WOMEN’S NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS • Fall 2005 Vol. 19 No.2 • Canada/US $5.95

MORE THAN SKIN DEEP WHY WOMEN LOVE THEIR TATTOOS CANADA’S DISAPPEARED WOMEN THE SEARCH BEGINS TREASURED CHEST KYLE SCANLON’S SURGICAL JOURNEY

Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866 • PAP Registration No. 07944 Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB R3C 2G1 Canada table of contents FALL 2005 / VOLUME 19 NO. 2

CANADA’S 20 DISAPPEARED WOMEN Officials have been slow to investigate or have simply ignored the fact that an estimated 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing in the last 20 years. Now, that may be about to change. by Lauren Carter SKIN 24 DEEP Women love their tattoos. And a growing number of women are taking up the trade. Find out why their love of the art form is more than just skin deep. by Alexis Keinlen Terri Brown speaks to reporters about missing Aboriginal women. See page 20. WHITE KNIGHTS 28 DARK THREATS An Interview with Sherene Razack, author of White WOMEN’S NEWS Knights, Dark Threats, a book that challenges the notion that we live in a tolerant society where racism Casting Call: Art is practiced by only an ignorant few. 7-12 Transforms Body by Ghislaine Alleyne and Soul by Carole TenBrink; Sex Dysfunction Stimulates Debate by Nicole Cohen; Cradling Humanity, Cheryl-Ann Saving Lives by Deepa Kandaswamy; ARTS & CULTURE Wester’s Beautiful Remembering the Butterflies by Women Project. MUSIC See page 7. Maura Hanrahan. 32 REVIEWS Martha Wainwright by Martha Wainwright; Rarities by The Indigo Girls; Book of Life by Maryem Tollar; FEMINIST VIEWS Soviet Kitsch by Regina Spektor; This Island by Le Tigre; Jann Arden by Jann Arden. TREASURED 16 CHEST FALL Breast reduction surgery wasn’t enough to create a 33 FICTION body that Kyle Scanlon was comfortable living in, The Seahorse Year by Stacey D’Erasmo; Venous Hum by while making the transition from female to male. Suzette Mayr; Witness My Shame by Shary Boyle; What This is the story about his decision to remove the We All Long For by Dionne Brand; Mackerel Sky by breasts and sculpt his chest. by Kyle Scanlon Natalee Caple; My Husband by Dacia Maraini. 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 ARTS AND Design: inkubator.ca 36 IDEAS Web Mistress: Rachel Thompson/BlueMuse Incorrigible by Velma Demerson; Retail Inquiries: Disticor (905) 619-6565 Marian Engel: Life in Letters ed.s C. Proofreader: Phil Koch Verduyn and K. Garay; Finding My Cover Photo: Desdemona Burgin Talk by Agnes Grant; Women in a HERIZONS is published four times per year by HERIZONS World at War: 7 Dispatches from the Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. One-year subscription Front by Madeleine Gagnon; price: $24.26+$1.70 GST ($25.96) in Canada. Two-year Feminisms and Womanisms, eds. subscriptions are $39.16+$2.76 GST ($41.92) in Canada. Subscriptions to US addresses are $29.99 Canadian funds Althea Prince and Susan Silva-Wayne; Should Parents or $25.96 in US funds. International subscriptions are Be Licensed? by Peg Tittle. $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 HERIZONS is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. FIRST WORD HERIZONS is available on CD-ROM through Micromedia 5 BY PENNI MITCHEL Ltd., 20 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5C 2N8. Adaptation GST #R131089187. ISSN 0711-7485. The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire COLE’S NOTES hope and foster a state of wellness that enriches women’s lives; to build awareness of issues as they affect women; to 13 BY SUSAN G. COLE promote the strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to Airing Laundry broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among other marginalized people; to BODY POLITIC foster peace and ecological awareness; and to expand the influence of feminist principles in the world. HERIZONS 15 BY JUDY REBICK aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse, Choking for Change understandable and relevant to women’s daily lives. Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and OUT OF BOUNDS do not necessarily reflect HERIZONS’ editorial policy. No material may be reprinted without permission. Due to 31 BY LISA RUNDLE limited resources, HERIZONS does not accept poetry or Helping the Helpless fiction submissions. HERIZONS is a member of the Manitoba GLOBAL WARNING Magazine Publishers Association. 47 BY NAOMI KLEIN HERIZONS acknowledges the financial Shell Games support of the Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance Program (PAP) and the Canada Magazine Fund of the Department of Canadian Heritage ON THE EDGE toward mailing and editorial costs. 48 BY LYN COCKBURN Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866, PAP Registration No. 07944. Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Reality Check MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected]

HERIZONS FALL 2005 1 letters

UNLOADING ON MOTHERS Confronting what it means to be a mother focus has been only on my baby. But what Perhaps Leigh Felesky (my own preconceived notions of what I’ll do about support for mum? and Mira Kirshner and won’t do,societal expectations,parenting I repeatedly asked for help with breast- should have titled their trends) has been anxiety-provoking and feeding,but yet I found emotional support for article (Summer 2005 extremely difficult. I had expected to apply me lacking. Herizons) “The Mother many of the attachment parenting principles Barbara Pal UNLOAD” because it (co-sleeping,breast-feeding) only to find that Toronto, Ontario appears to me that they I couldn’t do it. After a traumatic birth were interested in trying to assuage their own (homebirth planned,but we ended up in hos- VULVODYNIA ARTICLE parenting guilt by blaming the “breast-feed- pital), I was exhausted, anxious and over- LAUDED ing imperative.” whelmed. I found it impossible to fall asleep I would like to congratu- How sad that they have fallen into the trap with my newborn beside me in bed. So the late Helen Anderson for of holding those who try to empower women baby slept and I didn’t.After three days and a her courage to publicly to breast-feed and to practice attachment slight hemorrhage, I begged my husband to disclose her personal parenting responsible for inducing blame take the baby to the next room so I could get experience with vulvo- and guilt. How easy to sit back and criticize some sleep. I was still too anxious to sleep, dynia,in the Spring 2005 hospitals,public health and lactation consult- too overwhelmed. issue of Herizons.This is ants for not making the system better for Breast-feeding problems increased my my first time responding to a magazine arti- women. Perhaps the most telling sentence in anxiety. I had a midwife who came everyday cle, or any media piece, for that matter. the article is the one stating that no one men- for a week. It took her 15 to 20 minutes each Anderson’s candour has inspired me to tioned that breast-feeding an infant might time to try to latch my baby on.My episioto- engage in “the vagina dialogues” she propos- take several hours a day.If this is a surprise, I my stitches burned every time I sat up to try es. After all, you don’t have a dialogue if only wish them luck because it doesn’t get easier. to latch my baby on,I felt exhausted and ill. one person is talking.And one of the reasons Parenting is challenging and having children Breast-feeding sessions became my baby cry- vulvodynia is so underexposed is because in our lives is time-consuming. ing at my breast, not opening her mouth at most women who suffer from it feel they are My job as a breast-feeding advocate and all,kicking,scratching and pushing away,and alone in their pain. If more women would educator is to give parents accurate informa- me crying, using tubes to finger feed her, for- openly share their testimonials, it would help tion to make informed choices. I don’t make mula supplementation, herbs to increase my others to feel less isolated.It would also bring people feel guilty; that feeling comes from milk supply,domperidone,pumping to draw to light how prevalent, yet ignored, this con- within themselves. out my nipples and to express breast milk. dition really is. Unfortunately, awareness The authors make it seem that you cannot This whole process has left me feeling like about vulvodynia is so limited precisely be a feminist and still breast-feed and attach- a huge failure. Breast-feeding advocates say: because many women suffer in silence. ment parent. That is absolutely not true. “There’s no reason why a healthy mother and According to a 2003 study by Brigham If they feel so strongly that women are baby should not be able to breast-feed.” I Women’s Hospital,up to 16 percent of women being failed by the system, and I agree that haven’t had breast cancer or breast surgery, suffer from chronic vulvar pain during their they are, then put some energy into trying to my baby doesn’t have a short frenulum or lifetime, yet only about half seek treatment. change the system.Put pressure on govern- cleft palate.Yet we were unable to do it. Co-author of the study, Elizabeth Gunther ments to invest more money to help women I also felt incredibly guilty and not good Stewart, MD, points out that “upwards of 14 successfully breast-feed. enough for feeling so overwhelmed and weak million women may suffer from vulvodynia Carolin Kaemmer in the first couple of weeks after my baby was during their lifetime.” Merrickville, Ontario born. To make matters worse, many women still After six weeks of tears and anxiety, I can’t even say the word “vagina.”I frequently SPILLED GUILT threw in the towel, and now I am finally able hear women, even those working in the I had to write in to comment on “The Mother to enjoy my baby. The anxiety attacks have health sector, referring to it as “down there.” Load” (Summer 2005 Herizons). It resonated stopped. I still pump breast milk twice a day, It should come as no surprise that this especially strongly with me, as I’ve just but she mainly feeds on formula. During this repression is ever-present in our medical sys- become a first-time mother in May 2005. whole process, the breast-feeding advocates’ tem. Even though some gynecologists are

2 FALL 2005 HERIZONS better informed about the condition, the REALITY CHECK FEMINIST LIBRARY message women often receive from their doc- Regarding the letter in Herizons’ Summer 2005 WINNER 2005 tors is that if it doesn’t cause death or affect issue from Madeleine Shaw regarding the Woohoo! I’m SO excited! What a welcome fertility, it’s not important. It’s ‘only’ their sex- movie Sideways: Shaw and Herizons colum- home from a fabulous week at the Conference ual pleasure. nist Susan Cole were outraged that the movie of the Humanities, where I heard Judy Rebick There is some slight progress in the med- showed people treating each other badly. speak on women’s history at the Canadian ical establishment’s recognition of sexual Madeleine, it’s a movie. People do behave this Women’s Studies Association Conference at dysfunction. Yet most of the research into way in real life. If all movies could only show the University of Western Ontario. I knew I women’s sexual problems is relegated to the the way people should ideally be … how bor- couldn’t miss her talk, after enjoying Ten industrial pursuit of finding a female Viagra. ing! It would be the same movie over and over Thousand Roses so much (being a feminist of I would like other women suffering from again. Realize that life and people aren’t cook- a certain age,it was like reading my own her- vulvodynia to feel inspired to speak out pub- ie-cutter perfect; they do bad things and I feel story), a book that I got as a bonus for send- licly, in order to get the care we desperately it’s interesting to examine the different ways ing Herizons a donation! I feel very grateful need and deserve. I want the word ‘vulvody- people do act. I don’t want to just see movies and delighted. I was happy enough to be able nia’ to be as recognizable as ED, or genital about a Brady Bunch existence. to send Herizons a donation because I want to warts, or crohn’s disease. These conditions Gayle Douglas see this feminist publication continue to surely affect greater numbers of people than Sarnia, Ontario thrive. And besides, I don’t know what I’d do vulvodynia does, but before everyone heard without my regular Lyn Cockburn or Susan about them the world pretended that they THAT’S ‘CA’ EH Cole fix! didn’t even exist. It’s time women with vulvo- CoolWomen is proudly Canadian. As such, it Rachael Crowder dynia demanded attention to their pain. ends with the panache of a coolwomen.ca, Carleton Place, Ontario I will not be content until I can join an rather than a placeless .com, as mentioned organized walk-a-thon to bring an end to erroneously in Herizons’ nelliegrams in the vulvodynia. Summer 2005 issue. www.coolwomen.ca. HEADLINE INSULTING Ronit Milo Judy MacDonald I was greatly disap- Toronto, Ontario Editor, CoolWomen.ca pointed,when I received my latest copy of Herizons, to discover the headline “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief” on my article about female chiefs.A big part of my work involves writing to dispel stereotypes; it is about rewriting racist representations and reclaiming our voice. While I realize that your intentions were good, I find it demean- ing to introduce an article about First Nations leadership with this nursery rhyme. It invokes images of the classic cartoon-style chief that North Americans so love to embrace and claim as their own. I will continue to support Herizons as a quality publication, and ask that you exer- cise caution when developing headlines about Aboriginal people in the future. Kim Anderson Guelph, Otario

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ADAPTATION When the automobile first hit the market, it was The Kyoto Protocol was ratified by Canada in marketed as a symbol of human progress. Women’s 2002, the same year the people of Kenya held a dem- fashions adapted as shorter attire made it easier to ocratic election and booted out Maathai’s enemies. climb in and out of automobiles. In fact, advertising A total of 141 countries (with the notable exception at the turn of the century equated the purchase of of the U.S.) are now working together to reduce everything from automobiles to soap with progress. emissions, and the world is on the brink of shifting Eventually, according to Stronger than Dirt: A its thinking. Cultural History of Advertising Personal Hygiene in But Canada has not created a coherent plan, America, ad copy began to prey on fears and desires despite the fact that if emissions continue to rise at instead, and sales rose. current rates they will rise to 810 million tons per Nearly a century later, consumer fears and desires year by 2010, 30 percent above our Kyoto target of are exploited in ads that encourage parents to purchase 570 million tons. Canada’s approach is flawed SUVs to protect their children. No mention in the fine because Ottawa expects individual consumers to print about children adapting to global warming. reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one ton per In my own marketing nirvana, I see a photo of the year, but it has not demanded that the largest pol- thousands of people in Toronto unable to breathe luters reduce their fair share. Half of Canada’s because of the pollution. They are standing at car greenhouse gas emissions come from large indus- dealerships with signs reading: “My kids will be safe trial polluters, yet the government is rumoured to be when greenhouse gas emissions are under control” poised to reduce the reduction target for industry by and “I’d happily pay 500 bucks for better emission 10 million tons per year. The government may even control devices.” back off on its commitment to improve the fuel effi- The reason I believe this day isn’t far off is Wangari ciency of new vehicles by 25 percent by 2010, Maathai, the first African woman to receive the Nobel according to Greenpeace. Peace Prize. In her acceptance speech in Oslo, she When Einstein split the atom, he said: lambasted the wars waged over natural resources, “Everything has changed, except our way of think- including oil. Maathai, an environmentalist who 30 ing.” As Maathai sees it, we need to adapt our think- years ago created the Green Belt Movement that ing so that sustainable development, peace and reversed the rapid deforestation in Kenya, was jailed human rights become indivisible. Consumers of several times and beaten by authorities. conscience can refuse to buy huge horking SUVs and “Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for demand cleaner cars. But citizens must demand that a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops Ottawa force industry to invest in better technology threatening its life-support system,” she said dur- to cut greenhouse gas emissions. This will be our ing her acceptance speech. “We are called to assist legacy of progress. the Earth to heal her wounds, and in the process heal A feminist who believes that “economic justice, our own.” equity and ecological integrity are of greater value than Protecting forests, it turns out, not only means profits at any cost,” Maathai is now in the driver’s seat that people can have access to firewood and building of progress, as Kenya’s assistant minister for the envi- materials in Kenya; it saves the rest of us, too, by ronment. “It is possible to bring about positive holding millions of tons of greenhouse gases in the change, and still do it peacefully,” Maathai reminds us. soil. It’s the same with the boreal forest and other “All it takes is courage and perseverance.” ancient forests in Canada. Read more at www.greenpeace.ca.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 5 news nelliegrams AFRICAN WINS PEACE PRIZE Casting Call: For the first time in history, Art Transforms the Nobel Peace Prize was Body and Soul awarded to an by Carole TenBrink African woman, Wangari Maathai, for her contribution to sustainable devel- (KINGSTON) When Cheryl-Ann Webster’s opment, democracy and peace. 13-year-old daughter told her that a friend Maathai, the first woman in East and was saving her allowance for breast implants, Central Africa to earn a doctorate she knew she had to do something. degree, obtained a Ph.D. from the “I wanted to show young girls that we University of Nairobi, where she taught come in all shapes and sizes, and we have veterinary anatomy. Maathai was the tummies, too,”explains Webster. chairperson of National Council of Then, at a drum camp where she regis- Women from 1981 to 1987. She intro- tered as a participant,Webster invited partic- duced the idea of engaging women’s ipants to volunteer to have their torsos cast in groups to plant trees to fight defor- plaster and was stunned by the response.She Cheryl-AnnWebster: 200 casts and counting. estation. Deforestation resulted in ended up casting a total of 48 in two-and-a- women having to make longer and half days, and the Beautiful Women Project in public was the biggest step of her life. longer treks for firewood. Under was born. Soon, her studio rafters were Another woman had a double mastectomy Maathai’s leadership, a broad-based jammed with 125 casts of women aged 19 to the week following her initial casting. Nine organization was created, with a main 91.When she began to create clay sculptures weeks later,Webster cast her torso again. focus on the planting of trees by from the plaster casts, Webster had to buy a “We’ve cried together, laughed together.I women groups in order to conserve the 45-foot trailer to house them.Today,over 200 get e-mail every week from women [telling environment and improve their quality volunteers have contributed to the project. me] how the project has changed their of life. Through the Green Belt Webster chose clay as her medium, in lives. I mean, it has undoubtedly changed Movement, she has assisted women in part because clay is primal, of the earth. mine—it’s taken over mine. But it’s planting more than 20 million trees on Clay contains water,as do our bodies.Clay changed it in a good way, too. And I even their farms and on schools and church requires the heat of firing to make it per- see myself in a better light.” compounds. Maathai is internationally manent, as we require the sun’s heat to sur- Webster now believes that “the only way recognized for her persistent struggle vive.After consulting the women who were we’re going to get the message across to for democracy, human rights and envi- cast,Webster adorned each sculpture based young girls is to start believing it ourselves. ronmental conservation. The award on her interpretations of the woman’s life Every single woman walked in and said was received in December. experiences.While she was applying plaster something negative about herself.” strips to women’s torsos, the women often If the casting stirred such in-depth BRAZIL FIGHTS shared their life stories with Webster.Then, awareness, think how much more the exhi- TRAFFICKING something changed. bition can do. The Beautiful Women The government of Brazil has joined “I realized that it’s not just the 13-year- Project will open in January at the Studio international sting operations, passed old girls who need to see this exhibition.It’s Gallery at Queen’s University in Kingston, laws against trafficking and targetted all of us. We all prod and poke, wish for Ontario. Along with the exhibition, there funds to break up prostitution rings. something different, go on yo-yo diets. It will be discussion groups on body image as In its attempt to help women seems no matter what build we have, we’re well as curriculum materials for school trapped in sex slavery build new lives, not happy with it,”she recounts. groups. Plans are in the works to tour the it launched a media campaign to When she started the project, Webster exhibition across Canada. However, the address its high rates of prostitution hoped the exhibition would have an project requires $75,000 to be completed. and international human trafficking. impact. She was delighted when even the One of the biggest expenses is building Prostitution is legal in Brazil. The casting stage proved transformative. One packing crates so that each sculpture can country has become the largest sup- participant,an abuse survivor,told Webster be safely shipped across the country. plier of female sex slaves in Latin that allowing her sculpture to be displayed www.websterwood.com/bwp

HERIZONS FALL 2005 7 nelliegrams

America. The United Nations estimates that 75,000 Brazilian women are being forced to work as prostitutes in the European Union. Another 5,000 are in Latin America. Dalila Figuereido, founder of The Association for the Defence of Women and Youth, a nongovernmental organi- zation that counsels former sex slaves, says what’s missing is a more aggres- sive effort to address the source of the problem: Brazil’s poverty and social inequality. “While investments in social prob- lems are helping, there’s still a long way to go to create conditions that would stop Brazilians from taking such risks in the first place.” Women’s E-News FEMINISM ‘IN’

Big Pharma created Female Sexual Dysfunction as a marketing ploy, activist charge. Illustration: Sara Lazarovic Angela Scotton, Chrystal Ocean and Daphne Moldowin A new political party was launched this summer in the Cowichan Valley on Dysfunction Conference B.C.’s Vancouver Island. The FemINist INitiative of BC Stimulates Debate (FemINit) believes that politics must by Nicole Cohen be civil and inclusive of diversity; it must reflect the balance of the femi- (MONTREAL) It’s been five years since the In June, Tiefer organized a Montreal New nine and the masculine in the elec- pharmaceutical industry began the race to View conference called “Women and the torate; it must focus on solutions, not develop a new drug for women’s sexual New Sexual Politics: Profits vs. Pleasures.” problems; and it must respect the wis- problems that could penetrate a billion-dol- The focus was the over-medicalization of dom of its people and communities. lar market fuelled by insecurity,anxiety and women’s sexual health, and, more specifi- FemINit is the first party in North misconceptions about sex.And it’s been five cally, how Big Pharma constructed a disor- America to be registered explicitly as years since the New View campaign was der called Female Sexual Dysfunction feminist. (The Feminist Party of launched by Leonore Tiefer, a professor of (FSD) in order to stimulate sales. Canada—1979 to 1982—was not a regis- psychiatry at the New York University med- The disorder is a myth,say Tiefer and oth- tered party.) FemINit is one of less ical school, and a group of social scientists, ers, that has been generated by pseudo-sci- than a handful of registered feminist feminists, therapists and activists. The New ence, misleading research and marketing parties in the world. View critiques the medical model of sexual that purports to offer women—using lan- “Politicians like to say that voters problems and relocates women’s sexuality guage co-opted from the women’s move- in broader social and cultural contexts. ment—choice. These problems are not

8 FALL 2005 HERIZONS properly understood, and drugs in develop- abuse, relationships or a natural change in ment are potentially unsafe and unnecessary. sexual desire. Suddenly, being exhausted nelliegrams “Pharmaceutical companies exploit from work and looking after a family qual- demand, and if there isn’t enough demand, ified as a medical disorder. are apathetic,” says party co-leader they manufacture the disease,”according to “If FSD is so widespread, why is Viagra Chrystal Ocean. “Voters are not apa- speaker Jeanne Lenzer, a journalist who as popular as vitamin C?” joked keynote thetic. They are disgusted, and that investigates the drug industry. speaker Barbara Ehrenreich. “No man is disgust is rapidly turning to aversion.” In 1998, Pfizer got approval for Viagra to allowed to slip into impotence.” Over the next four years, FemINit treat erectile dysfunction. More than 23 There are several over-the-counter plans, through a process of consulta- million men have been prescribed Viagra, creams and herbal remedies on the market tion and consensus building, to devel- which brought sales of $1.7 billion US in to treat FSD—women rub them into their op a party and candidates guided by 2004. While the little blue pill has opened clitorises to stimulate arousal—but the the values of “inclusiveness, integrity, the door to important discussions of sexu- first drug to seek medical approval was involvement and innovation.” ality,it also ushered in a new era of lifestyle Proctor & Gamble’s Intrinsa, a testosterone The party’s overall aim is to “achieve drugs and the potential for convincing peo- patch designed to treat lack of sexual desire a society in which cultural, social, politi- ple their sexual problems are solely the in women who have become menopausal cal and economic institutions reflect the result of malfunctioning parts. after surgery.The FDA advisory committee balance of the feminine and the mascu- Once the male market peaked, drug refused to recommend Intrinsa on safety line [in the electorate],” says Ocean. companies turned to women. In early grounds. The patch carried risks of breast The party wants to engage members advertisements calling for research partici- cancer,cardiovascular disease,hair growth, of marginalized groups in the formation pants, FSD was positioned as a matter of acne and weight gain. And there is still no of policy, “because we respect that inequality with slogans like “it’s time proven link between testosterone concen- they—not politicians, not bureaucrats, women get their fair share.” Men have trations and sexual difficulties. not academics—are more apt to know Viagra, went the pitch; now you can, too. Meanwhile, P&G ran a worldwide mar- what is best for them.” It’s no secret that the drive for profits push- keting campaign claiming the drug could Log on to: www.feministinitiative.bc.ca es drug research. Pfizer, which tested Viagra’s improve sexual activity by 74 percent—a effects on women for eight years,boasts in its meaningless number, as it failed to state HONOURARY DOC annual report that the company is “moving that, in absolute terms, 74 percent means Madeline Boscoe, toward our goal of filing an industry-record only one more sexual “episode”a month. executive director of 20 new medicines in the U.S. between 2001 As Ray Moynihan—investigative med- the Canadian and 2006.” But as Lenzer points out, there ical journalist who has long been writing Women’s Health aren’t that many blockbuster drugs to invent about the corporate creation of disease— Network, was award- (insulin and penicillin were the big ones) and reported in the British Medical Journal, ed an honourary doctorate from the the profits now lie in “me-too” drugs and Intrinsa was presented on the recommen- University of Ottawa in June for her niche markets.There are currently 10 compa- dation of company-funded clinical trials, contributions to promoting the health nies researching drugs for FSD. using consultants on the company payroll, of women and girls in Canada. In 2004, Pfizer stopped Viagra testing on measurement scales that were designed For over 20 years, Boscoe, an RN, has women because it just wasn’t working (3,000 and funded with input from P&G, and worked in health education and advo- women were involved in trials).At that point, results that weren’t published in a peer- cacy at the Women’s Health Clinic in the dialogue around FSD abandoned arousal reviewed journal.It is against this backdrop Winnipeg. Her leadership on such issues and shifted toward desire,for which there are that the New View of sexual politics was as hormone replacement therapy, Depo no “normal”or “abnormal”standards.Still,it’s developed to redefine sexual problems— Provera, silicone breast implants and claimed that 43 percent of women suffer from beginning with the idea that whatever a the legalization of midwifery has lack ofsexual desire,a number that’s been woman says is a problem is a problem. In ensured that the clinic remains a leader widely—and incorrectly—perpetuated. other words, there is no one authority, no in developing women’s health policies. The number comes from a 1999 survey, one norm that outlines problems and solu- “Madeline has made women’s health in which about 1,749 women answered yes tions for all women. her life-long vocation,” says Jennifer or no to questions about problems ranging The conference was not anti-science, nor Howard, executive director of the from lack of desire for sex to anxiety about was it anti-drug. Ehrenreich said she isn’t Women’s Health Clinic. A founding performance. There were seven questions, opposed to a Viagra for women; she just member of the Canadian Women’s and one “yes”answer resulted in the partic- doesn’t want to see it all left in the hands of Health Network (CWHN), Boscoe has ipant being categorized as having FSD. Yet Big Pharma. been its executive director since 1995. the survey did not take into account politi- “I understand the potential drugs have Boscoe’s vision, tenacity and diploma- cal, economic or social elements of to improve our lives,”she says.“But we want cy have helped the CWHN serve as a women’s lives, such as work, stress, family, control over that.”

HERIZONS FALL 2005 9 The CAW – building Canadian workplaces and communities for 20 years

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bridge between and among Cradling Humanity, Saving Lives researchers, clinicians, decision-mak- by Deepa Kandaswamy ers, the media, women’s community groups and the public. (TAMIL NADU) Jayalalithaa Jayaram is well- Safety for women and girls has increased known to the girls and women of Tamil Nadu. thanks to the All Women Police Stations KUWAIT TAPS WOMEN After receiving a Golden Star of Dignity (AWPS), which have led to a 55 percent Kuwait has appointed its first female Award from the International Human increase in reports of crimes against women. cabinet minister. Massouma al- Rights Defense Committee (IHRDC), a J. Jayalalithaa’s government also instituted a Mubarak, 54, a newspaper columnist, consultant body to the UN, the first elected policy reserving 33 percent of seats for political science teacher and women’s female chief minister of Tamil Nadu is now women in village decision-making bodies rights activist was appointed minister earning international recognition for intro- (panchayats). The government also intro- of planning and minister for adminis- ducing innovative programs that save girls’ duced scholarship programs for girls from trative development. lives and empower women. poor families and a financial protection pro- This is big news considering the J.Jayalalithaa lives by her own words,spo- gram for poor families with two girls and no Kuwaiti parliament only approved vot- ken upon receipt of her award:“A society that boys. The government opens a cumulative ing rights for women in May—that’s cannot protect the dignity and honour of its savings account in each girl child’s name and May 2005. women cannot be termed as a civil society.” the funds can be withdrawn by the girl when “It has been 20 years of work, but at J. Jayalalithaa’s state government set up she turns 18. This has reduced bias towards last we got our rights,” said Lulua al- all-women police stations and an exclusive girls and helped stop the practice of repeated Mulla, general secretary of Kuwait’s women’s commando unit. It also instituted pregnancies to have a boy child who can later Social Cultural Women’s Society, a an award in the name of India-born take care of his parents. women’s advocacy group. “It’s about American astronaut Kalpana Chawla, and, As a child, J. Jayalalithaa aspired to be a time.” New York Times perhaps most notably, established a “cradle lawyer, but had to thwart her aspirations to baby”scheme to prevent female infanticide. help support her family. After a successful A VILLAGE OF ONE’S OWN The “cradle baby”scheme was the first of acting career, she became a member of the Ten years ago, a group of women in its kind in the world. The program allowed newly formed AIADMK (All India Anna northern Kenya established the village people to anonymously drop off female Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), a party she of Umoja (Swahili for “unity”) on an infants in cradles located at government now heads. In 1989, she was elected to the unwanted field of dry grasslands. The offices. The state government adopted the Tamil Nadu state assembly,where she became women had been raped, and were sub- children and NGOs agreed to raise them. the first woman leader of the opposition. sequently abandoned by their hus- There is no official foster care system in the J. Jayalalithaa’s remains chief minister bands, who claimed the women had region. Despite cynicism, the program has until April 2006, when her term ends and shamed their community. saved over 1,000 baby girls’ lives. state elections are held. Led by the self-assured Rebecca Lolosoli, the women decided that no men would be allowed to live in the circular village of mud-and-dung huts. The men of the tribe started their own village nearby, where they monitor activities in Umoja from afar. Umoja is now a successful and happy village. The village’s three dozen tribeswomen run a cultural centre and camping site for tourists visiting the adjacent Samburu National Reserve. The men have not been as successful. The women are relentless and are part of a national movement towards greater equality for women in all areas of life. “Women don’t have to put up with

J. Jayalalithaa (centre) receives award from Natalya Krivutsa of the International Human Rights this nonsense any more,” says Lolosoli. Defense Committee.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 11 nelliegrams

Kenyan lawmakers are listening. Draft legislation has been introduced Remembering the Butterflies in Kenya’s parliament to give women by Maura Hanrahan the right to refuse marriage propos- als, to fight sexual harassment, to reject genital mutilation and to pros- ecute rape. Washington Post and Women’s E-News

SAADAWI FOR PREZ Political dissi- dent Nawal El Saadawi wants to be elected president of Egypt this fall. But first, a change to Egypt’s constitution must allow opposition candidates to run for president. Under the current system, Egyptians vote yes or no for a candi- date approved by the parliament. Today, the Mirabal Sisters Museum in Conuco, Salcedo, honours the three sisters and the Fourteenth of June movement. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled since 1981, will seek a fifth (DOMINICAN REPUBLIC) On November imprisonment and death. His regime tram- six-year term in September. Mubarak 25, women all over the world will mark a pled the country’s constitution, abolished would face opposition for the first time. 16-day campaign against gender violence. basic human rights and ordered the massacre A psychiatrist by training, El However, many participants may be of 20,000 black Haitian sugar cane workers. Saadawi’s 1972 book, Women and Sex, unaware of the significance of the day cho- Minerva Mirabal, the Dominican dealt with women’s sexuality and led sen to mark the campaign. Republic’s first female law graduate, criti- to her dismissal as Egypt’s director of The International Day to Eliminate cized Trujillo’s brutal regime for reigning public health. Her many books and Violence Against Women, established by the by terror, violence and economic oppres- novels on Arab and Muslim women and United Nations in 1999 in response to a reso- sion. She joined the resistance and inspired sexuality within the context of repres- lution from the Dominican Republic, has a two of her sisters to join. As part of the sive religious authority and tradition unique resonance for women in that country. Fourteenth of June movement, the sisters have made her the target of both It was on November 25, 1960, that a group of were code-named Las Mariposas, or “the Egypt’s secular regimes and the Muslim Dominican Republic soldiers hauled three Butterflies.” Twice, Minerva and María religious establishment. women and their male driver—all of them Theresa were imprisoned and tortured, but In 1981, El Saadawi was imprisoned by unarmed—out of their jeep and marched they did not give up. Patria, whose house President Anwar Sadat after her out- them into a sugar cane field. The soldiers was destroyed and property auctioned off spoken criticism of his unilateral peace beat and strangled the four captives. once said:“This is not only a cause for men, deal with Israel, as well as of Egypt’s When the deaths of the Mirabal sisters in but for women, too. ... I am willing to give economic policies. Upon her release in a car accident was announced, their sup- up everything, my own life if needs be.” 1982, she founded the Arab Women’s porters suspected that then-president Six months after the Mirabals’ death, the Solidarity Association, Egypt’s first Rafael Trujillo Molina ordered the assassi- Trujillo regime was toppled when he was legal, independent feminist organiza- nation of the three women he had killed in 1961. Today, the Mirabal Sisters tion dedicated to encouraging women’s described as his “biggest problem.” Museum in Conuco,Salcedo,honours their active participation in Arab society. The Mirabal sisters—Patria, Minerva lives and the Fourteenth of June movement. Soon after the group opposed the first and María Theresa—grew up in a privi- Close to 2,000 organizations in 130 Gulf War in 1991, it was banned by leged family. Trujillo had come to power in countries are expected to participate in the Egyptian authorities. a 1930 coup and held power for 31 years, 16 Days Campaign, including over 40 terrorizing his opposition with torture, women’s organizations in Canada.

12 FALL 2005 HERIZONS cole’s notes BY SUSAN G. COLE

AIRING LAUNDRY Recently, I was asked to supply photographs as part other instances, just a colour or a particular fabric of a birthday gift album for a friend I’ve known all evoked the personality of the woman receiving it. my life. The caveat, from said friend’s wife, his The energy was electric. It was one of those situa- third: Excise all the exes. tions where everyone in the room was wholly appre- At first I hoped she wasn’t serious. For one ciative of each one of the female guests there. We felt thing, some of the best pics featured the ex-wives creative, funny and sexy. Oh yes, and the fact that (there were two), and besides, this was his life— guests were asked to bring foods with an erotic bent what’s the problem? helped, too—chocolate-dipped strawberries, finger A friend of mine, on hearing of my dilemma food, champagne. You get the picture. joked: “If he’d been a lesbian, the exes would have Obviously, there had to be a shared intimacy in the been giving the party.” group for this kind of thing to work, and indeed, this The disjunction between straight and queer expe- group reflected the geodesic dome of lesbian rela- rience reminded me of a similar incident that took tionships; many in the room had slept with more place in the aftermath of what has become known as than one of the women there. ‘the famous panty party.’ The day after, my partner and I attended a birth- Upon noticing that our teenaged daughters always day lunch for another friend. We were the only exchanged underwear as gifts at Christmas/ dykes among 12 women, but that didn’t stop us Hannukah, my partner, along with the mothers of from regaling the party with stories from our fabu- our daughter’s friend, decided we should exchange lous gathering. The rest of the female guests—all of lingerie, too. them intelligent and progressive—met us with So we had a combination party/game/exchange stony stares. night. Twelve of us picked numbers from a hat to Know that if the subject had been marriage, as decide who we would give panties to. The idea was feminists, they would have offered all the same mis- to purchase and/or embellish a pair of underwear givings many lesbians have about the institution. that best reflected that recipient’s personality. But on this there were clear differences. “I’d never Everyone got to buy a pair and get a pair. We tolerate the idea of my partner buying a pair of upped the ante by holding a contest. We hung the underwear for another woman,” one of them said, panties on a makeshift clothesline and asked all pointedly. They could, to be fair, imagine a girls’ the guests to guess which pair belonged with party where they could play the game with friends, which person. During the festivities, each woman but no way would they invite sexual partners. got to explain why and how she’d conceived of the I wish I could spend more time writing about this. pair she was bestowing. But my word count is up, and besides, my girlfriend The evening was a complete riot. One participant, and I are getting ready for our two-week vacation one of T.O.’s best known DJs, received a pair with, with my ex. She and I have been holidaying togeth- among other things, a CD attached over the pubic er—along with whoever was my current girlfriend— hair area. Another, who loves carpentry, had faux since we broke up 25 years ago. tools hanging from the waistband. A leopard skin Susan G. Cole is Entertainment/Books editor at pair obviously went to the cat-lover in the group. In Toronto’s NOW magazine.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 13 Subscribe on line Put Out Patriarchy. Subscribe to Herizons. for $25.96 at SEND YOUR ORDER WITH THE HANDY FORM ENCLOSED—OR SUBSCRIBE ONLINE. www.herizons.ca body politic BY JUDY REBICK

CHOKING FOR CHANGE Given that this is a political column, I should be the anti-terrorism agenda seemed to be running out writing about the coming fall session of Parliament. of steam, the bombings in Britain gave it new life. The So how come I don’t want to? horror I feel is not just for the senseless killing of True, I was proud of Jack Layton and Libby Davies innocent civilians, which is perpetrated by states in the spring for planting a few flowers in the muck much more often than by individual suicide bombers, of the testosterone-drenched soil of parliamentary but for the terrible reality that so many young people democracy. By using the Tory-initiated crisis over are willing to blow themselves—and anyone else the Gomery Inquiry to wheedle some concessions around them—to smithereens for their causes. from the Liberals, the NDP managed to make itself The religious right, whether Christian or Muslim, relevant again by winning concessions on the feder- continues to win converts, while the left seems al budget. And yet I find it a little depressing how a unable to mount any kind of real alternative—any- few small gains, like increased funding for where. Lots of lefties are cheering for Venezuela’s medicare, can feel like major change. Hugo Chavez, who certainly is doing some very good On the other hand, there were at least two major work, but a big part of the reason he can is the rich- changes to our country this summer. First, of ness of oil resources that allow a certain freedom course, is the passage of the same-sex marriage bill. from the pressure of the rulers of the universe. Ten years ago, who would have believed that the Then there is the environment. For several days Canadian Parliament would pass a bill legalizing this summer in Toronto, I could barely breathe, and same-sex marriage? Lest we forget that barely 15 I don’t even have lung problems. A friend with asth- years ago the Ontario NDP refused to use caucus dis- ma, who wound up in the emergency ward one day, cipline to ensure passage of a bill putting sexual ori- said it looked like a war zone. We should all be out in entation in the province’s Human Rights Code. the streets blocking the highways to stop the flow of Thanks to a phenomenal campaign by the LGBT cars into the city, to demand that our mayors do community, and thanks to the Charter and to the something about the quality of air. Yet there seems courts, gays and lesbians have moved from the mar- almost no protest at all. gins to the mainstream in less than two decades. I’d like to see the NDP go boldly into this mess of Then there is child care. Finally, we almost have a a world and make some simple, compelling national child care program. It was done piecemeal, demands around the environment, foreign affairs but at least a number of key provinces will use the and defense, and economic and social equality. billions offered by the feds to create new child care What we need is new vision on the Left that can per- spaces. That is a mammoth step forward based on suade people that there are real alternatives. First, decades of organizing by the child care movement. what is needed is strong pressure to get the NDP to Finally, on the national tour I did to promote Ten break from business as usual and take the risk of Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist being marginalized by the media to talk about what is Revolution, I met many young women right across really needed. It’s called leadership. And I wonder the country doing interesting and innovative femi- what horror it’s going to take to convince our politi- nist work. cal masters that the world really, really does have to Still, I do feel somewhat discouraged. Just when change.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 15 “My chest looks quite male. Well, it sure as hell doesn’t look female anymore.”—Kyle Scanlon. Photo: Betsy Carey

SATURDAY, JULY 15, 2000 God, I can’t believe it’s going to happen. In a matter Treasured Chest of weeks I’ll no longer even have the post-surgical bandages to contend with. I’ll be putting a shirt on By Kyle Scanlon over top of nothing—no bra, no binder, no extra T- shirt—and walking outside. I’ll be wrapping a towel In his transition from female to male, Kyle Scanlon ini- around my waist instead of my chest when I exit my tially had a breast reduction. A second surgery, gynaeco- morning shower. I’ll be able to hug people without mastia reduction, was performed five years later to them feeling those breasts or binders. I’ll no longer completely remove the breasts and sculpt his chest. For be a girl faking it, but a guy legit. Scanlon, this procedure was a medical necessity. This It’s funny how you don’t realize you feel a certain article is an excerpt based on Scanlon’s chapter in the way until the feeling is sitting right there in your gut. book, My Breasts, My Choice: Journey Through Right now I still feel like a fraud. I may be Kyle on my Surgery (Sumach Press) in which Scanlon speaks of the birth certificate, and my face is becoming more surgery and his transitioning. Kylesque every day, but every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up I still have this

16 FALL 2005 HERIZONS “I’M A MAN WHO WANTS TO BE WELCOME IN LESBIAN SPACES. I’M A MAN WHO USED TO BE A DYKE, WHO IS NOW BISEXUAL AND DATES GAY MEN. WHAT LABEL IS THERE TO ACCOMMODATE ALL THAT?”— KYLE SCANLON

decidedly female body. Sure I have broader shoul- ders and hairier legs, arms and face, but what I’ve never been able to escape or overlook are those breasts. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mir- ror, I still see those fucking tits and it undoes the process of establishing my new identity. I’m glad this surgery is about to happen. I need it so badly for my sense of personhood to settle. TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2000 I’m boobless. It’s 11:00 p.m. and I’m feeling great. My friend Carol called in the afternoon and asked, “Did you actually have the surgery?” She said my voice sounded so strong, it was hard to imagine I had been under the surgeon’s knife just six hours earli- er. Oddly, I don’t feel that there’s much to write tonight. Suffice it to say, I’m thrilled. On cloud nine. Happiness incarnate. “Can my first major expression about my surgery really be that my shirt hangs well? How puerile.”—Kyle Scanlon. Photo: Betsy Carey THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2000 I know I’ve been exceptionally silent in terms of healed. The scar line is fairly straight. writing about my surgery thus far, but I think my The scars themselves are thin and the contours are silence is because it’s been so hard to know how to good. My chest looks quite male. Well, it sure as hell encapsulate the infinite number of thoughts and doesn’t look female anymore. Once I start working feelings I’m processing into just a few paragraphs. out, those chest muscles will look even better. My Perhaps I’ll need to sound oafish, blunt, and shallow doctor has given me a chest that I will very easily be for now. For instance, my shirt hangs so beautifully. able to sculpt into a great set of pecs. I can’t see my Can my first major expression about my surgery nipples yet. They’re still hidden beneath the gauze really be that my shirt hangs well? How puerile. layering that the surgeon sewed over the grafts, but But no, I guess it’s not actually a statement about the they’re beautifully small and they’re in the right shirt itself; it’s about how I see myself. It’s about see- place, and that’s really all I could hope for. ing pieces of myself that I’ve never gotten to see before, but that I knew were there. That wonderful THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2000 chest that was trapped underneath those damnable I got to see my nipples for the first time today. The breasts is now visible. Notice how I never say “my right one looks good, but it still has some healing to breasts”; it’s always “those breasts, those things that do and is struggling for survival. The left one, on the have nothing to do with me, those things that have other hand, has a hole in it. absolutely nothing to do with any second of my future.” There’s a hole in my nipple, dear Liza, dear Liza, Today I got a glimpse of my naked chest, of how it There’s a hole in my nipple, dear Liza, a hole. looks immediately post-surgery. It looks like crap. My surgeon thinks the hole is likely a result of the But it also looks like it will look pretty good once it’s infection; even though we caught it fairly quickly, it

HERIZONS FALL 2005 17 must have had enough time to destabilize the tissue part of it is because I’m not binding. The process of underneath the nipple grafts. The good news: so I’ve binding my breasts was a part of my getting-in- got a small, pencil-width-sized hole touch-with-my-masculinity exer- in my left nipple that scar tissue can “AT THAT POINT, I cise. Now that I’m no longer doing it, DIDN’T RECOGNIZE I rebuild. And what would the colour of WAS FTM; I THOUGHT I feel slightly unsettled. After all, that scar tissue be? Light pinky-red, very I WAS A DYKE WITH binding literally provided a thick similar to the colour of the nipple GENDER ISSUES.” layer of protection between me and — KYLE SCANLON itself. In the worst-case scenario, I’ll the outside world. Now I’m trying to have to get the tissue tattooed the get used to being me without my right colour. It’s not as if I’ll be a nipple-hole freak armour. Never in my adult life have I ever ventured for the rest of my life, after all. I’m okay with this. outside so unprotected, so bare. I’m scared of being This was a risk I was comfortable taking. What’s seen so clearly, but I’ll cope. most important now is that my health is good, that I keep the incision line clean, that I keep taking care THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2000 not to lift anything heavy, that I protect and foster Good news. The surgeon and I will be meeting for a my body’s healing processes by taking vitamins, and small revisionary session in late September to that I get lots of rest. clean up the scars even more. And something occurred while I was in his office today. I noticed TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2000 that taking off my shirt in his presence was a com- Three different friends have also told me that since pletely different experience for me than it was the my surgery, I’m moving and walking differently and first time I had been in there with him. The first giving off a different energy than I did before. That’s time, when he wanted to see what kind of canvas he probably true, and as odd as this may sound, I think had to work with, I craned my neck up and away,

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18 FALL 2005 HERIZONS embarrassed. I needed to hide the sight of those very painful. I felt that I had gone through the breasts even from myself. whole surgical process for nothing. I didn’t fully That first time, I felt grossly on display, extremely understand then that what I’d wanted were no vulnerable. Today, taking off my shirt was a piece of breasts at all. Part of me must have known, but not cake. I was just a guy taking off my shirt. I was a guy all of me, not fully consciously. At that point, I did- before, too, but I was a guy who had the misfortune n’t recognize I was FTM; I thought I was a dyke with of having breasts. No wonder I felt embarrassed. gender issues. When I reminded the surgeon later that I’d want- FIRST SURGERY: REDUCTION ed to be “very, very small,” she said, “All women say In 1995, I identified as a lesbian. I was in a semi- that, but it’s not really what they want.” I felt raped, permanent relationship that I thought would last for assaulted—medically assaulted—by someone decid- quite a while. My partner and I were living together. ing she knew better than I did what I wanted. Her I was a 36DD, and on the surface, my concern with comments and her making that surgical decision my breasts at that point was back problems. Because infuriated me. of their size, I couldn’t jog or exercise. It was too Many people around me assured me that they under- painful. But underneath that, I also knew I hated stood what I was going through. They told me they those breasts as they were. I didn’t quite understand understood that my breasts were large and that their why. I only knew that I felt they didn’t fit my body. I size just wasn’t appropriate on a very small person. thought maybe a breast reduction would help for In fact, my parents drove me home from the hos- physical and mental reasons. pital and helped care for me. All my female friends When I woke up after the surgery, my breasts were very supportive. weren’t nearly as small as I thought they were going to be, or as I had wanted them to be, and this was continued on page 44

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HERIZONS FALL 2005 19 Terri Brown addresses reporters after a native cleansing ceremony ceremony in honour of missing Aboriginal women. Photo: Richard Lam, Canadian Press Where are Canada’s Disappeared Women? OFFICIALS HAVE BEEN SLOW TO INVESTIGATE, OR HAVE IGNORED THAT 500 WOMEN HAVE GONE MISSING IN THE LAST 20 YEARS. by Lauren Carter

December 1991, a few days before life sentence for the 1992 murders of three Christmas, Shirley Lonethunder vanished. Aboriginal women. In The 25-year-old mother of two was in the Lonethunder has never been found. And no one’s process of moving back to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan bothered to look in a long time. from the White Bear First Nation. At the same time, “The police weren’t any help.... They found noth- John Martin Crawford had been released after serv- ing, no trace of her. They weren’t going to do any ing time for the December 1981 murder of 35-year- more,” says Doris Lonethunder, Shirley’s mother. old Mary Jane Serloin, an act diminished to This indifference isn’t unusual. Terri Brown, past manslaughter despite evidence that included the President of the Native Women’s Association of imprints of his teeth on her chest, neck and breasts. Canada (NWAC) spent much of her two-year term Crawford would eventually be charged and given a acting to bring national and international attention to

20 FALL 2005 HERIZONS the fact that aboriginal women in Canada go missing Long before the Sisters In Spirit campaign began, and are murdered at an alarming rate. Her sister was Toronto resident Amber O’Hara began trying to killed in Prince George, British Columbia in 2001 count the missing and murdered women. As a young while she was involved in a violent relationship. No girl, O’Hara was deeply affected by the 1971 slaying of one has been charged in connection with her death. Helen Betty Osborne, a teenager brutally murdered “She died of an aneurism, and when we went to in The Pas, Manitoba. Four men were eventually claim her we could barely recognize her, she’d been implicated in the events that lead to Osborne’s death, beaten so badly,” Brown recalls. “The police said she but it took 16 years to bring the case to trial. Three of died of natural causes.” the men went free. Ada Elaine Brown is the first “I was appalled,” recalls O’Hara. name on a poster listing 191 mur- “MEN WHO MURDER Set on a life of activism, O’Hara dered and missing women NWAC NATIVE WOMEN ARE found herself touring First Nations fought for through Sisters In LEAST LIKELY TO GET communities delivering AIDS A LIFE SENTENCE Spirit, a year-long campaign that WITHOUT PAROLE.” workshops. She would regularly ended in March 2005. Co-organ- — AMBER O’HARA notice posters of missing women. ized by the United Church and the In the works for a decade, her Anglican Church of Canada, the findings are posted on her website, campaign called on Canada’s gov- (www.missingnativewomen.ca). ernment to invest $10 million in education and Her list has reached 350. research projects addressing violence against “Men who murder native women are least likely to Aboriginal women. On May 17, the federal govern- get a life sentence without parole. Many law enforce- ment announced that Indian Affairs and Status of ment agencies still refuse to take reports of missing Women Canada will grant NWAC $5 million over the native women seriously, and some police depart- next five years for the project. ments don’t list the victims as anything but ‘white’ “Research, education, policy development and or ‘other.’ This makes it difficult to get accurate sta- sustainability are the four main areas [being fund- tistics,” O’Hara explains. ed],” according to NWAC president Beverley Jacobs, During her term as NWAC President, Terri Brown who served as lead researcher on Stolen Sisters, an travelled through several communities to raise Amnesty International report on Canada’s missing awareness of the missing and murdered. Together and murdered Aboriginal women that was released with Bev Jacobs, they are now estimating that the in October 2004. number is closer to 1,000. “Part of the research section is [focused on] devel- Why don’t people report women when they go oping research tools. One of them is a database to missing? input all of the information of the missing and mur- “There’s a lot of fear [of authority],” Brown dered women,” explains Jacobs. The Amnesty report explains. “We’re finding that people just kind of noted that racism and sexism “flavour” police inves- wait, thinking their loved ones will come home. We tigations of missing or murdered native women. It held events and people came and said, ‘Yeah, we recommended a national, coordinated approach to heard about this and my aunt’s been missing for 10 track the missing women of the last 20 years. years.’ It’s very overwhelming.” Over the last year, 50 or 60 women’s names have Rebecca Guno, another woman named on the been added to the previous estimate of 500 women Sisters in Spirit poster, has been missing for 25 who have gone missing or been murdered in the last 20 years. Guno is one of 69 women who have disap- years. Jacobs is looking forward to clarifying the count. peared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Many “We were just basing our estimate on an anecdotal of them were Aboriginal. The DNA of at least 27 of scan of numbers across the country,” she says. “I’m these women has been found on the farm of Robert actually thinking 500 is low.” Pickton, who has been charged with 22 counts of She’s not alone. first degree murder. Pickton’s property is the site of

HERIZONS FALL 2005 21

Canada’s largest serial murder investigation. started Project Evenhanded, a task force that con- By all accounts, response from the police was slow tinues to investigate the missing women. when the numbers of missing women started to Meanwhile, haunting echoes are sounding in climb in the 1990s. The slow Edmonton, Alberta. In May 2005, police response caused outrage in the body of 33-year-old Ellie May the downtown community. “THE POLICE SAID, Meyer was found. She was the “The police said, ‘There’s noth- ‘THERE’S NOTHING seventh sex trade worker to be ing we can do. Maybe they left town. WE CAN DO. MAYBE discovered slain in the area since THEY LEFT TOWN.” Maybe they went on vacation.’ — TERRI BROWN 2002. Roughly half of the women We’re talking about inner-city were of Aboriginal descent. folk!” says Brown, who lived and All of the victims fall under the worked in Vancouver at the time. jurisdiction of Project Kare, a task Relatives, Aboriginal groups and women’s organi- force born out of the wider High Risk Missing zations demanded that attention be turned to the Persons Project. The High Risk Project emerged fol- missing women through actions like the Valentine’s lowing the gruesome discoveries made by Project Day March, an annual event that started in 1992, Evenhanded’s investigations in B.C. says Suzanne Jay, a rape crisis worker at Vancouver “The criminal operations officer in the province Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter. It was a way to of Alberta said, ‘We need to take a look at what’s hap- keep the issue front and centre. pening in our backyard,’” says Cpl. Wayne Oakes, an According to Jay, it took six years before a second Edmonton-based spokesperson for the RCMP. officer was assigned to the case. Three years later, in the spring of 2001, the RCMP and Vancouver police continued on page 45

HERIZONS FALL 2005 23 Lyndell Montgomery was drawn to tattoos in response to growing up in a religious, conservative household. Photo: Desdemona Burgin

hen Patricia Roe was 46, her 20-year-old Skin Deep son, Adam, died while mountain climbing W in Guatemala. Several of Adam’s friends TATTOOS MARK THE BODY’S got tattoos to mark the loss of their friend. A few SURFACE, BUT THEIR INSPIRATION weeks later, Roe got the same design tattooed a few IS DRAWN MUCH DEEPER. inches above her knee, while Adam’s father had the tattoo applied to his shoulder. by Alexis Keinlen The design is an impala—a type of deer—sur- rounded by a sun. The deer was an important symbol Until recently, tattoos on men of European ancestry were for Roe’s son, who loved speed, movement and free- associated with rebellious characters like bikers and gang dom; he also loved the sun. The same design appears members. However, for women, choosing a tattoo represents on the tombstone on Adam’s grave. a sense of peace and reclamation. Roe wanted to mark her body in a way that would

24 FALL 2005 HERIZONS “I SUPPOSE THAT BEING HEAVILY TATTOOED IS A MEANS OF VISIBLY SETTING MYSELF APART FROM THE MAINSTREAM FLOW.” — LYNDELL MONTGOMERY give her a constant memory of her son: “Sometimes it’s just like he’s disappeared and my tattoo is a sym- bol of our relationship and our closeness. I can touch it and it makes me feel like he’s part of me.” Even the pain of the tattooing procedure, at such a tumultuous time in her life, was important, Roe explains. “It was pain that I welcomed at the time, because I chose it Justina Kervel, owner and operator of Liquid Amber Tattoo in Vancouver’s for myself at a time when there was so much other Kitsilano neighbourhood, tattoos her business partner, Luvia Pateneaud emotional pain that I couldn’t control.” Petersen. Photo courtesy Liquid Amber The word ‘tattoo’ derives from the Tahitian word ‘tatu,’ which means to mark something. It’s an art rock music and the alternative fashion trend. By the that’s been practiced for over 5,000 years; tattoo 1990s, there was a huge growth in tattooing among a instruments have been found at archeological sites new generation of women. throughout the world. Tattoos have been used as a Teresa Johnson, owner of the tattoo parlour Electro mark of royalty, and many cultures have incorporat- Lady Lux, in Vancouver, explains that women tend to ed tattoos for religious and other ceremonies. It was want tattoos for different reasons than men do. common, for example, for women and men in 18th- “A lot of women do it as a type of reclaiming of century Samoa to have tattoos, though women wore their bodies and marking of certain incidents,” she smaller patterns and avoided tattoos on their hands. observes. “Women seem to find symbols to signify The Maori of New Zealand have used tattoos for over events in their lives.” a thousand years as a marker of tribal rank, eligibil- Johnson, who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree ity to marry and generational heritage. Popular as an from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in alternative to permanent tattoos, mehndi is the tra- Vancouver, got her first tattoo at age 13. At 40, her ditional art of henna body painting that has been arms, back and chest are covered in tattoos. practiced for centuries, mostly by women, in India, One trend Johnson sees among women is that Africa and the Middle East. their tattoos are getting larger. “They’re not scared As world travel for the more affluent increased, so to make a bigger statement,” she says. “Dainty isn’t did the North American fascination with tattoos. In in anymore, and it’s okay not to be dainty. It can be the 1880s, North American and European women just as beautiful to have a sleeve (a full arm tattoo).” entered the world of circus sideshows as tattooed Johnson has a whole arm tattoo which represents a ladies. Many of them were married to tattooists and reclaiming of her childhood. She says that her tat- became walking advertisements for the work of their toos are not separate from her, but are a part of who husbands. While male soldiers and patriots were she is and don’t make her more or less nice. getting tattooed during the Second World War, “The whole idea of beauty has changed,” adds women in North America discovered that they could Johnson. Not everyone thinks so. When Johnson not be tattooed unless they were over 21, married worked at a used clothing store chain, some cus- and accompanied by their husband. tomers came up to her and said: “You’re a nice girl. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the sexu- It’s too bad that you have so many tattoos.” al revolution began in the 1960s, tattooing in North Business is so good that Johnson now employs two America and Europe became a form of self-expres- other female tattooists in her store on Vancouver’s sion. By the 1970s and 80s, tattooing was seen as a Commercial Drive. While acceptance of female tat- form of rebellion and was popularized by punk and tooists has improved, especially among younger

HERIZONS FALL 2005 25 Leanne Lloyd had her belly tattoo applied by Justina Kervel while she was Luvia Pateneaud Petersen, business partner of Jusina Kervel at Liquid pregnant. “Just so you know,” advises Kervel, “I had her doctor’s permis- Amber, displays her tattoos. Photo: Vashti Buehler sion.” Photo courtesy Liquid Amber

people, Johnson notes that “there’s still the attitude 19, Kervel has added tattoos of Celtic, tribal and that ‘You’re good, for a girl.’” Eastern designs over one arm and half of her other The secret to being a good tattooist, says Johnson, arm, as well as on her legs and back. is to be both technically and creatively skilled. Kervel agrees that tattooing often has a special sig- “We work to give people what they want, not what nificance for her female clients, particularly those in they think they should have,” she says. “Really, I’m their early to late 30s. tattooing because I want to make people happy. I “When women go through a life change, they want believe this comes from the place of being female to do something for themselves,” she says. “The first and the idea of choice. We have people telling us thing they do is change their hair or get a tattoo.” what to wear, what to look like. We have more empa- Kervel, who bills her company as “female owned thy for what people want.” and operated,” has observed some unique gender Justina Kervel, owner and operator of Liquid differences among her clients. Whereas men tend Amber Tattoo in Vancouver’s Kitsilano neighbour- to get tattoos to change the way society sees them, hood, used to tattoo dogs and cats for identification Kervel says women tend to get tattoos to mark a when she worked as a veterinary assistant. On week- change in the way they see themselves. Another ends, she began taking the tattoo machine home to difference she sees is that while men tend to tattoo practice on herself and her friends. Later she trav- their arms, women often prefer their torso, elled to Paris, where she apprenticed under a female including the stomach, as well as their back and tattooist. After getting her first tattoo when she was hips. She adds that while many women are getting

26 FALL 2005 HERIZONS WHEREAS MEN TEND TO GET TATTOOS TO CHANGE THE WAY SOCIETY SEES THEM, WOMEN TEND TO GET TATTOOS TO MARK A CHANGE IN THE WAY THEY SEE THEMSELVES. larger tattoos, most still want pieces they can cover. added one per year since then. One, a chameleon, Lyndell Montgomery, 30, isn’t covering up. A was chosen after she returned from Europe. “I kept musician who collaborates and performs with on going on trips and I would come back looking dif- singer/songwriter Ember Swift, she first became ferent every time. My friends started calling me interested in tattoos as a response to being raised in chameleon, so I thought it would be a neat idea to get a religious household where women were not a representation of something that was constantly allowed to wear makeup or cut their hair, and where changing tattooed on my body.” She also has a they were required to wear skirts or dresses. Tattoos dinosaur skeleton tattoo, symbolizing her childhood were as far from her upbringing as she could get, so fascination with dinosaurs, and a wolverine. she was drawn to them. Montgomery has a series of Although Adriana’s tattoos can be covered, they tattoos in a full sleeve on her left arm and prefers to have been the subject of debate on the stage. “I was have her tattoos in a place where she can see them. in a play and the director loved my tattoos,” she says. The tattoos that make up her sleeve represent her “However, the costume director wanted them cov- belief that the energy, truth and honesty a person ered and put me in pants. Then, some people puts into the world are returned. involved with the play [said], ‘People in theatre “It’s a basic concept that gets forgotten in this shouldn’t have tattoos.’ I don’t see why it’s a big deal, self-centred, self-motivated, self-first world,” says as I can cover them up with makeup. I think it was Montgomery. “I loathe the selfishness that has more about them not liking tattoos and less about spread throughout Western culture, and I suppose my tattoos being difficult to cover.” that being heavily tattooed is a means of visibly set- Whatever women’s reasons for choosing tattoos, ting myself apart from the mainstream flow.” there is no denying that giving and receiving tattoos, Montgomery enjoys it when other people share as well as talking about them with other people, is their tattoos with her. “I like meeting people from a intimately tied to women’s relationships to them- foundation of art,” she says. selves and to the world they inhabit.  Adriana Bucz loves her tattoos. The theatre stu- Alexis Kienlen is a Vancouver poet, fiction writer and dent has five: four on her legs, and one on her back. journalist. She is the literary editor of Ricepaper maga- She got her first tattoo when she was 19 and has zine and has one tattoo on her lower back.

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HERIZONS FALL 2005 27 Dark Threats and White Knights

Interview by Ghislaine Allyne

In March, 1993, two Somalis were shot in the back by Canadian peacekeepers—one fatally. Just over two weeks later, a 16-year-old Somali youth held in cus- tody, Shidane Abukar Arone, was beaten to death by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. The Somalia Affair—as the scandal over the issue of prisoner abuse in Somalia by came to be known—chal- lenged Canadians’ beliefs about their national identity. A national Commission of Inquiry into the Somalia Affair examined the issues and issued its report in 1997. As a result if the inquiry, the regiment was disbanded and changes were made regarding training, accounta- bility and leadership in the Canadian Armed Forces. The report did not conclude that the violence was the result of a systemic climate of racism. Sherene Razack has another opinion. A professor of sociology and equity studies in education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, her latest book, Dark Threats & White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism (University of Toronto Press, 2004) con- tends that the colour line is alive and well in the 21st century and is collectively maintained by the West. It is a line between a family of white nations, constructed as civilized, and a Third World constructed as a dark threat in which violence is not only condoned, but seen as nec- essary to discipline and sort out a barbaric Third World. Sherene Razack: The colour line is alive and well in the 21st century. Photo: Richelle Forsey

Herizons: First of all, can you tell Herizons readers Sherene Razack: I decided to insert the Kipling why you wrote Dark Threats & White Knights? poem only after I had written the entire book and Sherene Razack: I wrote it because I was shocked by realized that modern peacekeeping depended on the extent to which the story of racial violence disap- some of the same ideas you find in Kipling’s poem— peared from Canada’s national memory and was ideas about white men having to bear the burden of replaced by a story of the kindest nation in the world taking care of their “new caught peoples, half devil, being betrayed by a few unscrupulous men. half child.” Modern peacekeeping has the same concept—that is, that men from the North go to the What is the significance of the Rudyard Kipling’s poem South to show uncivilized peoples how to become “The White Man’s Burden” at the opening of your book? civilized, how to stop fighting each other—and how

28 FALL 2005 HERIZONS to develop democracy. Kipling’s words were also eerily reminiscent of The White Man’s Burden George Bush’s idea that peace is best secured through war. Kipling wrote Take up the White Man’s burden— about “savage wars of peace.” Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; In your introduction, you set up some interesting parallels between imperialism To wait in heavy harness, and peacekeeping. Who are the dark threats and the white knights? On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Sherene Razack: The dark threats are the people of the South. In inci- Half-devil and half-child. dents of peacekeeping violence, the dark threats—those who have to be Take up the White Man’s burden— disciplined and taught a lesson—are very often children and teenagers. In patience to abide, Those who imagine themselves as having the duty to teach the natives a To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride; lesson and to save them from themselves, see themselves as knights in By open speech and simple, shining armour. An hundred times made plain, To seek another’s profit, And work another’s gain. How is peacekeeping the “new imperialism”? Sherene Razack: Take up the White Man’s burden— Today’s imperialism is called the fight for democracy, but The savage wars of peace— of course, all empires have described what they are doing as benevolent and Fill full the mouth of Famine advanced. There is really nothing very new about contemporary imperial And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest relations. Today, empire involves the United States and all Western nations The end for others sought, dominating non-Western nations. Watch Sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hope to nought. As the incidents in Somalia played out in the Canadian media and in our own Take up the White Man’s burden— No tawdry rule of kings, cultural imagination, how were the Canadian soldiers in Somalia depicted as But toil of serf and sweeper— innocent parties with a couple of bad apples? The tale of common things. Sherene Razack: The bad apple theory was quite simply that some men had The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread, behaved badly–principally rank and file soldiers, and, for some, military Go make them with your living, leaders. In the official story, we do not attempt to understand why so many And mark them with your dead. soldiers watched what was happening and did nothing, why so many others Take up the White Man’s burden— thought they were in Africa to civilize the natives, and why we, as a nation, And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better, were so quick to put these acts of racial violence behind us. The hate of those ye guard— The cry of hosts ye humour (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:— Do you believe that the soldiers charged* were following orders? “Why brought ye us from bondage, Sherene Razack: They only did what everyone else was doing, but per- “Our loved Egyptian night?” haps with extra vigour. Such behaviour was condoned and even thought Take up the White Man’s burden— of as necessary. Ye dare not stoop to less— Nor call too loud on Freedom To cloak your weariness; One of the men who faced charges, Corporal Clayton Matchee, was a Cree soldier By all ye cry or whisper, who had been a victim of racial violence himself. One of his childhood acquain- By all ye leave or do, The silent, sullen peoples tances asserted that while growing up they learned “whiteness is power and Shall weigh your Gods and you. [that] the way to become white is to be a racist.” If your assumption is that the Take up the White Man’s burden— Western soldier’s fight is the “defence of whiteness and white nations,” was the Have done with childish days— behaviour at all surprising? The lightly proffered laurel, Sherene Razack: The easy, ungrudged praise. Although there may have been some evidence that Comes now, to search your manhood Corporal Matchee was trying to out-white the white guys by proving that he Through all the thankless years, Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The judgment of your peers! * A court martial trial began against Master Corporal Clayton Matchee, who was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the killing of Shidane Arone. The trial did not proceed, because brain injuries —Rudyard Kipling, 1899 resulting from an apparent suicide attempt rendered Matchee unfit to stand trial. Private Kyle Brown was convicted of manslaughter and torture in the death of Arone and sentenced to five years in military prison.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 29 could be as much a white man as they were, I think principally the one about whether someone that this is insignificant. What is of far greater sig- intentionally tried to kill her husband (who, at nificance is that, given the terms of the encounter six-foot-four, was found hanging, cut and between the troops and the Somalis, everyone was bruised, with a big hole in the back of his head, in invited to see themselves as a conqueror. In this a seven-foot-high cell). She also has to live with atmosphere, participation in violent acts was simply the fact that she is denied military benefits. ordinary, and not necessarily a specific response that only men of colour had. Corporal Matchee’s The commissioners avoided the opportunity to consider behaviour is perhaps only surprising because he did how race shaped what happened in Somalia. Why do know what it was like to be a victim of racial violence. you think that is? This did not enable him to resist the mandate to Sherene Razack: One way in which race is hidden is keep the natives in line. by defining racism as extremely overt individual acts. The commission set out to look for such acts You seem to have some sympathy for Marj Matchee. She and did not explore the terms and conditions of the links her husband’s aggressive behaviour in Somalia to entire encounter. At bottom, however, I believe that the anti-malaria drug mefloquine. Do you share the all three commissioners were white men with a deep view that the drug is linked to violent behaviour? commitment to the idea that Canadians cannot be Sherene Razack: I don’t think that there is much racist. I believe none of them had any experience of evidence that mefloquine caused the violence. racism or any expertise in it. It is not surprising, Racial violence occurs wherever men think that then, that they looked away when presented with an they are colonizers and conquerors. If I seem to opportunity to look at race. have sympathy for her, it is simply because she has to live with so many unanswered questions, continued on page 46

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30 FALL 2005 HERIZONS out of bounds BY LISA B. RUNDLE

HELP FOR THE HELPLESS I guess this is what I get for reading a Style section. Unfortunately, such acts are all too common. I’m And when I say “reading,” unfortunately I mean talking about consumers who shop in a big box store reading, not just glancing, as I often do to ease that saves them money by hiring staff at low, low myself into the actual news. Actual news, after all, wages and who then blame that same low-paid staff requires deciphering and other forms of mental for not providing high-level service. Keeping the self-defence. That morning, June 11, I must have criticism oh-so-personal, as von Hahn did, neatly really been trying to delay the difficulties that await- erases the larger context: that employees are no ed me in the rest of the Saturday Globe and Mail, longer apprenticed, no longer committed to in any because I read—READ!—Karen von Hahn’s Noticed way, and that while in uniform they are meant to be column entitled “Helpless.” It inspired the kind of cookie-cutter versions of human beings easily frustrated rage usually reserved for news, commen- reproduced and replaced—and as easily yelled at as a tary and, occasionally, the TV guide. TV set. It is the result of the particular labour condi- Here’s a taste of what von Hahn was on about: tions that have been created largely by the kind of “To the girl at Blockbuster who saw me searching multinational big box chains von Hahn frequents through the foreign films: Thank you for noticing that are causing her experience of helplessness. And that I was having trouble finding a movie. It was it’s not up to those employees to compensate for that. sweet of you to come over and offer your assistance. Let’s do the math. If an employee earns $9 an But no, Fellini’s Amarcord is not a new release. It is hour—a good wage rate for a big-box store—that’s an old, famous foreign film by a major Italian direc- $18,000 in a year, before taxes, for full-time work that tor. And if you don’t know that, then how is it that often includes weekends and evenings. And we expect you feel you can be of any help to me whatsoever?” them to have large volumes of information available The column continued in this vein—dissing the for instant recall? Von Hahn wanted an employee who staff at Staples and the staff at Future Shop, every- would respond to her plight with something along the body, it seemed, who works in customer service lines of “Amarcord? 1973, right? No, that’s out, but we (particularly “cute, semi-literate highschoolers”). have The Nights of Cabiria, an earlier work—1957—but a Von Hahn lamented the empty offers of help ram- far better film in my opinion.” pant in her shopping landscape and implored Von Hahn could have chosen to shop at a smaller, employees to use their “downtime” to “try learning independent store, where the staff would be more about what [they’re] selling.” likely to have an interest in the subject. That way, It’s been weeks since I first read it, and I’m still she’d be supporting the best antidote to the problem angry about von Hahn unleashing a snarkfest on she described. Instead, Von Hahn’s follow-up col- these workers, a large percentage of whom are young umn, “Help: It’s War,” was more of the same, filled women (not, um, “girls”). I’ve always thought that primarily with comments from readers telling von those who work in low-paying service jobs should Hahn, “Right on!” get danger pay for all the crap they have to deal with. In an ironic twist, this venting has the potential to I imagine they use their downtime to gather the set off a groundswell for a consumer movement; but strength to prepare for the next customer who com- it does nothing to help address the root problem. mits a random act of unkindness. Sigh. It’s so hard to get good help these days. 

HERIZONS FALL 2005 31 arts culture MUSIC

MARTHA WAINWRIGHT INDIGO GIRLS hearing Ray’s strangled version of the Martha Wainwright Rarities tune, would rush to check out more of MapleMusic, 2005 Epic Records, 2005 Ferron’s oeuvre. Review by Cindy Filipenko Review by Cindy Filipenko Those minor points of irritation aside, After listening to Rarities ends the Epic Rarities delivers on its promise: a gift of Martha Wainwright’s journey of the Indigo rarely available tracks for the band’s self-titled debut, I can Girls, allowing the legions of devoted fans. safely add attending a modern folk duo to part Wainwright-McGarrigle ways with Sony. This is MARYEM TOLLAR family reunion to my list of mortal fears. not your typical swan song collection Book of Life After all, this is a family that takes letting it that’s brimming with filler to meet con- Independent, 2004 all hang out to a new level.Why just let your tractual obligations. Nope, this is the real Distributed by Festival Records vitriol spill out at family dinners, when you deal: 18 genuine rarities, obscure live Review by Cindy Filipenko can air your grievances in concert? tracks, a beat mix of “Free in You”that was Although she has played Sister of Rufus, daughter of Loudon III once destined for release as a radio- in numerous world and Kate,Martha gives an airing to all that friendly single and some very interesting music groups, con- is dysfunctional in the clan with a voice cover choices—songs that only the most tributed to movie that sounds like rage condensed. Don’t get hardcore bootleg enthusiast would have soundtracks and found- me wrong. Her pipes in no way deny her come across. ed two Arabic music ensembles, including pedigree. But there’s an edge in her voice Suggestions for what should be includ- Juno-nominated Maza Meze, Maryem that makes her brother sound like the ed on the CD were solicited from Indigo Tollar is perhaps best known as the singer clown prince of nouveau cabaret. Any Girls fans, via the duo’s website. In true behind Jesse Cook. Her ethereal mezzo- woman who can make Rufus Wainwright lesbian-feminist egalitarian fashion, Amy soprano added texture to both “Fall At Your sound frothy has to be one sombre babe. Ray and Emily Sailers each chose nine of Feet” and “Beloved” on the flamenco Luckily, Martha’s messy emotions cre- the tracks and provide notes explaining rhumba guitarist’s Montreal CD. Though ate the basis for some fine modern folk- their decisions. anyone interested in world music has pop. Her more often than not melodic However, a couple of their choices probably heard this extraordinary singer. compositions are accompanied by stark seem, well, indefensible. One is the afore- Tollar’s second solo album,Book of Life, is personal revelations such as in the song mentioned “Free in You.” Unless it’s a sly an outstandingly innovative work, combin- “TV Show”: “I’ve found the way to make jab at what Sony was willing to do to the ing traditional Arabic sounds with both ’em not stay/ Not the way I don’t love you/ band to boost album sales, it’s just plain Indian and African musical forms. This But the way I hate myself/ It was Oprah on embarrassing, in the same way a disco unlikely fusion results in everything from the TV show/ She told me so.” version of, say, “Power of Two” would be. danceable worldbeat compositions such as This theme of choosing to reject The other odd choice here is a cover of “Marrakesh,”to what can only be described before being rejected repeats itself a Canadian folk icon Ferron’s “It Won’t Take as the Arabic jazz demonstrated on number of times on this CD, notably on Long.” Justifying the inclusion of this “Baghdad 1258.”The latter song is also note- “Was I Kidding?” and on her cover of song, Ray writes: “As a songwriter, Ferron worthy, as it typifies the politically-charged “Whither Must I Wander,” based on has never gotten her due from the music lyrics that make Book of Life a standout, in Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem of the industry. She is absolutely stellar. Her this case paralleling the American invasion same name. On the former she pro- lyrics are just brilliant and if the media of Iraq with that of the Mongols in 1258. claims: “Oh I know babe/ You’re the best wasn’t so straight, more people would The jazz aspect of Book of Life is thing yet/ But take it from me/ I would if know about her.”OK, I buy the rationale, undoubtedly influenced by Tollar’s musi- I could/ Fuck it up.” One place she defi- but the result is less than stellar and does cal and life partner, Ernie Tollar, whose nitely hasn’t fucked up is with the release little to build and or to improve on the roots are deeply embedded in traditional of this auspicious debut. original. I don’t know how many people, jazz. An Eqyptian-Canadian, Maryem

32 FALL 2005 HERIZONS Tollar sings in both English and Arabic, classical music, Spektor learned to play AMY RAY often employing a syncopated cadence piano at a young age. Her family moved to Prom that invites a warm, hypnotic state in the New York City from Moscow when she was Daemon Records, 2005 listener. Her vocalizations are as complex nine,and,as her musical education con- Review by Cindy Filipenko as the territory her songs examine—from tinued, she discovered blues and jazz and A less heady offering is the Palenstine/Israel war, in “Shalam began to mix it all together. As her profile Indigo Girl Amy Ray’s Salom,” to the death of a child in the grew she was swept into the New York hip- second solo project, haunting “Twenty-four Days.” ster scene, and has since toured with buzz Prom.Ray mines her Book of Life showcases an artist fluent in bands like The Strokes. high school experience a variety of musical styles,and this diversi- Her major label debut, Soviet Kitsch,is for material for this punk-inspired disc, ty makes for some intensely jarring transi- likeably unusual, but it’s also a little and the results are wholly engaging. tions,at times.One track suggests sitting in uneven. There’s intentional vocal distor- If this Georgia-based gravelly voiced, a jazz bar recovering after a losing day at tion when Spektor gets too close to the guitar-jangling badass wasn’t a 40-year- the rat race, while the next has enough microphone; sometimes the presentation energy to rattle your spine out of your body. of the vocals is too cutesy; and the odd old lesbian,“Driver Education”would have That aside, this is an extraordinary work; lyric gets a bit grating on repeated listen- charted as a perfect summer single. but I’m going to re-sequence the songs on ing. But the flaws on this record are defi- Featuring guitarist Donna Dresch of Team iTunes so I don’t harsh my mellow. nitely outweighed by a unique sound that Dresch and Kate Schellenbach, the drum- feels like it came out of the New York mer for Luscious Jackson, standouts REGINA SPEKTOR underground. What sets Spektor apart include “Driver Education,”“Rural Faggot” and the anti-religious Right anthem “Let it Soviet Kitsch from other up and coming scenesters is Ring.”Prom suggests what Ray, a huge fan Sire/Warner, 2005 that she has the strength to get beyond that of The Clash, might have been had she not Review by Anna Lazowski circuit. Though Soviet Kitsch may not be hooked up with Emily Sailers. If you like your music to her definitive record, it certainly holds her have elements of per- a spot in the one-to-watch category. formance art, Regina VEDA HILLE Spektor might be the JANN ARDEN Return of Kildeer Ape House/Festival, 2005 next must-have for your Jann Arden record collection. And that’s what makes Universal, 2005 Review by Cindy Filipenko her an unusual choice for a major label. Review by Cindy Filipenko Veda Hille has always The songs on Soviet Kitsch aren’t going to Jann Arden, the singer- seemed to be an artist get into rotation on the radio, though you songwriter who once on the verge of some- may see the video for “Us” once or twice titled an album Happy? thing bigger.Mixing tra- on a music channel. finally answers the ditional cabaret song Wisely released as a single, “Us” is the question on her new structure with wicked social commentary, most commercially viable song on the self-titled effort. She’s forgiven her past Hille has often been mistakenly relegated album. Piano and strings are used to their mistakes and she’s … well, happy. to the folk realm. Her latest offering on Ape best advantage, and there’s even a catchy Given the overall positive emotional House, Return of Kildeer,shows just how chorus. But fanning out on either side of transparency of this CD, the choice of inaccurate that labeling is. From the witty the disc’s fifth track are strange stories “Where Nobody Knows Me”as a first sin- “Frank Mills,” about a meeting with the and a theatrical sense that attracts fellow gle is surprising; overproduced, it sounds composer of Music Box Dancer, a.k.a. the artists like Rufus Wainwright to Spektor’s unsure of whether it wants to lay the Red Rose Tea theme, to the dark and com- music.And she seems to have come by her foundation for a dance re-mix or be a pelling “Coerce,” Hille, with her complex quirkiness naturally. solid pop song. The rest of the disc fairs lyrics and original arrangements,demands Raised on a mix of Western rock and much better. a listener’s complete attention.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 33 LE TIGRE for a major label, which surprised many advised Pointer Sisters cover “I’m So This Island of Hanna’s fans. After all, that corporate Excited”and an odd cut-and-paste track Universal, 2005 structure seems to fly in the face of riot of anti-war speeches, laid over a pro- Review by Anna Lazowski grrrl ideals. Despite some initial criti- peace chant and some beats—“New Fans of feminist rock will cism, many fans waited to see how that Kicks.” already know the financial push would change the band. It’s tricky to create music with a mes- name Kathleen Hanna. In response, Hanna, along with JD sage that translates well to the dance As a member of Samson and Johanna Fateman, created floor but also holds up for a whole Olympia, Washington’s an album that has truly polarized crit- album. Hits and misses aside, consider- Bikini Kill, Hanna is frequently credited ics. It has been slammed for being too ing the predictability of so much music with getting the riot grrrl movement tame and lauded for successfully taking that falls under the feminist banner, it’s going. Bikini Kill disbanded in the late a feminist message to gay and straight nice to find something that can live out- ’90s after eight years, but it didn’t take fans alike. side that stereotypical sound. Le Tigre is long for Hanna to dive into another proj- Ultimately, it depends what you’re a young, fresh band with attitude. It just ect. Her next group, Le Tigre, continues looking for from Le Tigre. Sure, there are feels that—like on the album’s cover— to mine political and gender issues, but some catchy tunes here. The dance floor they’ve been dressed up a little for mass their latest album also marked a signifi- classic “After Dark,”the anthemic “TKO” consumption. But really, who doesn’t cant change for the group. and the Ric Ocasek-produced “Tell You like getting dressed up every now and This Island is the group’s first effort Now” stand out. But then there’s the ill- then?

34 FALL 2005 HERIZONS arts culture FALL READING 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 RQ:HVWMHW-HWVJR7DQJR=LS&DQMHW andDQG6N\VHUYLFH Skyservice. THE SEAHORSE YEAR take any strain without fraying. Stacey D’Erasmo Nan, a fierce wolf of a mother who had Houghton Mifflin, 2004 Chris on her own (possibly to make up for Review by Joy Parks her own loveless childhood) is uncondi- tional love personified. She knows what In The Seahorse Year, matters (Marina’s affair with another Stacey D’Erasmo artist does not; keeping her home and probes deeply into $PHPEHURIWKH,QWHUQDWLRQDO family intact does). Nan is a survivor who *D\DQG/HVELDQ7UDYHO$VVRFLDWLRQ the ideas of family, of hopes she has passed such skills down to unconditional love, her child. The Seahorse Year is a wonder- and of how one goes ful, painfully beautiful book, character- on caring even when driven, full of life and terror, and all is lost.It’s a beauti- impossible to put down. ful book, deep and descriptive, and filled with light despite the heaviness of the subject. The family in VENOUS HUM Suzette Mayr question includes Nan, her 16-year-old  ²  2VERUQH 6W 6 0F.LP &RXUW\DUG son Chris, her long-time lover Marina and Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004 :LQQLSHJ 0DQLWRED ‡ 5/ < Review by Mridula Nath Chakraborty SK  ‡ WROO IUHH  Chris’s biological father Hal, a one-time ID[  ‡ HPDLO RDW#PWVQHW member of a drag rock group. In her inimitable When Chris, a sweet, quiet, sensitive style, Calgary-based kid, is diagnosed with schizophrenia, writer Suzette Mayr everyone’s commitments and loyalties are has followed up the called into question. As well as the dark success of her 1995 images and fears that haunt Chris’s mind, novel, Moon Honey, MOVING? many other ghosts haunt the characters in with another apiari- Let us know where you’re going The Seahorse Year. Ghosts of Adam, who an-inspired title: and you won’t miss an issue. might have ended up being Chris’s father, Venous Hum. Moon Honey ranks among had he lived. Ghosts of Nan’s childhood, the sharpest of fiction that is quintessen- with hints of violence and abuse. Ghosts, tially contemporary Canadian as it Name: too, of Nan’s exodus from Texas and her explores the knotty themes of race, sex wandering to finally find a home in San and metamorphoses while capturing the Francisco. We recognize that having and central contradictions of Canadian mosa- New address: raising a child is the home and anchor ic identity. Venus Hum circles, hums and Nan was searching for, and her son’s ill- drones around everything from visible ness makes her homeless in a terrifying minorities, suburban immigrants and and poignant way. same-sex marriages to vegans, vampires City/Town: D’Erasmo’s prose is poetically magical, and zombies, but unfortunately it lacks deep and rich, but still grounded in the comparable zing and sting. Province: day to day. It echoes and reverberates and The backdrop of this much-awaited breathes. There’s even a feeling, at times, novel is a cliché: High school reunions can Postal Code: of being underwater. Still, the real draw in be hell.The prairie town bees of this novel this novel lies in the depth of the charac- buzz with the promise of sexual intrigue, ters. Marina is ridden by guilt and urban revolution and cannibalism, but Phone: 1-888-408-0028 obsessed with an expensive dress she can’t there is too much vinegar in the honey Email: [email protected] ever wear: a designer gown made of pot. In her ambitious flight, queen bee Mail: PO Box 128 Winnipeg, MB diaphanous metal threads, beautiful, Mayr takes on thorny issues like lesbian Canada R3C 2G1 shiny and ethereal; it is useless, unable to bed death and the degeneration of social

HERIZONS FALL 2005 35 services. However, her meandering story- Boyle’s drawings create a succession of nant underbelly of violence, the brute lines leave us high and dry on simple nar- exposures and disclosures that explore and reality of city life known to all metropoli- rative pleasure. articulate varying levels of anxiety, tension, tan people who have divergent ways of The protagonist, Lai Fun Kugelheim, celebration and dysfunction,as gender,sex- dealing with that bloodshed.Some meet it undertakes to organize a reunion. She soars uality, desire and power produce—and are head-on, some mistake it for a form of high only to fall flat like “a truly negative per- produced by—female bodies. Boyle’s powerfulness, while others ignore it, pre- son capable of carrying grudges for twenty depictions are demanding, brazen, insis- tend it is merely an aberration—but this years” can. She fails despite the fact that she tent,witty,perverse and delicate. is just what Brand won’t allow. was conceived in the glorious moment The title bookwork addresses tangible I have always appreciated Toronto—for Pierre Trudeau announced that the state had incidents of shame—a girl whose skirt is its vastness,for the option of being anony- no business in the bedrooms of the nation, inadvertently tucked into the back of her mous, for its crazy juxtapositions of old- and despite his new immigration policy that underwear,toilet paper trailing her shoe; a style single residence homes with sinister purportedly welcomed everyone into this flush-cheeked child running away, the factory buildings, for its contrasts with country.This is an account of those promis- crotch of her pants stained—and the fear Vancouver, where I live. es gone sour,not because of any lack of ener- of exposure—a woman jerking off with a When the issues are endemic and the gy or enterprise, but because the players in slice of birthday cake while others stare, histories take in a large swath of time, it is this not-so-level field are constantly tripped shocked; an adult suckling a mother cat. not easy for the reader rasp, and so the up in the unfinished business of their own The closing image portrays a mother who, reader may go into default mode as some fictions and fantasies. having opened the door, now stares in of the characters do. Not completely The emotional landscape Mayr draws is horror—at us. Here, Boyle casts readers known to themselves,they settle for subtly truly incisive and inventive, but the party within the text, rendering us both the wit- self-destructive ‘safety’ that makes dis- deflates when she pricks the balloon of the nessed and witness to our own shame, solute both self and other. plot with an unexpected,and totally demanding that we confront our inclina- Brand’s text has many arresting unnecessary, horror pin. While we have tion towards self-flagellation. images: These include the courier rock- had fun preparing for it, this is one In Untitled, a door labelled “unseen” eting through the city in her rage at reunion that never takes off. yields the image of a “teen queen.”A blind- structures that disable her and her black Mridula Nath Chakraborty no longer pro- folded girl kneels at the foot of her bed, brother; the artist genius struggling crastinates by writing reviews. hands shoved inside her underwear, a soft with the difficulties of self-nurturing; smile playing upon her lips. Boyle makes and the young mom, caught in a ménage WITNESS MY SHAME beautiful those moments we’ve learned to à trois not of her own making, who Shary Boyle shame and keep secret. The intense vul- hands her baby over just before she Conundrum Press, 2004 nerability and honesty within Boyle’s work leaps to her death. These could all be Review by Lisa Foad thwarts the voyeurism and shock value scenes of everyday life in worn-out sec- through which desire, insecurity and tions of the U.S., but they aren’t. They’re power are so often portrayed. in Toronto, the urban centre of Expect more stunning work from Boyle. Canada—iconic and real. Her work has already garnered interna- Like Toronto—the real and the mythol- tional attention with exhibitions spanning ogized—What We All Long For is struc- Berlin,Los Angeles,New York,Paris, tured on a rather huge arc. There is no Toronto and Vancouver. single way to traverse that expanse. Whichever route the reader chooses is fine WHAT WE ALL LONG FOR and is sure to take them to spaces not Dionne Brand imagined. We do learn more of who we Knopf, 2005 are, and might want to be, in the human Review by Sook C. Kong toss-up called the city. Brand’s text is gift- There is something I ed with unavoidable questions of what Illustration: Shaiy Boyle Illustration: like very much about partnership means—between self and Witness My Shame is the lush debut of Dionne Brand’s novel: other, between people and place, between Toronto-based multimedia artist Shary It is that Toronto is a unending histories and new memories we Boyle. It explores the mistakes through primary character in make daily. Hence, the question turns on which people learn to understand them- its own right. What what we all want—from ourselves and selves,while challenging the custodial qual- We All Long For from each other. ity of our “word-skin.” Strung together, examines the domi- Sook C. Kong lives and works in Vancouver.

36 FALL 2005 HERIZONS MACKEREL SKY foreign.It’s like thinking you’ve unravelled everyone in her world, including the Natalee Caple the plot of a suspense movie, only to real- eager-to-please lovers who become her Thomas Allen Publishers, 2004 ize that the story and characters are twist- accomplices. Review by Kerry Ryan ing away from you; the ground shifts just This isn’t a cut-and-dried crime Immersing yourself as you begin to understand what is hap- novel, and Martine isn’t the black-hatted in Mackerel Sky,the pening. villain of the piece, or even a villain at second novel by If this novel were a film, it would be a all. She is a shape-shifter and there is no Natalee Caple, you blockbuster thriller—packed with sex, easy role for her. She is protective and feel the way Guy— crime, adrenaline and glimpses of soci- manipulative, strong yet ruled by her one of the main char- ety’s seedy underbelly. But the story manic depression, the family’s hard- acters—must when wouldn’t make for typical silver screen working breadwinner and a career he steps (or re-steps, fare: This is a world where women are the criminal. in his case) into the criminal masterminds, where Martine— We learn this about her through the scene: that you have come to a place that the matriarch of the central family—has eyes of Guy, who returns home 20 years should be familiar, but find that it’s utterly physical and emotional control over after abandoning Martine and their

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HERIZONS FALL 2005 37 daughter, Isabelle. As Guy falls back into That Moravia happened to be the pattern of life in his hometown in the Maraini’s companion for 18 years is Laurentians, and falls back into the pat- irrelevant. What matters is that his tern of infatuation with Martine, he dis- work was easily available in transla- covers that the characters and dynamics tion, whereas it took 36 years for an of their families have not changed so English version of Maraini’s work to be much over the years, but also that they published. This gender-motivated were never what he believed them to be in oversight has been corrected by Golini, the first place. who is currently president of the It is this tension between perception Canadian Society for Italian Studies. and reality, between the expected and Fortunately, solid translations of truth, that keeps the narrative engaging. enduring literature are never dated, Some potentially explosive relation- especially since the basic condition of ships, a family on the road to self- women—at work, if not in the bed- destruction and a subplot involving two room—have not changed much hardboiled gangsters, underline the throughout the years. “The Diary of a dark realities of Martine and Isabelle’s Telephone Operator”—read Computer world. The storyline is tautly woven Operator—is as fresh today as the through time and space, and the edgy, aroma of sweet onions that permeates eccentric female characters make some of her stories. Mackerel Sky unpredictable and unfor- Influenced by Becket and Ionesco, gettable. Maraini resorts to first-person narra- tives in the vein of the picaresque in MY HUSBAND order to help us grasp the futility and Dacia Maraini emptiness of the lives of her characters. Translated by Vera F. Golini Her tight, ironical prose hints at the fact Wilfrid Laurier University that men are as much victims of patri- Press, 2004 archy and capitalism as are women. Review by Maya Khankhoje “Mother and Son” is a farcical descrip- Mio Marito,thetion of mammismo, or the emasculation Italian version of of men by doting and domineering this collection of Italian mothers. The author turns the short stories by male/female double standard on its Dacia Maraini, was head in “The Other Family” by creating published in 1968 a female character who lives a double and translated into life with two families in two different English last year.It is cities. fitting that Maraini, My Husband also leads a double life: an activist in the Rivolta femminile, as a very incisive analysis of the should have had her book published in exploitation and humiliation of Italian the year in which Berkeley, Prague, women in the sixties and as a scholarly Mexico City and Paris were up in flames. study of the author who breathed life One of its themes is the role of mem- into them. ory in the construction of the self. Maya Khankhoje’s “A Psalm for These stories reminded me of Alberto Quetzalcóatl” has recently appeared in Moravia’s work, except that they were Writing the Sacred, by Ray McGinnis, written from a woman’s perspective. Northstone, Kelowna.

38 FALL 2005 HERIZONS arts culture ISSUES AND IDEAS

INCORRIGIBLE fears of being shunned and isolated Marian Engel was as Velma Demerson because she had a mixed-race son are important as many of Wilfrid Laurier University palpable. It is a sad, sad story. her better-known Press, 2004 Demerson’s memoir ends in the early contemporaries when Review by Barbara Freeman 1950s, so we don’t learn how she picked she died at 53. She up the pieces of her life and went on to was one of a small Sixty-five years ago, remarry and raise another family. Nor group who wrote nasty, officious racial does her book provide much in the way of about women’s lives prejudice led to the broader historical context. That may as they were actually incarceration and make it difficult for readers to appreciate being lived during the second wave of the medical torture of how the eugenics movement was able to women’s movement in Canada. Velma Demerson, a justify itself as a progressive scientific Engel was also important as an activist white, working-class force for the “improvement of the (white) in the precarious profession of writing in woman who fell in race” to the detriment of thousands of Canada. She was not only a founder of the love with a Chinese “incorrigible” individuals, such as Velma Writer’s Union of Canada, she was its first national, Harry Yip. Demerson, at 18, was Demerson. chairperson. Convincing the federal gov- old enough to know her own heart, but at Barbara M. Freeman teaches media history ernment that writers should be recom- the time she was considered underage at Carleton University. pensed annually for the use of their books and, worse, officially “incorrigible and in libraries—as they were in Europe— unmanageable” because she dared to live was, as Engel said,“her baby.” with a man of a different race and to bear MARIAN ENGEL: This collection makes for fascinating his child. LIFE IN LETTERS reading. In it, Engel enthusiastically corre- After the police raided their Toronto Edited by Christi Verduyn and sponds with a Who’s Who of Canadian liter- apartment, she was taken before a judge Kathleen Garay ature: Margaret Laurence, Margaret and eventually sent to the Mercer University of Toronto Press, 2004 Atwood, Alice Munro, Timothy Findley, Reformatory for Females. There, the preg- Review by Doris Anderson Hugh MacLennan, Bob Weaver and Jack nant woman was subjected to what was apparently a brutal medical experiment. It was carried out by the institution’s physi- cian, who was a leading advocate of the eugenics movement. Demerson was told she was being treated for venereal disease. Upon her release, she married Harry Yip and tried to make a life with him and their young son. Her marriage foundered, however, and she spent the war years mostly alone, struggling to make a living in Canada and in Hong Kong. She lost her son to foster care. It was not until 1989 that Demerson decided to delve into her painful past and reveal to the world what it was like to be a victim of systemic racial and gender prejudice in Canada several decades ago. As a memoir, her book more than succeeds. Demerson, now 84, renders the Mercer Reformatory in stark Gothic detail, while her younger self’s

HERIZONS FALL 2005 39 McClelland, among others. Topics range A WOMAN’S PATH: tendrils of my father’s prayers curling from works in progress to complaints BEST SPIRITUAL upward in a reverse gravity.” about reviewers, the state of the nation’s Travel places you firmly in the moment. publishing and large dollops of all the WRITING Laura Hager describes her experience in the Edited by Lucy McCauley, Amy mundane things Canadian writers have Niger desert: “At any moment, the ponder- G. Carlson and Jennifer Leo to do to keep food on the table and pay ous glance of the desert, I think, may swing Travelers’ Tales, 2004, the rent. to you and absorb you into itself. … This (Publishers Group West) Engel,who was married to crime writer eternity of burning sand, its hunger and its Review by Meena Nallainathan Howard Engel, carried a double load— death,are the natural and the normal.What that of being a mother while turning out We travel to connect to is ephemeral and foolish is me, is us, the novels, magazine articles and book something greater sloshing water bags called organic life, with reviews. She also managed to fire off a few than ourselves, to our restaurants and our love affairs and lit- salvos when irritated. When the Toronto escape routine, awak- tle jobs and running water.” Public Library fined her $3.50 for books en the senses and Here are stories of loss,inner peace,syn- that were overdue, she wrote a witty reply shake the corners of chronicity, pilgrimage, exploration, the explaining how difficult it was, with two our minds. Writing kindness of strangers—and the boldness toddlers, to get books back on time, and about travel challenges and hardship of being young or old, alone, she threw in a critique of the library, its us to evaluate and female, foreign. Diane Ackerman writes layout and its lack of books in some of her understand our experiences. A Woman’s about swimming with dolphins in the favourite categories. Path is a potent collection of stories that will Bahamas. Maya Angelou experiences a The tragedy is that she had just entered resonate with anyone who travels in search powerful connection to her roots in what was probably her most successful of adventure and spiritual growth. Ghana.And Lucy Rees takes the reader on period when her life ended. She had cap- The 32 women writers in this book share a heartbreaking journey,as she travels solo tured the top prize at that time, the meditative accounts of their travels by writ- through Spain and back home to Wales, Governor General’s Award in literature, ing with passion and precision. As Tehila pregnant—knowing her body will not be with her extraordinary and original book, Lieberman flies home to Brooklyn to attend able to carry her pregnancy to term. Bear and had followed it with the much- her sister’s wedding, she reflects on the tur- The essence of what a trip means only acclaimed The Glassy Sea, when she dis- bulence of having turned away from her coalesces afterwards, as a tale is con- covered she had cancer. Engel died, far too Jewish roots and she remembers a sacred structed from all the disparate details of young, on February 16, 1995. moment from her childhood:“I can feel the an experience. The writers in this collec- Doris Anderson, a former editor of rumble of the earth beneath us, know the tion are expert storytellers. This is no Chatelaine, is an author and journalist urgency of the sky opening briefly and the ordinary anthology. WOMEN IN A WORLD AT WAR: SEVEN DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT Madeleine Gagnon Talonbooks, 2003 Review by Lori Lavallee What would take a poet on a year-long journey to a series of war-torn regions like Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Pakistan and Sri Lanka? Madeleine Gagnon felt she had a duty to “bear wit- ness to the terrible consequences of the conflicts.”

40 FALL 2005 HERIZONS Why? Because she’s an idealist, a self- Canada’s assimilation testament to the indelible human spirit described utopian who believes that war is policy of forcibly and it is an overwhelming reminder that not the inescapable destiny of this world. removing Indian chil- no matter what the circumstance, there is She goes,as well,to validate her belief that dren and placing always hope. world peace is in the hands of women. them in church-run Rosanna Deerchild is a news producer at Although this sounds a lot like mater- schools bears scars the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. nal feminism, Gagnon’s view is that men on past and current and women are both born with a predis- generations. SNOW BODIES position to violence. “War begins in the Thousands of for- Elizabeth Hudson mind and the atrocities and the weapons mer students have disclosed physical,sexu- NeWest Press, 2004 come after, they are merely the tools,”she al, mental and spiritual abuse at the hands Review by R.J. Stevenson says. War is “only an outlet, a gigantic of priests and nuns who ran the schools. “Every day, I thought catharsis.” Agnes Grant tries to tell some of those about it. Every day, I Liliane Ghazaly, a psychoanalyst and stories in Finding My Talk, a brave look at lived in fear that I ethnologist in Lebanon, agrees: “Among the history of Indian residential schools would be recog- the women, a rage that had been sup- through the perspectives of 14 women. nized”says Elizabeth pressed for centuries found an outlet in It’s ironic that the title of this book is Hudson. the war.” Ghazaly also theorizes that, in Finding My Talk, since, instead of a collec- The legacy of a life times of uncertainty,“men fall apart,com- tion of stories written by women sur- lived 30 years ago still mit suicide or tear the world apart in war. vivors, Grant chose to interview them and haunts a woman in Women hold on, with their depression, write their biographies herself. That, in the suburbs of Calgary. Articulate, intelli- sometimes to the point of madness.” It’s itself, is not problematic. It is problematic gent—a spouse and mother of two happy these women, the ones trying to heal, that that Grant’s writing style is mired in facts sons—she still bears the scars of a life Gagnon is interested in. and time lines. It reads somewhat like 14 lived in a world that few could imagine. In countries where talk of mental health history lessons peppered with personal The track marks and Hepatitis C are per- is considered taboo, many non-govern- stories. It’s a puzzling choice of format manent reminders of a different time, mental organizations are providing women considering all the women chosen are from which love and courage released her. with a critical resource: talk therapy. educated professionals and several are What Gagnon affirms is that, in all of writers, including a journalist and a poet. As a lost 21-year-old in the early 1970s, these countries, what women want and There are hints of very compelling sto- Elizabeth Hudson lived a bleak existence. what societies need is “for perpetrators to ries in this book. Grant writes some rich After falling in with the wrong crowd,hero- be tried and convicted.”Instead,crimes go descriptions of the women’s environ- in addiction overtook her life. To support unpunished and forgiveness is not asked, ments, personalities and experiences, but her habit, she turned to prostitution on the so healing fails to occur on a larger, they are not given enough room to fully streets of Calgary and on Vancouver’s noto- humanitarian scale. grow in the reader’s imagination. rious downtown East Side. Gagnon’s dispatches have a meditative Still, the importance of such a book Her decision to write her memoir of quality. As she sifts through the historical cannot be dismissed. Not only should this this era was painful,and Snow Bodies: One contexts of these wars, the voices of con- and any book about residential schools be Woman’s Life on the Streets is Hudson’s temporary women play in her head. read by all Canadians, this subject and its stark recollection of life under addiction. Translated from French into English,her devastating legacy should be taught in our Unlike other memoirs,there is little space work is timely,provocative and literary. schools. Not enough people know about devoted to reflection. This is a gripping Lori Lavallee is a writer, reviewer and this shameful and recent chapter of account of the trials faced daily by women copy editor in Lethbridge, Alberta. Canadian history. supporting themselves by wits alone. What shines through are the women As a recent volunteer with Servants FINDING MY TALK: HOW and their undeniable strength. The hor- Anonymous (an agency which helps 14 CANADIAN NATIVE rors these 14 women (and many other res- women out of prostitution), Hudson idential school survivors) endured are knows that the streets have become more WOMEN RECLAIMED undeniable, heartbreaking and inexcus- dangerous. This book was written to edu- THEIR LIVES AFTER able. But these stories are not just about cate those who have no knowledge of the RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL abuse and victimization; they’re about dangers they face daily. Agnes Grant thriving beyond survival. Readers may be especially shocked Fifth House Publishers, 2004 Finding My Talk is proof that identity when they discover Hudson’s pedigree— Review by Rosanna Deerchild and culture cannot be destroyed. It is a the daughter of a physician father and an

HERIZONS FALL 2005 41 accountant mother.This book was 30 years categories, given that each section offers a whether male-to-female transsexuals are in the making, as confronting the secrecy glimpse into the vast disciplines women’s women,the idea that there are five sexes,not of her past was difficult. Hudson states: “At and gender studies have become. Concepts two, and how to demonstrate ways in which no time was my recovery easy,neat or clean. such as state feminism, self-government gender, race, class and sexuality intersect. It was 10 years before I stopped thinking and the myth of woman are explored along Jean Bobby Noble, in an advanced arti- about fixing every day.” with less familiar terms such as “gerastol- cle on theory,argues that critical pedagogy ogy,” which lesbian studies scholar should skirt the liberal humanist fantasy FEMINISMS AND Margaret Cruikshank uses to discuss the of teaching knowledge to focus instead on WOMANISMS: specific problems aging women face. teaching ignorance—encouraging stu- A WOMEN’S STUDIES Students will appreciate internalization dents to be surprised at what they don’t and understand colonialism after reading know. Feminisms and Womanisms may READER Kim Anderson’s “The Construction of a Edited by Althea Prince and coach the beginning women’s studies stu- Negative Identity,” in which Anderson dent to do just that. Susan Silva-Wayne links damaging images of native women Women’s Press, 2004 to colonialist goals. An article by Meg TREASURES Review by Cy-Thea Sand Luxton introduces students to a Canadian Kathleen V. Cairns and Eliane At over 500 pages, this women’s movement distinguishable for its Leslau Silverman book is a hefty feast collaboration with unions. And the class- University of Calgary Press, 2004 for readers craving room shimmies when we read Angela knowledge about sec- Davis’s article about black working-class Review by Sook C. Kong ond and third wave women blues singers. One student asked Storied wisdom is a feminist thought. The her class to listen to and compare Patsy good way to describe text is divided into Cline’s lovelorn lyrics with Ma Rainey’s Treasures. It refers to nine sections: Foundations; Diversity; feisty, empowering tunes. The student the heartbeat of the Socialization and Gender Roles; Identity, then facilitated a rousing discussion about book put together by Body and Health; Work; The Classroom; feminist perspectives on popular culture. Cairns and Silverman, Popular Culture; Praxis-Social Change; and Althea Prince and Susan Silva-Wayne based on lots of Globalism.One could easily plan a women’s have produced an excellent primer that will careful, loving field studies introductory course around these engage students with questions about research. Hundreds of women agreed to

Women Terri E. Deller, b.a., ll.b. in Print Books & Other Media barrister | solicitor | notary public 3566 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver BC V6R 1N8 Voice 604 732-4128 > Fax 604 732-4129 801 Princess Avenue Brandon, Manitoba R7A 0P5 10-6 Daily > 12-5 Sunday Phone (204) 726-0128 Order books reviewed in Herizons by mail. [email protected] > www.womeninprint.ca

42 FALL 2005 HERIZONS share their stories about the things they to teach children need a teaching license, keep. They range from a pair of photos, even if they are well acquainted with the to a decades-old doll, to a cup and a subject matter they want to transmit? spoon from a grandma’s kitchen. Cairns In Should Parents Be Licensed? 27 and Silverman took the extra step of philosophers, jurists, medical doctors, testing the format of the interview psychologists, sociologists and anthropol- process on each other. In this way, a ogists from the U.S., Canada and Europe whole collective of representative debate this very question.Peg Tittle, women took part in an inspired project philosopher, ethicist and editor of the vol- to co-create an active library of shared ume, has brought together a well-rounded stories in Canadian herstory. collection of arguments.All of them, how- The editorial voices and the voices of ever, seem to have in mind the heterosex- the individual women work well together ual couple as parents. This fact must be to truly deepen our insights into women’s considered a lack within the otherwise relationships with their treasured things. very interesting volume. To start, the women have a very respectful Tittle, who has worked with children relationship of cherishing the objects they and adolescents in various capacities, choose to keep—none of that mindless has divided the book in three parts. Part consumption that is a known pattern of I, Parenting, looks at various proposals behaviour inculcated by blindly-driven for licensing, followed by a close look at capitalism. This is important and very feminist, for it shows that we can practice the ways in which nurturing skills could a little ingenuity.We don’t have to be con- be assessed, as they are already in the forming, robotic drones, no matter how areas of adoption, foster parenting and harshly others and systems try to program custody. Part II deals with the moral us. I was most delighted to have come acceptability of passing on genetic dis- across this text, so aptly-called Treasures. eases and the moral implications of This one is a keeper that I’ll return to genetic engineering. Part III examines again and again. Wise is their love and objections to licensing but, in fact, calls vast the library of their hearts.The book is for it in greater detail. palm-sized,and that makes it wonderfully Canadian philosopher Christine Overall tactile to hold. Like the best stories, and questions the patriarchal principles that the best relationships, the best of reading inform current forms of screening for par- is multi-sensory—as was my experience enthood during adoption and reproduc- with Treasures. tive technology processes. Would parent Sook C. Kong is a fiction writer and a licenses be granted to heterosexual cou- poet. ples only? The book does not answer this question, although Katherine Covell and SHOULD PARENTS R. Brian Howe, of the Children’s Rights BE LICENSED? Centre at the University College of Cape Edited by Peg Tittle Breton, maintain that licensing parents Prometheus Books, 2004 would be consistent with the principles of Review by Marguerite Andersen children’s rights and the United Nations Isn’t it bizarre that we Convention on the Rights of the Child. can put children into Those interested in the welfare of chil- this rather difficult dren will increase their knowledge of the world without being subject enormously by reading this book licensed to do so, that which, without giving a definite answer, we can raise them makes the reader very conscious of our without being given social and individual responsibility for any guidelines, but further generations. that those who want Margeurite Andersen is a Toronto writer.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 43 to me, that’s a fair trade. In a way, I have more sen- … continued from page 19 (Treasured Chest) sation now in my chest overall than I ever had before because I’m more willing to allow people to touch me SECOND SURGERY: GYNAECOMASTIA there. This change in my willingness makes all the For the second surgery, the reactions I received were difference in the world. completely different. Everybody freaked out. Mentally and psychologically, I now see myself as “You’re having your breasts removed? Oh my god! a guy, but the body I was born with was clearly This is mutilation!” They asked, “Why would you female. When the doctors saw my body at birth, they want to do this to yourself?” assigned a female gender to me and my parents gave Culturally, we have a standard of what a beautiful me a female name. I was raised as a girl. At puberty, woman is supposed to look like. With the first sur- my body went through the same growth spurt that all gery, I felt like people were saying, “Oh, of course, female bodies go through and I developed breasts. you want to mould yourself into that more perfect After I ultimately came out as a transsexual man, I vision of female beauty. That’s okay.” was in a position of being a guy who had breasts. But having the second surgery to correct the In order to strengthen my sense of self-identity as gynaecomastia, which for me was purely for survival, a transsexual man and to have a more masculine, people saw as a decision to mutilate myself. male-contoured body I needed to have those breasts Another FTM guy I once knew said that what was removed. I started taking male hormones, but I really important for him was that his breasts be cut couldn’t pass very well as a man when I had breasts! off not in hate, but in love. He wanted to feel that the I began walking around in the world using a male surgeon was sculpting his chest, not simply remov- name. People were using male pronouns for me, and ing his breasts. I sort of felt the same way. I wanted I was growing facial hair. this to be about my chest, not about my breasts; But when I went home at night, I would unwrap about moving toward rather than moving away; this rigmarole of bandages I used to bind my breasts about becoming rather than about losing. I wanted down to hide them from people. this surgery to be a celebration of self! The surgery wasn’t cosmetic for me in any sense; After I had the surgery, I sped through the healing rather, it was a medical necessity, a life necessity. process. I would say, “Anybody want to see my scars, Having the surgery was as necessary as having oxygen my chest?” There was something so thrilling about to breathe. Gynaecomastia is the medical term used having a male chest. It didn’t and doesn’t look per- to describe a male with female-like or excess breast fect, but it’s mine. There’s something so wonderful- tissue. When I filled out my forms with the surgeon, ly simple about walking out of a shower and he asked, “What are you here for?” I wrote “gynaeco- wrapping a towel around my waist, like men do, mastia.” Internally, my vision of myself was that I was instead of around my chest, like women do. Those a guy who had excess breast tissue that had to go. are little things, but they’re important. Now that I have had the surgery, I can talk about it. SEX CUES My scars are prominent. I apply vitamin E, zinc, When I initially began identifying as a guy, I stopped MSM (methyl sulphonyl methane, an organic sul- wanting to be sexual at all. I felt as if I only had two phur compound for repairing body tissue) and vita- negative options in terms of sexual contact: I could min K to help reduce them. They’re fading, so these either try to pretend that I didn’t have breasts, which things seem to be working. I look at treating my was ridiculous and impossible to do, or I could scars not only as a form of self-care, but also self- choose abstinence. After the surgery, I felt much love. Whenever I’m putting these lotions on, I feel more comfortable. I felt more options were open to that I am reclaiming my ability to touch myself with me and I started thinking about my sexuality and love and acceptance, which is something I hadn’t sensuality again. I am ready to have a positive rela- done for a very long time. tionship with my body now, something I haven’t had I no longer have any sensation in my nipples, but in a very, very long time.

44 FALL 2005 HERIZONS Some of my sex cues are also more male now that If my choices are either to be a person who can’t I’ve been on testosterone for a year. My jawline is stand his own body but is deemed attractive to oth- wider, my shoulders are wider, and my hips are ers, or to be a person who’s much happier with who smaller. I’m a man unlike other men. I’m a man who he is and has to be patient in finding a partner who’s wants to be welcome in lesbian spaces. I’m a man truly attracted to him as he is, then it’s not a hard who used to be a dyke, who is now bisexual and dates choice. I’d rather be happy with myself. gay men. What label is there to accommodate all that? I think I now have a much better chance of attract- When I had a body that was much more overtly ing the kind of person who will be attracted to me, female, during the few times that I was with men because I’m out there. I’m an activist. I’m more self- intimately it was very obvious that I was with “men confident. I feel more comfortable with my body. It being with a woman.” I couldn’t handle that. When I may take a while for all the pieces of my puzzle to fit was a woman with women, suddenly all the roles into place, but I’m confident that they will, in time. about what men were supposed to do with women I like to remember something that happened fair- were tossed out the window. We were just two people ly recently. I went to see an old friend and her mom. fucking, and that was okay. I wanted freedom from When her mom was saying good-bye, she did that those roles. I could have that freedom with women, thing that women often do with men: she put her but I didn’t feel I could have it with men, which was hand on my chest and said, “It was nice to see you.” frustrating, because I wanted it with men, too. Her hand just rested there. It felt more genuine than Now that I feel free from the gender-role stereo- anything I’d ever experienced. No one would have types, I date men without that baggage. I have shift- made that gesture so casually before. No straight ed. I’m more comfortable with my body now. woman, especially not Kathy’s mom, would have Not that there aren’t still issues for me to deal ever put her hand where my breasts used to be. That with. People are always wondering, “Who exactly she did it so casually felt as if she had accepted the would want you? You’re a man without a dick.” It fact that I was a guy. Her touch on my chest felt fun- comes up a lot—“Who would ever want that?” The damentally different. It was powerful, rewarding, truth is, I don’t know. I don’t have an answer. I don’t sensual, comforting and ultimately affirming.  know if many people will, and I have to live with that. © Sumach Press, 2003. Excerpted with permission.

death than to non-Aboriginal women. The rate … continued from page 23 (Disappeared Women) rises to five times for native women between the Formed in October 2003, Project Kare is looking ages of 25 and 44. at 72 Alberta-based homicide and missing person Another flashpoint can be found on what is com- cases dating back several years. The investigations monly called the Trail of Tears in B.C. Officially, this are focused on those whose life circumstances, quiet stretch of highway between Prince George and behaviour or work could increase their risk of Prince Rupert has swallowed six people, five of them being a victim of a violent crime. Three men are native. Brown, however, says that investigations into among the murdered and missing. Many of the area Aboriginal communities have brought the women are native. number of those missing up to 32. One of these indi- While only a small percentage of Edmonton’s viduals received a flurry of national media attention population is Aboriginal, the percentage of when she disappeared in 2002: Nicole Hoar, the Aboriginal women that are part of the homicide and first white woman on the list. missing persons caseload is abnormally high, The circumstances of Canada’s missing women is a according to Oakes. sign of a society that treats Aboriginal women as if they Health Canada reports that Aboriginal women are just don’t matter, says Shelagh Day of the Feminist three times more likely to experience a violent Alliance for International Action, an alliance of more

HERIZONS FALL 2005 45 than 40 Canadian non-governmental organizations Punishment and Eradication of Violence against focusing on women’s rights. “They can be disap- Women. Over a decade old, the convention was cre- peared off the streets, they can be in prostitution ated by the Inter-American Commission of because of poverty, because social institutions are Women—part of the Organization of American not supporting them adequately ... and the justice States—and makes clear the obligation of each system is absent,” says Day. nation to uphold women’s right to a life free from In May 2004, native groups brought the case of violence. Canada is one of eight countries which Canada’s missing women to the United Nations haven’t signed. Twenty-six countries have. Forum on Indigenous Issues. Day was at an earlier Not signing this convention “causes a lot of ques- UN appeal and watched as the United Nation’s tions as to the commitment that they say they’re giv- Committee to End Discrimination Against Women ing,” says Jacobs. questioned Canada. Doris Lonethunder has first-hand experience of “The committee members were shocked,” says this lack of commitment. But in the face of her grief, Day, pointing to some of the realities: “Forty-three the bureaucracy behind her experience doesn’t percent of all Aboriginal women are living below the mean much. “Nothing’s ever going to make it better poverty line, and if you look at Aboriginal single for me, unless she’s here,” Lonethunder says of her mothers, the rate is 73 per cent. Think about being a missing daughter, her voice heavy with pain. young, Aboriginal mother in Canada, and you’re The Sisters in Spirit campaign won’t bring essentially consigned to poverty.” Shirley Lonethunder back. But NWAC and other Aboriginal women earn an average yearly income Aboriginal women’s groups are hopeful that the of $13,300, compared to $19,350 for non-Aboriginal newest federal funding will help begin to gather women. Poverty is not the only problem. In order for case histories on missing women. The money will the situation to truly change, Canada needs to take be also be used for research, public education and some bigger steps, says Jacobs. policy that pays attention to what has become one One such step would be to ratify the Inter- of Canada’s biggest unsolved crimes against American Convention on the Prevention, human rights. 

Sherene Razack: I suggest that we stop taking our- … continued from page 30 (Somalia Affair) selves out of history. That is, we need to understand that we are heavily implicated in what happens in What did you find most shocking about the Somalia parts of the world that are far from us. Peacekeeping Affair? is not a simple story of helping people less advanced Sherene Razack: In the end, what I found most than ourselves. It is not charity. The world’s crises shocking was the way in which the understanding of do not come about because Africans are strangely what went on in Somalia was based on the idea that given to barbarism. We have had a hand in what hap- they were different from us, and that the difference pens. We have mining operations that destabilize meant that they were not as advanced and didn’t human rights. We make the armaments for various have the same values as us. When people say that life military occupations. We support the superpower is cheap in Somalia, there is a degree of inhumanity (the U.S.) as it conquers the world. As Susan Sontag that continues to shock me, no matter how much I put it: “We have to locate our privilege on the same intellectualize it. map as their suffering.” And it is this that we have most failed to do.  How do you suggest that we, as a nation, begin to look Ghislaine Allyne is the website manager at the Canadian critically at who we are and who we think we are? Women’s Health Network and a Herizons board member.

46 FALL 2005 HERIZONS global warning BY NAOMI KLEIN SHELL GAMES Gordon Brown had an idea about how to “make ment of any region in the world.” Africa is poor because poverty history.” The British Chancellor appealed to its investors and its creditors are unspeakably rich. the richer oil-producing states of the Middle East to The idea for which Saro-Wiwa died—that the fill the funding gap. “Oil wealth urged to save resources of the land should be used to benefit the Africa,” read a headline in London’s Observer. people of that land—lies at the heart of every anti- Here is a better idea: Instead of Saudi Arabia’s oil colonial struggle in history, from the Boston Tea wealth being used to “save Africa,” how about if Party on. This idea has been declared dead by the Africa’s oil wealth was used to save Africa—along European Union’s constitution, by the National with its gas, diamond, gold, platinum, chromium, Security Strategy of the U.S. and by countless trade ferroalloy and coal wealth? agreements. And yet it simply refuses to die. With all this noblesse oblige focused on saving Africa You can see it most clearly in the protests that from its misery, it seems like a good time to remember drove Bolivia’s president, Carlos Mesa, to offer his someone else who tried to make poverty history: Ken resignation. A decade ago, Bolivia was forced by the Saro-Wiwa, who was killed 10 years ago this November, IMF to privatize its oil and gas industries on the along with eight other Ogoni activists. Their crime was promise that it would increase growth and spread daring to insist that Nigeria was not poor at all but rich, prosperity. When that didn’t work, the lenders and that it was political decisions made in the interests demanded that Bolivia make up its budget shortfall of Western multinational corporations that kept their by increasing taxes on the working poor. Bolivians people in desperate poverty. Saro-Wiwa gave his life to had a better idea—take back the gas and use it for the the idea that the vast oil wealth of the Niger Delta must benefit of the country. Evo Morales’s Movement leave behind more than polluted rivers, charred farm- Toward Socialism favours taxing foreign profits by 50 land, rancid air and crumbling schools. He asked not percent. More indigenous groups, which have for charity, pity or “relief,” but for justice. already seen their land stripped of its mineral wealth, The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People want full nationalization and far more participation— demanded that Shell compensate the people from whose what they call “nationalizing the government.” land it had pumped roughly $30 billion worth of oil since You can see it too in Iraq. Laith Kubba, spokesman the 1950s. The company turned to the government, and for the Iraqi prime minister, said in June that the IMF the military turned its guns on demonstrators. Before his forced Iraq to increase the price of electricity and fuel state-ordered hanging, Saro-Wiwa told the tribunal: “I in exchange for writing off past debts: “Iraq has $10 bil- and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is lion of debts, and I think we cannot avoid this.” But days here on trial .... The company has, indeed, ducked this before, in Basra, a historic gathering of independent particular trial, but its day will surely come.” trade unionists, most of them with the General Union Ten years later, 70 percent of Nigerians still live on of Oil Employees, insisted that the government could less than $1 a day and Shell is still making super prof- avoid it. At Iraq’s first anti-privatization conference, its. Equatorial Guinea, which has a major oil deal with delegates demanded that the government simply refuse ExxonMobil, “got to keep a mere 12 percent of the oil to pay Saddam’s “odious” debts and opposed attempts revenues in the first year of its contract,” according to to privatize state assets, including oil. a 60 Minutes report—a share so low it would have been All of this made for interesting timing for the G-8 scandalous even at the height of colonial oil pillage. summit. Instead of putting a noose around citizens This is what keeps Africa poor. Sub-Saharan Africa, fighting to end poverty, world leaders should put a the poorest place on earth, is also its most profitable noose around the lethal economic policies that have investment destination: It offers, according to the already taken so many lives, for lack of medicine and World Bank’s 2003 Global Development Finance clean water, for lack of justice. report, “the highest returns on foreign direct invest- This article first appeared in The Nation.

HERIZONS FALL 2005 47 on the edge BY LYN COCKBURN

REALITY CHECK Computer not working. No Internet. Unhappy. Sorry. Phone for help.Nice techie suggests this and that. Decide binner already amused enough. Follow directions. Still no Internet. Go through bag. Get hands covered with coffee Still on phone. Techie still being patient. And nice. grounds. Console self with reminder they’re my cof- Watch idly as remote slips off couch into wastebasket. fee grounds. Binner still staring. Begin to regret Techie hits on solution. Internet returns. Thank buying brand new jeans. And new T-shirt. techie. Consider going back into apartment for the $10 in Surf net. Check email. Send email. Happy. other jeans. Will give to binner. Conscience will feel To celebrate, decide to take out garbage. Gather up better. everything including kitty litter. Put in large enviro- Distracted. Get to bottom of bag. No remote. Look friendly bag. Take bag out to dumpster in back. Open up again. Binner has left. Maybe in disgust. dumpster, throw bag in. Feel virtuous. Wonder who else is watching. Go back into apartment. Vacuum, make bed, Try again. Find elderly salad. Consider giving up. expect imminent notification of sainthood. Feel my father’s Scottish stubbornness taking Decide to watch news. Wonder who told biggest lie over brain. in politics today. Bush? Blair? Wonder if today will Decide to try one more time. be that rare day when none of the world’s citizens are Sift through bunch of note paper covered in coffee bombed, their faces bleeding and frightened. grounds. Find earring I’ve been looking for. No remote. Not under cushions. Not under couch. Consider buying new remote. Sense father recoiling Not nowhere. Remember wastebasket. Say “I could- in horror. n’t have” three times. Find remote nestled under antique bread slices. Go back out to dumpster. In alley. In full view of Wipe remote on new jeans. Return garbage to bag. entire world. Throw bag in dumpster. Close lid. Wonder how much stuff is in there. Open lid. Go back into apartment. Leave pride in alley. And Three large bags. Unhappy again. Reach in. dignity. Gingerly. Arm too short. Wonder how binners do it. Cats sniff jeans suspiciously. Shower. Jump up, cast arm into bin, grasp bag. Pull out, Water deliciously hot. Wonder if the woman bin- open. Wrong one. Can tell by the pizza boxes. Don’t ners ever get chance to shower. Wonder what I would eat much pizza. Throw back. Jump up again, throw have done if I’d been unable to reach bag. Glimpse arm in, grab another bag. Pull bag out, set on ground image of self headfirst in dumpster. and open. Assailed by smell of kitty litter. Right bag. Understand why binners also called dumpster divers. Mildly pleased. Pull bags out of bag. Set kitty litter Wonder why rich country like Canada has so many bag aside. Regard remaining yuk. homeless. Wonder how women can ever make them- Look up and into eyes of real binner across alley. She selves safe in back alleys. regards me sadly. Feel like scab. Consider explaining. Wonder again how many people saw me. Wonder Lost my remote. Fell into wastebasket. In garbage. how long you have to be binner before it doesn’t Trying to find it. Decide binner won’t approve. matter how many see you. Binner regards me steadily, something of a smile Dry off. Apply moisturizer. Feel human again. hovering around her mouth. Check Internet—still working. Consider apologizing. Not trying to find bottles or Turn on news. anything. Won’t happen again. Happy.

48 FALL 2005 HERIZONS The Woman Who Mapped Labrador The Life and Expedition Diary of Mina Hubbard Women on Mina Benson Hubbard Edited by Roberta Buchanan and Bryan Greene Biography by Anne Hart

PUBLISHED IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF MINA HUBBARD’S CROSSING OF LABRADOR 0-7735-2924-1 $49.95 cloth the Move 488pp, 9 maps, 57 photographs “Compared to previous books, this is a more human document with Hubbard’s enthusiasm given full rein and never a moment of boredom.” Gwyneth Hoyle, co-author of Canoeing North into the Unknown: A Record of River Travel, 1874 to 1974

Margaret Macdonald Imperial Daughter Susan Mann

Footprints Series 0-7735-2999-3 $39.95 cloth 328pp, 40 b&w photographs

“What Donald Creighton did for John A. Macdonald, Susan Mann has now done for Margaret Macdonald. This book, compellingly written, gives strong evi- dence of Mann’s care and insight as an historian of first rank who pushes the scholarship on biography, nursing history, and military history to new levels.” Sharon Cooke, co-editor, Framing Our Past: Canadian Women’s History in the Twentieth Century

Pegi by Herself The Life of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Canadian Artist Laura Brandon

0-7735-2863-6 $39.95 cloth 280pp, 30 b&w photographs, 43 b&w reproductions, 16 colour reproductions

“Pegi by Herself is as much a history of twentieth-cen- tury Canadian art and a chronicle of the country’s evolving cultural institutions as it is an account of the life of a single artist … it is an earnest work about a dedicated artist whose paintings were often left unfinished, as, in the end, was her life.” The Globe and Mail

Maps of Difference Canada, Women, and Travel Wendy Roy

0-7735-2866-0 $44.95 cloth 296pp, 56 b&w photographs, 4 colour photographs

“Original, sophisticated, and subtle, this will serve as a foundational work in women’s travel writing in Canada.” Carolyn Podruchny, History, West Michigan University

“Lively, intelligent, and observant, it gleans new M C GILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS insights into the works of Jameson, Hubbard, and Laurence.” Carrie MacMillan, English, Mount www.mqup.ca 1-877-864-8477 Allison University