIFTS Their Aussie accents are sexy, their LEAN YEARS AFTER MARRIAGE BREAK-UP energy infectious, their generosity BY BARBARA MURPHY boundless. I discovered Fruit at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival last ith rising divorce rates, single-parent families make up an increasing portion of all W families in Canada. Despite the struggles and commitment of the women who are the June at an onstage jam session, sole providers of these families, most single parents are raising children in poverty. Eating the where I was blown away by their Wedding Gifts focuses on the lack of post-secondary education as the major factor in this persistent social reality and provides musicianship and their easy con- strong evidence that young women at high school today (and their nection with both the other musi- parents) will find compelling. cians and the audience.

OTHER The style of their music is best BOOKS BY BARBARA described by band member Keynes: MURPHY “harmony-based acoustic pop with a lot of horn.” Their songs are about breaking up,social justice,friendship,

ISBN 0-920486-90-8 Why Women Bury Men: The Ugly Canadian:The Rise On The Street: How We surviving and love. Watching band The Longevity Gap in Canada and Fall of a Caring Society Created the Homeless members on stage, their 10-year his- DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS tory is obvious: as Keynes and Lohs REPRESENTED BY THE LITERARY PRESS GROUP OF CANADA play dueling acoustic guitar, Watson

34 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS fills out the sound with a variety of horns and wind instruments, and all three sing in perfect harmony. Spending as much as nine months a year together, the trio has achieved a syn- chronicity that’s tangible when they perform. The harmony of their voices and their instruments is seamless. It’s hard to tell where one voice begins and another leaves off. And when they perform, these girls just wanna have fun. Not signed with a major label, Fruit has gained an international audience through “If our music can constantly touring, singing live all over bring just a little North America, Germany, Ireland, the bit of light into someone’s day, U.K., Brazil and Australia. As they say, it’s a success,” there’s a magic that happens when they says Mel Watson, (left) of the are on the stage. “We are more than the Australian band, sum of our parts,”Keynes figures. Fruit. To her right “1995 was the year we were born,”Lohs are Susie Keynes and Sam proclaims. She means, of course, the year Lohs. Fruit was born.“It was serendipity.” “It was easy—one of those musical col- laborations you didn’t have to work at. It was too easy,”says Watson, who plays sax- ophone, flute, French horn and trumpets. When they first formed, they were aware of the rarity of all-girl bands. “We were comparing ourselves to bands that were all guys. No one gives them a hard time.” recording offer if a compatible company der which team these girls are playing for. Lohs pipes up: “In our first PR, we did- came along, they’ve made it this far inde- So I just asked. n’t mention the fact that we were women. pendently, building a business that has “I’m a lesbian,”says Keynes. We didn’t want to pay attention to that and survived 15 international tours. “Me too,”Watson adds.“I’m unofficially go to a special treatment level.” One goal that was not on their butcher married to an American woman I met in “Yeah,” adds Keynes, “it’s like playing paper,but has defined itself more recently, Seattle.” baseball and getting a girl’s bat. You just is nothing less than to change the world. Lohs has been with someone for four want the bat that everyone else uses.” When they began as a group, they had a “It’s the essence of what we do and why,” years who is also a woman. “But I like meeting in which they plastered the wall Keynes says. driving both trucks,”she adds. with “butcher paper” and filled the pages “If our music can bring just a little bit of When I ask if any of the three were ever with their goals.“It snowballed,”says Lohs. light into someone’s day, it’s a success,” romantically involved with each other, “Some of our goals were outlandish,” Watson adds. On their CD Burn,after Lohs says with a mischievous look in her adds Watson. “Like, we wanted to go to introducing the title song with a true story eye: “Sure, we sleep together all the time. Brazil”—a goal they later achieved. Every of being kicked out of Kmart for trying to We always share hotel rooms.” I wasn’t time they met one of their goals, it set the use the ladies’room—“the clerk thought I quite sure whether she was serious. But goalpost higher. was a bloke”—Watson sings: “And I sing serious about their music they most cer- In spite of financial hardship, Fruit has so I can make a place where there’s noth- tainly are. maintained independence and gained ing but love between people…. Cause we Check out Fruit’s new CD, Burn. For info: their audience fan by fan, taking their can change the face of life just by looking www.fruitmusic.com.au. show on the road. at another point of view. Cause there’s so Karen X. Tulchinsky is a novelist and “We didn’t want the record companies much to know and so little to fear in love.” screenwriter. Her novel, The Five Books of to tell us to lift our bosoms,”Watson says. With a name like Fruit and buzz cuts on Moses Lapinsky, was recently released in Though they wouldn’t turn down a two of the three members, you gotta won- the U.S.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 35 arts culture WINTER READING

EYEHILL in voice,time and subject.Some loose ends minates the natural love that flows between Kelly Cooper remain tantalizingly dangling, but the col- grandparent and grandchild without the Goose Lane Editions, 2004 lection weaves together dozens of charac- weight of the toxicity that often imbues Review by Kerry Ryan ters and histories to create a cohesive and parent and child relationships. Just like the lives of convincing portrait of rural life. Haiti is a violent country, and, as Chancy the small-town char- illustrated in her previous novel,never more acters that inhabit THE SCORPION’S CLAW so than when those who have are pitted them, the stories Myriam J.A. Chancy against those who do not. Stranded in a that make up Eyehill Peepal Tree Press, 2005 country that’s no longer ruled by a dictator, are so closely knit Review by Irene D’Souza young Haitians compensate for their sense that they finish each Myriam Chancy’s fic- of economic abandonment with bloodlet- other’s sentences, tion seeks to deliver ting and violence. Chancy describes their stepping on each life in Haiti from brief dreadful situation in evocative and illumi- other’s toes from time to time. But in sound bites to a lumi- nating prose.The story she tells of the plight doing so, these stories enrich one anoth- nous and realistic of a Haitian family serves as an important er’s sparse, prairie plot lines to create a picture. She releases and worthy subtext for all the political and vibrant, intricate and engaging whole. the people and land- genocidal atrocities that haunt our televi- We come to know the characters that scapes within plausi- sion broadcasts on any given day. make up the town of Eyehill in bits and ble walls of mythical pieces—through coffee shop talk, gossip, and historical significance. Her fiction SANTIAGO memory and flashbacks. The stories, and recreates the charmed society life that Simone Chaput the stories within the stories, span genera- existed during the Duvalier regime, and Turnstone Press, 2004 tions with snapshots of lives suspended in her laser focus on the confusion, helpless- Review by Sylvia Santiago time. And it’s when we look closely at the ness and horror summoned by the down- Simone Chaput’s backgrounds of the stories that we gather fall and aftermath of the dictatorship Santiago follows the information about other characters. captures her readers and never loses their main character, For example, we hear Roxanna’s name attention.Imbued with a distinct prairie Dominique, her mentioned early on when she is a teenag- sensibility, Chancy may well become a friend, Julia, and er.But we don’t really get to know her until grande dame of Haitian literature. Julia’s brother, Colin, two-thirds of the way through the collec- As in her previous novel, Spirit of Haiti, on their journey tion, when she is already a wife, a mother she’s looking acutely at familiar territory. from Saint Jean Pied and a woman with breast cancer. She Chancy has written a calm book,filled with de Port, France, to might play a lead role in the story “Zig Zag chaos and confusion. Her metaphorical Santiago de Compostela,Spain.Though the Fence,” but Eyehill is made up of an imagination, combined with the precision trio’s motive for undertaking the pilgrim- ensemble cast. We learn of Roxanna’s fate with which she describes the isolation,guilt age is far from noble—“it seemed like a only through an offhand remark down the and despair of those who have escaped, is cool thing to do”—by journey’s end not road, an aside to someone else’s crisis. particularly poignant. Her new novel is one of them remains untouched by grace. Most of these stories focus on everyday sentimental Haitian magic realism. “Santiago,or Saint James the great,is the life in the tiny Saskatchewan town,particu- The Scorpion’s Claw tells the story of a patron saint of the possessed…. He is larly on the dependence on the land, the modestly grand Haitian family, distinctly especially known for his power against hardships of farming and the challenges of cosmopolitan, seeking to retain their way demons,”Colin tells the two women at the growing up in a place that so many people of life. Chancy is adept at deciphering the onset of their journey. Fitting, considering want to—and do—leave. There is much complexities of Haitian family life. The that the characters have their own personal sadness in these stories—loss, loneliness, intricate relationships—illegitimate sons demons to fight.And there is plenty of time despair, violence, illness and deep family working as indentured servants in their for fighting, given the 700-kilometre rifts. But Eyehill’s residents are of tough father’s home, half siblings who are stretch of road. Colin is consumed with prairie stock: They carry on, they work unaware of their relations—are identified guilt over the accidental death of his hard, they find a way to survive. and given their entrances and exits. younger sister decades earlier, and is Eyehill, Cooper’s first book, is very fine- With great affection, the book also unable or unwilling to move on. Julia is a ly crafted. The interlocking stories read explores the relationships of the grand- successful painter who at times regrets that almost like a novel—even given the shifts mother to her grandchildren. Chancy illu- she allowed her art to take precedence over

36 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS her family. Dominique is full of bitterness, are inside a real family, but does not go so ers whose names do not rhyme with still smarting from the breakup of her mar- far as to make the reader feel like she’s Emma might have the persuasion to over- riage and dissatisfied with a profession that watching the Rikki Lake Show. come their pride and prejudice, show constrains her creative inclinations. Preston’s heroine, Cherry Ring, spends some sense and sensibility to slip off to Dominique’s transformation is less a the duration of the novel coming to terms Northanger Abbey, located in Mansfield change in attitude and more a shift in with her family’s hidden history in ways Park, and relive some of literature’s great perception. that seem absolutely conceivable for a moments. When Julia laments at journey’s end, middle-aged columnist living in a The story gets off to an energetic start.Six “shouldn’t an experience like this one free Winnipeg neighbourhood: She drinks books, six members (five women and one us from ourselves and let us start all over with her friends, rekindles an old flame, man) and six months of meetings. Despite again?” Dominique is taken aback and hangs out with her dog and tries to avoid their differences, or perhaps because of thinks: “and lose the passion, the knowl- the possibility that her dead brother, in them,the group’s members are inspired and edge, the losses and regrets that make us whose face she once bit a quarter-sized spurred on by the unwritten rivalry to claim who we are? Cast out our devil, only to dis- hole, is trying to kill her. the title “one who loves her the most.” Technically, Cherry Bites is a mystery cover we’ve cast out the best thing in us?” For each of our modern protagonists, novel. But don’t expect a fast-paced, high- Because Dominique has been able to make Austen represents something different. peace with her past,she is now free to envi- action nail-biter.This novel is a quiet mys- The 30-year-old Allegra focuses on the sion a more satisfying future for herself. tery that unfolds without too many impact of financial need on the lives of They say that one’s pilgrimage does not end shockers and with a detective (Preston women and, had she worked in a book- in Santiago; it begins there—and this rings fans will recognize police inspector Frank store, would have shelved these literary true for the travellers in Chaput’s novel. Foote) who seems almost incidental to the gems in the horror section. Simone Chaput is the author of the plot.The strength of the book is in its gen- But for the group, Austen embodies the French novels Un Piano dans le Noir and tle subversion of the mystery genre. Like La Vigne Amere. Santiago marks her many mysteries, it tells the story of family truisms of modern life. Fowler subtly English novel debut. secrets, how old grudges and crushes can incorporates the modern/traditional fic- make a difference after 20 years, and how tional characters. She has imbued her CHERRY BITES a journey into the past allows a woman to story with rich social detail. Ostensibly a Alison Preston exorcise her demons. Preston’s kitchen- story about a book club, each character sets off on their own journey that takes Signature Editions, 2004 table style allows Cherry Bites to be sus- them ever deeper into their own longings, Review by T.L. Cowan penseful, but refuses to allow the mystery to overshadow the perfect details of the desires and reasons for putting up with,or There’s no better way life of a woman without many ambitions, relinquishing, relationships.It is a journey to spend an after- whose next-door voice makes for homey filled with expectations and fleeting noon than by reading reading. moments of genuine, in-depth revelations a novel about some T.L. Cowan is a writer, spoken word artist over Petit Syrah and cheese. other family’s dys- and graduate student living in Edmonton. function, narrated by Fowler has created a flawless novel a character who is within a novel.At first glance, readers may trying to figure out THE JANE AUSTEN expect a straightforward story about why she’s the only BOOK CLUB thwarted relationships and feeble attempts normal one. Karen Joy Fowler to correct them. But Fowler, an interpreter Alison Preston’s Cherry Bites tells the Penguin Books, 2004 of modern lives, adroitly lays out the psy- story of a depressing family history with- Review by Irene D’Souza chological musings of her characters as out getting too maudlin or relying on many Karen Fowler’s inspir- they move in and out of each other’s lives. of the clichés of the genre.The family prob- ed and erudite novel Her characters negotiate life with both lems are serious enough to keep the pages is a homage to the gusto and trepidation. None of the charac- turning—the plot incorporates the reading much-beloved Jane ters remains stuck in neutral, and Fowler’s of a lost diary, which mirrors the reader’s Austen. Austenites compassionate and perceptive observa- process—but not so outlandish that you need not be wary— tions about them reverberate off every fall out of the story. The diary provides a all the right elements page. In this fascinating dissection of a nicely embedded frame and reveals and grand themes are slice of literature, Fowler reminds us that enough misery to make you feel like you explored in many subtle ways. Even read- plus ça change,plus c’est la même chose.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 37 arts culture ISSUES AND IDEAS

CODE PINK: STOP THE of kindness and to be aware, be involved abuse and reproductive choice do not shy NEXT WAR NOW and be warned.So of course,Stop the Next away from controversy, and even include EFFECTIVE RESPONSES TO War Now is a good thing. some horrific photos: a woman bruised, VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM Yet the book is too basic for experienced bloody and beaten, run over by her Edited by Medea Benjamin and activists and would, I suspect, be over- boyfriend and rushed to an emergency Jodie Evans whelming for the novice.So,who exactly is room, bearing his truck’s tire marks on Inner Ocean Publishing, 2005 the audience for this book? Apparently not her body, and a crumpled woman in a Review by Joy Parks nouveau cynics like me, who cringed over pool of her own blood, dead following a what read like pre-election warm-up botched illegal abortion. These harsh Edited by the co- speeches by various politicians and then images force the reader to see and con- founders of Code cried over Cindy Sheehan’s letter to George template the actual consequences of what Pink, the feminist Bush. At best, Stop the Next War Now is a have become banal expressions— anti-war group satiri- collection of writings by bright,committed “domestic violence” and “right to life” cally named in people who appear to have full faith that movements—in our daily parlance. response to the U.S. they can and will succeed. Perhaps that’s New to this edition are magazine-style Homeland Security all it needs to be. Department’s colour- sidebars with biographical profiles of coded terror alerts, Stop the Next War Now diverse women speaking about their expe- offers both theory and practical instruc- OUR BODIES, rience with particular health issues and tion on the making of peace and the OURSELVES “myth or reality” boxes that highlight key protesting of war. Readers will find smart, A NEW EDITION FOR A NEW ERA women’s health facts.The effect is a reader- angry, intelligent and occasionally sancti- The Boston Women’s Health friendly text that enables either skimming monious pieces by Eve Ensler, Barbara Book Collective and scanning or a deep read. There is also Ehrenreich, Helen Caldicott, Arianna Simon & Schuster, 2005 a free website to augment the information Huffington, Naomi Klein, Cindy Sheehan, Review by Kathleen O’Grady in the book: www.ourbodiesourselves.org. Holly Near, Benazir Bhutto, Helen Thomas When the health edu- With its forthright feminist stance, valu- and Shirin Ebadi, among others. cators and activists ing of women’s voices and unwavering sup- Each essay or article (or, in a couple of collectively known as port of reproductive rights, it is no wonder cases, poem, song or letter) deals with an the Boston Women’s that OBOS has known controversy. It has element of war or violence, and each is Health Collective set been banned in high schools and public underpinned with a particular flavour of out, 35 years ago, to libraries across the U.S., and was once con- maternal feminism that’s been relatively write a comprehen- demned as “obscene trash”by Jerry Falwell. quiet for a couple of decades. However, the sive women’s health guide that valued the But the only thing “obscene” about sheer number and variety of interrelated experiences of women, little did they OBOS is that women still struggle with issues that arise impede the book’s focus know they would spark a movement. many of the same issues and health con- and create a fissuring effect that may What became known as Our Bodies, cerns today as they did 35 years ago: the explain why the anti-war movement has Ourselves (OBOS) has since sold more over-medicalization of women’s cycles been slow to gain traction in Middle than 4 million copies worldwide and is (turning menstruation, child-bearing and America.The Vietnam War protests became available in 18 languages, as well as in menopause into illnesses requiring med- more effective once activists realized they Braille.It has also been through numerous ical interventions); excessive and unnec- could no longer preach to the choir—a les- updates and revisions, with this new 35th essary medicating of women son that might benefit this movement. anniversary edition constituting the most (anti-depressants, sleeping aids, such as Granted, it’s hard to be tough on a substantive reworking of both the text and benzodiazepines, direct-to-consumer book that is about peace. It deserves format since its inception. advertisements of prescription drugs); kudos for demonstrating how to be a This new edition of OBOS, like previous reproductive choice (always under threat); more learned, responsible citizen-partic- versions, covers the full range of women’s the right to equitable care (women,partic- ipant and for imploring us to demand a health issues, including chapters on ularly senior women, remain dispropor- more investigative media, to financially healthy sexuality, body image, addictions, tionately poor); safe and respectful support groups that share our beliefs, to emotional well-being, environmental and relationships (murder and abuse by inti- raise more peaceful children, to demand occupational health, parenting, healthy mate partners is still alarmingly high); integrity from our politicians, to reduce aging and more. and plenty more. dependence on oil, to practice small acts Crucial chapters on issues such as The truth is, 35 years on, we need OBOS

38 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS now more than ever. If ever there needed to get youth to think critically about homo- Kathleen O’Grady, a research associate at be a companion to the phobia and heterosexism),in fact it’s quite the Simone de Beauvoir Institute,Concordia coming-out process— radical. University, was a post-reviewer for two for teens, for parents, As contributor Ayden Isak Hoffman- chapters in the new OBOS. for extended families, Scheim points out in his essay, queer and teachers and friends— transgendered youth are often silenced, HEAR ME OUT: TRUE Hear Me Out is it. whether it’s by internalized homophobia, STORIES OF TEENS The book is a col- pressure from family,friends or religion or EDUCATING AND CONFRONTING lection of true com- just due to confusion. And it’s even hard, HOMOPHOBIA ing-out stories by the youth of Teens sometimes, to find acceptance in the A project of Planned Educating and Confronting Homophobia queer community. Parenthood of Toronto (TEACH) in Toronto. Though the group’s TEACH and the stories in Hear Me Out Second Story Press, 2004 approach sounds relatively straightforward give young people a chance to share deeply Review by Nicole Cohen (peer facilitators share personal stories to personal stories about fear, rejection, hope

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 39 and change. These writers have learned to shape their queer identities, they touch on disappearing as agrarian society gives reshape personal storytelling into a tool, a universal themes of belonging and accept- way to one with its roots in technology. means of education and healing. ance.We should all feel lucky that they are Jacobs opens her text with the following In the book, we meet Jenn F., who tells so committed to telling their stories again, line:“This is both a gloomy and a hopeful her story of being an eight-year-old boy in and again, and again. book.”She acknowledges that the topic of hospital for a hip infection, pleading with Nicole Cohen is the editor of Shameless cultural collapse is both frightening and staff to “fix me. To make me a girl like I magazine. depressing, but she also presents a variety should have been.”We meet Makeda Zook, of solutions for reversing the erosion of who struggled to face homophobia while DARK AGE AHEAD critical institutions that signals the growing up with two moms. Elysha Mawji Jane Jacobs oncoming Dark Age. shares her efforts to become an activist and While most of us were taught that the Random House, 2004 take up space as a queer woman of colour. period of time between the collapse of the Review by Cindy Filipenko And Stephen Wei grapples with being able Roman Empire and the emergence of the to come out as gay, but has a hard time Jane Jacobs, the author Renaissance was the Dark Ages, Jacobs dealing with internalized racism. of 1961’s The Death points out that human history has been Some stories are about being brave, and Life of Great marked with a number of Dark Ages. some are about being bold. Some are American Cities, now a From the disappearance of hunter-gather- heartbreaking, others hilarious. But the classic urban planning er societies in pre-agricultural common thread that weaves through this text, is no Cassandra. Mesopotamia to the eradication of pre- book is that it’s not easy being different, She is a cool and com- Celtic Western Europeans, entire cultures especially for a young person negotiating passionate observer of have vanished. Today, what we know of issues of race, class, sexuality and cultural contemporary society. these lost cultures is due to the educated and religious beliefs. With Dark Age Ahead,the social philoso- speculation of archaeologists and social As contributor Emmy Pantin writes,“the pher offers a compelling argument that our anthropologists. coming out story is integral to creating a world is once again at a critical junction. Jacobs suggests that as aspects of our queer identity.” As these young writers Jacobs suggests Western culture is at risk of daily lives disappear, we pay little atten-

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40 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS tion. Soon, we are in the position of hav- which students receive the exact tools for of Rhetoric and Comparative Literature at ing lost even the knowledge of what was an exact job. the University of California, Berkeley, and lost. Therefore, what was lost becomes Dark Age Ahead does more than explore critical cultural theorist extraordinaire, something that never existed. She also how and why cultures evaporate. It pro- was among the academic superstars with points out that merely archiving infor- vides a blueprint for ensuring that we which Judy! had its way. mation will not protect a culture, as the don’t destroy our culture in favour of ever- Judith Butler, let’s call her Judy B., has cultural is not created out of facts and advancing technology. Let’s see who picks had my heart since my first run-in with figures, but rather from a million up the plan and runs with it. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the nuances. Jacobs emphasizes the point Subversion of Identity,midway through with this charming example: UNDOING GENDER my second year at York University. The “[Cultures] live through word of mouth Judith Butler 1990 text posits her theory of gender per- and example.That is why we have cooking Routledge, 2004 formativity—“there need not be a ‘doer classes and cooking demonstrations, as Review by Lisa Foad behind the deed’—the ‘doer’ is variably well as cookbooks.” In 1992,a critical theo- constructed in and through the deed”— Jacobs opines that in order to preserve ry fanzine, playfully and put Judy B. on the map. our culture we must not let the institu- entitled Judy! was Misreadings abounded, and Butler’s tions of community and family,education, launched by Miss 1993 follow-up, Bodies That Matter: On science, government and the self-policing Spentyouth (Andrea the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex,’ attempted to of the learned professions (legal, medical) Lawlor-Mariano, an redress any confusion by furthering her continue to erode to the point of irrele- undergrad at Universi- theory of performativity as an involun- vance. ty of Iowa). The zine tary repetitive exercise in citationality For example, in terms of education, romped its way that depends upon normative structures Jacobs points out that we have moved through the scholarly starship, jesting and of power. from the tenets of broad-based classical jousting at the academic tower of power Though Butler has published plenty education, which emphasizes learning and its luminaries. Judith Butler, the since then, it’s her most recent book, how to think, to mere credentialing, in Maxine Elliot Professor in the departments Undoing Gender, that’s done me in once

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HERIZONS WINTER 2006 41 again. Perhaps Butler’s most accessible As Butler notes:“If I have any agency,it is ny of domestic abuse sit in a Chinese work (she’s known for her intricately opened up by the fact that I am constituted immigrant’s home. More recent voices of dense writing style), Undoing Gender by a social world I never chose. That my black nurses recall how they survived interrogates not the “doing” of gender but agency is riven with paradox does not mean their first working experiences in Canada. its “undoing”—the ways in which hege- it is impossible. It means only that paradox Sisters or Strangers? is a comprehensive monic structures of power undo us by is the condition of its possibility.” collection of essays.The keys to this ambi- either “conferring recognition” or “with- tious anthology, which covers two cen- holding”it,and,consequently,its constitu- turies, are diversity and agency. The tion of us “as socially viable beings.” She SISTERS OR writers attribute various degrees of self- also explores the ways in which we STRANGERS? determination to the many women popu- attempt to undo, given both our desire to IMMIGRANT, ETHNIC AND lating its pages. be recognized within normative struc- RACIALIZED WOMEN IN Most of the authors, who are historians tures and to “maintain a critical and CANADIAN HISTORY and social scientists, identify themselves transformative relation to them.” Edited by Marlene Epp, Franca with the specific heritages of the women Butler explores the existence of these Iacovetta and Frances Swyripa they write about—Aboriginal, African, tensions within notions of kinship, inter- University of Toronto Press, 2004 Caribbean,Chinese,Japanese,South Asian sexuality and transsexuality, among other Review by Barbara Freeman and European from many countries. As things,challenging the ways in which lives A statue of the Virgin academics, they take different theoretical are rendered livable or not.She also exam- Mary wears a cloak approaches and use various methods to ines the ways in which “New Gender embroidered with gather their evidence and present their Politics”—trans, intersex, queer and fem- gold, red-veined findings as to whether these women were inist theories—can undo,“not to celebrate maple leaves in a sisters, strangers or both—in their own difference as such but to establish more Ukranian Catholic eyes and in those of other Canadians. inclusive conditions for sheltering and church in Edmonton. Inevitably, in a collection as large and maintaining life that resists models of Dusty court records far-ranging as this one, the research is a assimilation.” with ghostly testimo- little uneven. Nevertheless, a few of

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42 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS these essays are groundbreaking, and almost 20 years ago. The excellent intro- almost all the others are informative duction serves as an effective scholarly and well-presented. guide, while the individual chapters will This lengthy book testifies to the depth interest the general reader, as well as pro- and breadth of academic research on fessors and students. diverse groups of women in Canada since Barbara M.Freeman teaches media history the first such anthology was published at Carleton University in Ottawa. arts culture FEMINIST CLASSICS

THE TIN FLUTE but dependent. In the spotlight are the (BONHEUR D’OCCASION) novel’s redeeming characters: the women Gabrielle Roy of the Lacasse household, who are strong, McClelland and Stewart determined and hopeful. First Published: 1945 Rose-Anna,the “family helmsman”and English Translation: 1947 matriarch,though sensible,is shy,and her Review by Stacey Kauder demeanour gives “away her intention to Honoured by an take up as little room as possible.” inscription on the Florentine, the daughter, strives for a “life new Canadian 20- enchanted” while financially supporting dollar bill, Gabrielle the family as a waitress at the five-and-ten Roy is one of Canada’s in an “atmosphere of pursuit, of with- most noted authors. drawal, of half consent.” For Florentine, In 1945, she was love is “an illness,”a caustic infection to be awarded the Prix given away.Due to her skewed vision of Fémina for her novel love, she commits her “greatest mistake.” Bonheur d’occasion The women are at breaking points, resist- (loosely translated: happiness will come ing their poverty by clinging to dreams your way) and she was the first woman and setting their sights outside of them- elected to the Royal Society of Canada, in selves: Rose-Anna’s upon her youth, 1947. Contributing greatly to French Florentine’s upon a man. Canadian literature,The Tin Flute explores Roy manages to uplift the Lacasse fam- the devastation poverty breeds while it ily the only way possible: “salvation creates distrust, helplessness, hate and through war.”Azarius enlists in the army misguided hope. and finally “become[s] a man” able to A bestseller that has been translated maintain responsibility for his family, into more than 15 languages, The Tin Flute while his wife Rose-Anna is able to sup- is set in the 1940s, with the Second World port the family through the army’s pay. War as the backdrop. The foreground The Tin Flute stands the test of feminist focuses on the poverty-stricken Lacasse time because Roy leads the reader from family that lives in a small industrial dis- despair to joy and gives the heroines trict of Montreal. Roy depicts the down- something substantial to look forward to. trodden state of the Lacasse household Rose-Anna can finally secure a home for with intense clarity and vivid description, the family and Florentine realizes her true revealing the father as an “unstable dream- worth as an intelligent, hard-working er,”the son as shiftless and the other chil- woman. Through their struggles, they dren as too young or sick to be anything become stronger, happier women.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 43 arts culture FILM

ME AND YOU AND store shoe salesman. He’s hardly interested, EVERYONE WE KNOW since he’s preoccupied with his recent sepa- Directed and Written by ration and focused on raising two young Miranda July sons.But Christine senses potential between them, and whether this can turn into any- 2005 thing more than potential is the central Review by Maureen Medved question that carries us through this film. One of the most amazing films of 2005,Me Other story lines resonate with this main and You and Everyone We Know, is a quiet, one. Christine sends an art curator a reel of near perfect meditation on the search for Me and You and Everyone We Know, a film by her work with a plea for the curator to Miranda July, is a comedy that bursts with hope, love and human connection. phone her. Richard’s seven-year-old son celebrating humanity in its gawky, vulnerable glory. In an industry dominated by the male becomes involved with an adult woman auteur, here comes performance artist through an Internet chat room. Adolescent occur, but July eases off with a deft hand. Miranda July, who—in the tradition of girls stalk a lonely middle-aged man and And the only time she skims the edge of Woody Allen and Charlie Chaplin—has then target Richard’s 14-year-old son as self-consciousness is during the art world the audacity to direct, write and star in practice for oral sex.That boy then becomes scenes,which sometimes feel too clever.But this, her first feature film. Here is a come- intrigued by a girl who saves towel sets and she segues from these moments into the dy that bursts with hope. July celebrates appliances for her dowry. Characters reach next, and the next, with such grace and humanity in its gawky, vulnerable glory. out to one another like swimmers in black integrity that you don’t even know what hit The protagonist,Christine,played by July, water. Technology provides a way. you. This is a beautiful and delicate movie, is an “Elder Cab” driver and an aspiring Aided by the strong screenplay, direction as fragile and as strong as human nature artist—a kind of awkward outsider type and performances, the characters form del- itself. It is a celebration of that nature—a distantly echoing Woody Allen’s shlub, icate, vulnerable connections with each true and unpretentious depiction of what it Masina’s Cabiria or Chaplin’s Tramp—who other in ways that give us new perspectives means to turn away from cynicism and becomes immediately enamoured with on alienation. Each story holds the tension despair and take a few tentative strokes Richard, a recently separated department that some horrible transgression may towards that tiny glint of light.

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44 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS Scanlon views the interplay between trans and … continued from page 23 (Transforming Politics) feminist issues as a “conversation” that is ongoing. shared values and goals,” he suggests, “rather than He speaks to feminism in his reflections. “Hey engaging in hurtful and wasteful battles about who is feminism!” he cheerfully announces: “Here’s a ‘real’ woman or trans person.” another series of questions and critiques you hadn’t Despite the insights that oppressions are inter- thought about before. It might take a while to get it, connected, trans issues and feminist issues are but you will, because you’re smart and you care often seen as separate, or even antagonistic. Many about everybody being treated equitably. That’s why activists are challenging this divide. Caroline White, I like you, feminism.” who has worked in women’s and anti-violence More seriously, integrating trans issues can organizations for 20 years, believes that focusing on require some difficult self-reflection, says White, divisions between trans and feminist issues shuts such as in the case of some women’s organizations. down solidarity. “Basically,” she says, “both the question and the “Trans is not outside of feminisms,” she notes. challenge are whether we collectively hold ourselves “The politics and boundaries of an ‘us’ (feminist) and accountable to trans phobia practice and, if not, ‘them’ (trans people) is neither accurate nor useful.” what in our feminist organizations allows us to look Bettcher agrees: “One can speak from both a trans the other way?” Striving to centralize issues in one’s and a feminist perspective at once; one can be both a life which have not normally been centralized is woman and a trans person.” exceptionally difficult, adds Bettcher. “There can be In fact, many trans activists are inspired by femi- a tendency to push the issues to the side or forget nist struggles. As Dubois recollects, “the life lessons about them, or view them and speak about them of thousands of women’s struggles for a seat at the from a place of privilege, without recognizing that table can be distilled into the struggles of today’s one is doing so.” transgendered pioneers. I appreciate the enormity Struggling with the slippery concepts of power of feminist sacrifices.” and privilege remains an ongoing obstacle for all Noble points to feminist struggles for self-deter- people interested in social justice. Yet White mination and women’s rights to define and control believes that there are more and more women and their bodies as issues that reappear in trans people’s organizations that are trans-positive, so the chal- concerns. “Trans work reminds us that we are often lenge is also to more accurately reflect how things reduced to [our] bodies in simplistic ways; this is yet have changed or are changing. another way that power works. … We need the abili- So what would a trans feminism look like? ty to both resist but also redefine the terms of “Trans feminism looks like any other form of embodiment across a spectrum of bodies.” committed, critical and political practice,” says Many activists and theorists argue that insights Goldberg. “It explores how power works in all the from trans theory, activism and experiences can ways we can see, but all the ways that we can’t see enrich and revitalize feminist politics. Dubois as well.” feels that the current struggles for acceptance by “Trans feminism shouldn’t be perceived as an trans individuals reinvigorate, rather than detract oxymoron,” adds Scanlon, “but as a redundancy.” from, the women’s movement. Noble agrees, Bettcher takes the idea one step further, point- pointing out that “dissent, contestation and dis- ing out the multiple possibilities that such a move- agreement” are at the heart of feminism as it ment might have: “I hope there isn’t one trans moves to address both new and familiar social feminism, but a bunch of trans feminisms. I doubt challenges. For Noble, what is particularly intrigu- one will be enough.” ing is the possibility of affinities between feminist Like White, Goldberg observes that many activists men and female masculinity, which make the cur- are already making trans feminism happen, in often rent period “a very potent and unique political subtle ways. “While we’ve still much work to do,” he moment in the history of feminism.” cautions, “I’m excited by its energy.”

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 45 patriarchal heritage which separated women from … continued from page 30 (The Muse is not Amused) each other and interfered with the transmission of following Dorothy Livesay around in that powerful experience and power between generations of women. dramatic sequence of poems she published as a chap- That has been a great tragedy, and yes, I do think that if book (Awakening, 1991) by writing companion poems we could recover that kind of connection between gen- to hers, sometimes stanza by stanza, sometimes line erations of women, we could assume a more central by line, sometimes poem by poem. And then I felt role in geopolitics and public decision-making in really delighted and deeply moved to see what Carol areas that affect the environment and our own lives. and Rebecca had done with the double-voiced Dorothy Livesay’s mentorship of younger women writ- sequence I’d made out of that. I felt a very special con- ers like me was of course that kind of action, and I am nection with her while writing the poems. (She sort of trying to reclaim the power of that in these poems. adopted me, in her old age, and mentored me in specific, lovely ways.) Her poems are about an old woman “Heart” is probably my favourite section in Now You Care. looking over the cliff edge of impending death, with Twenty-seven poems are included in this section, all com- her characteristic frankness and humour and bold- pelling, all moving between an insistent, passionate ness. They were daunting poems to respond to; I did- embrace of life and First World-nation attitudes, warnings n’t so much try to “reply” to them as to just be with her of environmental collapse. They have an intense cumula- in them, in a sort of daughterly, companionable way. tive effect. Were these poems difficult to write, given their profound attention to such gruelling political realities? The resulting and lovely “Wake Up, Four Quartets”(also in Di Brandt: Actually, the poems in “Heart” (the second Now You Care) begins: “Tangle of wild tansy/ in every section) were much easier to write than the poems in crack,/ old rag and bone shop/ left open to rain.// Clear “Zone” (the first section). I wrote them all at once, one high notes/ piercing the sky.// Like weeds, grandma said./ right after the other, in about a month, unlike the The knife edge of pleasure/ blitzed by love, O!” These seem poems in “Zone,” which took years and years. to be songs for the Earth, songs urging an awakening of the My friend Anna Pellatt was dying while I was writing senses—and at the same time, you refer to “our mothers,” these poems, and there is an elegaic note in them in and sisters, cousins, friends and grandmother. What is memory of her. I was feeling pretty close to the edge of the connection here, between a love of the Earth and lov- life at that time, myself, partly out of empathy with my ing through other women, both in (literary, political, bio- friend and partly because I was negotiating my own logical) ancestry and present-day relations? health crisis that summer—that could have been me! Di Brandt: “Old rag and bone shop” paraphrases Some of the tough politics in the poems comes out of Yeats’ vision of aging in “The Circus Animals that sort of complete freedom you feel facing mortali- Desertion.” Yeats seemed dismayed by the loss of ty—there is nothing to lose and everything to see and physical vitality in his old age and fashioned a poetics say! The edge of life, as we know it, seems to be the place of aging where that vitality gets replaced by the wis- where poetry comes from, where it bubbles up, and dom of art. For Livesay, aging and dying are as physi- thrives. The times I’ve been closest to that edge are the cal as the newly born: “The way out/ is the same/ as the times the writing has been most fertile and easy for way/ in// A choking// daylight/ for both/ is blinding/ me—poetry is a dangerous profession in this sense, bleeding....” Her old people in these poems are not since you want to go as close to that rich generative edge poet laureates celebrating long lives of achievements, as possible for the sake of poetic insight, but hopefully as in Yeats’ old age poems, but just old people, without falling over it before it’s really your time! engaged with the formidable challenges of their daily Di Brandt has published five collections of poetry: Now You lives. They are frail, forgetful, raging. They experience Care, Jerusalem, beloved, mother, not mother, Agnes in streaks of powerful emotions, memories, passion. the sky, and questions i asked my mother. She received Livesay’s old woman is thinking, among other the Canadian Authors’ Association National Poetry Award, things, about old contentious lovers, and the impossi- the Gerald Lampert Award and has been twice shortlisted for bility of “shaking them off” even in the moment of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. A longer version of death. I was thinking more about wrestling with the this article is at www.herizons.ca.

46 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS body politic BY JUDY REBICK

LOOKING BACK TO THE FUTURE Thirty-five years after the final report of the Royal women faced when they first entered the workforce, Commission on the Status of Women is a good time to but they don’t have a movement around them for take note of the achievements of the women’s move- support. In New Brunswick, I met a group of young ment in Canada. In my recent book, Ten Thousand women working with the Frederiction Sexual Assault Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution, I describe and Crisis Centre who developed a “train the train- the Canadian women’s movement as one of the most er” package to teach men and boys about fighting successful in the world. Even if the status of women sexism and violence. “We have male volunteers in Canada is not the highest, and the representation working with us,” one of them told me, “but they of women in Parliament is pathetic, as Doris have to accept feminist leadership.” In London, Anderson points out in this issue, the Canadian Ont., more inspiration came from the Miss G women’s movement’s success has been its reach into Project, a group that’s organizing to get women’s every community in the country, as well as national studies curriculum into Ontario high schools. achievements like the Charter and legal abortion. Still, a lot of the young women I met said they were Nevertheless, I find that it is hard to celebrate, much more moved by issues of global economic because the women’s movement of today is a pale inequality and war than by feminism. That instinct reflection of its glory days and the third wave—still of fighting for others before you fight for yourself is percolating under the surface in many ways—has yet really a very feminist one. At a recent coalition to break into public view. With the exception of the meeting to organize for the protest at the interna- child care movement, which has recently won additional climate change conference in Montreal, more tional funding for child care services, feminist voic- than one of the young women present proposed that es are almost silent in public discourse. we organize mothers against climate change. This When I wrote Ten Thousand Roses, I was worried could be a new form of feminist organizing going that a generation of feminist activism was being lost. back to the days of the Voice of Women in the 1960s, Indeed, I found hundreds of young women who which organized against nuclear war. knew almost nothing of the history of the struggle Most of the women I met or talked to on the radio for women’s rights in Canada. At the same time, I appreciate and identify with the achievements of the met hundreds of women who are doing some inter- women’s movement, but a lot of them don’t see esting work and redefining feminism to make it rel- themselves as feminist activists. One young woman, evant to their generation. who got up at the last event of my book tour in There are still, of course, feminist institutions like Calgary, put her finger on a major problem. “My this very magazine that are alive and relatively well. friends don’t want to call themselves feminists,” she The Toronto Women’s Bookstore is a centre of com- explained. “They have rules at home, rules at school munity activity that attracts women from across the and rules at work, and they just see feminism as city and across communities to its many events. another set of rules that they don’t want to follow.” Anti-violence groups continue to resist government When the second wave of feminism began 40 years cuts and organize advocacy against violence, although ago, women’s liberation was our goal. Perhaps my cutbacks and backlash have taken their toll. generation got channelled into more linear and lim- I have met some wonderful young women who are ited goals and it will be up to another generation to active feminists in ways different from women of my redefine women’s liberation. generation. I met women breaking into non-tradi- This is Judy’s last Herizons column. Starting this tional jobs, like sea captain and long-distance truck issue, Mariko Tamaki joins the fold as a regular driver. They are facing the same overt sexism that Herizons columnist.

HERIZONS WINTER 2006 47 cole’s notes BY SUSAN G. COLE

LITERARY TWIN PEAKS Three fabulous books released in 2005 feature sto- Their story is about how they find a way to live with ries about twin sisters. Each of them is fascinating, each other; the word compromise has a whole new especially in the ways the authors probe the bond meaning in lives like theirs. between twins and the ways the authors write about But let’s face it: This is a culture that can’t imagine the characters’ sexuality. twins without turning those thoughts into an elabo- U.K. writer Diana Evans took the Orange Prize rate sexual fantasy. It’s no coincidence perhaps that honouring new writers for her debut novel 26a sex scenes are key moments in all three stories. (Bond Street/Doubleday), the story of twin sisters Georgia and Bessi lose their virginity together, on a who share a loft in their parents’ London home. Dad double date. What’s wonderful about the episode is drinks too much, and when he does can be very that Evans weaves together their experiences in a scary. Mum misses her home in Nigeria terribly, so way that tells us more and more about the girls’ much that her dead mother keeps appearing, magic characters. Bessi is open; Georgia closes down. But realism-style. Together, sisters Bessi and Georgia it doesn’t matter. The sexual encounter is not a ter- construct their own universe as a means of protec- rific experience for either of them. tion. They’re not entirely successful. Sex is the main reason Gill’s twins stick it out Evans, a twin whose sister suffered from severe together. They know that twins are the centrepiece of depression, mines her own experience to probe an a favourite male fantasy, and they play it to the hilt. All unusual love. It’s clear that, regardless of what hap- of Gill’s stories are about terrible twosomes, but this pens to the characters in their personal lives, theirs one has a different kind of drive. At first, you get the will be their primary relationship. feeling that the two sisters are addicted to the intoxi- Charlotte Gill’s Ladykiller (Thomas Allen), a col- cating effect they have on the men around them, but it lection of short stories shortlisted for the Giller becomes clear that they’re addicted to each other. Prize—at this writing I can’t tell you who won— Lansens told me that The Girls had to include a sex includes a powerful piece called “Homology.” It scene because people’s curiosity demanded it. But tracks 20-something twin sisters who can’t decide her first crack at it gave the segment short shrift— whether they love or hate each other, but still plan a almost as if she couldn’t wait to get it over with. She holiday in Thailand. In other words, even though went back to it and constructed an astonishingly their relationship is obviously toxic, the women vivid, non-exploitive description of how a young stud can’t let each other go. gives them their first sexual experience. I can’t say And Lori Lansens’ awesome The Girls (Random too much more about it because I’ll give too much House), my choice as the best book of 2005, gets away. Let’s just say my group of friends had a spirited inside the heads of Ruby and Rose. The difference argument over whether or not it describes a rape. here is that Ruby and Rose are conjoined twins, All three books are winners, although The Girls is the attached at the side of the head in such a way that only one of the trio not to be noticed by award juries. they cannot be separated. Ruby, the beautiful one, But then again, prize panels often confound me. and Rose, the stronger one who basically must carry Susan G. Cole is Entertainment/Books Editor at Ruby around with her, can never let each other go. Toronto’s NOW magazine.

48 WINTER 2006 HERIZONS

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Fall 2002 Fall 2004 Fall 2005 Meet the editors of the third The Indigo Girls’ One Perfect Why Women Love their Tattoos; wave anthology, Turbo Chicks; World; Nobel Peace Prize- The Search Begins for Canada’s Judy Rebick on the anti- Winner Sherin Ebadi; The Raging Disappeared Women; Treasured globalization movement’s lip Grannies. Chest: Kyle Scanlon’s Surgical service to feminism. Journey.

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