Take Your Politics to Bed Women
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MARKETING IS FILM EXPOSES LEGENDARY THE NEW PEACE MORALITY RESIDENTIAL ACTIVIST KLEIN TAKES ON OBAMA SCHOOL LEGACY PASSES WOMEN’S NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS Spring 2010 Vol. 23 No. 4 Made in Canada RHYMESRHYMES WITHWITH CUBICCUBIC PEARPEAR DO YOU TRIM TO BE IN? TAKETAKE YOURYOUR POLITICSPOLITICS TOTO BEDBED NEW BIRTH CONTROL FOR MEN WOMENWOMEN REUNITE!REUNITE! REVISITING THE WOMEN’S COLLECTIVE $6.75 Canada/US Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866; PAP Registration No. 07944 Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB R3C 2G1 Canada Display until June 15, 2010 Joss Maclennan Design, CEP Local 591-G Joss Maclennan Design, CEP Local 591-G CAWCAW womenwomen WeWe marchmarch forfor equality. equality. WeWe speakspeak outout for for justice. justice. We fight for change. We fight for change. For more information on women’s Forissues more and information rights please on visit women’s issueswww.caw.ca/women and rights please visit www.caw.ca/women CAW Full Sum-09.indd 1 28/05/09 5:19 PM SPRING 2010 / VOLUME 23 NO. 4 news 9: Muriel Duckworth CALLING ALL WOMEN EXPERTS! 6 by Janet Nicol PREGNANT WOMEN IN HAITI 7 GET UNPFA AID LEGENDARY PEACE 9 ACTIVIST PASSES MUSLIM MAG TAKES ON STEREOTYPES 13 by Hilary Barlow GREENING YOUR UNDERWEAR 36: Alicia Keys 14 Lunapanties are here features TAKE YOUR POLITICS TO BED 16 After 40 years of research on male contraceptives, scientists have discovered that male fertility functions are just as easy to manipulate as women’s—and, sometimes easier. by Helen Cordes MARKETING IS THE NEW MORALITY 20 Naomi Klein’s 10th anniversary edition of No Logo incites readers to be mindful of media and critical of corporations. Here she analyzes the branding of U.S. President Barack Obama. 16: Take Your Politics to Bed RHYMES WITH CUBIC PEAR 24 In decades past, many feminists refused to shave as a protest against sexist beauty standards. Today, the issue of body hair is a whole other tub of wax. by Renée Bondy WOMEN REUNITE! 30 In 1970, Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics was published and Susan G. Cole headed off to college at Radcliffe, where she joined a women’s collective. Following a reunion of the women nearly 40 years later, the author and activist reflects on her collective days. by Susan G. Cole 30: Women Reunite! 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Boyd and Lenora awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the Marcellus; Making Space for Indigenous Feminism, strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to broaden the bound- edited by Joyce Green; Mother Knows Best, edited aries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among by Jessica Nathanson and Laura Camille Tuley; other marginalized people; to foster peace and ecological aware- Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Stored Lives of ness; and to expand the influence of feminist principles in the Immigrant Muslim Women by Parin Dossa. world. HERIZONS aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse, understandable and relevant to women’s daily lives. FILM Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and do not 47 Older Than America, Directed by Georgina necessarily reflect HERIZONS’ editorial policy. No material may be Lightning reprinted without permission. Due to limited resources, HERIZONS does not accept poetry or fiction submissions. HERIZONS acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance Program columns (PAP) and the Canada Magazine Fund toward our mailing and edito- rial costs. PENNI MITCHELL 5 Turn the Page on Discount Shopping HERIZONS gratefully acknowledges the support of the Manitoba Arts Council. SUSAN G. COLE Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866, PAP Registration No. 15 Women’s Studies Under Attack 07944. Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected] LYN COCKBURN Herizons is proudly printed on Forest Stewardship 48 The Mother of All Jokes Council-certified paper. Please recyle. 2 SPRING 2010 HERIZONS letters OFFENSIVE SOCCER This is a hugely important issue that must be addressed if this bill MOM QUIP is to justly serve and protect all parents and children. I read the article in the Win- The point is that the current system is broken, and the concepts ter 2010 Herizons on The of custody and access are the biggest part of the problem. In my Pack A.D. on the day that opinion, the Divorce Act completely and utterly harms children by Kate McGarrigle died in Jan- unfairly defaulting to the biological mother. uary. I had started reading it By focusing more on the best interests of the children than on a previously, but was really put parent’s genetic makeup, Bill C-422 could be the start of a new gen- off by the cheap shots in Cindy Filipenko’s introduction. eration of kids from split families (the healthy, well-adjusted kind). Today, as I reflect on all the female duos I have ever listened to, This may not sit well with some feminists, but it is absolutely my including the McGarrigle sisters, I can think of none who evoke experience with the family court system. The irony has not the hackneyed and frankly sexist images that Filipenko uses, and I escaped me over the years that I, a lesbian feminist, have more in decided to respond. common with fathers’ rights groups than with most mothers In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit to being a middle- wrestling their way through child custody issues. aged lesbian, but I don’t think I have a soccer-mom makeover, Briefly, here is my story. I was in a same-sex relationship with a whatever that means. In my youth I played drums in an all-women woman for a number of years, and together we were raising two hardcore punk band. There were four of us—is that two duos? daughters. She is the birth parent of both kids. We had jointly But I digress. Who is Cindy Filipenko and where did she find signed a legal agreement (the only tool available at the time) that those clichés? The tone of the article is that these two young spelled out my role as the other parent. women are only good because they “play like boys.” Oh really! I Upon dissolution of the relationship, however, I was not given never thought I would read such female self-hatred in a feminist access to my kids for years. My former partner had great support magazine. It’s too bad that Filipenko thought that the only way to from the Divorce Act, which did not recognize me as a parent. At show her appreciation for this duo was through caricaturing other no point were the best interests of my children considered. women and gushing over their masculine appeal. Every time I stood up in front of a judge during my five-year However, I did finish the article and I will listen to The Pack effort to see my children, I was no match for the dominance of the A.D., without prejudice. birth mother in the eyes of the court. In the end, it took a queer JANIS WARNE, judge with kids (what were the odds of that?) to finally recognize Montreal, QC my role as a parent and assign me joint custody. But by then, untold damage had been done to my kids, the aftershocks of ANOTHER VIEW ON CUSTODY BILL which will be felt by all of us for a lifetime. Further to the analysis of Bill C-422 that appeared in the Fall issue As a non-biological parent, being awarded joint custody was of Herizons, I’d like to add another perspective to the proposed precedent-setting in B.C. Unfortunately, that is the most com- private members’ bill that would remove the concepts of custody pelling thing I can say about it. Being granted joint custody did not and access from the Divorce Act and replace them with a legal make my children and I immune to the devastating effects of presumption in favour of equal parenting.