Branching Out Canadian magazine for women Volume VI Number 2, 1979 $1.25

Election Primer Postcards cwld UNA

Branching Out postcards by Maureen Paxton. Package of 10, in colour, $3.00. see inside back cover for order form. Branching Out Editor Columns Sharon Batt Aritha van Herk Editorial Assistant 2 editorial Sharon K. Smith 2 letters Contributing Editors Helen Melnyk, Diana S. 4 printed matter Palling, Sharon K. Smith Editorial Departments 26 law Art: Barbara Hartmann, Cathy Hobart Battered Women: Books: Aritha van Herk The Gagged Victims Marie Gordon Fiction: Heather Pringle, Anne O'Grady Wifebeating Analyzed Doris Wilson Helen Rosta, Marion Thorn Legal Notes Louise Dulude Film: Judith Minis Law: Linda Duncan, Louise Dulude 36 film Photography: Diana S. Palling The Central Character Margaret Cooper Printed Mailer: Sharon K. Smith Design 40 books Diana S. Palling A Balance Between Darkness and Noon Dorothy Livesay Other Staff this Issue Wendy Bilner, Mufly Malhewson Untold Story Should Have Stayed Untold Cathy Hobart Board of Directors The Joy of Running Patricia E. Laverock Thora Cartlidge, Nora Corbell, the Dumbell Patricia E. Laverock Ellen Gillan, World of Jannie Edwards, Mary Father? van Varseveld Helen Melnyk, Sharon Ball Worship Thy Gail Victorian Age "New Woman" Helen Melnyk Light Nosh Cora Taylor Numbers and Lives Beverley Ross A Clear and Cohesive Chronicle Mary Ann Prychoda

* Copyright 1979 by the New Women's Magazine Society, Features: Election Primer Edmonton. Alberta. All rights reserved. Unless used in a review, the reproduction of this work in any form, by any 8 Broken Promises Carole Swan means, including photocopying, recording, information storage and retrieval systems, et cetera, is forbidden without 11 Human Rights: Indian Women the express permission of the publisher. Need Not Appeal Kathleen Jamieson Branching Out is published every two to three months by the New Women's Magazine Society, a Canadian Charitable 19 A Beginner's Guide to Polticial Organization. Editorial office located at 8631-109 Street. Involvement Jo Evans Edmonton. Alberta. Phone (403) 433-4021. 31 The Evolution of the Women's This issue published with financial assistance from Alberta Culture. Canada Council and the Alberta Law Foundation. Movement Lynn McDonald Send all correspondence to Box 4098, Edmonton. Alberta. T6E 4S8. Submissions should be typed, double-spaced and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. We Fiction and Poetry review unsolicited manuscripts from Canadian women only. Subscription rales in Canada, $6.00 for six issues. $11.00 for 13 poetry twelve issues for individuals; $ 10.00 for six issues. $20.00 for twelve issues for institutions. Add $1.00 per six issues for The Wife Edna Alford U.S. rates. $2.00 per six issues for overseas rates. Advertising rates available on request. 14 fiction Back issues of Branching Out are available on microfilm from Visitation Street Jane Saible Micromedia Ltd.. Box 34, Station S. Toronto M5M 4L6. The magazine is oo file with the International Women's History Archive housed at the Special Collection Library. 23 poetry Northwestern University. Evanston. IL 60201. Branching deja vu: memoirs for my mother Linda Pyke Out is a member of the Canadian Periodical Publishers' reunion Linda Pyke Association. The magazine is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. Typesetting by Superior Typesetting Ltd. cover illustration: Sheila Luck Printed by Alpine Press. Edmonton. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3517, Volume VI, Number 2. 1979. ISSN 0382 - 5264

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 editorial Feminism: Wallflower in Party Politics

It was an omen of May 22nd. Marc the vote; they won the vote. The first but we must ask ourselves realistically if Lalonde, The Minister Responsible for woman to enter the RCMP was not it could function and accomplish any­ the Status of Women, managed to "accepted" by their good grace; she thing within the present government squeak his new Plan of Action for the qualified! structure. We are, it seems, continually Status of Women in under the election It is at this point that one must trapped. wire. There is only one problem. The question the role of feminism in relation Perhaps it is necessary to re- document, entitled Towards Equality to the established political structure. examine our political involvement. for Women, is full of plans and When "the federal government's com­ Branching Out is often criticized for not proposals, but contains no true indica­ mitment to women" consists of a being political enough. If being political tion of action. The situation of women in booklet of nebulous promises as elec­ means that we support one of the Canada has been analyzed and studied tions plugs for the Liberal Party, our established and male-dominated parties, since the Royal Commission on the status as women reveals itself to be we are not. But as we hope to show in Status of Women Report appeared in clearly at the mercy of a male-dominated this issue, feminism is in itself a political 1970, but little has actually been party system. Not a comfortable thought stance and it is becoming increasingly accomplished. and one reason perhaps why there is now important that we recognize this fact. This "plan of action" first of all a movement afoot in Toronto to establish We must understand that denying our proposes mainly more study and a "Women's Political Party". Obvious­ feminism is an apolitical act and one that analysis. Secondly, it lists the achieve­ ly, supporting one of the existing parties can only divide our strength as a political ments of Canadian women over the last is not satisfactory. Politics in Canada are body. two centuries. Indeed, if one swallows defined mainly in terms of the economic The politics of feminism are "grass the propaganda that comes with the system; the role of women is totally roots" politics. By lobbying, by working package, women's achievements are peripheral to any party's philosophy. for good day care, in rape crisis centres gifts from men, and women's rights are Everyone wants to get the feminist vote, and with battered wives, we can gain a still subject to that all-powerful giver and but political parties have always used solidarity that will become much more taker man. All achievements are, of feminism to support parties, never than a behind-the-scenes movement. course, by special dispensation of the parties to support feminism. Further­ With perseverance and hard work we Liberal Party. Well, I for one resent the more, the business and labour com­ can eventually overturn the traditions fact that government funds allocated for munities have an elaborate structure that that govern politics and gain the power the special needs of women are spent in excludes women altogether; they are as to legislate ourselves. Please think twice producing a booklet full of such blatant unyielding as the government itself. when you hear election promises that are Liberal propaganda and male-oriented What is the solution? A women's directed at women. No one is going to doubletalk. Women were not "given" political party sounds like a great idea, rescue us but ourselves. Aritha van Herk letters

grabs me, but many of them are too excellence in political and economic Eastern Alienation wordy for me. articles, in poetry and fiction, in I have been glad to keep in touch artwork, photography and layout. My For the first time since you started with affairs in the west yet, sad to say, publishing I am test of a magazine is how much of it I reluctantly not renewing much of it seems far away from my actually read and I always read my subscription. The magazine is concerns in urban Ontario. Branching Out from cover to cover. I excellent in every way and the price is Frieda Snee Ancaster, Ontario subscribe to a number of feminist fair, however, there is a change in me. I journals, in this country and in England am tired of the anger, tired of your many Magazine Passes 'Read' Test and America, and in my view Branching writers who try to whip up anger. There Out is one of the very best. I are pages and pages of information in I have been a staunch supporter of Branching Out since its beginnings and congratulate you all, and wish you all Branching Out I never read. I look at the possible success in the future. pictures, the poetry, the stories and the I've seen it grow and expand in scope. reviews. Once in a while a long article You've attained a high quality of Margaret Laurence, Lakefield, Ontario

Branching Out Anniversary Issue Impresses rowdy parties. Personally, I found rugby intentional, or causes injury to another an excellent opportunity to meet many player intentionally, the guilty player is Just a note to say how fine I think new people, travel to various cities and disqualified from the game. I have not your anniversary issue is. I was participate in other recreational activities. been in or seen a game where a woman particularly impressed with the article As in any other sport played by men has been disqualified for "dirty play". by Dorothy Smith, with Jane Rule's and women, there are various difficulties contribution, and with the Glassy Sea which include spectator control, refere- review. Throughout, the writing was of eing, scheduling of games, team organiza­ high standard and the illustration and tion, coaching, availability of practice and layout impressive. game fields, discipline on and off the field, Sherrill Cheda, Toronto and basic personality conflicts among all those involved. Women's rugby in Edmonton has developed and matured at Artwork "Revolting" a steady rate with the help of many dedicated individuals. A team will grow We will not renew our subscription properly through constructive criticism of to Branching Out. While the literary all those interested, but, criticism that content has been interesting, the does not try to better the situation will artwork is dreadful. Why do your artists only help destroy a team. portray women as hideous creatures? Presently, rugby songs in Canada Most of the drawings of women are and the United States are helpful in revolting. creating the casual atmosphere for rugby parties. The song mentioned in the May Elliot, Kingston, Ontario Branching Out article is not a good example of the "typical" rugby song. Women ruggers also have their songs. They are not meant to be sexist but to aid in team comradship and enjoyment. The following is an example, written by the Colorado State University Hookers, sung to the tune of "My Favorite Things". Loose rucks and good fucks and cunts that go crazy Girls that are horny and guys that aren't lazy True, there may have been some Good moves make good screws for those one humiliating experiences, which I don't night flings ever expect to cease, but the encourage­ These are a few of my favorite things. ment and support from the majority of the Edmonton Ruggers have travelled so far men definitely outweighed the ignorant To win all the trophies and hit all the bars comments by the few men and women. Poor CSU women they don't stand a chance They will be caught with their hands in their Male rugby players helped us in our pants. organization, coaching, fund raising and Forwards that tackle and backs that have much more. In return, the Edmonton hands Rockers have offered as much support for Both work together to astonish the fans the men's rugby as possible. So far, there When the game's over the party begins has been a good liaison between the men Then all the studs think that we'll let them in. and women and I hope rugby will keep When the prick grows growing and maturing in this way. When the juice flows Shirley Lord, San Diego, California When he's feeling grand Just fart in his face And tell him his place Editor's note: Don't all women look like And then he can use his hand. ERRORS this? The article states that the Rockers On page 2 of the anniversary issue we established a reputation as a winning reported receiving a grant of $2500 from team which played a successful, nonag- the Women's Programme of the Secretary Non-Sexist Songs Create Casual gressive game. Aggression in women, in of State. The figure should have read $2800. Atmosphere the past, has been considered an inappropriate trait. Fortunately, society is The photo of Betty Pederson on page 38 I helped organize the Edmonton beginning to accept the aggressive woman of the last issue was not taken by Susanne Rockers Rugby Club and was their captan and I feel that aggressiveness is a Rhyason as credited. We don't know who for the past two years. Upon reading the necessary trait for any athlete or took the picture. Susanne Rhyason did article, "Can this Sport be Liberated" (V, successful person. Later, the article take the photo of Leda Jensen. 4, 1978), I was very disappointed. It states that the Rockers seemed willing to degrades a sport that I find extremely adopt the violence and "dirty tackles" of The cartoop from the Grain Growers' exciting and demanding as well as the male rugby games. In the first place it Guide, reproduced on page 41 of the last degrading the people involved with the is not fair to blame inexperienced high issue, should not have been backwards. sport. Rugby, in the past and present, has tackling by women on the male rugby Hold page to mirror to see what actually been known for its grueling game and game and secondly, if "dirty tackling" is appeared in the Grain Growers' Guide.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 mendous obstacles to organizing private very impressive videotape on the Fleck mrnigrant Workers sector clerical workers although strike made by a women's group in women doing the same kind of work were London, Ontario. Fleck workers are responsible for the greatest percentage of interviewed about the appalling working I Championed membership growth in CUPE, the public conditions at Fleck and the shocking j sector union. treatment they received at the hands of « On Saturday January 20, more than a Marion Endicott, a para-legal worker the Ontario Provincial Police.* They go on hundred people attended a day-long for Injured Workers Consultants, com­ to discuss their psychological victories, , conference sponsored by the Osgoode pared the situations of unionized versus the greatly increased sense of self-worth ' Law Union and Women's Caucus, York non-unionized and power to control their own lives ? Univeristy. Union injured workers. The only representatives, para­ redress for the injured worker acquired during the 5-month struggle. | legal workers in Canada and labour lawyers were is the Workers' Compensation Following this, Al Seymour, UAW invited to give their views on women's Board (WCB) which is really just international representative, spoke about problems in the labour movement and a cheap insurance scheme for employers much issues surrounding the strike from the what positive role the law can take in this massive police intimidation and political area. cheaper than safety precautions (with the result that Canada has the highest rate of connections to the determination and final industrial accidents of all the major victory of the women strikers fighting for industrial nations). Unions are the most union security. Len MacLean, the lawyer important agencies for protecting work­ who handled the legal issues of the strike, ers' rights and the majority of working explained the problems of getting permis­ women are not unionized. Injured women sion from the Labour Relations Board to face the same basic problems as men but prosecute Fleck for not bargaining in 1 their plight is not treated as seriously by good faith. MacLean also spoke of the the Workers' Compensation Board which difficulty of bringing charges against the still does not regard women as important police because of the general unwilling­ income earners. Endicott stressed the ness of the courts to prosecute them for importance of organized political action problems arising in labour confrontations. to change WCB policy: this can be carried on most effectively through unions and, Evelyn Armstrong, founding presi­ specifically, through the Union of Injured The police were more careful dent of Organized Working Women, Workers which was formed four years described women's role in Canadian ago and now has 3000 members. during the York University labour history and outlined present-day Lawyer Michele Swenarchuk pro­ strike; there were only isolated concerns. Many unorganized workers vided the audience with first-hand incidents of muscle display. today are immigrant women working for experience of legal problems confronting minimun wage in sweat-shop conditions. workers who attempt to unionize. Legal Different languages and cultures keep education in all the technicalities of the these workers divided and powerless and process is crucial at this stage. She also The police were more careful during employers take advantage of this situa­ spoke generally of the satisfying aspects the York University Staff Association tion. The National Film Board film of her work; labour lawyers must be (YUSA) strike and there were only isolated Maria, screened during the conference, aware of long-term policy goals of the incidents of muscle display. Lauma illustrated many of the problems of labour movement and they have a Avens. president of YUSA, discussed organizing immigrant women. This film is mandate to argue cases on policy issues issues of their strike last fall: one of these based on the true story of the first attempt a rare occurrence in other areas of law. was job description and this clause will to organize by workers at Puretex Lawyer Mary Cornish described unions be tested soon a bookstore worker Knitting a small textile factory in as sophisticated clients who are good to has filed a grievance against her boss for Toronto where most of the workers are work for they know what they want Italian immigrant women. and how to get it. * See Printed Matter, Branching Out Vol V Armstrong also spoke of the tre­ The afternoon session began with a No. 3.

Branching Out being told to get him his coffee; personal errands such as this are often required of secretaries at York and are indicative of the condescending attitudes towards women workers which can only be changed through union activity. A key-note speaker of the day was Madeleine Parent of the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union who told of the courageous struggle of the Puretex workers now entering the third month of their strike. They are fighting for stronger seniority rights, more welfare benefits and a 400 an hour increase (most of the workers receive $3.60 to $3.75 an hour for skilled and semi-skilled work). However, most of all they want the removal of the closed-circuit TV cameras from their work place. The cameras monitor their every move and are even trained on the door of the women's washroom. The boss feels that this psychological pressure of knowing that they are being watched makes the women work harder. The workers at Puretex have tried for two years to get the Human Rights Commis­ sion to take action in this matter but to no avail. Parent ended with a passionate request that people recognize the impor­ tance of this strike to immigrant women in Canada. They must come out with some kind of a victory if they are to feel that they are on home ground in this country, that they belong here, and that they are entitled as much as anyone to dignity and basic human rights. Over $250 was collected at the conference for the Puretex strikers and many of the people who attended joined the Osgoode and University of Toronto strike-support committee. Geraldine Sodoway

Bouquets for m*E»?-;.S; 'Curtain Call' left to right, top row: Kathryn Moses, Beverley Gtenn-Copeland. Daisy Debolt second row: Pauline Julien, RobinTyler. Naomi Tyrrell & Theatre in Motion bottomrow:HeatherBishop, Sylvia Tyson, Caroline Edwards, photos by Maureen Hynes The wonder was that it had blues, folk, reggae, swing, classical, warm-up set on her soprano sax and flute. never been done before: a festival of traditional and country & western. The Daisy Debolt was one of the biggest treats Canadian women performers, a celebra­ big names. Pauline Julien. Sylvia Tyson of the weekend; singing with Donna tion of the range and excellence of and Rita MacNeil all delivered as much as Louthood and playing guitar and piano, women's work in music, theatre, dance, their reputations promised. The sophisti­ she electrified the audiences with her mime, comedy, poetry and fiction. A cated Pauline Julien set the mood of the remarkable iridescent songs (some co- collective of women in Toronto called A weekend with the opening concert: written with Michael Ondaatje). Heather Muse took the idea, named it Curtain "Women have wings to fly. but they Bishop, on guitar, moved effortlessly Call, organized for more than a year, and don't know it till they make an attempt to through blues, jazz and folk numbers, raised the funds to bring together over fly." The lesser lights, the women who singing her prairie songs, early blues and forty women performers for a weekend in are, or should be. on the verge of hilarious send-ups of macho activity with February. "making it" actually proved to be more equal dignity. The Honolulu Heartbreak- In the field of music alone, the exciting than the well-established artists. ers, three women from Sudbury. diversity offered was staggering: jazz, Kathryn Moses gave an astounding crooned their thirties and forties swing with

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 amazingly smooth harmony, and Marie- Lynn Hammond (formerly of Stringband) offered her traditional French and Acadian songs, as well as some original ones that meshed with the feminist perspective of the festival. Beverley Glenn-Copeland, on piano and drums, displayed her usual never-ending energy, singing "Welcome to the time/when anything you can do/can affect the one beside you/. . . Welcome to the world/ where we must stand alone/ to be with one another." Hearing all these musicians in workshops with each other, comforta­ bly sharing their impressive musical expertise, was an induplicable experience. The performer who really set the festival on its ear was Robin Tyler, a radical feminist lesbian comic originally from Winnipeg, but now living in California. Her act is a duplication of the traditional stand-up comedy routine "except the jokes aren't on us anymore", and she claimed that the only people who are offended by her act are the ones "who deserve to be." With her philosophy of "taking personal power", she trans­ formed a workshop on sexual harrass- ment into a thoughtful and funny discussion of the directions of the women's and lesbian movement. There was a memorable mime workshop by Bibi Caspari, and a multi-media poetry performance (not a reading) by Susan Swann: "Poetry is like pate if you get too much of it, it tastes like dogfood." In a workshop with Judith Merrill, Joy Kogawa and Gert Beadle, Susan Swann explored the sensation of body that women writers experience the body heat, the huge pregnancy, the excretion, the by-product of caring that Voice of Women (Canada), I and two writing is. -§ other "Voices" joined the group in The original cast presented a *" Athens at the end of August. powerful reading of Pam Brighton's play, At that first evening reception, we "Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi" which Greek Women were surprised to learn that the Union explores the combination of an instru­ had a total membership of something less The ancient Greeks treated the than a thousand. In its present form it mental, feminist consciousness with the goddesses of Greek mythology with awe. traditional female need for children and a has been in existence only since 1976 Their major city Athens was all women's organizations, including the man's love. "That combination," she named for Athene, who defeated the god commented, "is a potential killer". predecessor of this one, were im­ Poseidon for the position of patron Deity mediately dissolved by decree in the The significant elements that united of that city. The mortal women of all the women performers was the very first days of the military dictator­ Greece throughout the centuries since ship in 1967. exceptionally high quality of their work, have not done so well, though their A woman lawyer spent one even and the intense stimulation and thought- struggles have left deep marks on the explaining the legal position of women in fulness their performances provoked history, and even the landscape of among those attending. The calibre of Greece, with special reference to. the Greece. Dowry Act. In several villages, we had their art gave the lie to traditional It was to introduce women from seen processions of children carrying arguments offered by promoters and countries around the world to the long managers in the entertainment industry: presents to the home of the bride-groom, history of these struggles, and to "See but we had not realized that by law a "We would hire more women for Greece Through New Eyes", that the Greek father must provide a dowry for concerts and festivals, but there just Women's Union of Greece undertook each daughter. The amount prescribed is aren't any high quality female per­ the organization of a unique tour, and determined by his economic situation formers." Well. A Muse found forty of invited a number of women's groups to and the number of girls in the family. A them. We deserve to hear them and they participate. Their invitation was accepted daughter can. and often does, sue her deserve to be heard. by forty women, coming from Norway, father if he does not comply with the Sweden, Denmark, Japan. England, the law. The dowry belongs to the husband, Maureen Hynes U.S.A. and Canada. As members of the although in the case of divorce the wife

Branching Out can claim what is left, though not what it of Greece, and her husband, Andreas, might have earned by interest or the leader of the opposition in the Greek STEPHENSON investment. In the subsequent discus­ Parliament, and their sons, were all DEFENCE FUND sion, the lawyer herself admitted that present. Melina Mercouri led the Greek- Dr. Marylee Stephenson, Assistant her husband had not wanted a dowry, style dancing with tremendous verve and Professor in the Department of Sociology but she had accepted property since her vitality. at McMaster University, has been denied father would have suffered in pride and The effect of the tour, and the value tenure and is in the process of appealing in pocket (because of tax deductions of "seeing Greece through new eyes" that decision. We ask for your support. available to him) if she had refused. The was unquestionably positive and the For three successive years, the underlying Greek Women's Union are to be Department of Sociology has recom­ assumption of the Dowry mended Dr. Stephenson for tenure. The Act, and of many other similar legal congratulated on their courage and initiative. I strongly Faculty Tenure and Promotions Commit­ statutes, is the belief that Greek women recommend the tour tee has agreed that her teaching is of above need the protection and the guidance of to all feminists. average quality and that she has been very men throughout their lives. Betty Mardiros active in University and community The Women's Union of Greece, services. In spite of her research with support from the official opposition For tour information contact: Greece activities, the denial of tenure has been in the Greek Parliament, is trying hard to Through New Eyes, The Women's Union based on a described "absence of first get rid of the act. But, they point out, of Greece, 34 Panepistimiou Street, class scholarship". Since that decision Dr. centuries of conditioning have made it Athens 143 Greece. Tour cost, $596 U.S. Stephenson has been awarded a Canada (travel to Greece not included). Council Sabbatical Leave Fellowship for difficult for women to oppose it, and 1979-80 which is some indication of many men are strongly in favour of it. external evaluations of her scholarship. Another seminar was conducted by In the opinion of the Faculty a woman gynaecologist who told us that Committee, Dr. Stephenson's editorial the church, the government, and a large activities were not viewed as an' 'accepta­ section of public opinion are opposed to Bookstore's ble substitute for creative research". This sex education, birth control and abor­ is in spite of the influence of her book tion. Doctors are forbidden to prescribe Women in Canada, of which there were Birthday three printings in three years and which is contraceptives, but since the pill and now in a second, revised edition. She other devices are available in the drug co-edits the Canadian Newsletter of stores of larger communities without Research on Women, which is now in its prescription, many women take the pill eighth year and has an international without medical supervision. In the case distribution. of abortion, the woman, the doctor, and Everywomans (sic) Books, a Vic­ Our concerns are two-fold. First, Dr. the driver of the vehicle which transports toria feminist bookstore, celebrated its Stephenson has been a major contributor her to the abortion can all be held 4th birthday on February 17. The store to the development of the sociology of criminally liable. operates as a non-profit collective, women in Canada, in addition to her other staffed by 20 women volunteers. Located scholarly work. It is our opinion that the We received a general picture of grounds of the University decision are too conditions facing Greek women from a first in a quiet section of Victoria, Everywomans narrow and do not do justice to Dr. member of parliament, the speaker began in 1975 with 2,000 Stephenson's work. Second, universities being one of eleven women M.P.s dollars and 12 enthusiastic women. It are presently operating under considerable elected to Parliament in the last election. filled a definite need and drew feminists financial restraint and it is our hope that Since she is a member of the Panhellenic and other interested browsers, including women academics and women's studies Socialist Movement Party (as is Melina children and parents looking at a varied will not suffer unequally during this Mercouri, selection of non-sexist children's books. period. It is crucial that ground gained now also an M.P.) she towards equal rights for women and an presented the policies of her party, The collective meets every other week at a dinner/meeting to solve understanding of the position of women which included equal pay for work of not be lost at a time of economic cutbacks. equal value, tighter laws regarding safety problems, do scheduling and discuss the operations of the store. Members If you are aware of Dr. Stephenson's in the workplace, legislation to forbid the come work and its influence, you may wish to employment of children under the age of and go but a remarkable staying power offer support. An appeal beginning in late 14, and more government-run daycare has kept the collective strong and the February will be costly (in the region of centres throughout the country. store open five days a week. In October $10,000 because of legal and other 1978, they moved Everywomans to expenses). Financial contributions can be In Greece today the wage rate for downtown Victoria, to a larger store made payable to: women is 55% of the men's, and 97% of which will reach more people. The large Stephenson Defence Fund, all female workers are characterized as front window creatively displays a wide Account #7630-013, "unqualified" thus excluding them range of materials on feminism, as the do Credit Union, from most welfare benefits and social store also functions as an informal McMaster University, security. And as in Canada, most Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1 information centre. Because the staff of Letters of support can be sent to: women, even the professionals, work in Everywomans considers its educational the "nurturing" fields. Chairperson, Marylee Stephenson's role very important, Annie Weeks, Lynn Review Committee, The tour, however, was not by any Greenhough and others often take books means c/o Mr. J. Evans, Secretary to the Senate, restricted to serious discussion. to women's festivals, conferences, and McMaster University, We spent evenings in Greek taverns and club meetings for display and sale. Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8 restaurants, and the last evening's The 4th birthday party drew more with a copy to Dr. Stephenson's lawyer: farewell party was a very joyful affair. It than 70 celebrating people who brought Ms. Harriet Sachs. was hosted by the Papandreou family at the gift of continued support to a 111 Richmond Street W., their home in Athens. Marguerite successful Victoria feminist endeavor. Suite 320. Papandreous and her daughter are both Toronto, Ontario M5H 2G4. active members of the Women's Union Mary Anne Erickson

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 Broken Promises Fresh Assaults on the Working Woman

by Carole Swan illustrations by Sylvia Luck Patterson Canadian women celebrated an important anniversary a Women work for the same reasons that men work out of few months ago in a very quiet manner. December 1978 marked economic necessity (as is increasingly the case) but also from a 30 years since the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights basic motivation to achieve personal satisfaction. Almost 40% declared that Canadian women share equally with men basic of Canadian working women are either single, divorced, employment rights, including the right to work, the right to free widowed or separated. Many married women work to keep choice of employment, the right to just and favourable family income above poverty levels. Our most reliable statistics conditions of work and the right to protection against clearly indicate that the element of economic necessity is the unemployment. The 4.2 million Canadian women who were in major component in the decision of many women to enter the the labour force in 1978 can be excused for their unenthusiastic paid labour force. However, it should be forcefully stated that reaction to this auspicious anniversary. The same month saw we risk doing our cause great disservice if we allow the the passage of discriminatory amendments to the Unemploy­ argument of economic necessity to obscure a larger issue, ment Insurance Act. These changes confirmed what women namely, that employment is a basic right. Providing the have always felt: that in the matter of women's rights there is a stimulus for full employment is a government responsibility. great divergence between the appearance of basic rights and the Employment is not something to be parcelled out according to reality of their actual enforcement or application. an abstract formula based upon official conceptions of Nowhere is this divergence more evident than in the area of "perceived need". Are only 30% or 40% of women to be employment. The right to participate in the paid labour force on allowed to work because the official wisdom has it that only the same terms and conditions as men is a precept fundamental 30% or 40% "need" to work? Downplaying this basic to the struggle for equality. Yet it is in the labour force that the principle of work as the right of all adult members of society can lack of commitment on the part of the relevant players lead us into dangerous waters such as the principle of "one (including government, employers and some unions) to job per household". improving the status of women is most obvious. Increasingly, Against the backdrop of economic need, the federal too, women are being cast in the role of "scapegoats" for government has done very little to reduce the chronic present labour force difficulties.______unemployment rate among women. This rate reached nearly 10% in 1978*, compared to a rate of unemployment for men slightly over 7%. At the same time, the government has fostered Increasingly women are being cast in the certain myths surrounding women and employment. These role of scapegoats for present labour force myths provide a convenient rationale for the lack of a serious attack on high unemployment among women. These myths difficulties. serve to explain the presently fashionable approach which blames women for the unemployment problem. Witness an Women comprise an ever increasing part of Canada's paid event in early February when Jean Chretien, the Minister of labour force. In 1978 almost 48% of adult Canadian women Finance, was quoted in an Ottawa newspaper as blaming the were either working, or looking for work. Women make up serious unemployment problem on influences outside nearly 39% of the Canadian labour force. Many bureaucrats and government control: the baby boom and the "sudden influx of- politicians have expressed the view that the entrance of women women into the workforce." By this reasoning, those looking into the work world will gradually diminish "partly because for work are the cause of unemployment. Clearly, however, it is many of the women who want to work are now in the labour the economy's inability to respond to the needs of a growing force."* However, there are persuasive indications to the work force which is the culprit. Instead of asking why so many contrary which point to the continuing movement of women women cannot find jobs and what can be done to provide work into the labour force. Government labour market experts have for them, the policy approach has been to pretend that women badly underestimated the growth and the staying power of the workers, especially married women, are only marginally female labour force. Only recently the federal Department of attached to the labour force. Hence there is no need to worry if Finance prepared an analysis of medium-term economic trends they lose their jobs and no urgent need to provide on the basis of a slowing in the growth rate of the female unemployment insurance benefits for them if they are out of participation to about 49.5% in 1990. Revised forecasts work. indicate that we will have surpassed this estimated female Research carried out by the C.D. Howe Research Institute participation rate by the mid-1980's. We have already (only a in conjunction with Statistics Canada demonstrates that this few months into 1979) surpassed the 1981 projections of the view of women as marginally attached to the labour force is Finance Department. This phenomenal miscalculation indicates incorrect. The analysis indicates that more and more women a lack of understanding of the factors which are motivating outside the home have a permanent attachment to the labour women to work. force.______* Many more are the "hidden unemployed," those women who want to work but who have stopped looking and are therefore not counted in ' From the 1976 Economic Council of Canada's study, People andJobs. the official unemployment estimates.

Branching Out Another convenient myth labels women as "secondary earners". The use of this term by politicians must be seen for what it is: an effort to downgrade the importance and necessity of work to women. The Canada Employment and Immigration Commission (CEIC) has defined a "secondary earner" as "one in a family where there is another earner who contributes a greater proportion of family income". Of course, so long as women do not receive equal pay for equal work or for work of equal value, and are segregated into low-paying job ghettos, they will invariably be "secondary earners" by this definition. The average income of a working woman is about 53% of the average that working men make. In 1976 the latest information available women who worked in the labour force for 50 to 52 weeks during the year had an average income of only $8,652*. The average income of men who worked for 50 to 52 weeks was $16,292. Because the federal government has failed to recognize the realities of female participation in the labour force its job creation schemes operate at the expense of women workers. A consistent pattern is emerging: a pattern of discriminatory legislation and policies which will prevent women from participating in the Canadian labour force on the same basis and with the same advantages as men. We risk doing our cause a great disservice if we allow the argument of economic necessity to obscure the fact that employ­ ment is a bask right.

Recent changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act (Bill C-14) provide perhaps the clearest example of discriminatory legislative pressure. As a result of these amendments, those people most in need of protection against unemployment young people and women re-entering the labour force will have their benefits restricted. There are three main changes which will have adverse effects upon women workers: increase in minimum insurability, higher entrance requirements for new entrants and re-entrants, and reduction in the benefit rates. Increase in minimum insurability: Amendments to the UI Act provide that part-time workers who work less than 20 hours per week will not be eligible for UI benefits. About 22% of women in the labour force are "part-time" workers compared to just over 5% of men. The average number of hours worked by pan-time workers in 1978 was 15, which falls below the UI eligibility cut-off. Higher entrance requirements for new entrants and re-entrants: This amendment creates unequal and strict policies for treatment of new entrants and re-entrants who are usually young people and women. New entrants and re-entrants must now work for 20 weeks in order to qualify for benefits. Other workers require only 10 to 14 weeks of insurable earnings out of the preceding 52 weeks in order to qualify. Reduction in the benefit rates: Decreases in benefit rates from 66-2/3% to 60% of average weekly insurable earnings will hit low income earners particularly hard. Women, almost invariably at the low end of wage scales, will be the ones to suffer most. These amendments will make it harder for women and young people to receive UI benefits and could have the effect of discouraging them from entering or re-entering the labour force. The Minister of Employment and Immigration, Mr. Cullen, has claimed that the impact of the UI amendments on men and women will be virtually the same, amounting to a reduction in * Statistics Canada: Income Distribution by Size in Canada, Catalogue #13-207.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 total benefits (in dollar terms) of 20.1% for women and 19.8% barriers. Yet Outreach programs with women as their prime for men. Considering that women earn, on average, 53% of clientele face severe budget cuts across the country. what men earn, unemployed women will consequently collect Hopes that wage disparities based on sex would be eradicated smaller UI cheques. It appears then that more women than men through the implementation of the principle of equal pay for will be affected. work of equal value appear to have been misplaced. The Referring to the new entrants to the labour market who will guidelines designed for the implementation of Section II of the be denied unemployment insurance coverage, Mr. Cullen stated Canadian Human Rights Act contain no fewer than 7 that "... it is far preferable . . . that they be given meaningful exceptions, exceptions which can and (one expects) will be work experience rather than just income maintenance." used by employers to avoid paying men and women equal Presumably such work experience will come as a result of the wages for work of equal value. "significant redistribution of the employment strategy" which, Attempts by Canadian women to achieve equal pay for along with changes to the UI program, are supposed to form the work of equal value will be further weakened by the provisions two prongs of the government's "revision of priorities". The for Average Comparability of Total Compensation (ACTC) in federal government has not announced any specific job creation Bill C-22, the Act to Amend the Public Service Staff Relations measures directed at women, however, job creation benefits for Act. This provision will tie wages of federal female employees women which occurred last year were centered in the in clerical and secretarial positions to the average of those of community, personal (for example, babysitting or houseclean- their largely unorganized, private sector counterparts. The ing), and business service industry, an industry characterized comparison of wages in one job ghetto (in the public sector) to by low wages. The creation of jobs in low-paid female job another job ghetto (in the private sector) will not aid federal ghettos is hardly "creative" or substantial job creation. female employees in their fight for equal pay for work of equal There have been other policy and program changes which value. seem designed to exclude women. Changes in Manpower As this analysis reveals, the Canadian woman worker is training allowances mean that married women who have to still far removed from a position of equality in the work force. return to the labour force will now only be eligible for $10 a Present government policies seem to be taking us farther away week training allowance (previously it was $45 a week) if they from this goal, and indeed, in times of economic difficulty, seem have an employed spouse. This amount is insufficient to cover to be subjecting us to the very kind of discrimination that the the bare expenses which might be involved in undertaking UN Declaration of Human Rights condemns. training, such as transportation and child care. Clearly the CEIC refuses to identify women as a target Carole Swan is an economist living in Ottawa. She is a member group in its employment policies. The dropping of women as a of the executive of the National Action Committee on the target group under the current policy guidelines of the Outreach Status of Women and works with the Ottawa Women's Lobby. program is one particularly blatant example. Women's Outreach programs provide specialized counselling and Sylvia Luck Patterson is an Edmonton artist whose work has placement services for women to help them overcome job appeared in previous issues o/Branching Out.

10 Branching Out Human Rights: Indian Women Need Not Appeal

by Kathleen Macleod Jamieson Regaining their Indian rights has begun to seem like an impossible dream to the women who have been fighting to regain the status they lost through marrying non-Indians. In the past two years especially, their hopes have been so often raised and then cruelly dashed by the government that they are numb, though still fighting. Now, despite a plethora of promises, proposals and discussions on changes to the Indian Act this Parliament has ground out its last days and nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to change or alleviate the situation of the Indian women who are affected by the discriminatory sections of the Indian Act. Indeed their legal situation deteriorated when, in March of last year, the government brought into force a Human Rights Act which expressly excluded one piece of legisla­ tion, the Indian Act, from its jurisdic­ tion. To be excluded from the Human Rights Act and thus deprived of any legal resource in Canada was for many Indian women a grim and unexpected blow. But it is distressingly clear to anyone reading Members of Alberta IRIW attend a workshop, February 1978, in Edmonton the Parliamentary debates on this members of Indian Rights for Indian status and non-status Indian women who Human Rights Act that the intent of Women (I.R.I.W.), the national associa­ had not been supportive also began to Parliamentarians in excluding the Indian tion representing Indian women who are take an interest and give assistance and Act was to prevent appeals from Indian trying to regain their status, were encouragement. extremely optimistic. In the first place After the total breakdown in April The federal Human Rights Act some powerful people appeared to be on 1978 of the N.I.B.-government commit­ expressly excluded the Indian their side. The Minister of Indian tee which had been attempting to Affairs, Hugh Faulkner, had from the negotiate changes to the Indian Act, Act from its jurisdiction so that outset of his appointment in late 1977 Hugh Faulkner said he would take Indian women could not make appeared to be sympathetic to their matters into his own hands. The appeals to the Human Rights cause. Previous ministers had all refused members of I.R.I. W. were, in Spring to hear their case. The Human Rights 1978 and for the first time ever, given Commission.______Commissioner, Gordon Fairweather, funding by the Department of Indian women. They were sorry but they had denounced the "blatant discrimination" Affairs (D.I. A.) in order to prepare a made a gentlemen's agreement with the against women in the Indian Act and brief detailing the changes they would National Indian Brotherhood (N.I.B.) promised that he would demand that like made in the Indian Act. (This not to allow changes to any section of the Parliament take action soon. The "conscience money" appeared on the Indian Act while it was being revised President of the National Indian heels of the Human Rights Act.) through a joint N.I.B.-government Brotherhood, Noel Starblanket, despite The brief was presented in June at a negotiating process begun in 1975. a total lack of support from his all male breakfast meeting hosted by D.I. A. in Indian women could not be permitted to executive council, initiated a tentative Ottawa and attended by Cabinet minis­ disrupt this business by making importu­ dialogue with the women's groups in late ter, senators, sundry senior bureaucrats nate demands for human rights from the 1977 and took a stand on their behalf. and the press. The Indian women were federal Human Rights Commission. Few His stand legitimized the concerns of exhilarated. Success seemed within their voices were raised in dissent. many Indian men who had previously grasp. But at that breakfast Faulkner There did seem to be hope in the not given public support to the women's dropped a bombshell. Sex discrimina­ distance and throughout most of 1978 the cause but now began to do so. Many tion, he said, would be removed from the

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 11 exclusionary section of the Human "for their associations as do male-oriented Rights Act "could be" repealed afterthe Indian groups and must rely on single discriminatory legislation is removed projects to keep going so that there is from the Indian Act. Surely it is while really little hope of retaining staff with the discriminatory legislation is in effect, expertise. They are scattered geographi­ not after it is repealed, that Indian cally and financially straightened so women most need the protection of the getting members together for meetings, Human Rights Act. Given that this let alone lobbying federal M.P.s on a Action Plan is meant to have interna­ continuing basis, is extremely difficult. tional as well as national exposure, it is It would appear then that neither hard not to conclude that this is a Liberals nor Conservatives are more deliberate cover-up. This conclusion than minimally embarrassed by the seems substantiated by the "chronolo­ situation of Indian women. N.I.B. gy" of important events at the beginning participation will be extremely difficult of the booklet. Curiously, the list to obtain as well, since the N.I.B. has includes the date in 1978 that an Indian indeed significantly changed its whole woman, Sandra Lovelace (not Sarah position from focusing on the Indian Act they got her name wrong), appealed to to demands for changes in the Constitu­ the United Nations for justice since no tion. The N.I.B. has completely rejected redress exists in Canada. The impression in principle all other proposals for gained from reading this might well be change and the government has affirmed that the Canadian government endorses on many occasions over the past five her stand. In fact it is this same years that it will not effect changes to the government which forced her to go to the Indian Act except in consultation with Jenny Margetts, president U.N. by excluding her from the the official Indian organizations. So we Indian Rights for Indian Women Canadian Human Rights Act. Protocol to have a deadlock. Indian Act but the change would not be which this country is signatory requires retroactive: neither those Indian women that Canada must reply. Many months who had lost their status, nor their have passed since the deadline set by the The Indian women cannot children, would ever recover their Indian U.N. for Canada's response but no reply rights. has been forthcoming. There is, after all, achieve justice without the help Tremendous optimism turned in a no justification for Canada's blatant of other Canadian women. few hours into bewilderment, disbelief violation of Indian women's human and dismay. As government proposal rights. In the meantime, Canada's after proposal on changes to the Indian inaction prevents the case from proceed­ Everyone will continue to turn a Act was prepared, submitted to and ing at the U.N. blind eye to the situation of women like rejected by the N.I.B. throughout the It seems unlikely that if the Liberals Margaret MacGowen who in March was summer and fall of 1978 it became clear are re-elected there will be a more forced out of her home on Caughnawaga that Faulkner was adamant in opposing propitious climate for action on women's reserve with her five children because of retroactivity. No documentation was rights for some time. What if the provisions of the Indian Act. Mary Two advanced to support this position. In his Conservatives form the next government Axe Early, an Iroquois Indian grand­ October proposals, Faulkner stated, are they going to take a different mother and pioneer of the Indian "There is concern that retroactivity in position? women's movement, fears that she will whatever reasonable way it is recognized M.P. Flora MacDonald, who has never be allowed to reside on her reserve may lead to further inequities" and been the Indian Affairs critic and is a in peace or have the right to be buried retroactivity might "set a precedent for staunch supporter of the Indian women there. She is constantly asking women to demands from other groups." The who have fought against Indian Act send letters, to lobby and pressure the proposals were to go before Parliament discrimination, seemed surprised that I government in any way they can to in the fall session it is not clear in should ask her whether the Conserva­ correct this terrible situation. The Indian what form. In any case after the N.I.B. tives had any policy on eliminating the women cannot achieve justice without and I.R.I.W. rejected these proposals gender-based discrimination in the In­ the help of other Canadian women. They nothing more was heard of them and no dian Act. She said that a Conservative are a minority within a minority. We changes to the Indian Act have been government would have to study the Canadian women must ensure that it is brought before Parliament. whole issue before they could make any not some half-loaf justice they get, The recently released (March 1979) changes. She also felt that a new stand despite the Department of Indian federal Action Plan on the status of being taken by Native groups on Affairs' claim that retroactivity is women, Toward Equality for Women, Constitutional entrenchment of special impossible and without precedent (it has only ten empty sentences on the rights made negotiating much more isn't). We must insist that those women future of Native women in Canada and, complex and problematical. and their children who were involuntar­ as a not too subtle reminder of their What then are the Indian women ily deprived of their status through marginal status in Canadian society, they themselves and other women going to do discriminatory legislation be given full are bracketed together with immigrant about it? According to Flora MacDonald reinstatement of all their rights. women in the introduction. Unlike every it is absolutely essential that Native As a postscript, there is a curious other section, there is no date mentioned women keep lobbying the federal development which may have important for completion of goals for Native government although, as she admitted in implications for Indian women who lost women. More seriously, however, there an afterthought, that's clearly not their status through marriage. In 1979 the seems to be an attempt to cloud the issue feasible given the very few resources so-called "double mother" rule. Subsec­ of their exclusion from the Canadian that Indian women can mobilize. They tion 12(l)(a)(iv), brought into the Indian Human Rights Act by stating that this have no ongoing government funding Act in 1951, has begun to be applied.

12 Branching Out (Section 12 is the section which states who is not entitled to be a registered, i.e. status Indian.) The application of this section deprives of status many Indian men and women who have grown up on an Indian reserve believing they were The Wife Indians. On reaching the age of twenty-one they are suddenly and She had never been anywhere without warning declared non-Indian. other than here The criteria for this new way to lose status are (i) to have both a non-Indian and before that born mother and grandmother who the farm. gained status through marrying Indian One of her arms was limp but long men and (ii) to be the child of a marriage and the tips of her fingers which took place after the 4th of touched the pale enamel of September, 1951. There is naturally great consterna­ the stove, cold. tion, shock and real unhappiness in The other, she had fallen on in such a way it looked as if it tried There was great consternation to lift her, but could not. when men began losing their Her legs were crossed, status by the "double-mother" no laid over one another the right one strayed a little rule. The N.I.B. asked that longer than the left Cabinet remove the subsection and her toes met the from the Indian Act. refrigerator door cold, same as before, same as the fingers Indian circles that men should lose their stove. status. The N.I.B. moved almost on the immediately on behalf of those affected Her perimeters were mean and asked that a section of the Indian Act which permits the Cabinet to strike as I have said, down any section of the Act by but have I told you Order-in-Council be used to eliminate that she bled? this subsection 12(l)(a)(iv). When Noel Yes, those who saw it Starblanket was asked in a telephone said she bled interview whether this was not inconsis­ had never seen before tent with the Brotherhood's stand on as they 12(l)(b) he had nothing to say. A from an open throat member of his staff, however, deserves around her head top marks for sophistry. He argued that over the blade since eliminating the sexually dis­ of the butcher knife criminatory 12(l)(b) from the Indian Act toward the oven door was part of Faulkner's October package proposal which was rejected in toto and bright esplanade of blood in principle by the N.I.B. they could exotic and astonishing distinguish between the two pieces of though she had never been anywhere legislation and call for the removal of one before, other than the farm and not the other of the sub-sections of as I have said. section 12. It will be important to determine if and when this "double- mother" rule is suspended because if it Edna Alford is, 12(l)(b) can be too. Kathleen Macleod Jamieson wrote the book Indian Women and the Law in Canada: Citizens Minus, which is available from the Advisory Council on Edna Alford lives in Calgary, Alberta. the Status of Women, Box 1541, Station Her poetry and short fiction have B, Ottawa K1P5R5. Ms. Jamieson is a appeared in The Fiddlehead, The freelance writer and researcher living in Journal of Canadian Fiction, Poetry Ottawa. Toronto, and other publications. She has appeared on the Calgary television Photos courtesy ofEdmonton Indian programme, Poet's Touch and is Rights for Indian Women. co-editor of Dandelion Magazine.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 13 Visitation Street

fiction by Jane Saible illustration by Maureen Paxton

Sometimes when Amelia has been drinking too much cheap "What made you . . . you know. When you knew how red wine out of one of those gallon jugs, something strange much he meant to me." happens to her. Her lips and tongue, even her teeth to some It was incredible. She was starting it all over again. It didn't extent, seem to turn black, and I'm reminded that despite our faze her that the "betrayal" had occurred a year after their final long and close friendship, a great gulf separates us. separation. It was hardly less significant for that. She viewed it On those long, hot nights when I visit her, I find it hard to as something inevitable. She had been waiting for it to happen communicate my deepest thoughts about her. I sit looking at her ever since we first met. across the smooth surface of the table, and think back over the "I always knew," she said, "right from the time I seven years I have known her, reflecting on what my life would introduced you to him that afternoon in 1970." have been like if we had never met. The passage of years meant nothing to Amelia. Jealousy and "Amelia," I said one night when we were sitting after infidelity had been built into our friendship right from the first dinner drinking wine (she in her old red dress and her feet up on day, placed there by God, and in her mind there was nothing we the kitchen table, and I more sedate with one arm over the could do about it but submit to fate and endure the toaster), "I think you've destroyed my innocence." consequences. She opened her mouth to laugh and I saw that it resembled "Well," I said. "We waited a long time. We waited years in a deep black hole. Soon she was giggling quietly with her head fact. Don't forget that there were plenty of chances when we on the kitchen table. were all living together on Visitation Street." "I haven't forgotten that," she said. I stood up and walked into the next room. Outside in the dark a garbage truck was creeping up the street, clanking its gears and whirring its engine at every stop. The garbage men were making their graceful, rhythmic throws. Every minute or two they whistled to the driver to move ahead another few yards. I watched them from the bedroom window while Amelia I still believe I was brought into their lives less as a friend, sat in the kitchen. or even "political contact", than as an emergency measure, to What a place for her to end up, I thought, with her wilting help preserve their relationship, which they dimly understood though still exotic beauty. Dark and thin, there is something of was being threatened by their constant fighting. At the time the Latin American rainforest about her. She has a face like a when we formed our strange alliance, this fighting was beginning female satyr, if such a thing can exist: small, slanted eyes, high to become almost legendary. The stories were told at parties and cheekbones, and delicate features drawn back from her face in a over coffee in restaurants with a kind of awe. They were the persistent kind of grin. At twenty-seven she lives the same sort sacred events in the charmed life of Amelia and Richard. of life she led as a student: unpredicable, passionate and There was the most famous one: the time they almost killed poverty-stricken. I have always been a little star-struck by it. It each other one afternoon in Trafalgar Square, in full view of has seemed to me like something luminous and outside the hundreds of Londoners, who had come with their families to normal stream of love and hate. feed the pigeons. This was during the first few weeks of their "Amelia," I said, coming back from the bedroom to find world-travelling, when they were starving and freezing in a little her asleep with her face in a pool of wine. flat in Soho. It took them less than a month to conclude that I shook her by her bony shoulder. they hated England. The English were too neurotic, and the She sat up suddenly and stared at me with intense hostility. student life without central heating was simply not worth living. One half of her face was stained with dried wine and resembled So Richard notified the university of his intention to terminate an enormous bruise. his studies there, and to take up political theory at Nanterre. It "What made you do it?" she demanded. was 1969 and Paris was still turbulent with little upsurges. The "Do what?" May Revolt had not completely died down.

14 Branching Out "A revolutionary has no private life," Richard warned her, the police car with the bullhorn, just as the riot cops were in a series of rapidly-written, polemical letters from Paris, but arriving." Amelia followed him there three weeks later. She said she According to Amelia, Richard was beyond doubt the most wanted to see the Louvre. intelligent, the most cultured, the most deeply human, the most Their reunion was happy at first but soon deteriorated. passionate man in the world. What had come over the man she had met and fallen in love "Come on now," I used to say, but I was aware that with less than a year before? She tied the letters he had written disbelief was a habit with me, a way of sneering at life. Secretly, to her, full of painstaking and incomprehensible rhetoric, I believed everything she told me. In a way I was attracted to together with a little red ribbon. In her free time, or while Amelia by the intensity of her infatuation with Richard. dreaming over her art history books, she set about adjusting I had waited a year to meet Richard, and when the time herself to changed circumstances. finally came I wasn't disappointed. He was then twenty-four. Sometimes Richard got very worked up, waxing eloquent With his wire-rimmed spectacles and upright growth of curly and predicting a return to the events of 1968. She absorbed his black hair the image of the young Jewish politico he had a fantasies and, in her own way, tried adding to them. She way of seeming intensely sensitive; and when he talked he pictured them on the barricades together, making love under alternated between warm floods of words and an air of deep, canopies of barbed wire. In the mornings, when the teargas had critical brooding. evaporated, when the fighting had subsided, when only a few They were staying at a friend's apartment near the centre of sirens and shotguns could be heard off in the maze of Paris town, in a building which has since been torn down as many streets, she would prepare simple but delicious breakfasts on the things have now disappeared which were so essential to our lives camp stove they had brought with them from North America. It back then. The two of them seemed very much at home would be like the canoe trips they had taken together before together, under the poster by Ben Shawn and the Kollwitz they left Quebec: romantic, with a slight hint of danger. With a lithograph of a woman holding a dead child. Maybe it was the few differences, of course like the interminable meetings wine, or Amelia's wonderful cooking. Or perhaps it was which she forced herself to attend. Richard's caressing tone as he discussed some ideological It was around that time that she began applying herself to nuance. But something magical seemed to happen that evening. the fulltime job of faking an interest in politics. During the first Three weeks later everything was sealed, and it was too late delirious weeks, there were two near-riots, and once a to undo what had been decided. They came for me in a rented demonstration in which they were marching was teargassed by truck, and helped me move my few belongings from my parent's police, who swept through the student district clearing the house, under my father's mute and outraged gaze, while my streets ahead of them as they went. mother wept in the kitchen. But in the lull which followed that peak of excitement, they It was overpoweringly hot that day. We tried to feel elated, were forced to admit that the events they had hoped for had not drinking orange juice from a bottle, driving through one quite materialized. They were still revolutionaries in search of a congested neighbourhood after another. Downtown seemed less revolution, six months later, when they came back to Montreal. friendly to me now that I was about to start living in it. I felt that And their relationship was in worse shape than when they had Richard and Amelia were observing me very closely, as if left. having second thoughts. We came to a street near Pare Lafontaine, and parked in front of a little red-brick building. While she was away Amelia had kept up a correspondence with me, in impressionistic letters which described her physical There was an enormous church at the corner of the street, surroundings and her state of mind in vivid detail, but omitted and as we sat in the truck the bell began to ring, and people the troubles between her and Richard. She adopted the literary stepped out of the arched doorway, dressed in summer pastels. stance of an older sister, well acquainted with the mysteries of The bride and groom had their picture taken near the sign life. Sometimes she called me by strange pet names: "My skinny announcing the weekly Bingo night. ghost," "my brainy Catherine," "my dreamy friend." At I remember we laughed at them surreptitiously as we eighteen I still lived at home. I was bookish, withdrawn, unloaded our belongings. Outmoded institution. While we scaled procrastinating everything Amelia wasn't. She seemed to our front stairs carrying chairs, tables, boxes of books, the cherish this difference between us. neighbours watched with suspicious interest from the doorways I kept her letters, rereading them through the winter until of steamy little flats, from balcony railings and window ledges. it was spring again and I was working in a factory to finance my Then, to celebrate our arrival Amelia put on her new red next semester at university. Amelia called me up one evening, a dress (bought at the Salvation Army) and we walked, the three week after their return. I was overjoyed to hear her voice. It of us, to a restaurant. Amelia and I sat side-by-side, like twin was clear to me almost from the first hello how much she had sisters, elbows barely touching. Richard was across from us. He changed. was talking about the May Revolt in Paris. She had taken to using phrases like, "That's very right on," Amelia interrupted him in the middle of a short political and she referred to the women she had met in Paris as "sisters." speech. When she learned of my factory job, she seemed to take a "How do you like my new dress, Richard?" she asked, renewed interest in me. eyeing him. "Why don't you come over for supper some night?" she Richard drew in his breath and paused to have a look. suggested. "I know Richard would love to meet you. He's very "Yes, it's very nice," he said, coolly. He shifted his eyes to interested in getting involved in organizing workers now that my face and resumed. we're back in Quebec. He read a lot about conditions here while Amelia shot me a sideways glance. we were in Paris. Maybe you'd like to talk with him about "What do you think of these ruffles? Do you think they're organizing the women in your factory." too much?" she said, lifting the hem to show him. There was a Her invitation provided me with an event to nail my hopes flash of black lace. to. And I was dying to meet Richard. When Amelia and I had Richard stared at her. "Can it be that you're actually studied together, he had been a mythical hero whose deeds were reverting to that?" he said, focussing his attention on her for a reported to me at regular intervals. few uncomfortable seconds, as if willing her to change into some "At the demonstration last week," she would say. "You other sort of woman. As if that were his duty to her and his great must have seen him. He was the one who climbed on the roof of gift.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 15 "Don't be so narrowminded." "Will you stop being so condescending?" said Amelia, with "Don't be paternalistic." fight an effort to control her voice. I had never seen them "Don't throw these catch phrases back in my face all the before. They argued through most of the meal. Richard finished time. That's not what I taught them to you for." his dinner with his self respect intact, but Amelia came off less well: emotional, vulnerable, uninformed, scattered in her Sometimes I missed my parents. There were days at work when I thought I would die if I spent one more minute on the defences. I felt sympathetic and alienated at the same time; but I assembly line. I told my fellow workers (lesbians with Elvis was in accord with Richard on the basic premise: Amelia needed how to have her consciousness raised. Presley haircuts, and middle-aged mothers with lined faces) Through most of her life Amelia had had few close women I would give anything to work in a mental hospital friends. Richard knew this, and wanted to encourage our ANYTHING but a factory which repaired telephones. friendship. So the official arrangement was that Amelia and I One day I had an inspiration. I wrote "A BAS LE were to live together in the flat on Visitation Street (there was CAPITALISME" in black telephone paint on the wall of the barely room for two in the place) while Richard rented a room women's washroom. I dumped the rest of the can down the by the week two streets to the east of us. It was not a toilet. of giving I went back to my place at the line and fainted. "separation", he assured Amelia. It was just a way A man carried me to the nurse's office. I felt stupendously them both a little space to breathe. Everything began according to plan. But then Richard light. Psychedelic entertainments were playing on in my head, failed to hit it off with his first landlord ("a despicable little petit and I heard wild laughter coming from the machines. I knew bourgeois"), and after four nights in the second place, huge red suddenly that a deep chaos in my body was threatening to break welts appeared on his body. "Bedbugs," he explained, with a out and destroy the factory. diffident, manly shrug, but this experience seemed to shock him. The nurse gave me something for my menstrual cramps. Within a week he was boarding with us. "You look very unhealthy," she said. "You can't be eating time talking to our properly. And I think you should pay more attention to ... He was unemployed, and spent his free personal hygiene." I told her that shaving one's legs was not neighbours, or visiting his political acquaintances, or just riding around the city on a borrowed bicycle. Amelia was working organic. night shift in a mental hospital. During her days off, she devoted I could ignore criticism back then. But I had a great her time to fighting with Richard. capacity to be moved by slogans and majestic-sounding Sometimes when Amelia wasn't there, we talked. But some generalities. evenings, in a haze of exhaustion, I would come home from the When I think of the early part of that summer it always factory and find the two of them standing stiffly in the kitchen, seems to be evening. A crowd of people with flags and banners with strained faces and a manner that said, "Why don't you are gathering in the park. Someone begins the Internationale and spend the evening somewhere else?" suddenly everyone is singing. We stumble over the unfamiliar verses, confident when we come to the chorus: "C'est la lut-te Often at night I would wander around the neighbourhood, finale!" A man is climbing the statue of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and which was without parks or lawns. The rows of little brick a woman climbs after him. People are hurling their pickets like buildings came flush to the sidewalk, and outdoor life was javelins at police, and setting small fires in garbage cans. We are confined to the balconies and the street. The only restaurants marching up Visitation Street and people applaud us from within walking distance were little snack-bars which doubled as windows, gesturing with beer bottles, waving. At the top of the poolhalls, and sold only palates frites and pogo hotdogs. hill, I look back from near the front of the parade, which fills the On weekends I used to sit on our balcony and watch the whole width of the street and the sidewalk. There seems to be family directly opposite, whose ground floor window provided no end to it. I am walking in a line of twenty people, behind a entertainment for the block. Inside was a big kitchen table with wide banner. Our arms are linked and we are singing. a television at one end and a few quart bottles of Molson's at the But by August I noticed a strange new calm in the air. other. In a way I felt I envied this family, but they disturbed me. Richard was home less often and now he and Amelia talked in Richard was very fond of them, having talked to the father and whispers in the next room, while I read in the evenings. I went some of the kids a few times, and held their activities in high for long walks late at night and it was as if ghosts were stirring in esteem. He considered them representatives of working class all the alleys and the old brick houses. culture, he said, and a pocket of resistance against U.S. It was September, 1970. Amelia and I were not getting imperialism. along. Richard was worried about his future. He was "U.S. imperialism?" I said. "On Visitation Street?" I tried contemptuous of universities, but he had nothing else he wanted to grasp these complexities. I didn't want Richard to know that I to do. The weather was getting colder. was frightened of our neighbours, because they spoke French, All during the summer we had slept with the doors open because they were poor, because their lives seemed not to lead because our little flat was so hot and airless. Towards the end of anywhere. I wanted to show him that I had depths of feeling, August, spiders began crawling into the house from the shed in that I could understand what oppression was, that I was ready to the back. Now they were biting me in my bed at night. fight against the system that created it. It was just that living in I woke from a dream and felt spiders in my bed. I jumped the midst of it drove me to despair, day after day. And how up, shook out the sheet. Did something run across the pillow? I could the neighbours party so much? Didn't they see the shabby shuddered and draped myself in my sheet, and stood in the horror of their lives? doorway of the kitchen, looking down at the breathing shape all I used to question Amelia casually about Richard. rolled up in his blankets. "What does he say about me? Does he like me?" Amelia was on night shift. Amelia was evasive. I had to plead with her to report the "Richard," I said. "There are spiders in my bed." basic drift of their conversations. Their bed in the kitchen was very narrow and lumpy, but "She's a nice girl," was Richard's expressed view. there weren't any spiders in it. I squeezed in, leaving my sheet "Woman," Amelia would correct. on the floor like a skin I didn't need any longer. "Excuse me. Woman. Cathy's a nice Woman." I showed him the bites on my arms. He said they were "She's quite intelligent, too." nothing compared to bedbug bites. His arms surrounded me, he "Yes, I think she's very intelligent," Richard would agree. covered me with the blankets. I squirmed and pressed close, "But she's so messy." surprised to discover he had such muscles. He said I was pretty,

16 Branching Out ^

V7, Number 2, 1979 17 but skinny, like Amelia. He talked until I fell asleep, and woke "You look so much like Amelia," Richard said. me the next morning before Amelia came home from work. It was the next morning and I was putting on my coat. The I decided that our living arrangement could not function leaves had all fallen in the night. There seemed to be little to talk without complete honesty. I told this to Richard the next time about, so I said I was leaving in a day or two to see Amelia, to we were alone. He cringed and turned white. She would make help her find a new apartment. his life hell, she would throw me out of the flat. 'Give her my love," Richard said with a nod and the long, "Me?" I said. "My name's on the lease." Our night warm look he saved for the ends of conversations. together was innocent, I reminded him. "I will," I promised, and suddenly I felt I needed to get "Then why mention it at all?" away someplace, quickly. I ignored the question. Furthermore, I told him, jealousy was a very counter-revolutionary form of passion which had to be eradicated. I found his undisguised horror a bit antiquated, a bit of a "contradication", as we used to say back then. that I hardly knew what was Everything changed so quickly Times change, and ideas fare badly. What endures is next day they coming. One day the soldiers weren't there, the betrayal and its after-effects. corner. were on tjvery "Yes, it was very brave of you," said Amelia. "Very brave Political kidnap; murder. It filled all the papers. For several to leave town like that. And very neat the way you arranged days we saw nothing of Richard. Then one morning the name of your reunion in Toronto." one of his friends appeared at the bottom of a list of "known "Wait a minute," I protested. "It was NOT arranged. subversives". Amelia spent hours calling people and saying as Don't forget you had already split up, and we were both very convinced that everyone's phone was tapped. little as possible, lonely and miserable living there." He came next day by the back door for a few of his "And don't forget I was also lonely and miserable. You his packsack, a sleeping bag. He had an airplane belongings: weren't the only ones who were lonely and miserable." Amelia cried hysterically. I left them and ticket for California. "But it didn't last very long," I added quickly. "As you the flat and went for a long walk. know." For several weeks afterward there were phone calls every "It never does, does it?" said Amelia, more to the table few days from booths in San Francisco. Then the calls stopped, than to me but it stung all the same. and winter came early. Snow blew in under the back door, "Still," I continued, "the news of your fire was a great forming little drifts on the kitchen floor. We lived in the kitchen shock to Richard." to be near the oven. I stayed away as much as possible. Amelia "My fire," she repeated, as if she knew what I was about to slept whenever she wasn't working. Things deteriorated. say. I told Amelia I was going to live in Toronto for a few "He was profoundly shaken," I persisted. "He told me that months, maybe a year. it made him realize the possibility of a life without Amelia." "And if it's all right with you, I'll just leave most of my "Ha," said Amelia. "I bet he did." stuff here, until I can decide where I'm going to live." "Those were his exact words. He took it very seriously. I For a while I was happy in my new, neutral surroundings, remember he made me sit down while he read me Jean-Paul where jobs were plentiful and the streets were clean, and life had Sartre's essay on death of Camus. That's how profoundly . . ." a controlled quality. Then one spring day, near the University of "I'm sure," she sneered. "You always did have a cosy Toronto, I ran into Richard. His face said, "No questions." I intellectual rapport, I noticed." didn't ask about his travels. He had just come from Montreal, "But at the time," I insisted, "we both looked to you. We and now that things had cooled off a little, he was thinking of expected everything to change. We thought you'd come to going back to school. Toronto to see us. But you didn't come. So we more or less fell On one point he was very outspoken: he hated Toronto. into each other's arms." Systematically, ail-inclusively, almost fanatically. "It's the "You make it sound almost noble," said Amelia, emptying symbol of everything I despise," he used to say, with the old, the last of the wine into our glasses. persuasive conviction. I felt something in me rise to his Somehow it always comes back to this. assurance. We would laugh conspiratorially, like exiled "Well as a matter of fact, it was," I said, gulping down my Bolsheviks plotting a foreign revolution. wine. "It was noble. It was the best thing I ever did in my life. I I could see that he missed Amelia and the reassuring frenzy wanted to for years and when the chance came, I made the most . of their life together. of it. It was fantastic. It was great." "Which is over for good now," he told me. Amelia was watching me through narrowed eyes. I knew We saw each other rarely, and spoke only occasionally on she was feeling in the back of her mind for a weapon. I knew the telephone. Then one evening he called me at home. she had found it. "Sit down," he said, in the honeyed imperative that Amelia "That's not what Richard told . . ." had always found hateful and irresistible. But I was halfway down the stairs. I was on the sidewalk "Something very serious has happened to someone we both breathing in the neon night. I was shutting the door on the love, but before I tell you anything I want you to know that it's woman I had almost loved, knowing this wasn't the end. It over now, and she's all right." wasn't even near the end. I knew he meant Amelia. "There's been a fire," he said. I tried to imagine it: the place blackened, everything gone. "Everything," said Richard, "except your old desk and the letters I wrote to her from Paris." Richard and I met for a drink near the university. For the first time we relaxed a bit, we relived old times, understanding Jane Saible is a Montreal writer. suddenly how everything had been leading up to this moment. The fire. This bar. We saw our lives spread out on the table like Maureen Paxton is a Toronto artist whose work has appeared in a clear, magical diagram. Beautiful lives, significant lives. the last two issues of Branching Out.

18 Branching Out illustration by Sylvia Luck Patterson A beginner's guide to political involvement by Jo Evans

"Do you think the miserably low proportion of women can do if they wish to go beyond voting and become active in voting is a woman problem, or just part of a general apathy?" elections and beyond. There are some difficult decisions to be This query was posed by a long-faced provincial female faced by any woman even so much as dabbling in political candidate whose enthusiasm for our February election clinic was activism. The following guide is meant for the zealous new not matched by the hoped-for hoardes of neophyte women political participant determined to have, at the very least, a campaign workers. In the face of our lack of power and the government responsive to her needs. absence of people in legislatures who are responsive to women's 1. Deciding What You Want. You will not get very far demands, one is almost tempted to say, "Who cares?" But unless you are clear about exactly what you want. Maybe you perhaps women's detachment from the political process and our simply want the fulfilment of your favourite political philosophy relative lack of success within the political system are both and a party exists for that purpose. If so you can skip to step 5. manifestations of the same sad information gap. We don't know Perhaps you feel strongly on one or two particular issues. In this how to participate effectively. case, bone up thoroughly on them; be able to spout facts and This article is meant to provide a survey of things women logic in the face of every slick verbal trick. If you have trouble

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 19 deciding on specific issues, find out what the National Action Committee or the Advisory Council on the Status of Women have identified as important this time around. Maybe your provincial organization can help; most status-of-women groups provide some kind of issue sheet or are able to provide background evidence to strengthen your case. 2. Educating Candidates. Your next step is to explain the issues you've decided on to all the candidates and ask clear questions about what they will do if elected. In Alberta we found politicans abysmally ignorant on matters such as battered women, rape crisis centres, daycare and matrimonial property. Once the provincial status of women committee publicized the issues we were raising for the election, however, we got many requests from politicians for more information. Aim to educate all the candidates; you don't always know which will win. By enlightening each one, women's issues may thereafter be deemed a little more important by them all. Many unpractised political activists (especially women) feel in awe of politicians, as though legislators were rulers instead of representatives entrusted with serving our needs. If you feel intimidated, think of gathering some sympathizers to share the job of educating. An evening of telephone calls to candidates by four or five women with wine and cheese may well yield humour and solidarity, as well as political results.

Many people feel in awe of politicians, as though legislators were rulers instead of representatives entrusted with serving our needs.

Private meetings with candidates are probably better than a public forum when you are trying to convince them your issue is legitimate, or if you are trying to find out their true attitudes towards your issue (and perhaps toward women or constituents in general). The private meeting is also good for building your political confidence. Public meetings, on the other hand, may be more intimidating, but are excellent for pressuring candidates and educating the general public on women's concerns. It is certainly worth developing strategies for these occasions. Although some candidates may listen to your ideas and give straightforward answers to your questions, there are plenty of slick politicians who will be quite adept at evading the point or, worse, making you appear ignorant or even ridiculous. Again, you can try group support. One strategy is for several of you to attend a public meeting and sit separately. Plan to have the most confident ask the first question. Let a few more questions go by, then have a second person stand up and say, "I was really interested in your response to that question on women. Would you mind elaborating on your answer?" This gives the issue importance and reinforces it in the mind of others in the audience. Supplementaries can be planted this way throughout the evening. Even if the candidate is hostile to women's issues, you can at least force him to respect your power to expose him to the crowd. Beware of being seduced by a chance to crucify the candidate, however. It may be great fun, but the audience will probably hate you and you certainly won't nurture any enthusiasm for your issues. IS a One problem you will almost certainly have to deal with is the meaningless pleasant response: "That issue certainly concerns me ... if elected I will look into it." Pin them down. For example, say you're running an ad naming people committed to a particular policy, such as pro-choice, and just see how quickly the insincere ones will backpaddle! 3. Judging and Choosing. It may be easy for you to decide whom to support; if so, you are lucky. It is much more likely you will have to evaluate candidates' responses in terms of which

20 Branching Out person is most likely to get the best legislative results. By Alberta, quite a large proportion of Liberal candidates were working in groups, you may be able to pull together clues about women, yet the party was on record as rejecting the main the candidates' sincerity. A group of women who did this in demand of Alberta feminists a minister responsible for the Alberta's recent election campaign became disillusioned with one status of women. At least one candidate spoke in support of the candidate who had been appealing, as a woman, to the women's women's portfolio; could she have opposed her party if elected? vote. She was overheard saying to her campaign manager, "I see The problem also works the other way. What if you choose the those libber types are out tonight." party with the policies you support, then discover that the For the Alberta election, the Alberta Status of Women candidate in your riding is not especially sympathetic to women's Action Committee asked each party for its official stand on each issues? Will you be able, for example, to educate an otherwise of our issues. The responses made it clear that no one can make superior candidate who makes sexist remarks? You should also wise political choices without knowing the issues thoroughly. As look at the realities of power in your particular constituency. Is an example, Peter Lougheed wrote to us saying that the there a race between only two of the candidates? If so, what are Progressive Conservatives saw no problem with existing daycare the personal commitments of each candidate, and how well could facilities, since the province had added $6 million to the daycare you live with the policies of the parties concerned? budget last year. We then found, first, that $3 million of that came from the federal government anyway, and, second, that the You will almost certainly have to deal with the money was to be merely injected into the inadequate existing meaningless pleasant response: "That issue system of predominately private daycare facilities with prices so concerns me ... if elected I will look into it." Pin high, and legally acceptable standards so low, that municipal public programme administrators were choking. So be prepared them down.______to make some effort in evaluating candidates promises and You might have to choose between a powerless back­ claims. Phone experts on the issue and ask people working in that bencher and a vocal opposition member. Another headache field for their side of the story. may be the danger of splitting the opposition vote. One Alberta A more serious dilemma may be whether to vote for a voter reported she was torn between a "sincere and feminist candidate.if she belongs to a party whose policies you do sympathetic" Socred candidate who was almost certain to lose, not like. Lynn McDonald mentioned the problem in the last issue and a stronger NDP candidate she thought "took himself too of Branching Out: women politicians have often not agreed with seriously." All she was sure of was a desire to get the PC the policies of their chosen parties. In the recent election in incumbent out. Her choice was between wasting her vote on a

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send to; CWS/CF, Centennial College 651 Warden Ave. Scarborough, Ontario M1L3W6

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Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 lovable loser or supporting unenthusiastically the candidate with Perhaps the most effective ways of lobbying are with the greatest ousting power. personal visits (in groups) and letters. Prepare well for your visit Judging and choosing candidates may not be easy, but much by setting up an agenda and sending the politician background of the political know-how and information you gather this time information which justifies your position. You are more likely to will stay with you, so that you are more likely to be a more get clear results good or bad if you ask support for a specific sentient political being at the next election. proposal. Present the proposal in writing, and after your meeting 4. Supporting the Candidate. You can do a lot more than write to confirm your understanding of what has been established . vote, once you've made your choice. To begin with, share all and promised. Finally, set a clear target date for accomplishment that hard-won knowledge with others who may not have had of the goals and make an appointment for another meeting. enough stamina to pursue it themselves. If you have a bent for You will have to choose sides in yet another dilemma. getting attention, try getting press coverage by making your Several experts point out the importance of your credibility in store of information newsworthy. This is a must, of course, for winning a sympathetic ear; they say that if you are not dressed any politically active interest group. One way of arousing press impressively and conservatively, or if your assertiveness is interest is by contrasting party stands on a specific issue, perceived as aggression, or if you are too beautiful, sexy or mentioning your candidate by name. charming, then the politician's attention will not be entirely on You can also present yourself to the campaign manager of your issue. Appearance and manner may put the candidate off the candidate you have chosen. Whether you end up in the your issue. Indeed, beneath a statespersonlike exterior may lurk enthralling and frustrating process of canvassing, or on a downright distaste or hostility to your cause. So, they urge, if you publicity committee, or helping to get the vote out on election want results you must manipulate your manner and your image day, you are guaranteed to end up with a new perspective of the accordingly. However, many women at an Alberta election clinic so-called "democratic process." Some campaign managers may thought it better to be oneself, not pandering to politicians' be good at evaluating your skills and giving you challenges, but emotional weaknesses, and instead being firm and clear in one's watch out for the tendency to stick you with stereotyped female demands. jobs. Letter lobbying takes less time, commitment and Above all, cajole any apathetic women you know to vote preparation, and it doesn't require the victim's consent. Keep it too. If women en masse do not express their preferences at simple and direct, and make the action you want explicit (and elections, we will all suffer. realistic!) Send copies to feminist organizations and other 5. Lobbying. When election day is over, you can focus relevant groups such as opposition parties and the press; this your efforts at education more narrowly. There is now only one helps to intimidate would-be arrogant respondents and allows person you must motivate to serve your needs and he or she is some coordination among activists. eventually accountable to you for this . . . well, sort of! For 6. Follow-up. Monitoring politicians' activities is clearly guidance at this level, get hold of the kit Sharing the Power essential if you mean business; this might mean subscribing to produced by the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Hansard (at $65.00 per session), making friends among Women. Parliamentary press people, or simply writing or phoning the politicians themselves to ask what's been done about promises. Once you're this far into the game, you should have become a regular current affairs analyst, gathering clues from the media every day. Feeding back your observations to the politicians is worth the effort; rewarding even the mildest public comment in your favour should make the politician at least marginally keener to do more, and carefully-presented negative feedback may be the only MOVING ? way to educate some politicians. By all means, publicize inaction; but bear in mind that a person you've publicly sneered I her; c/orrt -foraet to at and declared an enemy is not likely to help you enthusiastically notify us of uour later. Your publicity will yield most public sympathy if you NEW ADDRE5S,.. communicate moderately, relentlessly exposing inaction but in calm, factual terms. The credibility argument certainly holds water here; the public is not noted Just Senc/ q cqrW to: for reacting to your image and your issue independently. I would not, however, wish to deprive you of the pleasure of shocking headlines, for no-one will read on BRANCHING- bur unless your press release grabs. The announcement of our fox low-key election clinics was headed "Women On The Warpath", and we got one hundred percent coverage in city media. You are almost certain to enjoy political activism because it offers a chance of improving women's lot. You may find you have bitten off more than you can chew if you become a leader of other women in the exercise. But no matter how amateurish people's efforts may be, to encourage others in the arts of educating, choosing, lobbying and evaluating are bound ultimately to increase any government's responsiveness to women's demands.

Jo Evans is on the Executive of the Alberta Status of Women The Post Office will not forward your magazines Action Committee. She teaches in applied arts at the Northern when you move! Alberta Institute of Technology.

22 Branching Out poetry

by Linda Pyke illustrations by Alina Wrobel

deja vu: memoirs for my mother

exorcism is not what i'm after look at my hand opening palm upward there are hills valleys lines that spell my history we could draw a map trace the stars' position what balanced force or we could zero in between the lines to cells each cell containing ii remembering what you were and now i wear and are your wedding ring (through me) and now i write what I am become your poems deja vu that sudden burst we share a common memory and vision this is not magic mother it is here in my hand palm of hand holding past holding future this is life and death mother and daughter when one turns into two then back again to one

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 23 24 Branching Out reunion

if i went now to the victoria hotel found a musty man behind the desk if he produced a ledger for the year (your names the room) if i went up... and if i bathed and lay this autumn afternoon between your sheets inhaling scent of after-shave a tin of macdonald's by the bed and if i viewed the flowers on the wall upside down (as you did) sunlight as through gauze the window-dust and if i knew you breathe within me your voices washed until transformed i gave received each new caress your child your vessel flesh of flesh

Toronto poet Linda Pyke has been published in numerous magazines includ­ ing The Canadian Forum, The Tamarack Review and Saturday Night. Her work has also been broadcast on CBC radio's "Anthology." Prisoner, her first volume of poetry, is published by Macmillan of Canada.

Alina Wrobel is a student in Fine Arts at the University of Alberta.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 25 law

Wife-beating has been the object of recognizes, as most sensible people Battered Wives: The an unending stream of jokes, but seldom would, that an unmarried woman can Gagged Victims the subject of serious concern. A male bruise just as easily as a married woman rock band named "The Battered Wives" can. 21 year old rises to popularity; wife abuse continues Jennifer Da vis, a by Marie Gordon Englishwoman and her 2M> year old child illustration by Anne Quigley to be the source of a lot of jokes for cartoonists. As a result, very few people lived in a flat with her common law It has often been said that laws realize how many women live in daily "husband" until his repeated beatings arrive too late on the scene to bring terror of a violent spouse. As a and threats forced her to flee to a about just results in society. The law is legislative priority, the problem of wife battered wives' refuge run by Erin indeed a reactionary animal it creeps abuse doesn't even make the list. Pizzey (author of the widely-acclaimed out into the light long after a situation Battered children, yes; battered women, book, Scream Quietly or the Neighbours has demanded some sort of redress. In no. The law is loath to intervene into this Will Hear). Before finally leaving her certain situations, the power of law is area of human relations, even though flat, however, Jennifer Davis had been brought into swift and forceful opera­ those "lovers quarrels" can and do end threatened with a screwdriver and tion, (remember the War Measures up in broken jaws, facial lacerations, terrorized with promises of a brutal Act?), but this usually happens when a miscarriages and deaths. death and having her body dumped in powerful group is directly threatened. Canada's laws do little to alleviate the river. Her common law husband Matrimonial violence has rarely marital violence. The remedies that are kept a chopper under the bed and received this kind of attention. For available are not tailored to the needs of threatened to chop her body and put it in centuries women have put up with battered women. In comparison with the deepfreeze. physical abuse from husbands without recent legislation in Britain our laws are Her stay at the battered women's the aid of legislative intervention. The a disgrace. shelter was a short one; the house was need has been hushed; the victims pathetically overcrowded with other effectively gagged. women who could not return to their In fact, our law has actually homes for fear of continued beatings. condoned violence within the domestic Her common law husband kept With the help of a lawyer, she then setting. Blackstone, known as a father of a chopper under the bed and applied to a county court under the English jurisprudence, talked about a Domestic Violence and Matrimonial husband's right to practise "moderate threatened to chop her body and Proceedings Act asking that she be able correction" on his wife. At old common put it in the deep freeze. to return to her flat, and that the man she law, a husband was allowed to beat his lived with be forced to leave it. An order wife with impunity, so long as the to this effect was granted by the judge, weapon (usually a stick) was no thicker but before long her common law than his thumb. Hence, the expression In 1975 the British House of husband had appealed to the courts on "rule of thumb". Commons set up a select committee of the ground that they had no power to What are we talking about when we its members to investigate the topic of oust him from his matrimonial home. His speak of "marital violence"? It has been violence in marriage, and its report called arguments succeeded, and he was treated as something falling short of a for urgent steps to be taken to protect allowed to return. crime. In fact, if we remove the cloak of women. Traditional legal remedies, it Finally, the case was appealed to marriage, we are talking about assault, was found, were not working; they were the English Court of Appeal, and was assault causing bodily harm, attempted cumbersome, inaccessible and simply did heard by five judges who reinstated the murder, murder and rape. Rape, of not help women in crisis situations. original injunction. Lord Denning, one of course,is not recognized as a criminal act In the following year, a new act was the most outspoken of the five, offered a between husband and wife in Canada. passed in England the Domestic and strong and lucid judgment in favour of We have been taught to view these Matrimonial Proceedings Act. This Act Ms Davis. He overruled two previous crimes differently when they occur in the allows a woman to apply to court for an decisions of the same court which had domestic setting because, historically, "injunction" to prevent a husband from refused to grant injunctions in very women have been seen as the property coming back to live in what is considered similar fact situations. In legal circles, of their husbands, and a man's home as their "matrimonial home" after she has judges are more or less bound by former his "castle" has been an accepted experienced physical abuse at his hands. decisions of their own court, and seldom notion. The prevalence of both these Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this dare to walk all over their brother attitudes has made women unique victims; English Act is that it seeks to protect not judges' findings. Lord Denning inter­ victims who feel the need to hide their only married women, but also women preted the Act in a liberal and broad wounds. living in common-law relationships. This manner, and this decision stands as a

26 Branching Out strong legal precendent for English that police will volunteer information to peace bond. A considerable amount of judges in the future. (The decision of the women that this remedy is available. time may elapse before the case even Court of Appeal was subsequently Secondly, the time gap involved in comes to trial, and if conviction results, affirmed by the House of Lords, the obtaining a peace bond all but destroys he may only be fined unless he has a equivalent of our Supreme Court of its effectiveness. A peace bond does not record of similar crimes. A jail term is Canada). mean immediate protection for a woman going to put the man out of work, and if It is an exceptional case for a at three in the morning; she must often it will mean welfare for the wife and number of reasons. It was the first time wait some time for a "trial date" to be children, there is not much chance of in England, or anywhere for that matter, set. During that time and even after the lengthy imprisonment. that a court effectively kicked a man out If a serious assault has been of "his" home because of his violence to committed and the man is arrested, it is a woman who was not even his wife. At Not only are the Canadian Laws possible that one of the terms of his common law, separating a man from his inadequate, but the people charged release on bail will be that he refrain property is something like scratching with enforcing them do not seem to from contacting or molesting the woman. fingernails on ajudiciaJ blackboard; it is demonstrate the zeal for law and This must be requested, however; it just NOT done in well-respected legal order evident in many other situa­ won't be granted as a matter of course. circles. In this case, not only is the man tions. A restraining order is a very being separated from his residential different legal remedy, and has many property interest; the law has stepped in advantages over a peace bond or a to interfere with his proprietary interest peace bond is granted, the man will not charge of assault. It is a type of in his "wife". As the Davis case be forced to leave the home. "injunction" the court may grant and, as demonstrates, British law-makers and Police and Crown counsel often with other injunctions, it must accom­ judges are beginning to realize that the complain about women wanting to pany another main action such as problem of wife abuse in the 1970's is withdraw a charge after a day or two, divorce. In Britain, such an injunction real and that it merits genuine concern. and it is often said that battered women can be granted on its own, as we saw in Canada has no laws that offer a are a lost cause "they just don't the Davis case. battered woman as much protection as follow through". This is not because the British one discussed above. Because women aren't desperately in need of Davis v Johnson was decided on the help, but rather because of the inadequ­ The Restraining Order basis of that English Act, it has no value acy of the remedy. The woman's whatsoever in Canadian courts. Not only boyfriend or husband will inevitably find laws inadequate, but out that she has gone to the police to Restraining orders can be obtained are the Canadian in people charged with enforcing them complain and more often than not, she much more quickly than peace bonds; the a lawyer can do not seem to demonstrate the zeal for will be under pressure to withdraw the an emergency situation in many other charges and "keep the peace" within her launch an action and apply for a law and order evident a day or two. remedies available to own home. It takes strength and temporary order within situations. Legal order will prohibit a women in Canada include the peace determination to see a prosecution all the The usual restraining of common assault, and way through, and battered women husband from entering the home and bond, the charge Should he breach the a restraining order. seldom receive any support along the harassing his wife. way. conditions set out in the order, he may Again, there is nothing necessarily be held in contempt of court and can be The Peace Bond in a peace bond to order a man to stay jailed. away from his wife or girlfriend it is Although restraining orders are only after she is hurt again, perhaps probably the strongest protection a A peace bond is one legal weapon in more severely, that the peace bond is of battered woman can obtain, they're not the hands of battered women. Section any value. The police can then arrest the the final answer. The woman must 745 of our Criminal Code says that any man and put him in jail or fine him. One commence a main action such as divorce person fearing "that another person will positive aspect of this remedy is its or civil assault before she can apply for cause personal injury to him or his whether mar­ an order. It is never granted automatical­ availability to anyone to turn wife or child or will damage his ried or not. A second advantage is that ly, and judges are often reluctant property, may lay an information before no lawyer is required. A woman can go a man out of a house that he owns or with his wife. a justice" (note the wording of this to the police station and ask to lay an himself section). A judge who receives such an of the peace. In Alberta, Part 2 of the new information before a justice provi­ information arranges for the people in then taken over by Matrimonial Property Act makes The prosecution is home possession dispute to appear before him. If he is and the woman's sion for a "matrimonial the Crown Counsel, Upon application, the Court has satisfied that the fears are well-founded, role becomes that of witness for the order". the power to evict one spouse from the he can order that the threatening party Crown. enter into what is called a "recogni­ matrimonial home, and to restrain that undertak­ person from entering or "attending at or zance" (simply a promise or of the peace and be of good The Common Assault Charge near" the home for a certain period ing) to keep certainty and comply with any other time. It is hard to state with behaviour the Court will grant these orders, conditions set out. If the person fails to A woman can charge her husband or when the Act just came into force in do so, the judge has the power to jail him boyfriend with common assault or since assault causing bodily harm. Police are January of this year, and few applica­ for up to twelve months or fine him. it. There is pretty hesitant to lay such charges themselves, tions have been made under On the face of it, this sounds the Act will be of help to in reality, however, and a woman may have to go down to some hope that good. What happens women, at least those living in is quite different. First of all, a woman the police station if she decides to battered may not know enough to ask the police proceed with the charge. This remedy Alberta. how to obtain a peace bond, and it is rare suffers from the same problems as a What happens if she decides to

Vnlume VI. Number 2. 1979 27 •tt

28 Branching Out CONCLUSION Battered Women: How to Use the Law remedies to correct the situation. Canada's laws offer piecemeal pro­ is a pamphlet written by several law Some further practical solutions tection to women in desperate need of it. students in conjunction with Edmonton 's proposed by the author include provision Existing remedies, for the most part, do "Women In Need" House. Designed to of funding for shelter for the victims and not correspond to the needs of battered help battered women understand more children, marital counselling, better women. Legislative neglect presently about legal remedies available, it is educational programs for the police with smacks of the attitude "if we don't do available free of charge from Student an emphasis on handling domestic anything about it maybe it will go Legal Services of Edmonton, Law violence, child care courtroom facilities away". Center, University of Alberta (ph. and provision by the courts or social The British House of Commons and 432-2226) and from Calgary Legal agencies of advocates to represent the courts came to the realization that Guidance, 100A-315-10 Avenue S.E. victims' interests and to provide informa­ instead of going away that incidence of Calgary (ph. 265-5545). tion and support. domestic violence is escalating at a Davidson's book provides a valu­ rate. American statistics able perspective on wife beating as a frightening for estimate that 60% of all marriages Wifebeating Analyzed criminal offence. It is useful reading one incident of wife the victim, the helping professions and involve at least Al­ British legislation and case law those interested in legal reform. abuse. book review by Doris Wilson parallels a concern about the plight of though its focus is American, show problem experi­ battered women that our government and Conjugal Crime: Understanding and can be drawn with the courts have not yet recognized. Changing the Wifebeating Pattern, by enced in Canada. The U.S. Senate voted last summer Terry Davidson. New York: Hawthorn Doris Wilson is a third year law student to authorize $150 million for a five year Books Inc., 1978. Cloth, $9.95. who is currently doing research on program to curb wife-beating and other Conjugal Crime is a study of the battered women in Canada. She regu­ domestic abuse. hidden violence which is estimated to larly assists in editing the law column. Here in Canada we need a serious affect as many as 50% of all American re-examination of existing legal remedies marriages, and of society s inadequate that focuses on their effectiveness and response to the problem. Davidson Legal Notes accessibility. We need continued and documents the legal system's connivance generous government support of shelters with society in failing to protect the for battered women and we need victim of such crime, while the full by Louise Dulude start community support for women who resources of the law are available to THE FRINGE TAKES CENTRE saying no to physical abuse. anyone attacked by a stranger in similar circumstances. The only parallel known STAGE in the law is its reluctance to give rape There is something to be said for Until we overcome the myth that victims a fair hearing, yet wifebeating is being a feminist in a country where battered women are willing victims, estimated to occur three times as fre­ women aren't allowed on the streets and that violent husbands are merely quently in the United States as does rape. without a thick veil and two bodyguards. exercising their rightful marital While Canadian research has not The issues are simple (you don't need a perogative, we will be condoning been as extensive, preliminary studies B.A. to understand polygamy), the way terrorism within the home. indicate the problem is equally serious ahead is clear (there's nowhere to go but here. up), and the injustices are so flagrant one The crime of wife beating is viewed might even be willing to die for "the The women who need help most, by Davidson from several angles: the cause". however, are in no position to make their character of the beater, the character of In contrast, one of the hottest concerns known; their own personal the victim, the legal and societal feminist battles in Canada right now is tragedy demands all that they have. They reinforcement of this crime throughout being fought in the area of fringe benefits. cannot raise their voices to their history, the effect on children. Her That may not sound very exciting, but as less to their legislators. conclusions and suggestions are based on most of us have children and all of us husbands, much can Our laws should meet, rather than her own documented experiences with who last long enough will get old, it the needs of people in such domestic violence. be argued that maternity leave/benefits dismiss, as relevant situations. The law should not treat A useful section for the American and equal pension rights are to vote. marital violence any differently than it readership is the list of shelters and other to our lives as the right in the community. assistance for battered women and their Three recent developments de­ does any other crime and diverse we overcome the myth that children in one of the appendixes. monstrate how wide-ranging Until the list can be. battered women are willing victims, and Canadian readers will find helpful fringe benefit issues of recommended publications, and can that violent husbands are merely exercis­ Stella Bliss v. The Attorney General of rightful marital perogative, we refer to the "legal procedures" section ing their the very Canada will be condoning terrorism within the for an idea of how complicated will remain hushed and similar Canadian actions are. Spunky Stella Bliss does not give up home. The need this job the victims will remain gagged. Perhaps the most useful service easily. Fired from her B.C. office book provides is in its analysis of wife because she was pregnant, she fought to beating as a crime. Davidson stresses be reinstated only to be fired again four that only when it is recognized that days before giving birth to her son. society has contributed to the woman's Even though she had not held her fear and helplessness, and that she is job long enough to qualify for maternity Gordon is a third year law student staying in the marriage out of economic benefits, she asked to be given regular Marie she was who is currently involved in research on necessity and a lack of places to turn, unemployment benefits because battered women in Canada. will progress be made towards legislative able and available for work.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 29 That didn't matter, she was told, described as middle of the road. At the other end of the spectrum the because section 46 of the Unemployment In the case of pension and insurance Canadian Association of University Insurance Act categorically forbids the plans to which employers contribute, Teachers, presenting the feminist view­ payment of regular U.I. benefits to they call for identical benefits for men point, was dissatisfied because it otherwise eligible claimants during the and women but allow differences in believes that different rates by sex period starting eight weeks before contribution levels by sex. When such should be banned. If differences in costs delivery and ending six weeks after it. contribution differences exist, they must due to sex were shared by all Pleading that section 46 is unfairly be paid for by the employer. participants as are differences arising discriminatory and should be declared This means that women, who live from race, health condition, smoking, invalid as contrary to the Canadian Bill longer than men, would not have to pay social background, heredity, etc. . .. of Rights, Bliss successively took her more to become entitled to the same C.A.U.T. argues, the problem of case to the U.I. Board of Referees, an pension benefits. Conversely men, for deciding who will pay the additional cost Umpire, the Federal Court of Appeal whom life insurance is more expensive would not exist. and finally, two years later, the Supreme because they die sooner, would not pay As the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Court of Canada. more for equal coverage. last year: "To insure the flabby and the The Supreme Court decision, con­ The Canadian Life Insurance As­ fit as though they were equivalent risks curred in unanimously by a panel of sociation, in its brief on behalf of the may be more common than treating men defenders of yesterday's status quo, industry, deplored the Commission's and women alike; but nothing more than quotes approvingly the lower court judge decision to impose equal benefits for habit makes one 'subsidy' seem less fair who found that: "If section 46 treats men and women because, it said, many than the other." unemployed pregnant women differently employers will terminate their plans Louise Dulude is an Ottawa lawyer. She from other unemployed persons, be they rather than replace them with same- will be contributing regularly to Legal male or female, it is ... because they are benefit arrangements. Notes. pregnant and not because they are women". "Any inequality between the sexes in this area", adds the Supreme Court on its own, "is not created by legislation but by nature". In other words, women are welcome but people with uteruses need not apply. STATUS Having a Baby in Quebec In the great tradition of "the last shall be the first", Quebec's newly- ... the official publication of the National proclaimed first maternity leave provi­ sions are the best in Canada. Action Committee on the status of As well as guaranteeing the usual leave of absence with protection against women. dismissal, they allow pregnant women working in physically unsafe environ­ ments to request a temporary transfer to FEATURING another job. If the employer refuses to comply, • bilingual articles about controversial the leave of absence is lengthened concerning women. accordingly. In all cases, reinstatement issues in the same job after the maternity leave is guaranteed. • book, film reviews. To top this off, a unique maternity allowance programme was introduced on • activities of Canadian women's groups. January 1, 1979. It gives a flat-rate allowance of $240 to all Quebec residents who qualify for U.I. maternity benefits. SUBSCRIBE NOW Sex and Pensions 4 ISSUES PER YEAR Although federal labour and human rights laws only apply to 10% of $3.00 per annum (individual) Canada's workforce, they often have $6.00 per annum (institutions) considerable influence on the provincial $5.00 per annum (U.S. and overseas) laws that cover the other 90%. This explains the importance of the Canadian Human Rights Commission's (C.H.R.C.) forthcoming regulations in STATUS, c/o National Action Committee, the fields of pensions and insurance. The C.H.R.C.'s draft regulations, #306 - 40 St. Clair Ave. East, Toronto M4T 1M9 forwarded to interested groups last fall with an invitation to comment, are best

30 Branching Out The Evolution of the Women's Movement In Germany, Britain, Russia and France national politks have exerted great influence on the women's movement. by Lynn McDonald Part II In the last issue of Branching Out I were not invited. There is some excuse tive' became Vertrauensperson from discussed what seemed to me to be the for this in the threat the socialists posed Vertrauensmann. distinguishing features of the Canadian as a political organization. Until 1908 When World War I broke out women's movement its organizational women in certain parts of Germany were women had not obtained the vote, and strength, weakness in theory, solidarity not allowed to hold, speak at, or even the bourgeois movement was divided across class lines, its progressive/ attend political meetings. The socialist and weak. There was a truce in suffrage reformist stance, and the commitment to women were unmistakably political, activities throughout the war, most working within the ordinary political while the bourgeois could hide behind women devoting themselves to the war process within existing parties. These their philanthropic activities. There is effort. The bourgeois organizations conclusions can be seen more clearly by much to suggest, however, plain class instituted a Women's Service, so that comparison with the women's move­ prejudice as a motive for excluding the women would be seen to be performing ments of four European societies, working-class women. Zetkin is said to comparable service to men in the considering where they stand in these have resisted even the slightest hints of military. The Service also brought same respects. reconciliation after the initial exclusion. women into close contact with local The countries I have chosen to As committed to the cause as one could government officials and generally examine are Germany, Britain, Russia ever be, she considered it her duty to helped to give women credibility as and France. The British women's point out the errors of the bourgeois competent political actors. Only a few movement is important to us partly movement. She attacked the 'feminists' internationalists (including Zetkin) con­ because it had direct ties with the (feminism was a pejorative term to the tinued the anti-war struggle. Canadian, while the French movement socialists) as vigorously as she did male is important for its theory. Germany has capitalists. The bourgeois women were Social theorists in Germany saw had a highly organized and conflict- not noticeably more charitable in return. the struggle for women's rights ridden women's movement which was The liberal Marianne Weber, herself one of the strongest in Europe. It shares with some competence on Marxism, as inextricably bound up with with France the honour of being a source dismissed August Bebel's classic work the struggle for socialism. of theory for the rest of Europe. The Woman Under Socialism with brief, Soviet Union is distinguished as the first biting sarcasm. The vote came suddenly in 1918, as country to make improvement in the Socialist theorists, male and female, one of the demands of the workers' and status of women official government saw the struggle for women's rights as soldiers' revolution. The Weimar Con­ policy. inextricably bound up with the struggle stitution of 1919 included equal rights for for socialism: there could be no women generally, and in such specific emancipation without socialism. matters as equal treatment in the civil Germany Bourgeois attempts at reform distracted A Strong Movement that Failed service. These promises were not from the main issue, weakening its respected in practice. The Civil Code, From its earliest years, the wo­ chances of success by taking away which made wives legally subject to men's movement in Germany was split potential recruits. All the while socialist their husbands, and gave fathers on class and party lines. Early women's women were badly treated by their male exclusive rights of control over their organizations, dating from the mid 19th colleagues. They were under- children, remained in force. The Social century were formed by middle-class represented on party executives and the Democratic Party broke up. An explicity women and were largely concerned with editorial boards of party publications. Marxist Communist Party split off from such issues as secondary and higher When women finally won the right to be it, taking with it many of the leading education for girls (women were not candidates few were nominated. Efforts women, notably Zetkin and Luxem­ allowed either in the academic secon­ to have women appointed as party bourg. dary schools or universities at that time). secretaries were frustrated. The women In the 1920's a few advances were There were attempts to 'reach' protested, but always gave way when made, but there were more defeats. working-class women to improve their their male colleagues would not be Women were elected to the Reichstag morals, and some bourgeois women moved. They were often bitterly (Parliament) in relatively significant num­ were prepared to offer practical help on disappointed. Even such highly re­ bers, almost ten per cent in the first a philanthropic and apolitical basis. spected women as Zetkin and Rosa election in which women could run, but Working-class women, led by Clara Luxembourg felt they always had to in lower proportions thereafter. These Zetkin, in time founded their own work harder than men and received less women, except for a very brief attempt organizations connected with the Social credit for their efforts. The German at collaboration, did not join forces on Democratic Party. When the German Social Democrats, incidentally, may women's issues. The radical movement Federation of Women's Associations have been the first to revise sexist was not able to reverse the trend against was formed in 1894 the socialist women terminology. In 1892 'party representa­ it. The bourgeois 'moderates' and the

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 31 Social Democrats both became more women the obligation of doing paid The early German women's move­ conservative in their demands, effec­ work, but less chance than men of ment produced an impressive amount of tively accepting the 'separate sphere' getting a job, and much less pay when publication. There were full-scale books view of women. Within the Social one did. All the while women had to do of analysis on women's issues, from far Democratic Party, women were pushed the great burden of the work at home, left to far right, and other reforms were into an auxiliary 'social work' role, and accept a subsidiary role in the party. advocated that do not fit into any deemed more fitting with their nature. What Hitler offered women might have left-right continuum. The major wo­ Zetkin was forced out of the editorship seemed an improvement for many a men's organizations had their own of the socialist women's publication Die return to the single burden of the home, periodicals. In the pre-war period the Gleichheit (Equality), which proceeded and job security for the male breadwin­ circulation of the largest periodicals to move in the direction of the Ladies' ner. No one knew at the time that reached over 100,000. Canada compares Home Journal. The Communist Party Hitler's policies regarding women would very badly both in the quality of writing was the only party consistently to differ from his promises. achieved and the size of public reached. support women's issues. Few women A consequence of having this rich were prepared to support it, however, What Hitler offered women store-house of material has been because of its vehement condemnation extensive contemporary work on the of religion, and its general radicalness. might have seemed an improve­ early movement. Again, Canada is far The liberal parties, which so many of the ment for many — a return to the behind in scholarly work on its own bourgeois women supported, did not single burden of the home and history. In contemporary journals and however, the two countries reciprocate. The relationship between for the male magazines, organized women and the political job security are roughly similar. parties was, in short, such as to do breadwinner. neither side much good. The Social Democratic Party was the largest single If women in Social Democracy England party in post-war Germany so that its became conservative in the course of the A Separate Women's Union failure to deal justly with women is of 1920's, women in the bourgeois move­ particular importance. Admittedly it was ment became reactionaries. The 'sepa­ In England, the early women in coalition with the Catholic Centre rate sphere' policy was vigorously socialists faced effectively the same Party, which was in principle opposed to advanced by the major bourgeois leader, problems as the German, but responded women's rights. Gertrud Baumer. Women should not differently. Rather than sacrifice their seek to compete with men, but should commitment to the women's cause they It is probably fruitless to speculate find equality in appropriate recognition socialism. Emmeline Pan- if the broke with as to what might have happened for women's peculiarly feminine con­ the leader of the militants, was lived up to their khurst, Social Democrats had tributions, in motherhood and the herself a socialist when she began to promises. Certainly what did happen supportive professions like social work. issue, as were the got the work on the suffrage was disastrous. When women The conservative Housewives' Union women who gathered with her to less inclined to support first vote they were and the Association of German Evangel­ form the Women's Social and Political Social Democracy than were men. ical Women's Associations came to Further, their support dropped off faster dominate in the Federation of German than did men's in the period of the Women's Associations. The ideology of 1920's. There were anti-Nazi women in National Socialism entailed an even both the socialist and bourgeois move­ greater restriction to the separate ments, but they were as unable to and coercion in achieving it, to sphere, co-operate in any stage of Hitler's rise than did the women's organizations, but power as were the men. the differences are of degree, not kind. The tendencies on voting prefer­ Anti-Nazi women were purged ences should not be interpreted as a everywhere. The large women's organi­ general antipathy of women for the left. zations were forced to join the Nazi The proportion of women voting Frauenfront, or dissolve. The Federa­ Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst socialist the first time women had the tion of German Women's Associations vote was as high as men had taken forty and the teachers' associations, among Union (WSPU) in 1903. The immediate cir­ years to reach. Clearly many women others, dissolved; the Housewives and cumstances which motivated action was who voted initially for socialist candi­ the Evangelical Women joined. recession in the Lancashire cotton dates changed their minds. Rather than Women, qua women, lost a great industry, which particularly affected concluding, as many male socialists did, deal when Hitler came to power, but the women. Mrs. Pankhurst and her that women 'did not know how to use erosion had already started. Women daughters Christabel and Sylvia were the vote', we might consider they had were forced out of senior civil service apparently persuaded that a separate their reasons. Women lost their jobs in positions, and after 1936 were excluded organization was needed when they the 1920's in higher proportions than from the bench and prosecution. A discovered women were excluded from men. To some extent this was due to a quota of women was established for certain groups of the Independent decree to make jobs for returning university places. The curriculum at Labour Party (ILP). The ILP met in a soldiers, but very often women were girls' schools was changed to reduce hall dedicated to Emmeline's late fired with no such replacement. Male academic work, especially science and husband, the person who first interested trade unionists, many of whom were mathematics, in favour of domestic her in both feminism and socialism. The Social Democrats, were often the science. The Nazis were not able to WSPU initially got considerable support instigators in these firings. The Social implement their policies full-scale, from the Independent Labour Party, Democratic Party had voted for the however, for women were badly needed especially M.P. Keir Hardie. When the decree. Only the Communists had in the labour force as Germany began to ILP failed them, however, in 1907, opposed it. Social Democracy gave re-arm, and even more so in the war. Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst

32 Branching Out and others left. Women who remained with Labour could also belong to Wnnan mgy be,and:/ernorhsve (heVote ^^^^^» ^• suffrage associations, and many did. MOTHER -TEAfflCT There was never the bitter hostility between 'bourgeois' and 'socialist' women as on the Continent. This is quite clear in early analyses of socialism and the woman question. Even Karl Marx's daughter Eleanor, who was born and raised in England, was willing to concede that the bourgeois feminists had done some good, although otherwise her position was in the strident socialist Wh&taMan may havebeen.&.^£t not lose (he Vote mold of the Continent. The WSPU soon departed from its working-class connections. Its first supporters, when the organization moved to London, were East London women, workers and wives of strikers. Not long after the move, however, it began to recruit increasingly from the ICT LUNATIC middle and even the upper class. People like Annie Kenney, a cotton mill worker A widely distributed British suffrage postcard. and one of the first to move into militant action, soon became a small minority. Sylvia Pankhurst continued to build a women's organization in East London, Europe, especially Zurich, where but Christabel succeeded in having it Russia they Equality as Government Policy came into contact with anarchist groups. ejected from the WSPU. Sylvia went on In Russia women were allowed to do to become a member of the British The Russian women's movement medical training. While not given the Communist Party, while Christabel has quite a different history again. There same degree as men, and confined to became a travelling evangelist, preach­ was the same split between the practice with women and children, large ing the imminent second coming of bourgeois and socialist movement in numbers of women did become doctors. Christ. Emmeline Pankhurst was a Russia as in Germany, but this time the The first women's organizations, as prospective Conservative candidate in a socialist side won. Very little informa­ elsewhere, were philanthropically hopeless East London constituency tion is available about the Russian oriented, and controlled from above. In when she died in 1928. bourgeois movement, although enough 1905 a more broadly-based organization, to show it was responsible for remarka­ the Union for Women's Equality, was In England there was never the ble achievements. The woman question formed, which grew to eighty branches began to be discussed in the 1840's and before its demise. Linked with the liberal bitter hostility between 1850's in Russia in connection with other parties, it vigorously pursued the Duma, 'bourgeois' and 'socialist' wo­ questions of social reform, especially the (the Parliament) with non-militant means, men as on the continent. emancipation of the serfs. The serfs were for the right to vote. It succeeded in freed in 1861, other reforms following getting reforms of inheritance laws and rapidly. A system of secondary educa­ the passport regulations. In 1912 a The British movement is important tion for girls, equal to that for boys, was suffrage bill was passed by the Duma, for the Canadian movement as a very established, well in advance of other but vetoed by the Cabinet. The direct model. British suffrage activities European countries. The 1860's was a bourgeois groups were staunch suppor­ were widely reported in the Canadian time of great advance for women, many ters of the war effort, expecting, as did press. The visits of British suffrage of whom left their families for the cities, the British, the vote as the reward for leaders were used effectively by Cana­ sought advanced education, and gener­ their services. The bourgeois organiza­ dian organizations to publicize the ally challenged the old conventions. The tions supported also the provisional Canadian cause. British suffrage lead­ novel, What Is To Be Done? by government established in 1917, which ers, militant and moderate, were well revolutionary writer Chernischevsky did promise them the vote. They received by Canadian audiences. became a model for young women to use dissolved after the Bolshevik coup, The influence of British writings on pro forma marriages with sympathetic never to re-appear. women's rights is more difficult to men to escape their father's authority. Women were prominent among the ascertain. It is not clear if even such Communal living and working arrange­ terrorist movements for socialism from prominent writers as John Stuart Mill ments (not involving promiscuity) were the 1870's on. They have been said to be were much known in Canada. The tried. Women succeeded in getting excellent terrorists, the traditional qual­ women's colleges, established because university courses opened to them, on an ities of devotion to duty and self- women were not permitted in men's, auditing basis, professors giving their sacrifice standing them in good stead. produced excellent scholarship on wo­ time to teach evening courses for them. Further, the need being for action rather men. Nothing has been produced in They were not allowed to enter the than words, their relative lack of Canada of the calibre of Lina Eckens- men's universities, however, and even education was not a handicap. In 1881 a tein's classic Woman under Monasti- auditing privileges were later suppres- woman, Sofia Perovskaia, led the cism, or even Viola Klein's Feminine sed. Russian women then became assassination of Czar Alexander II for Character. prominent in the universities of western which she was hanged. Women contributed

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 33 as much as a third of the membership of civil war. According to Lenin, the most the position of women in the Soviet the People's Will, the terrorist organiza­ effective battalion defending the Provi­ Union was much the same as in Nazi tion in which Perovskaia worked. There sional Government, in 1917, was a Germany. was, also, one all-women revolutionary women's. Canadian women have had no The failure of the 'sexual revolution' group, the Fritschi, formed by women such dramatic interventions, or even in the Soviet Union has usually been studying in Zurich. assassinations, to their name. blamed on lack of theoretical prepara­ Women were less prominent in the The reforms instituted by the new tion, with material conditions accorded Marxist groups which developed in the Soviet government were radical indeed. only a subsidiary role. (Wilhelm Reich 1890's. Among these the Bolsheviks The new government was genuinely argued this, and more recently Kate were relatively late in organizing committed to bringing women into the Millett.) Leaders have been said not to women, and less open to them than mainstream of society, and especially have paid sufficient attention to the Mensheviks, the more moderate wing of into productive work. The double practical implications of emancipation, the Social Democratic Party. The burden was well understood, to be dealt Bolsheviks were markedly more in­ with through communal child-care and The problem in the Soviet Union terested in gaining the support of housekeeping facilities. The legal dis­ was not lack of projected workers male in such industries as abilities of women were promptly metal-working, and considered women legislated away. The distinction between programmes but that those textile workers backward. (This estima­ legitimate and illegitimate children was advanced were not accepted by tion of the textile workers was proven abolished. Divorce was available and the leading male Communists. wrong by later events, as will be seen.) cheap. Birth control and abortion were Lenin's wife, Krupskaya, was the legalized. A Women's Bureau was an explanation not wholly adequate in first Russian Marxist to write on the established, to encourage women to my view. Alexandra Kollontai had done woman question, in 1900. Interested as enter male jobs, and to defend women extensive theoretical work on the she was in such women's concerns as workers in cases of exploitation by male subject, both on the legislation and social education and child welfare, though, she bosses. services needed for the emancipation of was far from being a feminist. Alexandra women and their integration into the paid Kollontai, a Menshevik until 1914, was economy. Kollontai was, notably, the the first real feminist of the Marxists. In first minister of Social Welfare in the 1908 she published an extensive analysis new Soviet regime, which made her also of the issue, The Social Bases of the the first woman Cabinet minister in Woman Question. She did a thorough history. The same Kollontai was also comparison of provisions for maternity later the first woman ambassador, when leave, which was later used in establish­ she retreated into a diplomatic career ing the very advanced Soviet system. after disillusionment with the regime. Kollontai was as vehement an opponent The problem was not lack of theory or of bourgeois feminism as Clara Zetkin, projected programmes for the emancipa­ whom she knew from being in exile in tion of women, but that those advanced Germany. Kollontai led the delegation of by Kollontai, and other such women as women workers to the first large Russian Zetkin, were not accepted by Lenin or congress of women, in 1908. Equal rights other leading male Communists. Thus, was not the issue, she declared, but 'a despite the fact of some important morsel of bread'. She was successful in advances, and despite the fact of a major preventing the development of a cross- feminist attaining high political office, class organization of women. The the position of women in the Soviet Russian and German socialist move­ Union is not, overall, better than in other ments were very similar in opposing any countries. The shortage of men has kind of cross-class cooperation. Insofar meant a demand for women in the labour as comparisons can be made they both force, and commensurate provision for contrast sharply with British practice Alexandra Kollontai writer and politician the education of women. Women are and, even more so, with the Canadian. The 'sexual revolution', failed, better off in terms of occupations than The first Bolshevik activity on the however, and the authoritarian family women in the west, and considerably woman question occurred in 1913, with was re-established. Women suffered better off in terms of maternity leave and the first celebration on Russian soil of an particularly from the abuse of sexual so forth. The shortage of men. on the international Women's Day. The follow­ 'freedom'. They were not, in fact, as other hand, has meant a shortage of ing year there was another celebration able to support themselves as men, husbands, a situation obviously to men's and the launching of a journal, The especially with the high unemployment benefit socially. Women in the Soviet Working Woman. of the New Economic Period in the Union are much worse off than women The incident that triggered the 1920's. Yet men had been freed of this in the west with respect to the burden of February revolution in 1917 was actually obligation. Child care facilities, and domestic work. In political power (or the the work of women, undertaken against many other planned reforms, could not lack of it) their positions are probably the opposition of all the parties, be provided in the poverty, famine and about the same. including the Bolshevik. Provoked by disorder of the civil war and its The official ideology is that equality overgrown breadlines women textile aftermath. If Lenin was less than a for women has been achieved, except for workers called a general strike on the convicted feminist Stalin was far worse. some bad attitudes that remain. Unfor­ occasion of International Women's Day. In 1930 the Women's Bureau was tunately, communist parties of the west Men workers came out in support only dissolved. In 1936 legislation to reverse have felt obliged to accept this doctrine, when it was clear the troops would not the earlier reforms began to be critical as they have come to be on other fire. Women fought on both sides of the introduced. By the second world war, aspects of Soviet policy and practice.

34 Branching Out Consequently there has not been any army. Women's clubs (not necessarily a major influence on Mikhailov, who advance in Communist thinking on feminist) sprang up all over France, and introduced feminist thought to Russia in women in the west in decades. women took part in mixed political clubs the early 1860's. Communists were an important source as well. They made some gains, notably The French suffrage movement, like of theory in the late nineteenth century with respect to inheritance laws. Equal the German and Russian, was split on but those who are still read (like Engels rights to divorce were established. class lines. Unlike those two other and Bebel) are now badly out-of-date. As Educational reforms improved girls' countries, though, there was never any to what contemporary Soviet women are schooling as well as boys'. Reaction set attempt to build a mass movement doing outside official organizations on in early, however, and the women made connected with a left-wing party. women's issues we have no ready a number of tactical errors. The Neither did the bourgeois groups build knowledge. women's revolutionary clubs were sup­ any strong, mass organization. Women's pressed in 1794, on grounds of being rights groups remained small, elitist counter-revolutionary. Poor women organizations, contributing to en­ France were the major instigators of the bread lightened discussion of the issues. A Leader in Theory riots of this time, which resulted in bans Within parties of the left there has been of any women meeting together. The few the usual insistence that women's The pattern of theory and practice in emancipation was to be achieved French legal advances were also short lived, feminism is quite unlike any since Napoleon's through the establishment of socialism, other. Feminist writing has a longer civil code entrenched some of the worst abuses of patriarchy. the position Simone de Beauvoir took in history in France than anywhere in the The Second Sex. The socialists did form world. There have been notable, but The major women leaders themselves came to sorry ends exile (at the best), governments in France in the 1930's, but brief, periods of activism as well. The declined to give women the vote. contrast with English Canada could imprisonment, madness and the guil- lotine. Women who were executed were Resolutions on women's suffrage were hardly be stronger: we have had no passed in the National Assembly, but notable feminist theoreticians in the The socialists formed rejected in the Senate. It was de Gaulle ninety years in which there has been governments in France in the who finally did the honours, and he was feminist activity here. Even with the 1930's but declined to give well rewarded for it. Evidence from greater proclivity for theory among voting polls indicates that, once en­ French Canadians the differences are women the vote. De Gaulle franchised, women did not vote the same very great. finally did the honours and was as men. If they had, the left would have Theoretical discussion in France well rewarded for it. been in power continuously from the end goes back at least to the seventeenth of World subsequently cited War II, and de Gaulle never. century, when there was considerable as examples of what Left wing political parties have failed to discussion of the nature of women and happens to women who dare to hold accept the political working-class wife as an equal the relative importance of biology and opinions. member, and have not thought it Women education in determining women's social next emerged as spiritual necessary to put her needs on their party roles. (There is even one fourteenth saviours. This was the Saint-Simon platforms. movement. They pay for this mistake by century book, Christine de Pisan's City No feminist himself, Saint- remaining out of office. Feminist of Women.) The debate became sharp in Simon in his later years devised a new socialists have been too embarrassed religion the eighteenth century. Most of the great in which feminine characteristics about these facts to do the proper 'Enlightenment' figures had something happened to be crucial. He argued that research on them, and consider the to say about the nature of women, most women's greater spirit of co-operation political implications. and self-sacrifice of it negative. Except for Condorcet and were precisely the When the women's movement Helvetius these writers would not accept qualities needed in the emerging re-emerged in the 1960's French women women as serious political or intellectual conflict-ridden industrial society. After activists had nowhere to go. The staid actors. Rousseau was one of the worst Saint-Simon's death the sect went to the bourgeois women's rights organizations logical extreme offenders, but even more liberal writers, of seeking a female were irrelevant to them. Although most like Voltaire, under-estimated women's Messiah. A search party duly set out for of the activists were far left in their abilities and contributions. (And Voltaire Constantinople, but without succeeding political views there was no home for had a major women collaborator, Emilie in the quest. Women members of the them in any leftist political party. So du Chatelet, who had taught him sect were in general badly treated. they took to the streets in massive calculus and explained Newton to him!) Concerned rather with the more practi­ numbers, where the police bashed in Prominent women writers there were, cal aspects of life they produced a their heads the same as they did men but they were not really feminists. Thus number of periodicals, all of them, demonstrators. The current President of much of the pro-feminist writing came however, short-lived. the Republic, Giscard d'Estaing, was from unknowns. The one significant Some major French theoretical astute enough to see he might make exception here is Condorcet, a respected works appeared in the nineteenth something out of the situation. With the intellectual and revolutionary leader who century. Avoiding the extremes of the narrowest margin over his leftist oppo­ wrote in favour of feminism. Curiously, Saint-Simonists, they nevertheless re­ nent. Francois Mitterand. he had nothing his work was little known and is yet to be veal a strong religious bent. This is true to lose. He appointed a secretary of state reprinted. even of the great socialist writer and for the 'feminine condition' to take By the time the French Revolution organizer, Flora Tristan. A major source charge of a reform programme. Some broke out in 1789 there had been for Clara Zetkin, and through her the very important concessions were made considerable debate about the woman whole course of German and Russian in the areas of greatest public concern: question. Women were active in the theorizing, Tristan was too religious for abortion and contraception. Numerous Revolution. Women's delegations to the Marx. Less well known, but excellent, legal inequities were also removed, but Convention were numerous, on matters work was done by Jenny d'Hericourt, in no progress was made on equal pay, both of their own rights and other issues. 1860, or work published before John Women fought in the revolutionary Stuart Mill's. Hericourt, a physician, was continued on page 39

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 35 The Central Character: An Interview film with Patricia Gruben

by Margaret Cooper Independent filmmakers need to be a tenacious breed: the constant struggle to produce their work and the simultaneous search for material self-support often result in a demanding double life. An independent active in Toronto for several years, Patricia Gruben is not atypical. Moving from commercial movies to television for employment, she has directed her independent energies toward the making of experimental film. Her most recent work, The Central Character (16 minutes, black & white), was screened in August 1978 at the Edinburgh Festival in a programme of Canadian experimental films which is currently touring Britain and the United States. Margaret Cooper: How did you first get into filmmaking? Patricia Gruben: I got a B.A. in Anthropology in 1968 and felt a strong impetus towards social documentary. I didn't want to go to graduate school in Anthropology, which was about all I was skilled for. So I decided to go to film school. It was a graduate school but also something more. I felt I didn't know how to do anything practical; I'd always been good with my hands but never developed any of those skills. I saw film school as a challenge: I didn't know anything about filmmaking, I hadn't even done much still photography at that point. So I went to a university which had a very unfocused film department. Where was that? The University of Texas. I thought I wanted to work in educational television. But once I got into it there was a small station linked with the school and saw the endless bureaucracy you faced trying Patricia Gruben to get anything done, I lost interest in educational television as well as social show. Then I moved to Toronto in the working on features. I built models on a documentary and got more interested in spring of '72. I made a short film that Hollywood film, an underwater disaster doing scripts. year. movie called The Neptune Factor. I was a There was no one else in the That was the last really independent plain production assistant then. That's a department interested in writing, so I quit production I did for several years because catchall term for somebody who's not after doing all my course work and before I was getting immersed in commercial particularly skilled. This film had a crew writing my thesis. I moved to Houston film. of 90 people. A big American production and got a job with a guy who had a small What were you doing? starring Ben Gazzara and Yvette commercial production company. I I cut negatives. That's the worst job. Mimieux. I was so excited! . . . The first worked for him for about 4 months and For me, anyway. Just a matter of doing day I spent cleaning out the fish tanks. did everything: assisted on camera, edited your math properly, making good splices, In Toronto? commercials, put together a multimedia and being quick about it. Then I started Yeah. The producers came to

36 Branching Out Canada to save money. In the film a TV-Ontario, the educational station, on a performance in St. Thomas in 1885. This submarine gets lost somewhere in the show supposed to be like an FM radio d.j. was a sensational event, and the Caribbean. Another rescue pod goes to show. We would see this guy spinning photograph that I kept seeing went find it and gets lost in this earthquake current hits. Then while the music was around the world. area where all the fish are giants. Simplest playing, we'd move in on the turning Well, I went back to St. Thomas to gimmick in the world. You get a lot of record. Or pan over the plants in the talk to some people. Not the ones who tropical fish, shoot them through background, then cut to close-ups of the remembered the event happened so aquariums, and do rear projection of guys guy's beard. My job was to acquire some long ago that no one would really fighting gargantuan eels. That's why I stock footage and slides for visual remember but people who saw it as was changing sand in fish tanks. The next accompaniment to the music. It was important. I interviewed an old man who day the producers came through and said, frustrating because the music was so had held the 50th anniversary celebration "We read your resume and want to put stupid. With a lot of schlock-o love songs, of Jumbo's death. Another guy was a sign you in the art department building what can you do? You've got to have collector with all these metal signs and models." It turned out I got the title of schlock-o stock footage to go with it. The pop bottles with Jumbo's picture on Assistant Mechanical Consultant and show ran five nights a week for two years, them. A young guy, sort of the unofficial worked with one other guy. With no so I gave up all my residual ideas of historian of the town, had all the facts. He experience I was building five and making independent films and got totally started off the film giving the factual ten-inch models of submarines we'd immersed in that programme and that background. Then others filled in their look at snapshots of small submarines the station. When the show was cut down to personal obsessions with Jumbo. But Canadian navy had which were blown one night a week, the budget got a little they all said that there was nobody left up in Panavision to 100 feet long. I was better. There were also guests who came alive who'd seen what really happened. paid one hundred bucks a week with no on for interviews. So the third year I said So they were actually transmitting a overtime to do it. You see, they'd used up that I wanted to make some films to go local legend ..... all their money. They had an art director along with the guests. They gave me a Right. The last guy interviewed was from Hollywood who was supposed to $10,000 budget to shoot film. Then, 105 years old and he said. "I saw the have built everything in California. He halfway through they took my budget whole thing. Couldn't have been more spent most of the budget doing radio away. But I did manage to do a few things than seven or eight at the time." This guy control models that were picking up that year, about seven or eight little 16mm who claimed to be the only eyewitness police cruiser radios instead of doing what told a beautiful story entirely composed they were supposed to. He also built coral of the mythology that had grown up over reefs out of urethane, which floats. So When production got behind the years. Things like, "Jumbo dies another part of the budget had to go for schedule, the producer would because he was trying to save his baby lead weights to hold all the stuff down. By the son. His baby son was on the tracks, and the time they got to Canada, there was no come in and tear pages out of the train was bearing down on him. There money left. script. When I saw the film, I was one opening to get out of, and Jumbo How do you feel about The Neptune realized he'd torn out the page pushed that baby down the embankment Factor now? which explains the giant fish. so that he'd get away. Then Jumbo turned I suppose the film rested on its and faced the train and charged it. It technical accomplishments. When pro­ drove his tusk right up in his brain. He duction got behind schedule, the pro­ films which were either relevant to the knocked that train right off the tracks and ducer would come in and tear pages out of guests or things I was interested in around fell." It was wonderful! In the end I felt the script. When I finally saw the film, I town. that although he never was there, he realized he'd torn out the page which Was this about the same time you believed he was. Because he had to have explains the giant fish. There's not one made Jumbo The Elephant: No Match for been: he was the oldest guy in town, the line of dialogue that says, "These fish are a Locomotive? only one who could carry on the myth. giants because radioactive wastes were That was probably the main thing I Getting back into independent set off." Nobody ever asks or explains it. did at TV-Ontario which made me want filmmaking has probably meant facing yet you see a man being devoured by to get back into filmmaking. One of the new problems. What are they? giant eels. Actually, I carved the man features I'd worked on a few years earlier Well. I never quite know how to myself out of a scallop. had been shot on location in St. Thomas, reconcile making a living with making A scallop? which is a few miles south of London. film. I've also had to decide what kind of Yeah. We starved the eels for a few Ontario. I was art director on the film and films I can do. When I was surviving by days, then threw this man-shaped spent a week or two before the rest of the doing props and some writing for kids' scallop into their midst. The eels went crew got there wandering around the shows. I spent a lot of time trying to get wild. They give us carnage in the water. town, trying to find what I could draw on projects together. Things that were That's the climax of the film. for the set. I kept noticing pictures of this relevant to women's interests. I was in a After Neptune Factor did you get into elephant around town: a beautiful old short-lived production company with props full-time? print of a dead elephant lying on the Sylvia Spring. Roz Michaels (who's now Yeah. I love going into an empty railroad tracks surrounded by men in Roz Schuster and writing for "Saturday studio and putting something together! bowler hats. Gradually I got the Night Live"), Alexa De Weil. and three Just the accumulation of evidence and impression that this was the biggest thing or four other women. One of our projects objects and making it look real. Of that ever happened in St. Thomas. In was a series on women in different course. I was still trying to get whatever fact, it turns out that the whole word, the countries. We were all writing proposals work I could. I was hired on a couple of concept of "jumbo" comes from this and taking things around trying to raise low-budget Canadian films to do props elephant, who was the biggest in captivity money. The series was a very ambitious and eventually art directing. One was at the time. He was bought by P.T. project and was going to cost hundreds of released; it played in town for a week and Barnum and was the star of the circus. thousands of dollars to do thirteen hours. shut down. Then I got a job with Somehow he was hit by a train after a Eventually one part did get done, the

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 37 Cuban film we intended to do as a pilot. scenes she's scrubbing floors and trying That was Buenos Dias, Companeras. to cook dinner but she's unable to Yeah. Sylvia finally got that together because of this biological entropy that's with Vivienne Leebosh in Montreal and attacking her. I mean, her system is they went to Cuba and did the film. I didn't breaking down because it's counter to the work on the film itself, only on the natural order, and once she starts to proposal. I wrote two feature film scripts question it, she loses control. and a couple of half hours/or television How did the film originate? which we tried to get going. When Global It started with an image I had when I Television started, we hit them with was still in school. I lived in a house with about twenty proposals. We were so an overgrown backyard and a flagstone idealistic and full of energy! But we didn't terrace. I lived there alone while writing know anything about marketing. It was my first script. I was going through a very really frustrating. Plus, deep down this meditative period. I used to sweep the really wasn't what I wanted to do. I put a leaves off the terrace where the stones lot of energy into it but there was were set directly into the dirt. I'd start something missing. I felt a conflict of thinking that I could never have it interest between my commitment to absolutely clean, like my kitchen floor. working with a group of women and my Your kitchen floor, you can get every own "private point of view." So I put my speck of dirt off and not let anybody walk point of view aside. We had a lot of good in and have it absolutely clean. But that ideas, things which weren't being done sense of absolute cleanliness is limited. It and I felt should be done. But my can only be temporary and confined to a approach was different from everyone small place. The whole idea of housework else's. The whole group was made up of is cyclical; it's a fight against entropy. very different people from different You clean up, it gets dirty again. I don't backgrounds, but we were all committed have an obsession with cleanliness but I to promoting a positive view of women. do have an obsession with that idea. That's Because of that, we really wanted to why the vegetation takes over avoid conflict among ourselves. in the film. At the end we see the woman That led leaving to a lot of wasted time and energy. In her space, her little human retrospect, I feel I stifled a lot of ideas sphere, completely. because they just Losing consciousness. She loses her weren't working in a ego, group situation. so she disappears into the landscape. Order disintegrates for her because it's Most of what we're exposed to not absolute. inculcates and reinforces individualism. What about the film form? You mix That means that collective work inevita­ text, still photos, and drawings with live bly requires radical readjustments. Do action footage. Yet there's a kind of you feel these were as much a problem as formal progression from beginning to the "difference in approach"? end. If politics were my first priority, I The whole film is structured in terms think I would have made any sacrifice to of different media and how "civilized" work within the group. they are. I find that print is the most What do you mean by "politics"? "human" and abstract because of the It seemed that in all our projects we symbolizing you have to go through to put were starting from a political point of something into words. The film begins view, then trying to disguise it. We'd say, with text, with print crawling up the "We have to show women in a positive light, so let's do a film about two women who are really good friends and have a I felt a conflict of interest falling out and get back together again." Then we'd try to partially disguise it by between my commitment to making the thing entertaining... I finally working with a group of women reached the point where I felt I had to and my own "private point of choose what I wanted to do, so I decided I wanted to do small films on my own. I view." still have a commitment to feminism but see it more in terms of an aesthetic. I also screen telling a story. Gradually the feel that if I work from my own narrative breaks down, just like all the experience, I'm representative enough of woman's attempts to give herself order certain middle-class North American break down. Toward the end there's no women that my concerns will be more more print. The still photographs and relevant to women than to men. drawings at the beginning of the film, Has this happened with The Central they're transitions toward the live action Character? footage. They also disappear. The latter Women do respond to it in a different part of the film is mostly live action. It's way than men. They see this woman as meant to be a sort of objective trapped by housework. In the early correlative.

38 Branching Out In other words, the form directly Here in Toronto? FRANCE expresses what's going on with the I think so. It's a story that's continued from page 35 character. reconstructed, and I want it to look a little Right. You know, I tried shooting artificial. The point is that it's an which had not been a subject of this film about two years ago with pretty unpleasant incident the woman can't demonstrations. Giscard's reforms suc­ much the same script but all live action, quite justify. She can't analyze her ceeded in getting women off the streets, where you actually see the woman in the motives for behaving the way she did. and so far they have not returned. The kitchen fixing vegetables. It was disas­ She was on her way to an obscure next move of the major feminist trous! It was partly a backlog of my archaelogical site and was picked up by a organization 'Choisir' was to run women experience in commercial film. I was man who told her he'd help her get there candidates in the legislative elections of unable to break out of it and let the form and never did. It's a voluntary kidnap­ 1978. None was elected, but planning is fit the idea. That idea was too abstract to ping. She's free to go but she doesn't, for going ahead for the elections to the be seen. I finally had to use print for the very mixed reasons. The film begins with European Parliament. A joint minimal abstraction because I realized I couldn't her being rather evasive, talking about her platform is being worked out with make people believe it was really trip. So I want it to look as if she's put women's organizations in other Euro­ happening. This sort of mental break­ together a version after it happened, not pean countries. down, it doesn't happen in real life so that as if it's happening while you're watching The Quebec movement, not surpris­ you can see it. it. ingly, shows more of the French love for analysis than the Canadian, although in Women who've been exposed to You worked with a very small crew on The Central Character. Will you be general it is closer to the Canadian than it experimental films usually don't have is to the French. Quebec publications on trouble with The Central Character. What using more people for Sifted Evidence? It's more ambitious . . . women's issues typically give more about the ones used to straight narrative? attention to theoretical perspective than The first group I showed it to was a With The Central Character there were several people who worked on it in do English Canadian. A good recent bunch of women in Caledon, Ontario. example is the Quebec Status of Women These were all women comfortable different capacities and others who did favours for me. But no one else worked on Report, Egalite et Independance. A enough not to have to work. Living in most impressive document, it offers an Caledon. they hadn't seen much, if any, it from start to finish. I'll have to have a larger crew with Sifted Evidence. I want explanation as to why and how sexist experimental film. When it was over, practices have developed, as well as nobody said anything for a while. Then a producer this time who can stay with me right along. making detailed recommendations for one woman was kind of hostile. She said, reform. The Report of the Royal "What was that supposed to be?" As if Are you planning any other films now? Commission on the Status of Women, in I'd tried to put something over on them. I its own right an important landmark, showed them another thing I'd done that The next project I want to do is about someone with brain damage, how he gave its recommendations with only the was stylistically different, a documentary. briefest factual description of the I also explained why I made The Central perceives the world. He has to put together with deductive reasoning what problems. The Quebec report, by a Character the way I did, why I had to government-appointed council, openly deal with this idea in a new way - to other people are able to simply perceive and forget about. The idea came from a calls itself feminist. It urges the make a mental state concrete. When you 'de-sexisation' of Quebec society, in­ really get into how the mind works, you lot of sources but specifically from a guy I met who'd been hit by a car and had cluding the restructuring of the most find that straight narrative drama is basic roles in the family. really just a convention that's de­ amnesia. This and Sifted Evidence are the only two I'm trying to get done now. I My own view is that the Canadian veloped. It's no more natural or realistic movement would benefit considerably than what I've done. We got into a really don't want to stockpile a bunch of pie in the sky projects. That makes each one from theoretical analysis. It is true that lively discussion. They also started devotion to theory has in other countries talking about the whole issue of the film: less important. I also like to have a lot of time with the work, making sure been associated with divisiveness, but the breakdown in rational perception. It there is no reason to think this will seemed to make complete sense to them. something looks good, then going on to the next step. happen in Canada. Surely our history of Do you think that the way they finally Do you sense a development in the organizational co-operation is strong came to see your film indicated a change way you work? enough to withstand some analysis. It is in their general expectations of all film? In film school people said I was too at least arguable that a good theoretical Well, they ended up saying, "Why ambitious, that I was trying to do perspective would help reduce the can't they do a television program where Griffith's Intolerance all the time. I think divisions that do exist. At the moment we could see more experimental film?" what I've learned from The Central the divisions focus on the relative They got excited about it! Character and even with Jumbo and importance of economic and non- Still photos and text are also my other work is to start with an idea economic issues, for example equal pay incorporated in your new project. Sifted that's almost impossible to portray and and violence against women. Yet it is the Evidence. How is that taking shape? recognize its limitations. Then make the same woman who is raped on her way It's moving along in almost the same film about the limitations. home from work who faces discrimina­ way The Central Character did. My tion on her pay cheque. A theoretical original idea was more conventional Patricia Gruben presently works as a perspective which would relate formally. The script is the story of a freelance propsmaster and art director in economic and social autonomy as woman telling about something that Toronto. The Central Characters objectives, and exploitation in the paid happened to her when she was travelling available through the Canadian and unpaid sectors of life as problems, in Mexico. In the early versions it was Filmmakers' Distribution Centre. could be very helpful. pretty straightforward. Now it's becom­ Margaret Cooper works in Media ing more like a puzzle assembly effect. Programmes at the Art Gallery of Lynn MacDonald is a sociologist and I'm going to shoot most of the film in a Ontario. She was film edit or for president of the National Action Commit­ studio. Branching Out from 1977-78. tee on the Status of Women.

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 39 books

A Balance Between Darkness and Noon The book is separated rather arbitrarily into two parts. In the first there is a continuum deriving from well-known Atwood symbols: references to the body, the immediates of eyes, ears, review by Dorothy Livesay skin, heart. Especially one is drawn to the theme of "Five Poems for Dolls." where Two-Headed Poems, by Margaret Atwood. Toronto: Oxford A doll is a witness University Press, 1978. Paper, $3.95. who cannot die, Poets do know what is happening in the world. They do with a doll you are never alone. warn. Also, they Or did we make them do affirm. I have been highly critical of the because we needed to love someone seventies poets in Canada because, with a few exceptions such as and could not love each other? Milton Acorn and Patricia Lowther, they have buried their heads in their own private agonies; or they have been flatly and boringly Even in this more personal section of the book there are autobiographical everyday diarists, dull as dishwater. significant political poems, such as "Footnote to the Amnesty Margaret Atwood has never fallen into either trap. She was Report on Torture" and "Marrying the Hangman." There's a obsessed, not by personal relationships, but by these as symbols thrust into a new mode, that of the historical documentary. The of the human condition. Her acute sense of economy in the use of poem "Four Small Elegies" is reminiscent of Atwood's power of language and her unerring gift for analogy saved her. In logic, it evocation, so memorable in The Journals of Susannah Moodie. may be risky to argue by analogy. In poetry, it is salvation. This one commemorates violence in Ontario's sordid past, at Atwood has used it as a means to search for her own identity. Beauharnois and Glengarry: Paradoxically, however, she uses it also to hide her identity and Those whose houses were burned the result is irony: often pointed and bitter. Her landscapes have burned houses. What else ever happens been solidly grey, colourless; her view of people was that of the once you start? cartoonist. Now, on looking into Two-Headed Poems I am happy to The ancient biblical theme of "The right hand knoweth not say, with D.H. Lawrence, "Look, we have come through!" In what the left hand doeth" dominates several poems. It is implied this latest collection Atwood has found a balance between in the paradox of the Siamese twins in "Two-Headed Poems." darkness and noon. There are even some wisps of warmth in This is the most political poetic statement Atwood has made her family poems; there is even some colour. In the lovely lyric regarding Canada and the U.S., Canada and Quebec. She about her daughter, "Today" she speaks of colour as an adult's explains: "danger": The heads speak sometimes singly, sometimes together, The lure of eleven birds sometimes alternatively within a poem. on water, the glitter Like all Siamese twins, they dream of separation. and true shine, how can I tell her that white, that bluegreen gold By poem "ii" we are deep into the contradictions: is treachery? Those south of us are lavish but in a later poem, "A Red Shirt" she states the opposite: with their syllables. They scatter, Children should not wear red we hoard. Birds a man once told me. eat their words. We eat Young girls should not wear red. each other's, words, hearts, what's But red is our colour by birth­ the difference? In hock right, the colour of tense joy up to our eyebrows, we're still & spilled pain that joins us polite, god knows, to the tourists. to each other. We make tea properly and hold the knife Likewise, in the last section of Five Poems for Grandmothers" the right way. we find a tenderness: The U.S. reply is equally shattering: Goodbye, mother we make too much noise, of my mother, old bone you know nothing about us, tunnel through which I came. you would like us to move away. You are sinking down into Come to our backyard, we say, your own veins, fingers friendly and envious folding back into the hand, but you don't come. day by day a slow retreat Instead you quarrel behind the disk of your face amongst yourselves, discussing which is hard and netted like an ancient plate. geneologies and the mortgage, Even if I send them, while the smoke from our tireless barbecues You will never get these letters. blackens the roses.

40 Branching Out Sylvia Luck Patlemon Without being labelled neatly "the bilingual question", language In this political poem Atwood's final coup de grace is again is the topic that most concerns Atwood in these poems: written in the oriental 3-lined verse form, so telling in its effect: We wanted to describe the snow, the snow here, at the corner This is not a debate of the house and the orchard but a duet in a language so precise with two deaf singers. and secret it was not even a code, it was snow, Others, poems in the main body of the book, are freer in their there could be no translation. verse patterning but nonetheless adroitly controlled. There are (Man pays, c'est I'hiver)! And finally, treasures here also, but of a more homespun kind. Atwood is a Your language hangs around your neck, woman at home in the universe, yet sitting in her kitchen with a noose, a heavy necklace, man, with child, with ancestors. There are always windows in each word is empire, her house, windows onto the garden where she invites herself to each word is vampire and mother. dig, in happy health. As she says herself, she is still searching for But perhaps the most memorable of these Zen sayings (written "a repertoire of untold stories, a fresh beginning." for the benefit of John Robert Columbo?) concerns the prime minister: He traps words. They shrivel in his mouth, he leaves the skins. Most leaders speak Dorothy Livesay is a founding member of the League of for themselves, then Canadian Poets and is currently working on her third book of for the people. memoirs. She lives in Winnipeg.

to accept the author's word on faith scholarship recipients are forgotten Untold Story Should have because she was an eyewitness. Even today. Stayed Untold eyewitnesses, however, must provide The footnote to this reads: solid evidence, and Hembroff-Schleicher The Glenbow-Alberta Institute declined does not. to divulge the price paid for their In her introduction to the chapter paintings. I found it elsewhere and review by Cathy Hobart "Notes on Six Emily Carr Paintings", apologize to the Institute for making it Emily Carr: The Untold Story, by Hembroff-Schleicher exposes her at­ public. Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher. titude and the approach she took in writing Saanichton: Hancock House, 1978. this book: $24.95. The "Notes" that follow found their Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher, the way into my book by sheer chance ... I The book strays so far from the feel they are too useful to discard or author's goals that serious questions author of Emily Carr: The Untold Story, stow away in a filing cabinet . . . and was a close friend of Emily Carr and, have therefore decided to reproduce must be raised about her reasons for according to the title page of the book, them here, in the full knowledge that writing it. "her only sketching partner." Interest in they may be of little general interest. I Carr is currently very high and new apologize for any repetition, (p. 257-8) information about this important woman Notwithstanding her apology the book and Canadian painter would be of remains repetitious and gives the impres­ Hembroff-Schleicher does not indicate particular interest to feminists. sion of having been randomly patched where she did find the figure, nor does Hembroff-Schleicher promises just that together. Illustrations, some drawings by she present any evidence that the price information. Inspired by "the realization Hembroff-Schleicher, and selections from was not fair market value at the time of that so many errors about (Carr) and her Carr's previously unpublished sketch­ the sale. Mere assertion, even by a friend work were in circulation", the author set books are scattered throughout the book of Emily Carr, that the sum was "paltry" out to "rescue" Emily from the with no apparent relation to the does not constitute proof of mismanage­ authorities who had "badly neglected" accompanying text. The Carr sketches ment. her. Hembroff-Schleicher asks, "Dare I, would have been far more useful had they The Vancouver Art Gallery is the a non-professional, attempt to do what been reproduced with notes on at least principal target of Hembroff-Schleicher's the Vancouver Art Gallery had failed to probable location and dates. fury. She makes several allegations of do? My qualifications were not formal, Even worse than the book's poor wrongdoing, yet her only evidence is that nor recognized." Yet she asserts that"her documentation of factual "corrections" is she was denied access to the gallery files long association with Emily, as a close the poor documentation of allegations and archives, and that therefore they friend and companion in the field and made against organizations and individ­ must be concealing something. In the studio, was a unique asset." Unfortu­ uals. In one case, Hembroff-Schleicher course of levelling her charges, the author nately, the book suffers from accuses the Emily Carr Trust of gross reveals that at one time she offered her Hembroff-Schleicher's lack of scholarly mismanagement concerning the sale of services to the gallery as a personal friend discipline. Except for a few relatively five paintings to provide funds for the of Carr's and was turned down. Since her unimportant points, such as the date of Emily Carr Scholarship Fund: evidence is so slim and she admits to Carr's baptism, most of the "corrected" In order to foster the talent of a few, the feeling slighted, I wonder if Hembroff- information is poorly documented. The paltry sum of $10,000 was accepted for Schleicher's accusations are merely an footnotes often contain anecdotes in­ the five paintings sold to Glenbow. The effort to gain revenge. stead of dates or sources. We are asked sum was minimal, and many of the Eventually the author gets down to

42 Branching Out in presenting a feminist analysis but the author must take care to avoid sacrificing her character to her critique. Sensitive and intelligent treatment must translate into credibility; symbols are sometimes useful but rarely loveable. Van Herk manages better than might be expected in a first novel to avoid preaching a gospel but her attempt to work her critique into the structure of the story is not totally successful. As a result, the effectiveness of both character and story is diminished. Judith's story is revealed in flashbacks interspersed throughout the "present", her first winter on her farm. Generally the flashbacks work well, spinning off without ceremony, as memories do, from the events which trigger them. Yet these flashbacks, and not the pigs, are the source of Judith's credibility problems. Shoreline, 1936 by Emily Carr. While memory, by nature, is frag­ mented and selective, the author building personal bickering, antagonistically ad­ Worship Thy Father? a character by means of memories has to dressing her remarks to individuals by make very deliberate and carefully-timed name. "How about it Charlie? (Charles selections. Although the reader is quickly C. Hill)". "Also, Mr. Lord, (Barry made aware that Judith's father is the Lord) review Emily did not go east in 1931." The by Gail van Varseveld driving force in her life, Judith herself, sections in which these sentences appear Judith, by Aritha van Herk. Toronto: despite constant childhood memories of leave the reader with the uncomfortable McClelland and Stewart-Bantam Li­ him, doesn't seem to recognize this until feeling that she has just inadvertently read mited, 1978. Cloth, $10.00. very late in the book. On closer someone else's hate mail. examination, one discovers that the Name-calling is "If you can explore a woman with a no substitute for the facts. passage wherein she articulates her reasonable amount of intelligence, sen­ awareness This book's big problem is that it fails sitivity and realism and if you are offering of his influence is a flashback to supply the promised authoritative an alternative, I think you are writing a she has known all along. This delayed biography of Emily Carr. The picture feminist novel." revelation diminishes her credibility as an Hembroff-Schleicher draws of Carr as a "I've described [Judith] as a feminist novel intelligent character and alienates the cheerful and well-liked woman, rather but I would qualify that and say it's not a reader's sympathy. than a socially ostracized bohemian, is radically feminist novel because I don't attractive and one that I would like to think it offers a lot of solutions to the believe. It is unfortunate that the book is situation of women now." Judith's mother seems to have had so (Aritha van Herk. interview in Branching little impact on Judith that she not sufficiently credible in other areas to Out, V:2. 1978) warrant acceptance of this new portrayal. scarcely remembers her. The book strays so far from Hembroff- While all definitions are to be treated Schleicher's stated goals that serious with great quantities of caution, the questions must be raised about her real criteria van Herk suggests offer an The memories of her city life often reasons for writing it. Is she simply trying interesting approach to feminist fiction have a somewhat unreal air, which may to discredit the accepted authorities and (realist mode) in general and Judith in suggest psychological distance, but also establish herself as a leading Emily Carr particular. undercuts rejection of that life as a motive scholar? If so, she fails at that too. Her If solutions to the problem were the force for Judith. What could be a very attempts to embarrass prominent art only criterion, Judith would hardly effective feminist critique of the exploita­ historians and institutions are weak and qualify. Judith herself shows little tive nature of such a life is considerably incredible. Her book is petty and awareness of the situation of women as a weakened as well. amateurish. whole and no concern for solutions to any A more important failing with the Emily Carr: The Untold Story turns but her own alienation. Her instincts are flashbacks is the presentation of Judith's out to be the story of Edythe Hembroff- good independence, a willingness to be mother who, unlike her father, seems to Schleicher. a woman frustrated because different, strength in the face of her own have had so little impact on Judith that she has been neglected as a source of uncertainty but her consciousness, in she scarcely remembers her. At most information on Emily Carr. It is the story the current argot, is hardly raised. Even Mother is a gesture not to be imitated, a of the author's attempts to settle old her alternative, raising pigs in rural fate farm-wife to be avoided; her grudges and get her revenge. Emily Can- Alberta, is an individual one and offers "every request was simple and familiar, is simply used as a back-drop for the real little to improve the condition repeated at paced intervals, an unvarying of women rhythm. Reliable. But her father's de­ play. This untold story need not have in general, although her personal style been told at all. mands were more complex, frightening in certainly does some consciousness- their dimension. And she knew there was Cathy Hobart is a Toronto printmaker raising in the people around her. more to it than just a simple accomplishing and a graduate of the Ontario College of Non-feminist characters need not of her task; he expected so much more, Art. prevent indeed, may be more effective her father."

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 43 Mother was too simple; no mystery, no influence their daughters. Yet, even with ten newly-bred sows and to face the attraction. It is possible that Judith's allowing for literary hyperbole, Judith is people who think her crazy for doing it. mother had so little influence on her rather obsessed with her father, and in a She still feels she "wants too much" but daughter, but it seems unlikely. Given her feminist novel, one would hope she would she wants with less guilt than she once obsession with her father, one would at out-grow such an obsession. It is not clear did. She is ready to stand and fight for her least expect more of mother as Clytem- to me that she does. In fact, Judith's own ground literally even, as in the nestra. thoughts at the emotional climax of the pub. There is something irresistable about book suggest she is growing into the the image of a woman tossing glasses of obsession: beer in the faces of a bunch of burly "That was how she could immortalize loudmouths. And this too is an important him, could worship and long and ache to aspect of feminist fiction: we need to have him take her, father and daughter in create our own mythology. their complicity, their mutual preservation of the lie, casting themselves forever on the mercy of their ideal. And so it was that Gail van Varseveld is a founding member she could love him, father/god perfect of the collective which publishes Room of always, showing her only birth and death One's Own, the Vancouver-based and never the sordid in-between, the feminist literary quarterly. She is now soiled and rumpled edges of what others living in Waterloo, Ontario. were so eager, so pleased, to show her. Within that discrepancy she came to hate him and then to idolize him, and then again full circle to her childishness, trying to please him." Despite this, there is some positive The Joy of Running growth in Judith. Her self-assurance in dealing with the pigs, then the neighbours review by Patricia E. Loverock and finally the townspeople increases rapidly until, at the end, she is able to The Complete Woman Runner, by greet the disapproving glare of the Runner's World Editors. Willowdale: Nelson, Foster and Scott Ltd., 1978. Aritha van Herk postmaster with a great belly laugh. She acquires what seems to be her first female Cloth, $14.75. These "credibility gaps" serve to friend and the warmth between the A new cult is sweeping across North accentuate Judith's relationship with her women is a genuine emotional attraction. America. The parks and pavements of father, by far the most complex and The physical labour of caring for the pigs both Canada and the U.S. are alive with problematic relationship in the novel. strengthens her body and her discovery of women, men and children, their hearts In the Branching Out interview cited her newly-hard muscles coinciding with a pulsing and their faces aglow with the joy above, van Herk describes the relation­ re-discovery of her own sensuality is a of running. Running shoe and book sales ship as "very good" in that he particularly pleasing moment in the story. are soaring. Best seller, The Complete "influences her more than anyone in her There are some less pleasing images Book of Running, by James Fixx has life." But the quality of that influence around Judith's sexuality however. Cast­ sold over 500,000 hard cover copies. The must be questioned. ration is a necessary evil if you are raising Complete Woman Runner is yet another Certainly, there was much that was pigs, but the image of the castrating publication exalting the joy of running. good in the father-daughter connection: female is laid over the developing he taught her everything that, in farm relationship with her future lover and tradition, he would have taught a son overcome only with an appropriately If you are a member of the running being groomed to take over, and he feminine response: tears. It might be cult you will devour the book like a true defended her against suggestions that he argued that Judith transcends the image disciple, finding inspiration and en­ (and she) would be better off and happier by becoming the reality but that seems to lightenment with each word. If you have were she a boy. On the other hand, when me to be stretching things. "The savage never owned so much as a pair of (God his age forced the issue, he wanted her to witch of pragmatism" she dubs herself forbid) $3.98 canvas sneakers, the book come "home" and run the farm for him, angrily, but with an undertone of will leave you questioning the sanity of and the guilt she felt in refusing was satisfaction. individuals who claim: surely not all of her own making. He In the developing affair with the Running is the most beautiful gift, and it defended her independent behaviour in neighbour's son, there are faint hints of cannot be given. All of us must give it to opposition to her mother's more conven­ romantic agony and in the end she waits ourselves, must know for ourselves what tional advice and over matters, such as for him to come to her, a process which it is. It is like love that even words, breaking off with a boyfriend, that takes sufficient time that she is almost gestures, looks can never truly express. directly concerned sexuality and role able to meet him on equal ground. Her Phew! Watch out Webster's Dictionary behaviour. sexuality is still male-determined how­ which defines running as simply, "to go Judith's father definitely influenced ever: her ex-lover's brutal, unsatisfying steadily by springing steps so that both her more strongly than anyone else in her passion is preferable to masturbation. feet leave the ground for an instant in life; indeed, it would not be an Yet taken overall, Judith is a very each step." exaggeration to say he determined her life readable portrait of a strong woman Each chapter deals with an aspect of her escape to the city and her growing stronger. Judith may not be the woman as a runner, confronting the dissatisfaction with it, her return to much of a feminist but, in the present at issue boldly and completely. "Dealing farming, her attitude to men and so on. least, she is an appealing character. Her with the Family," "Injury Prevention," While feminists have been mainly father, real and internalized, may control "Safety for Women Runners," and concerned with finding their mothers, it her life, but it still takes considerable "Coaching for Women," are just a few of cannot be forgotten that fathers also courage to face spending the winter alone the practical topics. These combine with

44 Branching Out fifty moving testimonials by American women's movement. Women such as this one lap or this one mile or ten, and women runners to make the book a Nina Kuscik and Sara Mae Herman are then proceed to do it. All of us must be compelling combination of poetry and pioneers in a field that found its routes by able to say to ourselves "I can do it," and fact. The authors admit that it is difficult women leaping out from behind bushes on doing it thrill in the joy of accomplishment. to articulate the running experience. and dressing up as men to dupe the Every major treatise on running attempts Boston Marathon officials. The first So, reader, get a move on, you are just a to deal with the subject but has difficulty official female entry in this, the "Mt. few steps away from a marvellous explaining the phenomenon. Yet every Everest" of running events, was discovery; you, the complete woman runner has experienced the good feeling Katherine Switzer. She received her runner. that running produces. number by submitting her application Like sex, running is easier to understand under the name of "K.V. Switzer," the once you have tried it. The book does organizers "never dreaming 'K' stood succeed in answering many questions for Katherine." World of the Dumbbell about the effectiveness of the female as a Wearing her hood helped preserve her runner and the mechanics of running. anonymity until the press saw her. The According to Dr. Ernst van Aaken, melee that followed will go down in review by Patricia E. Loverock "Women are biologically tougher than history. Race Director Cloney tried to Starbodies: The Women's Weight men." A woman's muscle, protoplasm, catch her but couldn't. Co-Director Jock Training Book, by Drs. Franco and Anita fatty acids, and spinal discs are well Semple tried to rip her number off and Columbu. Katherine's boyfriend went after him, sent Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and suited to endurance running; and when Semple reeling into the curb . . . Company Ltd., 1978. Paper, $7.75. Dr. van Aaken says "endurance running" Katherine Switzer finished in 4:30 (four he isn't kidding. He tells of how one Women have discovered weight- hours thirty minutes). Perhaps not a training. hundred kilometer specialist, Eva They realize strength is beauti­ winning time, but a victory nonetheless. ful, strength is efficient, Westphall is almost never injured, and strength is Today there are over five hundred there for the woman who is willing because her connective tissue gives her to women-only races in the U.S., with the venture into the "special protection from muscle tears and world of the dumbbell. ever growing Bonnie Belle Series The Columbus tendonitis." Biology aside, many readers have written a attracting over thirty thousand entrants weight-lifting programme designed specifi­ may be contemplating running 10 to the ten thousand metre event. cally for women. In doing this kilometers, but 100 kilometers, never! they make Distance running for women has moved two fairly condescending assumptions. The first is that there is a special need for a woman's weight-training programme because, unlike men, women "want to change their proportions and THEN, perhaps, increase their strength." Sec­ ond, they assume that "the main reason for women's reluctance to add weights to their exercise programs is their fear of developing bulging muscles." God for­ bid we should have bulging muscles. Condescension aside, the Starbodies programme can be challenging and effective. The exercises are clearly explained and photographed. The trainee is told exactly which muscles groups she will be firming-up when she does each exercise. The average sedentary woman is prom­ ised that if she follows the Columbu programme she will turn her flab into firm, fat free muscle. The actual text of Starbodies sometimes reads like an ad for an 1890 elixer. Flabby thighs can become firm, or even rock solid . . . Stand with your legs together. Your calves should touch, if they don't they will, after a program of photo by Peter Jamieson Columbu exercises with weights. The information on long distance training, out of the realm of the eccentric few. It all seems too good to be true. In fact, marathon world records, metabolic rates Women of all ages are lacing up their like any side show, there is more than and the psychology of competition is shoes and setting out on this very special meets the eye. simply what makes this commentary on journey. Beyond feminism, world re­ The Columbus describe their pro­ women's running complete. The reader cords, fame and glory, women are gramme with such nonchalance that the should remember that you don't have to discovering the deeper, more transcen­ trainee would feel like a fool should she run one hundred kilometers to be a dent reasons for sweating out the miles. so much as perspire while performing what are, in fact, arduous exercises. complete runner. Running . . . leaves the female runner For The chapter entitled, "History of alone with her true self. It is her years now, I've been rather self-righteous Women's Running," by Dusty Rhodes, breathlessness alone. Her pounding heart. about by ability to maintain a high level of (yes, that really is her name) shows Her tired legs, her weariness, her own fitness and a low level of flab. Although it distance running is a microcosm of the determination that tells her she will go on was the height of the fattening Christmas

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 45 season, the chapter "Getting Ready to Lift" seemed innocent enough for my shortbread stuffed body. Victorian Age "New Woman" In fifteen minutes I was to complete 24 backhand stretches, 20 standing side bends, 40 bent leg raises, 100 lying-side review by Helen Melnyk leg raises, and 30 bent-leg sit-ups. These, Kit Coleman: Queen of Hearts, by Ted and assorted other "simple exercises", Ferguson. Toronto: Doubleday Canada soon transformed me into a lifeless mass Ltd., 1978. Cloth. $12.50. on the rec room floor. As I lay recovering, I was discour­ With their banal societal pitter- aged to read that the exercises I had patter, endless meatloaf recipes and barely completed are merely to provide fashion spreads, the womens' pages have "an effective transition from a sedentary, become an anathema to feminists today. inactive life to the beginning weight- But in the late 1800's when a special training programme described in Chapter women's section was first introduced on Four." In fact, the authors suggest that a Canadian newspaper by the Toronto "if you have been following a home or Mail (now the Globe and Mail), it health club exercise programme in provided a voice for the pioneering recent weeks, skip directly to Chapter feminist of the time. The "New Four." So much for self-righteousness. Woman", as she was called, had burst Pain, too, is handled very lightly by upon the Victorian scene, rejecting the our zealous authors. concepts of ladylike gentility to smoke You will certainly be aware of stiffness cigarettes, ride bicycles in bloomers, and soreness during your first weeks of leave behind her chaperones, talk politics exercising with weights, but, instead of and demand entry into male dominated dreading the slight pain, you should professions. welcome it as a sign of revitalization. To fatten the newspaper's circula­ A person following the Starbodies tion, the Mail's managing editor hired method exactly will experience fatigue Kit Coleman, a fiery, red-headed and discomfort to the point of considering Toronto free-lance writer, to write the permanent residence in a hot whirlpool. "Woman's Kingdom" column. What he When muscles are being overtaxed they had in mind was a hodge-podge of hurt, a lot, and the trainee should be Six days a week between 2:30 and 4:30: Do recipes, fashion stories and etiquette prepared for this. twenty wrist curls then hang in your which he reasoned must appeal to even Caution should also be taken before gravity boots. feminist readers. Coleman had other following the authors' suggestion that one ideas, however. Within months she had should "never skip a workout if your body can be toned through the programme turned the column into one of the partner does not appear." When weight- except one: the heart. Unfortunately, so liveliest and most controversial pieces of training it is essential to either have a little mention is made of cardio- journalism in Canada with her views on partner or be in a facility where help is respiratory exercise to strengthen the everything from politics to the arts. She just a groan away. Once a lifter spent 10 heart muscle that the reader could easily was the forerunner of Ann Landers with hours pinned underneath a weight in his forget to tone this, the most important her column for the lovelorn which own living room until, luckily, a friend muscle of the body. On the positive side, offered a curious mixture of hard- dropped by and found him. the programme is enchanced by a chapter headed, perceptive analysis and The Columbus' weight-training pro­ on "Weight-training for Improvement in home remedies (she once gramme is highly structured and the Sports" and another dealing with "Eating advised a reader to try mice dung as a beginning lifter may find the rigidity of and Exercise". cure for baldness). She interviewed the sessions boring. Remember, the Most weight-training rooms smell everybody from Sarah Bemhardt to programme is an excellent guideline, like five day old sweat socks and sound William Randolph Hearst (who she but, it would be discouraging and even more like a steel mill then an exercise despised) and was one of the first woman dangerous for the reader to take it too area. Even in this setting the Columbu journalists to receive accreditation during literally. programme can work, provided the trainee the Spanish-American war. Impervious For example, the authors suggest that you to her appearance, she dismayed her train six days per week, weight-lift receives some expert guidance and the sessions are tailored to meet her special colleagues by the lengths to which she between 2:30 and 4:30, do 20 wrist curls, would go to get her story. complete your workout by hanging upside needs and capabilities. Strength is beautiful and attainable. Weight-lifting Kit Coleman: Queen of Hearts is an down for five minutes. Clearly, time anthology of her columns with a brief schedules, strength levels and pain may not be quite as easy as it seems in Starbodies, but to the interested woman, biographical introduction. The columns thresholds vary. To find success, the are loosely grouped by topic into Columbu programme must be adapted to it can be a new and challenging adventure. chapters, with a few paragraphs to fill in meet the trainee's special situation. historical background. Ted Ferguson Despite the fact that Starbodies, in Patricia E. Laverock is an Olympic would have produced a far more its euphoric description of the sport, athlete who retired from track and field interesting book if he had devoted less does not create a realistic picture of following the Commonwealth Games in space to her columns and instead written weight-lifting, the program can be Edmonton last summer. She is now an in-depth biography of Coleman within effective. Specific lifts deal with specific working in Vancouver and in the fall the context of the puritanical Victorian problems such as firming of the breasts, plans to study journalism at the times. Many of the articles he includes in thighs, or buttocks. Every muscle in the University of Western Ontario. the book are dated and repetitous.

46 Branching Out Coleman'spersonality and her influ­ categorize as 'cucumber sandwich' It would be possible. I suppose, to ence on feminism and journalism are of books because they call for that sort of delve into the unfortunate lot of girls greater interest and importance today snack. True Confections (or How My whose mothers believe that their most than her actual columns. Ferguson offers Family Arranged My Marriage) would important job is cooking for the family or a few tidbits about her colourful have to be categorized as a borsht- whose fathers hold to the Eastern character but these are just enough to blintze-strudel book. There are problems European maxim: "When you marry a pique the reader's curiosity. He men­ here for the eat-and-read crowd but then daughter a hump is off your back" but tions the time when Coleman, wielding a who's got Schaum Torte, Rhum Baba the book does not pretend to be a social pair of scissors, chased an elegantly and Melting Moments around the house document. It is not a tragedy, Verna attired, irate gentleman out of the to nosh on whenever they like. Not lives happily ever after with her 'picked' us manage to choose newsroom. The angry reader had not everyone has a mother like Verna's. husband and a lot of only dared to accuse her of being Verna is the heroine of True the wrong husbands without parental immoral and irresponsible but had the Confections and Verna's mother suffers guidance! You needn't have been a effrontery to demand an apology for her from what Verna's aunt Zora calls Jewish Princess from Winnipeg to read behaviour the next day. In reply. Kate Overcook: True Confections and find it pleasant. wrote that she could understand what an "Your mother circles the neighbour­ Like Fanny's cooking Enjoy! Enjoy! affront to his dignity it must have been to hood on the sly with covered to have an "irrational, angry" woman casserole dishes, and offers them Cora Taylor is an Edmonton writer. threaten his beautiful beard. "I assure anyone who'll take them off her you sir. that I had no intention of hands. She's Fanny, the Human harming your beard. I was aiming for Horn of Plenty, Fanny the Feeder." your nose, which I felt required Verna, of course, has problems other Numbers and Lives trimming, as it was so large it could not than her weight in her teens. Boys for instance: the one she likes doesn't like her, help poking into other people's affairs". review by Beverley Ross Twice widowed at 27 years of age and homely Harvey, whose graduating with two children to support, Coleman picture is entitled "Most likely to Growing Up Dead, by Brenda Rabkin. was forced to earn her living and writing succeed as Axe Murderer" in in love Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978. was ideal since it allowed her to work at with her. $7.95 paper. home. Despite her support for equal Harvey's worst defect was his face. Pregnant and Alone, by Anne Ross. opportunities for women in the work Small head big features eyes, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978. force, she still affirmed that women nose, mouth, all fought for prom­ $5.95, paper. should not strive for equality in their inence, but the outcome of the battle ' 'Adolescent suicide has increased 200% private lives and that marriage was the was delayed by a smidge of a in the last 20 years.'' greatest career a woman could aspire to. moustache that Harvey had grown Although she endorsed many of its aims, into the fray. ' 'In 1976, over 70% of single mothers kept Coleman did not throw herself whole­ There are problems with relatives too. their babies." heartedly behind the feminist movement. Uncle Lord Rex Winograd is not your The impact of these figures is brazen Her support was ambivalent. In one average rich eccentric even in Winnipeg. it shocks but it doesn't have column she wrote: "I am not a stickler And then there's Anka, the 'eminence significance. In our complex, acquisitive for women's rights but I am for women's grise' in her Uncle Miller's household. society, we are becoming immune to pluck and independence." Sondra Gotlieb is the author of two statistic. We don't think of our own lives As Ferguson concludes. Coleman's previous books: The Gourmet's Canada as numbers; consequently, we tend not writing was often overly dramatic, her and Cross Canada Cooking, so in this, to appreciate those numbers as lives. theories too simplistic and her prose her first novel, the food descriptions are Statistics supported by human histories awkward but she never bored her in the hands of an expert. Fanny's fridge are more compelling than lists of readers. This collection won't bore you is one of my favourites. Gotlieb's numbers, however lengthy. Bleeding- either, but it does leave the real story of success as a writer of humour. I think, hearts lack believability but a skillful Kit Coleman, intrepid reporter, yet to be depends in part on the reader's social observer can achieve a balance told. expectations. I firmly agree with E.B. between statistics and the stories behind them. Helen Melnyk is an Edmonton journalist. White who said that "humour can be dissected as a frog can. but the thing dies Describing both facts and faces. in the process and the innards are Rabkin and Ross have organized their discouraging to any but the pure work on adolescent suicide and un­ scientific mind." True Confections is not wanted pregnancy respectively, with a Light Nosh the funniest book you ever read and I similiarity of approach that makes would be very surprised if it wins the comparison inevitable. For the case It is not histories in Pregnant and Alone, Ross review by Cora Taytor Leacock Award for Humour. and satiric story uses "not single experiences, but a by Sondra Gotlieb. the devastatingly witty True Confections, of a Jewish Princess whose parents are combination of women and cir­ Don Mills, Ontario: Musson Book destroying her by their constant pressure cumstances." Thus, a composite woman Company, 1978. Cloth, $12.95. to marry or of her ultimate rebellion (that or girl and her story is used to introduce There have always been some books was Gail Parent's Sheila Levine is Dead the factual material in each section. that to me meant food. I suppose it and Living in New York). This is a milder Unfortunately, "My Defences Were started with the 'curling up with an apple tale. Gotlieb writes, not with Parent's Down". "I Took a Chance and Lost", by the fire' reading tradition, but it has biting satire but with a gentle humour. and "I Depended On Him, Too" read persisted so that there are writers (Ngaio The book is amusing, not hilarious. It is more like excerpts from a "true March, P.O. Wodehouse, Dorothy what it is stated to be in the title, a confessions" magazine than appropriate Sayers) whose works I blithely Confection. prefaces to the serious consideration of

Volume VI, Number 2, 1979 47 the diaphragm, the pill or rhythm as coping really better than not coping? Much of the book, then, deals with methods of birth control. (pp. 11-12) the elite few who could afford tutors and Ross juxtaposes these over- Growing Up Dead is approachable expensive boarding schools or convents. dramatized incidents with "hard­ on many levels. For professionals, it's an Even for these girls education was often hitting" facts; however, her intent is annotated digest of current thought. For provided reluctantly. Too much educa­ foiled by the choppy presentation of adolescents and their parents, Rabkin tion was feared for a variety of reasons. nothing new. Compared to Our Bodies, wrestles an understanding out of a In the sixteenth century Silvio Antonio Our Selves or the McGill Handbook On largely undocumented field. That her wrote that learning would cause women, Birth Control, the information is initial exploration of adolescent suicide who were by nature vain, to want to take sketchy: illustrations of female and male was for radio is a telling fact. Working in over the household; Giovanni Michele Rabkin has learned to genitalia are conspiculously absent, that medium, Bruto believed that allowing women to side-effects and complications of the balance the voices of intimacy and read the ancient authors would expose various methods described are seldom anonymity. them to tales of adultery and fornication adequately explained, the medical pro­ Beverley Ross works for the Edmonton sure to corrupt their already weak fession, the law, abortion and V.D. are Runaway Project and does freelance characters; in the eighteenth century Rousseau felt learning would result in tucked into thirteen thin pages entitled radio work. "Afterthoughts". women neglecting their feminine duties A reading of Pregnant and Alone and acting like men. arouses two questions. First, who is the Political factors have also had their book meant for? Few professionals influence on women's education. One of would credence the clumsy "case Clear and Cohesive Chronicle the most interesting cases of this is Nazi histories" the information is more Germany. After the first world war and the depression, the birth rate in Germany accurately available elsewhere. Few review by Mary Ann Prychoda teenagers, hungry for facts, would had greatly decreased. Because the bother to glean them from the text. Better Than Rubies: A History of creation of the "super race" was so Those in search of heart-rending truth Women's Education, by Phyllis H. Stock. important in Nazi ideology a low birth would fare better at the bookrack in the Toronto: Longman Canada Ltd., 1978. rate was seen as something of a national corner drugstore. Cloth, $14.25. crisis. The role of motherhood was glorified by the state while prejudice Although there is no mistaking Anne At last. The definitive answer to that Ross' concern for the women she against professional women was in­ obviously naive, but somehow hard-to- creased. Eventually, a quota of 10% was counsels, she expresses their plight in a handle question: "If women are as whine. Had she explored new areas of imposed on women's university entrance. intelligent and competent as men why In 1939, however, when most men were birth control research or given the reader have there been so few truly important some concrete criteria for choosing a off fighting in the war the government females throughout history?". Of course found itself having to do an embarrassing gynecologist or a hospital, had she the answer to that question lies in unequal outlined what to expect from birth about face on party policy. In order to fill opportunities, the traditional female role the gaps in business and industry caused control counselling (on the plus side, she of child-raising, and general sexual does list the offices of Planned Parent­ by the absence of men, women were repression, but until now, I at least, was encouraged to pursue careers an hood across the country), rather than embarrassingly bereft of enough cold, reworking tired material, then the book activity which only a few years before hard facts to back up my arguments. would have been scorned as "Jewish may have shouted with the potency the Phyllis Stock's history of women's topic deserves. intellectual" or "liberal-democratic Mar­ education provides the reader with a clear xist." Rabkin's case histories succeed and cohesive chronicling of women's because she allows them to talk for Throughout history situations such education, concentrating on the western as this occur where education for women themselves. Journals, letters, poems, world during the period from the recollections of friends and family the is determined, very often negatively, by Renaissance to present. In so doing she the climate of the times. This produces a book is peopled with voices, arranged reveals that the important factors relating and connected by Rabkin's script. Lack one-step-forward-two-steps-back effect to women's status in the world have little and, for centuries at a time, progress is .of an overview by experts in the field to do with ability or potential but quite a prompted Rabkin to question adoles­ almost imperceptible. Indeed, the chapter bit to do with social, economic, and on the twentieth century is titled cents and their parents herself. This field political environments not to mention study combined with extensive research "Limited Victory" and makes the point the influences of misogynistic myths that although there is little formal and her own probing, journalistic dating back to Plato and Aristotle. attitude affords Rabkin the opportunity discrimination against women, females All of these factors have combined to remain woefully under-represented in the to be upset by what she unearths while produce theories on female education maintaining her objectivity. "prestige professions." Perhaps, even which perpetuated the status quo but today we are having to continually Where Ross, the veteran social were of little benefit to intelligent, worker, bows to the inevitability of her disprove the negative benediction bes­ inquisitive girls. For the most part, towed on us by Plato, the grandfather of clients' suffering, Rabkin tries every throughout history women have been angle: philosophy, when he concluded, ". . .all educated to ensure that they were chaste, the pursuits of men are the pursuits of It is very easy to speculate on the moral wives, suitable mothers, or, as in causes of suicide among young people, women also, but in all of them a woman is the Renaissance aristocracy, "for the inferior to a man." but it is precisely this easy speculation adornment of social life." For the that makes it very difficult to build a majority of girls this meant no education case against suicide ... if we feel cut off from past or future, and the present at all until the early twentieth century. is painful at worst or meaningless at The extent of training most girls received best, then isn't suicide a reasonable was in domestic skills and came solely solution? Why should we cope? And is from their own mothers. Mary Ann Prychoda lives in Toronto.

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