Naomi Klein: The Mother of Anti-War Forces Amy Campbell: The Next WOMEN’S NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS • Fall 2004 • Vol. 18 No.2 • Canada $5.95/US $5.95 Joni Mitchell?

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Made in Canada RAGE!RAGE! RAGE!RAGE! GRANNIESGRANNIES STRIKESTRIKE AA CHORDCHORD table of contents FALL 2004 / VOLUME 18 NO. 2

Commando company graduates in India display their talent and empowerment, taking their rightful place as keepers of the peace, pg. 6. Photo: Deepa Kandaswamy

MUSICALLY CHALLENGING: WOMEN’S NEWS 26 GRANNIES STRIKE A CHORD World’s First All-woman Commando Raging Grannies have sprung up all over the world to 6-13 Unit by Deepa Kandaswamy; Sharia protest everything from nuclear arms to tuition hikes. by Rachelle Delaney Law Opposed by Muslim Women by Rachel Thompson; Nightwood Celebrates 25 Years by Jennifer O’Connor; TRAP DOOR TO THE SUBLIME Women Fishes These Days by Monica Kidd; Vienna Interview with Hiromi Goto. by Sook C. Kong Housing Built for Women by Emilie K. Adin 28 FEMINIST VIEWS ARTS & CULTURE FILMMAKER PROFILE: A NOBEL CAUSE 32 NELOFER PAZIRA 16 Shirin Ebadi was Iran’s first female judge. by Michelle French After being ousted from that job by the mullahs, she went on to seek justice for Iran’s women and the FALL FICTION world’s disenfranchised. The 2003 Nobel Peace 33 Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws ed. Zoe Whittall; Prize-winner talks to Herizons in this exclusive Cherry by Chandra Mayor; Yellow by Janni Visman; interview. by Jacqueline Massey The Singing Fire by Lillian Nattel; The Opium Lady by Joanne Soper-Cook. INDIGO GIRLS SHINE 22 North America’s favourite feminist music ISSUES AND IDEAS duo chat it up in Vancouver with our music reviewer, 37 The Trouble with Islam by Nicole Cohen; In My Cindy Filipenko. Tune into The Indigos’ sound Own Name: A Memoir by Maureen McTeer; Reading check on American politics, gay marriage and their Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi; Spree: A Cultural musical future. by Cindy Filipenko History of Shopping by Pamela Klaffke. Managing Editor: Penni Mitchell Fulfillment and Office Manager: Phil Koch Accountant: Sharon Pchajek Board of Directors: Ghislaine Alleyne, Phil Koch, Penni Mitchell, Kemlin Nembhard, Valerie Regehr Editorial Committee: Ghislaine Alleyne, Gio Guzzi, Penni Mitchell FEMINIST Advertising Sales: Penni Mitchell (204) 774-6225 41 CLASSICS Design: inkubator.ca Web Mistress: Herland by Elizabeth Perkins Gilman Rachel Thompson/BlueMuse Retail Inquiries: 905) 619-6565 Review by Stacey Kauder Disticor ( Proofreader: Phil Koch MUSIC Cover Photo: Frank Ockenfels 42 REVIEWS HERIZONS is published four times per year by HERIZONS Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. One-year subscription 40 Days, Wailin’ Jennys; price: $24.26+$1.70 GST ($25.96) in Canada. Two-year Architecture: Live at the Opera subscriptions are $39.16+$2.76 GST ($41.92) in Canada. House, Amy Campbell; Grab Subscriptions to US addresses are $29.99 Canadian funds That Gun, The Organ; Big or $25.96 in US funds. International subscriptions are $32.99. Cheques or money orders are payable to: Dream, Anne Louise Genest; HERIZONS, PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA Let it Die, Feist. R3C 2G1. Ph (204) 774-6225; Fax (204) 786-8038.

Feist, pg. 43 Subscription-related inquiries: [email protected] Editorial-related inquiries: [email protected] Website: www.herizons.ca COLUMNS HERIZONS is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. HERIZONS is available on CD-ROM through Micromedia FIRST WORD Ltd., 20 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5C 2N8. 2 BY PENNI MITCHEL GST #R131089187. ISSN 0711-7485. The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire A Ripple in the Water hope and foster a state of wellness that enriches women’s lives; to build awareness of issues as they affect women; to BODY POLITIC promote the strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to BY JUDY REBICK broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building 5 coalitions and support among other marginalized people; to Where’s the Day Care? foster peace and ecological awareness; and to expand the influence of feminist principles in the world. HERIZONS COLE’S NOTES aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse, 15 BY SUSAN G. COLE understandable and relevant to women’s daily lives. Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and The Skinny on Skinny do not necessarily reflect HERIZONS’ editorial policy. No material may be reprinted without permission. Submissions OUT OF BOUNDS and queries will be returned if accompanied by a stamped, 31 BY LISA RUNDLE self-addressed envelope. Due to limited resources, HERIZONS does not accept poetry or fiction submissions. The Grandmother Clause HERIZONS is a member of the Manitoba GLOBAL WARNING Magazine Publishers Association. HERIZONS acknowledges the financial support of the 47 BY NAOMI KLEIN Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance The Mother of Anti-War Forces Program (PAP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage toward mailing costs. ON THE EDGE Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866, PAP Registration No. 48 BY LYN COCKBURN 07944. Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected] Defending Martha (Sort of) HERIZONS FALL 2004 1 first word BY PENNI MITCHELL

A RIPPLE IN THE WATER Inspiration. When you publish a magazine whose tribal chief George W. Bush. “This is a really bad purpose is to inspire women, it shouldn’t be sur- administration and it’s causing horrible problems, prising when it does. But it is. not just in our country, but all over the world,” Emily With this issue, it started with A. Jansi, a member Saliers says. Saliers and her musical partner, Amy of the world’s first all-woman commando unit in Ray, inspire millions with their politically-charged India. Referring to her training, she said: “It was an lyrics from “Tether,” on All that We Let In: opportunity to learn things I’ve seen only in action “I kicked up the dirt and said to my neighbour, movies. Once I mastered it, the feeling was unbe- ‘We keep making it worse, we keep getting it wrong,’ lievable.” At first, I pictured a scene out of Charlie’s He tucked in his shirt, he stood a little bit straighter, Angels. But when I saw the photo, the one that He said, ‘We need a few less words dear, we need a few appears on the contents page of this issue—that was more guns.’” it. The unscripted, authentic power of the uni- What’s inspiring is that Ray’s heart remains open. The formed women left me gobsmacked. Suddenly, I song ends: wanted to go to India for my own training in “I sing to you, all you true believers, weapons, parasailing, bomb detection and hostage With the strength to see this and not be still, situations. What’s strange is that until that I am telling you now, find the hope that feeds you, moment, I had no idea I wanted to be part of an all- Don’t let ’em bleed you of your will.” woman commando unit. A dizzying thing happens when women say ‘No An article about the rise in rates of wife abuse more’—to wife abuse in the Middle East, to killing since the latest intifada is just about the last place journalists in Iran, and to war-mongering presi- you’d expect to find inspiration, but there it was dents: others are inspired by their fearlessness. again. Surrounded by violence, bombs and retalia- Naomi Klein describes it in her column on the grow- tory attacks, Israeli feminist Ada Aharoni balks at ing number of mothers of dead US and British serv- temporarily sheltering wife abuse victims—violence ice personnel who are defying their tribal leaders’ has to be stopped at the source. “I don’t see why thirst for war. abused women should hide in shelters and be pun- For Cheryl Beula, being surrounded by strong and ished twice,” she says. “Violent husbands should be capable women in the special police unit in India—a sent there.” unit whose purpose is to keep the peace—changed This same fearlessness emboldened Nobel Peace her view of the potential of all women. “It made me Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi—threats against her life realize that we are second to none.” have only steeled her radical plans for dismantling Feminist resistance is about nothing if not envi- patriarchy. “Patriarchal culture is not simply against sioning a perfect world in which women are second women,” she says. “It also doesn’t accept the princi- to none. The Raging Grannies have inspired thou- ples of democracy. This is a tribal culture that puts sands of women around the world to arm themselves one person on the pedestal to act and speak on with flowery bonnets and satirical sonnets for the behalf of all.” same dream. And each act committed without fear And not just in Iran. It’s a philosophy that’s inspires more change. As Amy Ray reminds us in the shared by the Indigo Girls, who encourage voter reg- song “Perfect World,” when we dare to not be still, istration at their concerts in an effort to oust US “We get to be a ripple in the water.”

2 FALL 2004 HERIZONS letters

RUN FOR COVER with the review. The cover on display is for space with the rights of transgendered people We enjoyed the great Strong Women Stories (another Sumach title) who live and identify as women. These are review of Out of the Ivory and not Out of the Ivory Tower. not the same thing at all. Tower in the Summer With many thanks again for your support, I do not think that men who identify and 2004 edition of Herizons. Liz Martin and Lois Pike, Sumach Press live as men should have access to women- Thank you so much for Toronto only spaces. But people who live and identify having it reviewed so as women should have access to that space. quickly. Timely reviews Editor’s Note: We extend our apologies to our sisters I am distressed that Suzanne Jay of Rape at Sumach. can make a tremendous Relief so glibly blurred the distinction difference for newly published books. between men wanting to participate in It wasn’t until after we had read the review HEAD ANALYSIS FLAWED women-only space and the rights of all types several times, however, that we noticed that The letter to the editor in the Summer 2004 of women to participate in women-only the subtitle was inaccurate.The correct title is issue of Herizons, titled “XTRA West report space.I think that does a disservice the entire Out of the Ivory Tower: Feminist Research for biased,” showed a fundamentally flawed women’s community. Social Change (not “Cultural Change”). The analysis. Marion Pollack second error is that the wrong book cover ran The letter equated the right to women-only Vancouver, BC

HERIZONS FALL 2004 3 Joanne Abbensetts Annemarie Etsell Bev Lowsley Susan Romaniuk Wendy Abendschoen Brigitte Evering /Linda Cunningham Blanche Roy Andrea Adair Davilyn Eyolfson E. Jane Luce Tziporah Russell Bev Agar Elaine Filax Catherine Macaulay Flora Russell Join the Growing List of Laurie Anderson Gloria Filax Shauna MacKinnon Joan Ryan Jan Andrews Sydney Foran Kimberley MacLean Patricia Sadowy Arlene Anisman Susan Ford Susan MacPhail Cy-Thea Sand Sustaining Subscribers! 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A. Lavoie Jillian Ridington Shelley Yeo Herizons Sustaining Subscribers Nicole Dupuis Karen LeBlanc Janet Riehm Gail Youngberg PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB Canada R3C 2G1 Bette Durst Shirley LeBrasseur Susan Riendeau Carol Zavitz Ann Dyble Anna Lenk Sandy Roberts Lisa Zigler + Tree Walsh Heather Dyment Krysia Lewy Joan Robillard Web Future Check if applicable: Do not publish my name on the Ann Eastman Judy Lightwater Dorothy Robinson- Carly Ziniuk list of Sustaining Subscribers. Wendy Elliott Ruth Lillington Priest Barbara Zuppinger Roberta Engel Vanita Lokanathan Krista Robson Kathryn Zwick body politic BY JUDY REBICK

HE SHOOTS. WE SCORE. Despite the weakness of women’s voices during the even for the economy. election, the next two years could bring the most Canada is one of the only countries in the Western important advance for women in more than a world that does not provide early childhood educa- decade: a national child care program. tion, despite women’s high rate of participation in the It’s not that I believe Paul Martin’s election prom- workforce. Study after study demonstrates that early ise to put $5 billion into child care. We’ve heard it childhood education is one of the most important before. The Liberal Red Book promised a national investments a country can make in its future. child care program, and they’ve been promising Most importantly, we now have a successful model child care ever since. But this time the political force within Canada. In less than a decade, Quebec has is with us. Every Liberal spokesperson I’ve heard transformed the provision of child care. Figures since the election, including Martin and his finance from the National Council on Welfare tell the story. minister Ralph Goodale, mention child care in the In the rest of Canada, a parent with an average wage same breath as health care and cities in their list of spends 25 percent of their income on child care. In priorities. The appointment of hockey legend Ken Quebec, it’s five percent. The figures are even more Dryden as the minister who would be responsible dramatic for low wage and minimum wage workers. for child care might seem weird, but word is that he In Quebec they spend six percent of their income on is a strong social justice advocate. But most impor- child care, and in the rest of the country between 33 tantly, the Liberals want to win over the women’s percent and 45 percent. Almost two-thirds of fami- vote and get back the advantage they have enjoyed lies in Quebec who need child care have access to among women in past elections. regulated care. In the rest of the country it’s less This is the fourth time child care has been on the than 20 percent. political front burner. The first time was in what It is critical that voices from the child care would have been Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s last election movement and the women’s movement unite in if he hadn’t taken that walk in the snow and decided calling for a Quebec-model national child care to resign. Maude Barlow, Trudeau’s advisor on program. This is a universal program that will women’s issues at the time, and Lloyd Axworthy, the benefit everyone with children. Subsidized spaces minister responsible for women’s issues, had a full will not solve the problem of the majority of women’s rights program ready for the 1984 election women who are oppressed under the double day that included a national child care program, pay and unable to find adequate and affordable care equity and employment equity. But then Trudeau for their preschool children. resigned and Turner reneged. Whatever debates are taking place today within the Brian Mulroney proposed a national child care child care movement, there must be unity in action. program with $4 billion in funding—half going to We have one more kick at the can, but if we don’t aim non-profits and half going to for-profit day care—but our efforts directly at what women need a national the women’s movement opposed the plan because it child care program could become another missed supported for-profit care with public funds. opportunity. A national child care conference in Then there was the Red Book. A lot has changed Winnipeg this November will provide a chance to since those earlier initiatives. For one thing, there is unite all the players in the child care movement a near consensus today that early childhood educa- behind a single idea: universal, accessible, quality tion is important for children, for our society and care on the Quebec-model.

HERIZONS FALL 2004 5 nelliegrams news WOMEN SCORE TWO MORE The 65 women elected to the House of Commons in the June election, repre- sent 21.1 percent of the 308 members of parliament. There were 34 female Liberal MPs elected, 14 from the Bloc Quebecois, 12 from the Conservative Party and five New Democrats. In all, there are two more female members in a bigger house—a 0.2 percent gain over the previous parliament. The NDP ranks highest at 26.3 per- cent, the Bloc Quebecois is next at

25.9 percent, the Liberals are at 25.1 Commandos Sheryl, Manimozhi, Jansi and Valarmathi are doing things they’d only seen in action movies. percent and the Conservatives trail with 12 percent female MPs. the second all-women commando compa- Several well-known women were Commandos ny graduated. The two companies are part elected or re-elected, including of the first all-woman special forces police Liberals Anne McLellan, Anita Neville Take Charge battalion comprised of over 1,000 women, (chair of the Liberal women’s cau- by Deepa Kandaswamy another first in India. cus), and status of women minister According to Kalpana Nayak, Jean Augustine. Conservative Belinda (TAMIL NADU, INDIA) In ancient India, Commandant of the Tamil Nadu Special Stronach was elected. Notable New women took part in policing and defence Police Women battalion,“Policewomen are Democrats include former leader and were reputed for their valour and equally motivated and fit, and want to be Alexa McDonough and Judy Wasylycia- commitment. on par with their male counterparts.” Leis, a key organizer in the party’s In modern India, however, women are Before the program, the ratio was 42:1 in search for female candidates. Diane not allowed in combat roles—neither with favour of men. Now, it’s 12:1 (85,000 men Bourgeois, who did likewise for the the police nor in the country’s defence and 7,000 women). Bloc, was also re-elected. forces. Confined largely to desk jobs in the In addition to opening up jobs for According to Equal Voice spokes- police force since they were allowed to join women, there are other benefits to having woman Rosemary Speirs, “Parliament in 1973, women are now taking on more women keep the peace.N.Kamini*,Deputy continues to be a male club. The powerful roles in the southernmost state of Commandant, observes that “we’ve more blame must lie with party officials at Tamil Nadu. women coming forward to report crimes.” the national and local levels, who act That state has a reputation for breaking There was a backlash, she reports, when as gatekeepers of the nomination gender barriers. Tamil Nadu saw the first male officers filed a case to prevent posting process.” female chief minister, the first all-woman qualified women officers to the anti-dowry police station, the first all-woman university cell. In the end,“we won the case.” WAL-MART GUILTY and the first all-woman special forces police The benefits for individual women also The BC Labour Relations Board found battalion. Now its all-woman police com- spell victory. Wal-Mart guilty of unfair labour prac- mando unit is the first of its kind in the world. “I joined the police much against the tices for interfering with a union drive in It all started two years ago when 50 wishes of my father,” says G. Manimozhi, the company’s Quesnel store last year. policewomen from the Tamil Nadu Special 29.“Growing up in our village, I was always The United Food and Commercial Police signed up for commando training. told what women can and cannot do. But Workers complained after Wal-Mart The request was readily accepted by the this training has given me a new level of undermined a union organizing drive state’s Chief Minister, J. Jayalalitha. Twenty- self-confidence. I know now a woman can led by a former employee. In May, the one women underwent a gruelling 14-week handle any situation.” board ordered that the decision sum- training course in 2003. Commando A. Jansi, 21, adds, “The mary be read to all Quesnel store Encouraged by their success, 120 more training was tough, but it was also an employees and awarded the union a policewomen trained and graduated in opportunity to learn new things,things I’ve half-hour meeting with all non-man- June 2003, together forming the first all- seen only in action movies.But once I mas- woman commando company.In May 2004, tered it, the feeling was unbelievable.”

6 FALL 2004 HERIZONS nelliegrams

agement Wal-Mart workers. In addition to physical training,comman- “We aren’t only more self-confident, but UFCW is in discussions with Wal-Mart dos are trained in horse-riding, driving, becoming a commando also means an employees in a number of stores in BC. swimming, parasailing, rowing and rock increase in salary, almost double that I UFCW Canada represents over 230,000 climbing. They received specialized training would earn as a regular constable, which workers in the retail industry. in handling weapons like AK-47s, bomb helps my family,” says S. Valarmathi, 28, detection and disposal, handling hostage from Melenathakulam village. VICTIMS OVERJOYED situations and martial arts. Their training Commando Sheryl Beula says, “it made When former provincial court judge included lectures on terrorism, psychology, me realize that we are second to none.” David Ramsay was sentenced this firefighting and guerrilla tactics. * In the state of Tamil Nadu, first names are typical- summer to seven years for sexually ly preceded by an initial only, which represents the Becoming a commando means a faster name of the person’s father. This is usually an abusing four girls who once appeared promotion to the rank of an officer. abbreviation of their last name. before him in court, the former vic- tims smiled and hugged each other. Ramsay pleaded guilty to five charges, including buying sex from minors, sexual assault causing bodily Muslim Women Say No to Sharia harm and breach of trust. by Rachel Thompson Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm said that giving Ramsay a The Canadian Council of Muslim Women is A 2003 study into family laws and cus- lighter sentence (the crown sought opposing to the proposed introduction of toms in Muslim communities by Women only a five-year term) would bring Sharia (Muslim family law) in Canada and Living Under Muslim Law found that laws the administration of justice into warns that Muslim women’s Charter rights vary greatly from country to country. disrepute. could be at risk. “What is assumed to be Muslim in one “Judges are the trustees of the “As C a n a d i a n Mu sl i m wom e n , we up h o l d community may be unknown, or even be administration of justice,” he said, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and considered un-Islamic, in other Muslim adding that one can hardly imagine a expect it to apply to us as fully as to any communities,”the study concluded. more “infamous” breach of trust. The other Canadian,” says Alia Hogben, the For example, in Tunisia, Sharia law has youngest victim was 12 at the time of council’s executive director. been interpreted as limiting marriage to the assaults. Some Canadian Muslim groups, such as monogamy, whereas in Pakistan the Dohm called Ramsay “utterly rep- the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice,have pro- interpretation allows polygamy if the first rehensible” for engaging in sexual posed that Sharia law be used to settle fami- wife agrees. activity with violence, then sitting in ly disputes outside the court system through “The fact that these laws are not sacro- judgment of his victims in court. arbitration committees or tribunals. sanct but are man-made is often obscured Ramsay gained notoriety after he Under the Ontario Arbitration Act, it is by those attempting to gain moral and polit- used his victims’ personal records as legally possible to use Sharia law or any ical authority from them,”the report says. part of his defence in the late 90’s— other legal system for binding arbitration. The Canadian Council of Muslim records he helped to create. The case The Act does not require legal representa- Women says it is particularly worrying that has taken more than a decade. tion for women, nor does it require that proponents of Sharia law claimed that a records be kept of the arbitration process.It good Muslim must live under Muslim fam- ARBOUR REACHES HIGH also does not specify any training criteria ily law. The organization is concerned that Former Canadian for arbitrators. this pressure could limit the voluntary Supreme Court Sharia translates as “the path leading to nature of a woman’s agreement to partici- Justice Louise Arbour water,”meaning the way Muslims are to live. pate in arbitration. is the new United There is disagreement in the worldwide Hogben adds that Canada could set a Nations High Muslim community as to whether Sharia potentially dangerous international prece- Commissioner for laws are divine laws or man-made laws. dent if Sharia law were introduced in Human Rights. Arbour served as chief “We know that Muslim law is not mono- Canada.In Ontario,former attorney general prosecutor for the International lithic, nor simple, nor applied consistently Marion Boyd was appointed to review the Criminal Tribunal for the former across the world, and so we seriously ques- Arbitration Act and its effect on vulnerable Yugoslavia and Rwanda from 1996 to tion how it will be applied here in Canada,” individuals,including Muslim women. 2000, during which time she indicted observes Hogben. More info: www.ccmw.com

HERIZONS FALL 2004 7 nelliegrams

former Yugoslav and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Women Fishes These Days It was the first indictment of a serving by Monica Kidd head of state. Arbour earned widespread recogni- tion in Canada for her work at the head of an investigation into the operation of Canada’s prisons in response to complaints by female inmates at a women’s prison in Kingston, Ontario. In her inaugural address as High Commissioner for Human Rights in July, Arbour expressed a commitment to explore case law of human rights treaty bodies. “This growing interdependence between and cross-fertilization of the Brenda Grzetic found that many fishing boats are fitted with hydraulics to make the work less back- jurisprudence of the treaty bodies, breaking. Photo: Monica Ridd regional human rights bodies and national courts in the interpretation of (ST. JOHN’S) “I’s the b’y that catches the But income doesn’t tell the whole story. human rights-related issues can only fish,And brings them home to Liza.” In order to examine the feminist political yield benefits to all,” she said. Culture is rife with representations of the ecology of fisheries restructuring, Grzetic traditional division of labour in the fishery: interviewed 16 women from the south and HANDS-ON MINISTRY Men go to sea, while their wives stay at west coasts of the island. She gently shooed home to split and salt the cod, and maybe husbands from kitchen tables in order to raise a dozen kids. ask women how the decision was made for How times have changed. If “I’s the B’y” them to be part of the crew. were written today, Liza would be in the In one tiny community of 12 homes, bow reeling in the gear, and Brenda Grzetic Grzetic learned eight men simply got might have a thing or two to say about together in a shed one night and decided whether Liza likes it there. “we better get our women on the boats.” Grzetic is the author of a new book, Then they came home to give their wives Women Fishes These Days (Fernwood the news. In other places, women initiated Photo: Michael Mayr Publishing, 2004). According to her the change. In fact, the title of the book Six Catholic women, including one research, the proportion of female fish har- comes from one woman who talked her Canadian, were ordained as Catholic vesters has been increasing since the early way into the boat by telling her husband, deacons on June 26 at a service on 1980s, when catch rates for cod began “women fishes these days, you know.” the Danube River in Passau, Germany. dropping. Today, women work on 3,100 of Women have exploded the myth that The service followed a string of ordi- the province’s inshore fishing boats and they are too physically fragile to fish. Even nations that began in 2002. comprise 20 percent of the workforce. It many of even the smallest boats (10 metres For a religious community still in makes sense: When both crew members and shorter) have been fitted with the shadows of the clergy sex abuse are from the same family, the money stays hydraulics to make the work less back- scandals, the ordinations were seen in one home.In fact,immediately following breaking. Grzetic’s research indicates many as a step toward the healing of the the cod moratorium in 1992, the annual women have come to crave fishing’s wide church, according to advocates of income of households where one person open spaces and empty horizons. female priests. fished was estimated at $17,000; where two For her Ph.D.work,Grzetic plans to follow “Women are taking steps to proac- people fished, it was $28,000. coastal migrant workers who travel to the tively create a renewed priestly min- “[Getting women into the boats] basical- mainland to get a few months’work splitting istry,” said Joy Barnes. Barnes is ly catapulted families above the poverty fish or picking apples.It’s all the sorry result, line,”says Grzetic. she says, of a mismanaged fishery.

8 FALL 2004 HERIZONS nelliegrams

executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference, a US-based Still Acting Out After 25 Years organization that promotes a more by Jennifer O’Connor equal gender balance in the church. The Canadian ordained was Michele (TORONTO) Shortly after she became Birch-Conory from Vancouver Island. artistic director of Nightwood Theatre, The other five were from the US, Canada’s oldest and largest professional France, Latvia and Switzerland. women’s theatre company, Kelly Thornton According to Ida Raming, a was asked by a reporter whether a feminist German theologian and one of the theatre company was still needed in the priests who performs the ordina- 21st century. tions, the church leadership’s offi- “Nightwood very much needs to exist,” cial ban on women priests is “based Thornton replied.“Feminism is not a dead on a grave lack of respect for the movement.” human dignity of women and their This year marks the company’s 25th sea- Christian existence.” son, which began in late August with Women’s e-news Groundswell—a festival of new work by women playwrights, directors and actors. SAFETY REWARDED The celebration continues in October,when Sonja Mills’ The Danish Play will be at the National Arts Centre. Hysteria: A Festival of Kate Hennig as Agnete Ottosen in The Danish Play, Women, a Nightwood/ Buddies in Bad marking the celebration of Nightwood Theatre's Times Theatre co-presentation, runs from 25th Anniversary. Photo: John Lauener November 4 to 13, and a new play by Lisa 13 per cent of directors and 11 per cent of Codrington, Cast Iron, runs from February artistic directors. 13 to March 15. FemCab, the annual five- Things have only improved marginally.A minute feminist cabaret, will take the stage straw poll by Toronto producer Naomi in May 2005. Campbell looked at 26 Canadian theatre Ann McLellan, front row right, with mem- Nightwood began with the September companies’ 2004-2005 seasons. She found bers at awards ceremony. 1979 production of The True Story of Ida that 21 of the artistic directors are men, A neighbourhood group that brought Johnson, based on the Sharon Riis novel. while only five are women. Of the 223 pro- together local schools and street Formed by Cynthia Grant, Kim Renders, ductions these companies will perform, prostitutes to talk about safer Mary Vingoe and Maureen White, the com- 169 (75.8 percent) were written by men; 45 streets, a project training Inuit girls pany has produced acclaimed work such as (20.2 percent) by women and nine (four to create television programs, and a Djanet Sear’s Harlem Duets and Ann-Marie percent) by collectives. With few excep- municipality that markets wife MacDonald’s Good Night Desdemona tions, most companies’ plays will also be assault prevention are among the 12 (Good Morning Juliet). Since 1983,FemCab directed by men this season. recipients of the Women’s Safety has featured work by the likes of Brigitte Thornton says that an “old boys club” Awards 2004. Winners were honoured Gall, Dionne Brand and Jackie Richardson. mentality and a generally blasé attitude in at a May event hosted by Changing Besides Groundswell, Nightwood produces society contribute to the problem. She is Together: A Center for Immigrant Write from the Hip, a playwright’s work- part of a group of 15 women, theatre pro- Women in Edmonton. shop for women 25 and under, and Busting fessionals and scholars from across the Created by Femmes et villes inter- Out, a new program for girls aged 13 to 15. country that has pledged to update the national / Women in Cities Thornton is well aware of how tough it 1982 study over the next three years. International, the awards are can be for women. The Status of Women in “Theatre is a huge tool in society,” says designed to reward good practices Canadian Theatre Report,produced by Thornton. “I think because Nightwood is and policies relating to women’s Rina Fraticelli in 1982 for the Applebaum- about feminism and women’s empowerment, safety and the improvement of Hebert Commission, looked at 1,156 pro- and focusing on our place in society, it keeps women’s sense of safety. ductions by 104 theatres over three years.It you aware that it has to be intellectually chal- For more info: found that women wrote 10 per cent of lenging, stimulating theatre. It has to shake www.femmesetvilles.org. these plays and that women made up only your mind up and change your world.”

HERIZONS FALL 2004 9

nelliegrams

AFGHAN WOMEN PLEDGE TO VOTE Intifada Linked to Surge in Battering Election workers pledged to continue by Anat Cohen to help register people to vote, despite a bomb blast on a bus that A sharp increase in wife abuse during the Project have developed a unique interven- killed two Afghan women election last three years is directly linked to the tion method that harnesses patriarchal workers on their way to Rodat to reg- Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian and customs. First, a meeting is requested with ister women to vote in the country’s Israeli wife abuse experts say. a husband. first post-Taliban election. According to Hala Al Sarraj, a psycholo- “I tell him that we understand his diffi- The United Nations temporarily gist who works with Palestinian battered cult situation and make him realize that he suspended female registration teams women at the Women Empowerment is actually a victim, too,” she says. “After from the eastern, southeastern and Project in Gaza, battering has increased by this, I try to locate a family member—it southern regions of the country. 150 percent since the latest intifada began. might be a grandfather, a cousin, or However, violence has not kept 5.5 “The last uprising was characterized by uncle—who this husband respects.We ask million of the estimated 9.5 million plenty of curfews around the this old relative to speak eligible Afghans from registering to Gaza strip. The Palestinian with the husband and stop vote. Of those who registered, 2 mil- men, who for decades were his cruelty towards the wife. lion are women. dependent on work inside This method helps and is The Afghanistan election has been Israel, found themselves sit- effective.” postponed until October due to dis- ting at home.Unemployment Education is also needed putes among officials and political climbed to 70 percent,” she to stop the cycle. “If a little parties. According to the Feminist explains. “In our tradition it boy sees his father beating Daily Newswire, Afghanistan’s Human is the man’s duty and his wives, he grows to think Rights Commission has asked NATO to Ada Aharoni has responsibility to provide for researched the connec- this is the normal course of increase its peacekeeping troops the family. Failing to do so tion between war and life,”Al Sarraj says. because the “deteriorating situation leads him to feel inferior and domestic violence. Meanwhile, Ada Aharoni, and increasing insecurity around the angry.He usually projects his an Israeli feminist researcher country over the past six months have fury downwards, mainly to his wife.” and professor who established the jeopardized the peace process and Women in Gaza have few options, she International Forum for the Literature and protection of human rights in adds. Culture of Peace, confirms the connection Afghanistan.” “The phenomenon of battered women is between war and domestic violence for quite common in Gaza.Wives are expected Israeli women. IRISH GUYS to bear their suffering quietly, to under- “The intifada doubled domestic vio- NOT SMILING stand their husband’s frustrations and lence cases against Israeli women as well,” The Council of Europe suspended the never resist him. Shelters for abused Aharoni says. “Violence is contagious. If a voting rights of the entire Irish dele- women are not acceptable in our patriar- soldier gets used to oppressing the weaker gation to a recent Parliamentary chal society,”Al Sarraj explains. “The Arab- people and bombarding an innocent popu- Assembly because Ireland’s delegates Muslim strict tradition doesn’t allow a lation, then this pattern subliminally infil- were all men. The Council had agreed married woman to sleep outside her hus- trates further towards his weaker relatives.” that each national delegation should band’s house. Western abused women can Aharoni believes Israeli men feel more include at least one woman. complain to the police. For Palestinian bat- omnipotent with their weapons. “The The Council of Europe has 45 mem- tered women, these options are out of the influx of weapons in society during the ber states. One of the delegates, Jim question. Palestinian court will never send intifada years contributed to the grave O’Keeffe, said part of the Irish prob- the violent husband to jail.” cases. In several recent incidents, hus- lem “is that we don’t really have a Divorce is not easy.“A divorced woman is bands threatened their wives with their huge surplus of women in parlia- viewed as bringing disgrace upon her fam- army weapons.” ment.” ily,”Al Sarraj says.“Arab society is paternal- Unlike many activists, Aharoni opposes The Assembly meets in Strasbourg istic, and the husband is likely to get women’s shelters. “I don’t see why abused four times a year. Ireland returned to custody of the children.” women should hide in shelters and be pun- the Council in early summer with a Despite the obstacles, Al Sarraj and her ished twice,” she says. “Violent husbands female politician in its delegation. colleagues at the Women’s Empowerment should be sent there.”

HERIZONS FALL 2004 11 nelliegrams

CHILD CARE FUELS ECONOMY According to the Child Care Coalition of Manitoba, the child care sector is worth over $101 mil- lion a year to Winnipeg alone. A new report by the coalition says the 3,200 workers in the industry represent an economic driver and service provider that fosters growth and prosperity, as well as strengthening family policy. “Every dollar invested in child care returns $1.38 to the Winnipeg econo- my and an even greater $1.43 to the Canadian economy, even before child benefits are factored in,” the report says. Child care is also a job creator: for every child care job, 2.15 other Vienna’s second housing development for women, Frauen-Werk-Stadt II, combines assisted and commu- jobs are created or sustained. Child nity-based living in old age. Photo: Emilie K. Adin care affects over 12,700 households in Winnipeg alone, allowing mothers and fathers to work or study, and to earn Vienna Women Building an estimated $715 million per year. The report was written by Susan a Better Future Prentice and Molly McCracken of the by Emilie K. Adin Child Care Coalition of Manitoba. “The study shows that child care is (VIENNA) Last summer,Vienna completed emergency call line.A variety of additional not integrated into economic devel- its second non-profit housing development services, from nursing care to hairdressing, opment activity and planning, nor for women. Frauen-Werk-Stadt II (which are also available. community and social development,” can be loosely translated as Women-Work- The project follows on the success of Prentice noted. “We can—and should— City) focuses on assisted and community- Frauen-Werk-Stadt I, which, according to do more to meet child care needs.” based living in old age. Natasha Knautz, a Canadian researcher on Interestingly, the advisory com- “We pursued this project because we women and housing, is “Europe’s biggest mittee for the report included repre- know that the share of single women is construction project geared to the needs of sentation from the Winnipeg markedly higher in old age, and the work girls and women of all ages.”Completed in Chamber of Commerce, the Royal of caring for elderly relatives is largely 1997, the original Frauen-Werk-Stadt is Bank, the Social Planning Council of done by women,” explains Eva Kail, located on 2.3 hectares and is made up of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Labour Director of the Co-ordination Office for 357 flats and large areas of public spaces.A Council and the Manitoba Institute Planning and Construction Geared to the kindergarten, a supermarket, a doctor’s of Management. Requirements of Daily Life and the office and other services and shops are also For full report: Specific Needs of Women.“This is a ques- available. Vienna’s efficient tram service www.childcaremanitoba.ca tion which will become more and more stops directly in front of the development. important in the future.” Five women designed this site. The only COMMITTEE PRESCRIBES Frauen-Werk-Stadt II also facilitates non-profit Austrian development society ANTIDOTE multi-generational living. Units accommo- headed by a woman partnered with the city Canadian health watchdog groups date families of varying sizes, and there are to make it happen. applauded a recent all-party small flats that may be adjoined.At the cen- Frauen-Werk-Stadt I continues to Commons Health Committee report tre of the complex, barrier-free housing inspire visitors from around the world. The units are connected to an around-the-clock emphasis on shared community spaces,

12 FALL 2004 HERIZONS stimulating play environments and parent with the city’s administration on a wide supervision is visible. The development variety of activities and projects, such as nelliegrams also strives to accommodate alternative park design, social housing projects, safe forms of living together in order to reduce city guidelines, public transportation plan- that recommending radical reforms to fears of crime and to encourage neighbour- ning and accessibility planning. It has also protect Canadians from pharmaceuti- hood social relations.“Overall,[the project] undertaken a public art installation known cal abuses. has had two effects,”says Kail:“to make the as the Women’s Bridge and designed by The committee recommends that work of women architects visible and to put feminist artist Valerie Export. Health Canada ensure transparency more focus on the interests of women in But these efforts may not have succeeded for clinical trials for pharmaceuticals, housing.” were it not for political leadership. Says improve post-market surveillance of The Coordination Office has involved Kail:“It was the support of three city coun- drugs and enforce an existing ban on itself in much more than housing develop- cillors—for women’s affairs, planning and direct-to-consumer advertising for ment.According to Knautz, the office works housing—that made things work.” prescription drugs. Barbara Mintzes, vice-president of DES Action Canada, notes that “Unfortunately, the legislative renew- al process currently underway at Health Canada is heading in the Sexual Abuse Reported in India opposite direction.” by Raji Rajagopalan Prime Minister Paul Martin is contin- uing on the same path. On July 15, Childhood sexual abuse sexual abuse by family members. Another Canada’s top three whistle-blowers at in India is flourishing report, by the Tata Institute of Social Health Canada—Margaret Haydon, Shiv and current laws are Sciences in 1994 and 1995 in Bombay, Chopra and Gerard Lambert—were fired. insufficient to protect its found that 58 girls out of the 150 surveyed The three were vocal opponents of victims, experts say. reported being sexually abused before age interference by pharmaceutical compa- According to a study 10—or about 40 percent. nies in the drug approval process. published by Recovery Three quarters of rape and sexual abuse and Healing from Incest cases in India are not reported. Dr. Achal FEMFEST TAKES Video The Children We (RAHI), a Delhi-based Bhagat,a leading psychiatrist in New Delhi, CENTRE STAGE Sacrifice was organization, 76 percent points out that “most abuse happens with- Winnipeg’s Festival of Women screened at UN of 1,000 women sur- in the family.With the kind of premium we Playwrights, “FemFest”, takes to the women’s festival. veyed in Delhi, Bombay, place on family life, there is a tendency to stage from October 23 to 30, 2004. Madras, Calcutta, and Goa reported being hush it up,”Bhagat says,“The family ideal is It’s headed by Hope McIntyre, sexually abused as children. virtually sacred in Indian society.” Artistic Director of Sarasvàti The Rahi Findings: Voices From The Silent In India, there is no single law that Productions. The festival highlights the Zone: Women’s Experiences of Incest And specifically deals with child abuse, and work of ten Canadian women play- Childhood Sexual Abuse reported that most there is no clear delineation of sexual abuse wrights. The plays address issues such victims do not disclose their abuse when it in the Indian Penal Code. Indian laws con- as body image, gender identity, “mean occurs. Several reasons were cited for this sider only “assault to outrage the modesty girls” and the meaning of lipstick. reticence: 23 percent simply wanted to for- of a woman,” rape by penile penetration, Playwrights include Alison McLean, get about their abuse; 14 percent feared a and “unnatural sexual intercourse” like Sara Arenson, Lise Gaboury-Diallo, loss of “honour”; 11 percent devolved the sodomy as punishable sexual crimes. Jessica Lychak, Corrina Hodgson, blame onto themselves; and another 11 per- Link to www.shaktiproductions.net/ Eufemia Fantetti, Christina Starr and cent said they didn’t have anyone to trust. isa_stats.html and http://www.umiacs. Robyn Read. Natasha MacLennan and Forty percent of the perpetrators were umd.edu/users/sawweb/sawnet/child_abu Dawn L. Ford will present independ- family members. Fifty-two percent of the se.html for more information on sexual ent productions. The program fea- women surveyed reported that they were abuse studies in India. The first site also tures workshops, presentations and abused by multiple perpetrators.The RAHI features a video, The Children We Sacrifice, speakers. study included English-speaking middle- about sexual abuse within a South Asian Further information, please contact: and upper-class women. cultural context that was screened at the Zanna Joyce, 204-775-6457 A survey of 350 school-aged girls in New Women’s Film Festival in Seoul and the [email protected] or Delhi was conducted by the Sakshi United Nations Women’s Film Festival. (The see http://www.prairie.ca/~saras- Violence Intervention Centre. It found that video is available in English, Hindi, Tamil vati/femfest2004.pdf 63 percent of those surveyed experienced and Bengali.)

HERIZONS FALL 2004 13 Subscribe on line Put Out Patriarchy. Subscribe to Herizons. for $25.96 at SEND YOUR ORDER WITH THE HANDY FORM ENCLOSED—OR SUBSCRIBE ON-LINE. www.herizons.ca cole’s notes BY SUSAN G. COLE

THE SKINNY ON SKINNY It’s a slow night for news and Mary-Kate Olsen has and put on a revealing costume that she now calls made the headlines—even in Canada. She’s booked “empowering.” herself into an institution to be treated for anorexia. The situation only got worse when Sharon Stone Olsen’s wraith-like body has been a topic of conver- took her place in front of the camera. What was her sation in my household for a while—my daughter is biggest stress in taking on the role of the villain? The her age, has grown up with the Olsen twins and she’s first thing, the very first thing she thought was, “Oh been keeping track. I suppose, as we congratulate my God, how is my body going to look beside Halle each other on knowing all the time that Olsen was in Berry’s?” trouble, I should take some solace in the fact that my Days later, there’s Stone acting sexy—which she kid can even talk about eating disorders in a con- is—and stupid—which she’s not—on the couch of The scious way. Tonight Show. She’s too thin in that way women in Yet, a part of me feels like we’re losing the battle of their 40s get when they think that being 10 pounds the body. This came through to me the other day underweight looks good on them. I did that. I was 45 while watching interviews with the stars of and shaved off 25 pounds, but nobody thought I Catwoman. There’s Halle Berry talking about how looked good. They just kept asking me if I was sick. tough it was to take on the lead role. Her biggest And then, as Stone positioned herself in full pro- stress, she said, was figuring out how she was going file, I could see her breasts—shaped like grapefruits to get into the Catwoman costume. The suit is all stuck to her chest, shaped like they were fake. leather and straps, but skimpy. Sure, it has pants, What’s a young girl to think? Be a movie star, turn but it’s backless and leaves her midriff exposed. But 40 and then start cutting up your body? Or put on a come on. Last time I looked, people were forgiving few pounds like Kirstey Alley and be hounded by the Oscar winner Adrien Brody for losing his mind in tabs for “letting yourself go”? the presence of the most beautiful woman in the This is not a new story, I know. Fat Is A Feminist world. So why is the most beautiful woman in the Issue came out over 25 years ago, and the eating dis- world worrying—in public—about whether her body orders issue has been on the table for 20 years now. meets the beauty standard? But I don’t see much evidence that we’re getting Fear not. Berry started training, got herself into anywhere. shape and when she put that cat suit on she felt, to Memo to women in their 40s—as menopause use her words, “really empowered.” I find this con- maven Susun Weed says, “The healthiest thing you fusing. It’s true that someone like Berry has the can do for your body right now is put on 10 pounds.” good fortune to be able to get into shape in luxe And to those who parent or who know teenage style. She’d have a personal trainer giving her the girls, turn them on to Shameless Magazine proper regimen and a chef making her gorgeous lit- (www.shamelessmag.com), the just-launched tle nouvelle mouthfuls so that the weight-losing Canadian magazine for young girls. It’s a terrific foil process might be relatively painless. But still, she to the other pop culture teen mags out there, and it felt bad about herself, pounded herself into shape, talks about real issues.

HERIZONS FALL 2004 15 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi is congratulated after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. AP Photo: Francois Mori A Nobel Cause SHIRIN EBADI LEADS THE CHARGE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN IRAN by Jacqueline M. Massey

hen she won the Nobel Peace Prize in Child. She continues to lecture at the University of 2003, Shirin Ebadi became the first Tehran, believing that women’s education is the key W Iranian, the 11th woman and the third to overcoming a culture that has limited their rights. Muslim to receive the honour. Ebadi had been Iran’s While Ebadi remains fierce in her condemnation first female judge, a position she lost after the 1979 of Iranian laws that are a blow against the rights Iranian Revolution when the mullahs who assumed and freedoms of women, she is equally critical of power deemed women too weak-minded for the job. other countries such as the United States. She con- Now 56, Ebadi is a civil rights activist and human tinues despite the fact that her outspokenness has rights defence attorney in a country where women’s endangered her life—Ebadi has survived two assas- legal worth is only half that of men’s. A mother of sination attempts and was imprisoned in Iran for two, Ebadi has written numerous books and found- “disturbing public opinion.” ed the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the While accepting the peace prize in Oslo last year,

16 FALL 2004 HERIZONS Ebadi said, “The discriminatory plight of women in Sherin Ebadi: Look, when an event occurs or a talk is Islamic states has its roots in the patriarchal and given, not everyone interprets it the same way. male-dominated culture prevailing in these soci- It’s very natural that various opinions may exist eties, not in Islam. This culture does not tolerate about me. I have respect for the opinions that are freedom and democracy, just as it does not believe opposite to mine. But I firmly believe that what has in the equal rights of men and women…. The liber- caused the backwardness in Iran for women is erro- ation of women … would threaten the historical and neous interpretations of Islam. traditional position of the rulers and guardians of As an example, when we protest and say, ‘Why that culture.” should men be allowed to take four wives?’ they say, Ebadi has taken on politically explosive cases, ‘Because this is the dictate of Islam.’ So the answer earning the ire of conservatives and the hatred of would have to come out from the heart of Islam. And fundamentalists in Iran. She acted on behalf of the we should prove that Islam can be interpreted in families of writers and intellectuals killed in the late another way. 1990s and she continues to demand the release of political prisoners and journalists. More recently, So how do you challenge the hard-line elements who Ebadi has taken on the case of slain photojournalist control Iran, who misuse and abuse their power, who Zahra Kazemi, who died after being taken into cus- interpret the Qur’an in such a way that sustains dis- tody in Iran in 2003. Ebadi’s high-profile involve- crimination and ensures that women are disenfran- ment in the case guarantees that the circumstances chised? surrounding the Canadian woman’s death will not Shirin Ebadi: The way we have done it before. One quietly disappear into the corridors of diplomatic would have to respond to any opinion on the basis of channels. She has vowed to take the case to “inter- reason. In order to develop a reasoning process one national systems and communities.” would have to write books and articles and speak at In this Herizons interview, Ebadi spoke in Farsi various forums. I have written 11 books in Iran and and her words were translated by Professor Ahmad published extensively. Every month I have a few Karimi-Hakkak. articles. Wherever and whenever I have an opportu- nity to speak to people, I seize it. Herizons: How has winning the Nobel Peace Prize affected your struggle for human rights in Iran? The current president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, Shirin Ebadi: It has made more work for me! More rose to his position largely because of the support of meetings, more travel. More interviews. And what women who hoped he could bring some relief to their this means is that my voice can be heard louder and plight in Iran. What do you think of his record, and do clearer and I am very happy and grateful for this. you have much confidence in his ability to advocate for women’s rights? Some of your critics, especially those living outside their Shirin Ebadi: It’s true that Khatami would never Iranian homeland, have said they were disappointed have been elected without widespread support from that you have not taken a harder line against conserva- women. Women expected much from Khatami and tive clerics and other Muslim leaders who say they are they were hopeful that he would submit various bills following the Qur’an and upholding Shari’a law in to the parliament in support of women’s rights. But espousing dictates that suppress the rights and freedoms the only thing he presented to the parliament was for of women. They question why you do not advocate the Iran to join the UN’s Convention on the Eradication separation of religion and state. What would your of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. response be to these critics, and how compatible are The Majlis [parliament] ratified this bill but the human rights with Islam? Guardian Council [a constitutional council of the

HERIZONS FALL 2004 17 upper parliament] opposed it. No. And I know because I have studied these I personally expected Mr. Khatami to present countries one by one. more bills, even though I knew that the Guardian Council would oppose them all. Yet in Canada, even though we can celebrate having a democratic country, patriarchal culture still exists. In terms of laws that discriminate against women you Shirin Ebadi: Patriarchal culture is very weak here, have said, “Islam is not the problem. It is the culture of and to the extent that it is weak democracy has patriarchy.” So how do you go about breaking through gained strength. Women’s conditions for you are that culture of patriarchy? good, at least in the law. And to the extent that Shirin Ebadi: To struggle against the patriarchal women’s condition is good in law, democracy is culture one would have to know it very well. And good in law as well. then we have to start struggling against it on the basis of education, especially at the level of women’s I have read that more and more women are being accept- education. ed into universities in Iran. Do you see this as a strong And let me add that patriarchal culture is not sim- sign in terms of educating women about the culture of ply against women. It also doesn’t accept the princi- patriarchy? ples of democracy. This is a tribal culture that puts Shirin Ebadi: Absolutely. At the beginning of the one person on the pedestal to act and speak on behalf Revolution, the maximum percentage of women in of all. Can you name one country where women’s sit- the universities was 25 percent. And what we argued uation is good but there is no democracy? in favour of feminism was protested against even by

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18 FALL 2004 HERIZONS women themselves. But I am pleased to see that, 24 law, the quality of couples’ rights, the legal relations of years later, 63 percent of our university population mother and child, punitive laws like blood money, and is female. issues resulting from unemployment. Has there been sig- Many of the things that we used to say then, and nificant progress in any of these areas? What gains have that women objected to, now women say and go been made? beyond. And I am happy to report that at this time, Shirin Ebadi: We have all of these problems. And both the elite women and the common womenfolk that’s why I say that the women’s legal situation in seem to be forming a single stance. The feminist Iran is unsuitable. And that’s why the feminist movement in Iran is very strong at this time and we movement has increased so much in strength. If the will succeed in changing the laws. women in a society felt themselves on an equal foot- A few months ago, we were able to change the cus- ing, there would be no reason for a feminist move- tody laws. It was a great victory for women. And we ment. will have victories like this in the future. What I want to emphasize is that at the beginning But that does not mean that the state, the govern- of the Revolution, when we expressed opinions like ment, is going to hand it to us on a plate. this, only a very select few women agreed with us. What I mean to say is that this feminist movement But now this agreement has spread all over the place. is so strong that we can grab it from the government. What is the most important issue that needs addressing You have called for a legal review of issues related to the at the present time? civil rights of women, including such subjects as family Shirin Ebadi: The most important thing is the

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HERIZONS FALL 2004 19 change in family laws. Because family laws embrace world have to face threats. This is the kind of life I all women, we have to change quite a few things. have chosen for myself. So what you call the hard For instance, polygamy will have to go. aspect is easy for me to bear because it has been my According to Iranian laws at the present time, a choice. When an athlete who wants to win a game man can divorce his wife at any time presenting gets up early and does what it takes, he doesn’t think no reasons at all. But a woman can file for divorce of it as hardship. on only very specific and limited grounds. We may think that athlete’s life is very difficult, Common property—the mutuality of ownership— but it’s his choice and so it’s easy for him. That’s does not exist. It has been specified in law that what my life is for me. the man is head of the household. When a woman applies for a passport she has to present her hus- You have worked tirelessly as a judge, a lawyer and a band’s consent. But a man can travel without even human rights activist. You are an author and a teacher. informing his wife. At this time in your life, what do you see as your most important role? Are you optimistic about the future of your country in Shirin Ebadi: If I were to introduce myself, I would terms of the situation concerning human rights? put all those things together and call myself an attor- Shirin Ebadi: We think one would have to be hope- ney who works for human rights. ful and optimistic all the time and for all reasons. Because the day when I cease to be hopeful and opti- Do you have a message for women everywhere who are mistic [is the day] I can’t work any longer. oppressed and burdened under the cloak of patri- archy? Because of your outspoken stand for human rights and Shirin Ebadi: My message is this—that women, at your work as a lawyer and activist, you have been forced the same time they are victims of this culture, are to withstand verbal abuse, censorship and even impris- carriers of this culture. I liken this culture to hemo- onment. Your life has been threatened, and I’m sure your philia as a disease, which women do not catch but family worries about you a great deal. What has been the carry and give to their sons. Let’s not forget that any hardest aspect of living the life you have chosen as a patriarchal man has been raised in the lap of spokesperson and activist for the oppressed? women. So women must pay particular attention to Shirin Ebadi: Activists for human rights all over the not becoming carriers of this culture.

20 FALL 2004 HERIZONS Expand Your Herizons Collection!

Fall 1999 Fall 2002 Fall 2003 Dionnne Brand—an interview Meet the editors of the third Sheila Copps talks about her with one of Canada’s best- wave anthology, Turbo Chicks; bid for the Liberal leadership; loved feminist authors; Taking Judy Rebick on the anti- The art of Mary Pratt; Homos on Aim at Toxic Tampons; Un- globalization movement’s lip the Range: Shawna Dempsey Germaine Thoughts on Greer. service to feminism. and Lorri Millan in profile.

Fall 2000 Winter 2003 Winter 2004 Why Women are On the March: Canadian comedian Elvira Kurt Flying High with Ann-Marie Naomi Klein; Judy Rebick and talks about her career as a MacDonald; Which Alternative Shelagh Day: Why Are Women So lesbian comic; Taslima Nasrin Menstrual Products are Best?; Poor (If Canada’s Such a Great on the involvement of women in Women and Depression. Place to Live?). patriarchal religion.

Winter 2001 Spring 2003 Spring 2004 Jane Siberry in Profile; Are An interview with Palestinian Margaret Atwood asks, ‘Is This Periods Passé?; All the Rage: feminist and sociology professor the Path We Want to be on?’; Blaming Hormones; Five Nahla Abdo; Janice Ristock on Feminist Book Publishing; A Dangerous Hysterectomy why lesbians batter; Makeda New Body Politic: Bellydancing; Myths. Silvera on themes of colonialism. Female Clergy Keep the Faith.

Spring 2001 Summer 2003 Summer 2004 Will Women Save the Earth? A Weighting for Equality: Dub poet Elizabeth May “How to Change Special Guide to Environmental Afua Cooper talks about black the World in Your Spare Time”; Issues and Eco-women; Satire: heroes; Weighling for Equality: Is Jane Doe asks, ‘What is a Rape The Surrendered Doormat. bodybuilding a feminist sport?; All Victim Supposed to Look Like?’; that Jazz: women strike a chord. Ann Hansen in profile.

Summer 2001 What really happened at the Quebec Summit?; The All-Girl, BACK ISSUES ORDER FORM On-Line Revolution; Interviews: Yes, I would like to stock up my resource centre, coffee table or waiting room with Back Evelyn Lau, Deb Ellis and Anita Issues of Herizons. I have enclosed $5 each (or $10 for 3) plus $2 postage and handling Rau Badami. for my order. GST included. Total enclosed . Spring 2002 Send me the following issues: Where Do We Stand? The Charter Fall 1999 Fall 2000 Winter 2001 Spring 2001 Summer 2001 of Rights Turns 20; Why We Must Spring 2002 Summer 2002 Fall 2002 Winter 2003 Spring 2003 End Colonialism; What Women are Summer 2003 Fall 2003 Winter 2004 Spring 2004 Summer 2004 saying about Restorative Justice; Women in Ancient History. Mail this form with your Name: cheque to: Summer 2002 Address: Back Issues Herizons Sarah McLachlan’s Lilith Fair; City/Town: PO Box 128,Winnipeg, MB Why Feminists Love Buffy; Did Canada R3C 2G1 Bridget Jones Really Liberate Province: Postal Code: Subscribe on line Us? for $25.96 at Add 1 year subscription to my order $25.96 www.herizons.ca Indigo Girls’ One Perfect World POLITICS, GAY MARRIAGE AND MAKING MUSIC by Cindy Filipenko

a typical muggy July afternoon in In Georgia, Saliers has been actively supporting Vancouver. Inside the Commodore Cathy Woolard, an out lesbian vying for a congres- It’s Ballroom—a relic from the ’20s sional seat. Both women agree the most important restored to its art deco splendor five years ago—the thing is getting people motivated to vote. Indigo Girls’ sound check is dragging. “I think a lot of people are apathetic and don’t vote Amy Ray, the dark-haired Indigo Girl known for because they feel they get very little real information her gravelly vocals and edgier songwriting style, is a about what’s going on,” Ray says. little frustrated as she runs through the evening’s set The Indigo Girls even offer space at their concerts list and corrects the levels for the duo’s plethora of for voter registration. Ray adds that supporting a stringed instruments. free and independent press is essential to a fair rep- When Emily Saliers, the blonde musician that resentation of issues on both sides of the border. your parents would really like, joins her on stage, “It reverberates when any country has a right- there is a high-frequency problem that’s making wing government,” says Ray. “Like the Zapatistas Saliers’ s’s sound slippery. The technician knocks used to say, ‘Take care of your own neighbourhood the tone down, but the result sounds a little muddy and it will spread throughout the world.’” for Ray’s taste. The avid politico seems surprised by the recent “Are you singing it the same way?” Ray asks Canadian federal election. Saliers. Saliers assures Ray that she is. After a couple “I didn’t realize there was any chance that a right- of alterations, Ray seems happy. By the time they wing person could get into office—Canada has always getting around to checking the acoustics on “Perfect seemed so practical,” observes Ray. She adds that World,” the sound is—well, perfect. even when Canadians are moderate, they’re often It’s been almost a year since the Indigo Girls have more progressive than their American counterparts. been on tour in support of All That We Let In, their Saliers, who has been politically and musically ninth studio project. Vancouver was the only active through the Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. Canadian gig on this leg of the tour, and Herizons was administrations, has no problem ranking the cur- lucky enough to score an interview with North rent Bush administration. America’s best known feminist sirens. “It’s the worst—with the development of Homeland Security, pre-emptive strikes, going to What makes this Atlanta-based duo engaging after war over lies told to the public, creating an environ- more than 20 years of performing is the fact that ment of fear—with very simple, childlike guides like they have remained true to the two major conven- a colour code for the alert stages,” says Saliers. And tions of folk music: producing lyrically strong that’s just for starters. acoustic music and speaking up on political issues. “There’s really deep shit going on, and it’s just so And like most politically-involved Americans, the simplified…. I think this is a really bad administra- openly lesbian Indigo Girls have definite opinions tion and it’s causing horrible problems, not just in on the upcoming US presidential election. our country, but all over the world.”

22 FALL 2004 HERIZONS Indigo Girls. Photo: Frank Ockenfels The Reagan administration was the start of a new communities,” Ray explains. She says the same low in American politics, according to Saliers. companies have an impact on different groups of “With trickle-down economics, turning a blind people for different reasons because the corpora- eye to AIDS and ignoring urban communities, they tions are so huge. had a really bad effect that has carried on…. But [the “We can build coalitions that focus on certain bat- Bush administration] is worse, indeed.” tles, instead of having to examine how each battle Ray chimes in that one of the most effective ways threatens any one group,” Ray says. “And within our of stemming the conservative tide is coalitions own groups, we have to always be aware of gender and alliances. issues, race issues and issues of class.” “A lot of the time we’re fighting the same enemies, Her point is for us to broaden our perspectives and especially as corporations become more dominant make connections with others, no matter which group in the power structure.” we belong to. For example, reproductive choice tends Ray points out that those corporations often attain to be the domain of white, middle-class women. and exercise more power than governments. And “I think choice is an important issue, but it’s not since it’s minorities—gays and lesbians, people of the only issue,” Ray says, “just like gay marriage is colour and women—who are generally hurt by these not the only issue for gays.” abuses of power, it makes sense to band together. Although the Indigo Girls have played and lob- “When we do environmental work, there are lots bied in support of gay marriage, they seem divided of coalitions around that. There are queer groups on the issue. that will get involved because they want it to be part “To me, it’s so scary that the [anti-gay marriage] of their agenda. There are people of colour who get policy is all right-wing, religious right-driven involved because there’s a PCB problem in their stuff,” Saliers says. “Church and state are getting

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24 FALL 2004 HERIZONS harder to discern from each other.” end of their contract with Epic doesn’t mean the end Saliers believes the fact that gay marriage is such a of the Indigo Girls. hot issue in the US signals a positive change. While “We will be getting back in the studio and making the battle may be long, she predicts that in the end another record, but we’re just leaving it open,” says gays and lesbians will win the right to marry. Ray. “I am personally not interested in a major-label Ray agrees it’s important, but she worries that gay deal—not even remotely.” marriage has become too much of a focal point. While Ray is committed to going the independent “I think that as a human rights issue, it’s impor- route, the label won’t be her own Daemon Records— tant, as it brings people around to thinking we all even though the label, with its roster of 30 artists—is deserve equality. I was talking to a bunch of friends, certainly large enough. and [we] were talking about how it’s important not “It wouldn’t be right. I wouldn’t want to be on it with to have all the resources funnelled into one battle Emily—it would feel like a conflict of interest,” Ray says. when there are so many other important things that “I seriously doubt that a major label would come need resources,” Ray explains. along and offer something that would make sense for She identifies high suicide rates for queer youth, us. I’m not completely closed to the idea, but in my poverty and the ongoing AIDS crisis as issues that all heart I feel that’s not going to happen,” Saliers says. need contributions of time and money. “We’re still going to be making music. As long as we Those discussions with friends, and a recent edi- have our fans and we can tour, that’s all I want to do.” tion of The Nation devoted entirely to gay marriage, The girlhood friends brim with respect for each led Ray to question the prominence of gay marriage other as songwriters, both on stage and off. When on the queer agenda. asked about which of each other’s songs they would “A lot of things are slipping through. We’re losing record on solo projects if given a chance, they both ground in places because we’re focusing so much on become quiet. this,” Ray opines. Ray breaks the thoughtful silence. For the Indigo Girls, the political truly is the per- “I think I would try to do a punk version of sonal, especially when referring to the politics of ‘Something Real’ off the new album. I really like the music. While Canadian courts have agreed that story. It’s compelling. I could hear it in the style of downloading music off the Internet is not illegal, the The Replacements’ melodic punk sound,” she says. jury’s still out on that one south of the border. “I might want to do a groove-oriented beat track “CD prices have been so high that a lot people just with ‘Chicken Man,’” Saliers says of the tune can’t afford to go out and try a lot of music. And renowned for Ray’s stream-of-consciousness rant. there’s a lot of crap out there,” Saliers says in Few musicians so inspire audiences that they sing defense of downloading. along to every song. The Indigo Girls are among the Acknowledging that a lack of sales might hurt rare acts who welcome audience participation. smaller acts, Saliers nonetheless believes that down- “It’s great. The spirit moves people to sing,” loading is getting people excited about music again. explains Saliers. “To me it’s joyful.” She doesn’t believe record companies should go “I love it,” enthuses Ray. “We get people singing after individuals. different parts. Sometimes they add a third harmo- “It’s just another way for record companies to step ny. We have good singers in our audiences.” in and control things, when they’ve been making And a lot of those good singers hail from north of mistakes all along.” the 49th parallel, something that offers the Indigo Hopefully, the Indigo Girls won’t be subjected to Girls another perspective. record company mistakes for much longer. Their “Canadian audiences are different. There’s really relationship with Epic, a Sony Music subsidiary, focused listening, but the energy afterwards is really comes to a close at the end of this year when they release a collection tentatively titled Rarities. But the continued on page 45

HERIZONS FALL 2004 25 Musically Challenging RAGING GRANNIES STRIKE A CHORD

by Rachelle Delaney

Satire trumps talent for the guerilla singers known as the Raging Grannies. They tackle everything from corrupt politicians to seniors’ sex. Photo: John MacKay, Victoria Times Colonist

chill February wind cuts through my jacket Hundreds of students gathered near the Taco Bell in as I lock my bike to an iron post on a foot- the Students Union Building and cheered as daring A bridge that arcs over the Victoria Trans- activists denounced Premier Ralph Klein’s budget Canada Highway. I check my watch: five after four. cuts. When the Raging Grannies strutted up to the They told me they’d arrive at four. I suppose even microphone, we laughed out loud. Here were a Raging Grannies can’t control rush-hour traffic. dozen elderly women in ruffled dresses and straw The bridge teems with cyclists, commuters headed hats protesting through song. home from downtown desk jobs. They glide high The Raging Grannies are one of approximately 70 above the Friday traffic mobs, above the chaos of the similar groups of women across Canada, the US and nearby Wal-Mart parking lot. Europe that are dedicated to saving the world, one Five minutes later, I spot my first Granny, in bright protest song at a time. The first Granny group red Gore-Tex and a faux fur hat. Two more trot behind formed in Victoria in 1987 to protest against with an armload of white cotton. I introduce myself, American nuclear weapons in Canadian waters. and they put me to work. Together we unfurl a five- They went on to sing about a plethora of social jus- metre-long banner that reads “Say NO to War!” tice issues and inspired others to do the same. The women strap it to the bridge with an intricate When I moved to Victoria in 2000, I found the lacing system they clearly mastered long ago. Their local Grannies even more bold and vocal than the fingers, clad in colourful wool, flit from knot to Edmonton group. They sang on the steps of the BC knot. Within moments, a chorus of car horns drifts legislature. They sang uninvited in the legislature up from below. I half expect the Raging Grannies to lobby. They sang to the judges in their court cases. launch into an anti-war protest tune, but they simply As a young and idealistic student, I was inspired by smile and wave. the Grannies’ energy. I decided to get to know these musical raging seniors. I first encountered the Raging Grannies at a 1999 tuition hike protest at the University of Alberta. Alison Acker, in her pink woolen toque and heavy

26 FALL 2004 HERIZONS red coat, is the artist behind the Switch Bridge cot- recalls. “We were dreadful.” ton protest movement. A long-time member of the Not that it matters. The Raging Grannies do not Raging Grannies, the 74-year-old is also the group’s strive for flawless performances. In fact, they official lyricist. She laughs when I call her that. resent the term “entertainers.” Call them “Did you hear that, Inger? I’m the ‘official lyri- “activists,” or better yet “guerilla singers.” They cist!’” she calls to Inger Kronseth, a Granny in gold may be tone-deaf, but the Grannies certainly strike wire frames. a chord on social justice issues, from endangered Acker is tall and thick-figured with straight pos- marmots to corrupt politicians. ture and a clear British accent that crescendos when Acker’s lyrics are revered among Grannies the she’s excited or cracking jokes. She bounces on New world over for being satirical but not preachy. Some Balance running shoes. In her spare time, she’s been Grannies, she says, write “very preachy, very bor- training less seasoned runners for a 10K road race. ing” songs telling people to pick up their litter. But At their Thursday evening meetings, the Raging the Victoria group “hates anything smelling of uplift Grannies suggest issues for Acker to and high moral stance.” write about. She spends the fol- Reputed to be the most outra- lowing week combing a rhyming geous of all Raging Grannies, dictionary for catchy and pointed Acker’s group holds no subject lyrics to replace those of well- sacred. They’ve tackled safe sex, known folk songs. childbirth for post-menopausal “They have to be simple songs,” women and declining sperm Acker explains while she smoothes counts. Acker’s personal a crease in the banner, “because favourite is a song entitled we’re all musically challenged.” I “Geriatric Sex.” To a tune I laugh, but she shakes her woolen don’t recognize, she chirps: head. “We’re not good singers. We We’re 80 and we ought to, don’t pretend to be.” No time to put things off, To prove it, she calls Kronseth over No excuses like “I’m breathless,” and instructs her to sing for me. Kronseth’s eyes “Exertion makes me cough.” widen and she shrinks down inside her purple Acker pulls her toque over her ears and stares at the anorak. Acker puts an arm around her friend’s shoul- river of cars below. “It’s hard, though,” she says, ders and agrees to sing with her. To the tune of My subdued for a moment, “to write songs about war. Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, they warble a song inspired War isn’t funny.” by BC Premier Gordon Campbell’s budget cuts: We can’t pay to fill our prescriptions. Maybe it’s the fact that Victoria has such a large We fought to get back on the bus. activist community, or maybe it’s the sheer number of We can’t get the home help we’re needing, social justice issues—war, budget cuts, environmental And the hospital’s too full for us. degradation–but these days it seems everyone wants Kronseth confides that when she first called the to be a Raging Granny. Their pop star status was con- group in ’87, she told them, “I want to join the firmed last summer with the launch of their first Raging Grannies. But I can’t sing.” book, Off Our Rockers (Heritage House Publishers, “You can’t?” they replied. “Great!” 2004), by Acker and Granny Betty Brightwell. Their original songwriter actually quit because she Clara Halber, whose faux fur hat shadows her Cuban didn’t think the Grannies were musical enough. features, spent 15 months on the waiting list before They’ve since hired instructors to harmonize their becoming part of the group. The Grannies are made voices and dancers to choreograph their moves— up of only a dozen members at a time. Since they hold with no luck. “We even tried gumboot dancing once,” Acker continued on page 45

HERIZONS FALL 2004 27 Trap Door to the Sublime HIROMI GOTO FINDS POETRY IN THE HORRIFIC, BEAUTY IN THE MUNDANE by Sook C. Kong

Hiromi Goto is the author of three novels, A Chorus of Mushrooms, The Water of Possibility and The Kappa Child. A book of short stories, Hopeful Monsters, was released last year by Arsenal Pulp Press.

Herizons: Why do you tell stories? always been fascinated by the monstrous because at Hiromi Goto: Writing puzzles out an understanding the subconscious level we can recognize it in our- that wasn’t necessarily apparent from the onset. I selves. When the conscious mind refuses to share my understanding with other people in the acknowledge and understand its own monsters and hope that it will bring a new slant to their own expe- name them as its own, great tragedies can occur. The riences. I hope to trouble and agitate the reader, as monster is also the fragile and beautiful. I’m a pro- well as to entertain and empathize with them. Part of ponent of knowing one’s own monsters. my motivation to write comes from a political place, We live in a state of horror, but we’ve grown so although that doesn’t preclude me having fun. accustomed to it that we read it as mundane or banal. In order to be able to inhabit this space we turn our Could you talk some about the genesis of Hopeful critical gaze aside. How else can we bear the AIDS Monsters? epidemic in Africa, ethnic cleansing, the ongoing Hiromi Goto: Hopeful Monsters was not conceived as murder of people for economic profit? What will we a book project. But after compiling the stories, there do when water is completely privatized? We are the were thematics, images, poetics that worked off of monsters who participate in these narratives, but we each other. Although my style and creative strategies are also capable of bringing changes to the script. continue to change with time—and I hope they do until I’ve come to the end of my writing—the things What is with the ‘father principle’ in your stories? How which interest me continue to orbit the experiences do daughters and/or daughter-sorts negotiate paternal of women, be they in the past, the present, or an authority without themselves becoming like their imagined future. fathers—even as they might themselves become more empowered, more able to exercise their capacity in the What is monstrosity to you? world out there? Hiromi Goto: We are the monsters. Humans have Hiromi Goto: Power dynamics are at the crux of

28 FALL 2004 HERIZONS every human relationship, and this struggle becomes with many sites. (Larissa Lai’s novel Salt Fish Girl is a very obvious in a family. In very broad terms, men delightful exception.) It’s a site of culture, identity, have held more power than women—legal, religious, familiarity, intimacy, repugnance, seduction, civic, political—and continue to do so. And I think hunger.... Our senses are the first filters of the phys- it’s important to note that children have less power ical world and scent is probably a more subcon- than women. scious awareness in comparison to sight, which is Because the framework of power is institutional- more actively engaged. The nuances of scent can ized and normalized, the effort to dismantle the mark a book or story with the visceral and the sym- power imbalance is always positioned as radical or bolic. I like to locate the story through the body. extreme. Many women within the system continue Scent is simultaneously corporeal and divine: to perpetuate the system even as they are fixed in a human essence. position of disempowerment. We have been taught the behaviour and are rewarded for replicating it. You have a gift for blending the everyday with the sub- The machinery is quite remarkable that way. lime. How do you do that in language? How can women and daughters negotiate their Hiromi Goto: My father has a saying: “Life... is ideas of selfhood within this institu- unknowable.” I think he’s right. The tionalized trap? One of my sisters absurd surrounds us in our daily lives commented that men don’t come off in the midst of rush hour traffic, down in a very good light in my stories. the long rows of toilet paper in Food When I shared this comment with for Less. The sublime is the moment one of my friends, she said, when we step outside the given script “Welcome to the real world.” and really see for one brief and bril- Men are privileged within the sex- liant moment. I like to take the lan- ist system and they are simultane- guage of the everyday, the details of ously trapped as well. Their script has the everyday character and take the been just as rigid—although they reap moment to the extreme, to the sur- greater rewards—and as a result, prise trap door, to the impossible. many men who embody the sexist How then does the character behave system seem, to me, to be emotional- in the moment of crisis? The drudgery ly and spiritually lost. of each day in middle-class North America is a priv- The permutations of the imbalance of power are ilege and a mind-numbing hell. There is no danger complex—we are all implicated in some way. In fic- of starving to death, nor do we experience daily fear tion, I can highlight the negative impact of not ques- for our physical well-being. But I think many people tioning the system and I can rewrite unbalanced are in a place of constant emotional and psychologi- narratives toward what I perceive as a more just cal anxiety. The challenge for me as a writer and an society. Even if the characters are ‘small’ and their individual is to find the poetry in the horrific, the power is defined within a finite sphere, they are beauty in the mundane. Then to highlight and rep- capable first, of really seeing their circumstances, resent that moment as a site of action or potential. and second, of making a self-aware choice. This is extremely hard to do. Many people are stymied at the You have a very rich relationship to language. What are first juncture. But I’m a firm believer in the accumu- some of the secrets or mysteries of language? lative power of small actions. Hiromi Goto: I do think that language is mysterious. I love words—for their meaning but also their What is scent to you? shapes, their tones, their rhythms and poetics. Hiromi Goto: The sense of smell is rarely expanded When I’m writing I’m also thinking about the sound upon as a key component in contemporary litera- ture, which is quite remarkable given its association continued on page 46

HERIZONS FALL 2004 29 WEAR YOUR POLITICS, WEAR DOWN PATRIACHY.

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30 FALL 2004 HERIZONS out of bounds BY LISA B. RUNDLE

THE GRANDMOTHER CLAUSE My paternal grandmother taught me, more than any- been reflecting on what I said. At the risk of sound- one else, about everyday racism, classism and other ing immodest (something Nana would approve of, pettiness by being the person closest to me to regu- but Mom wouldn’t), I think I was right. Whether you larly expose me to all three. As a young teen, when I love it or leave it, family is a biggy for everyone. And started to articulate—haltingly—my own thoughts for many it includes struggles that are highly politi- about the way things were and should be, I began to cal. I marvel at the bravery of youth within their come into conflict with Nana. It was a hard and con- families. You can get kicked out; you can get fucked fusing thing (wasn’t I supposed to respect her up. The risk is real. Even generally supportive fami- unconditionally?) and it usually happened around lies do hurtful things, such as endlessly criticizing the dinner table. Pass the awkwardness, please. choices: “What kind of a job can you get with a I loved lots of things about Nana, who died two women’s studies degree?” or “Your hair was so pret- years ago. She played practical jokes; she doubled ty when it was long.” Whatever your age, when you the called-for butter and sugar in nearly every speak up in a group, you risk the safety of belonging recipe; and she could tell a mean story. But she could in this scary world in order to make that world bet- also tell really mean stories. (For example, after a car ter—with no guarantee you’ll see positive results. accident, she cast cruel aspersions on the I know, I know—we figured out that the personal “coloured” nurses who cared for her in a Florida was political, like, a while ago. But just like other hospital.) Nana never truly welcomed my mother, kinds of “domestic labour,” I think it’s important to who grew up working-class, into her family—even in remind ourselves regularly about how much invisi- her last years, when my mother was her primary ble (and unpaid!) work we do to clean up society. caregiver. Nana inquired, about my first boyfriend, More than a year ago I was at a dinner party with who his “people” were—as in, whether they were the feminists ranging in age from their late 20s (me) to right kind. their 50s. Our host, who was in her early 40s with I could never fully reconcile my conflicting feel- one child and another on the way, remarked that the ings—I felt shame and guilt over the times I spoke up feminist activism she and her generation spear- and the times I didn’t. Nor could I reconcile the way headed when they were younger just didn’t seem to my growing political awareness could feel more to exist anymore. blame for family problems than the behaviour of “It’s not true,” I sputtered, upset. I felt so unseen those who were, in my opinion, truly behaving badly. among these, my allies, my chosen family. Reading I once commented in a discussion about young the situation as a straightforward intergenerational women and feminism that we shouldn’t just look to gap thing, I concluded that it was simply our host who activism on the streets for evidence of the former’s wasn’t an activist anymore, and that that didn’t mean commitment to the latter, because the family is still a she should assume young women now are apathetic. major site of struggle. Lots of unseen and unsupport- But looking back, I think there was also a failure ed political work goes on in families, I said, and the on both our parts in that moment to recognize her most difficult—and possibly most effective—political new activism—raising (now two) boys with her les- thing I’d ever done was to challenge my family. bian partner, with the cooperation and sperm of a I hadn’t given it much thought before I said that. gay couple. Changing family is as world-altering as But having just passed my 30th birthday, as I contin- any demo—and, if my experience is one to judge by, ue to spend enormous amounts of energy on main- far more complicated to organize. taining and building that thing called family, I have Lisa Rundle is senior editor at The Walrus.

HERIZONS FALL 2004 31 arts culture ARTIST PROFILE Woman With A Focus AT HER HOME IN TORONTO, AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER NELOFER PAZIRA TALKS ABOUT HER WORK AND ABOUT AFGHANISTAN, THE COUNTRY SHE FLED WITH HER FAMILY AT AGE 16. by Michelle French

ince the airing of the Gemini Award- crew skirted along the border between Pazira continued to search for her child- winning CBC documentary Return Iran and Afghanistan, filming unprofes- hood friend—a mission that remains Sto Kandahar last spring, Nelofer sional actors and incorporating real sto- unresolved today. Rather than returning Pazira has been busy—handing in her ries along the way. Released in the spring home defeated, Pazira and crew recorded master’s thesis, directing and producing of 2001, Kandahar’s docu-dramatic neo- another tragedy—the aftermath of the short documentaries for the CBC and realism pushed the boundaries between Taliban regime, coupled with ongoing dis- travelling to Afghanistan with a Swiss documentary and film, sweeping through crimination against women and a popula- documentary film crew. the festival circuit and landing Pazira an tion struggling after 22 years of war. Her acclaimed film Kandahar and the unsolicited place as poster woman for “It’s a society that’s going from one end documentary follow-up Return to Kandahar Afghan women. to the other right now and is trying to dis- have earned Pazira respect in the film and cover itself and find its own balance. journalism worlds. Her success hasn’t led That’s going to take time,”she says. to red carpet treatment, but then again, The chaos in Iraq—from detonating she never expected that it would. bombs to the political shockwaves of the “The funny thing about this business of Abu Ghraib prison scandal—has done lit- films and documentaries is that you start tle to coax journalists into covering the from zero,” Pazira says. Always battling less explosive struggles of post-war closed doors and frustration, Pazira Afghanistan.Pazira says the media’s inter- responds in the only way possible—she est in Afghanistan has been dominated by keeps knocking. “At the end of the day I images such as the shroud-like burqa and just say ‘Let’s go ahead,’ because I love to the bearded fundamentalist. Coverage of do these things.” the aftermath was then limited, as jour- It was passion and personal tragedy that nalists turned cameras to hair salons and spurred a 24-year-old Pazira to solicit defeated fundamentalists. The real story, Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Pazira explains, is less straightforward. documentary skills to record her plan to Acclaimed filmmaker Nelofer Pazira (Kandahar, “The history doesn’t start or end with cross into Afghanistan from Iran in Return to Kandahar) tells the stories of the our report—it continues,” she says. With forgotten citizens of Afghanistan. response to a letter from a childhood Canadian troops, peace-making commit- friend who was dangerously depressed ment under the International Security and living under the restrictive regime. While Pazira notes that Kandahar’s rise Assistance Force ending,Pazira says many Fearing her friend would commit suicide, to success was intimately linked to the media outlets have framed their Pazira decided to make a rescue attempt. currency of the US-led ‘war on terror,’she Afghanistan coverage in terms of the Not only did she fail to cross the border, was more than happy to thank circum- Canadian context at the expense of post- but Makhmalbaf declined Pazira’s request stance, as it gave Afghan women’s repres- Taliban development stories. to document her travels. sion a place on the international stage. “We lock ourselves into these situa- Two years later, Makhamalbaf asked Keeping it there is an ongoing challenge. tions, and then we have to make an effort Pazira to star in Kandahar,a fictionalized Return to Kandahar was made seven to break away from it,” she says. Pazira account of the same story. In her role of months after the fall of the Taliban regime notes that the desperate security situa- Nafas, Pazira illuminated the relentless and two years after Kandahar. Positioned tion, corruption in government and the repression faced by Afghans. The film behind the camera instead of in front of it, ongoing struggle by women for full politi-

32 FALL 2004 HERIZONS cal participation deserve more attention. create a way of just floating in between.” According to Pazira, the buzz factor can “This is a long struggle.” Her method of disrupting boundaries help. “When a subject becomes hot or Today, Pazira explains, the same prob- is catching on.In the last two years,at least timely, then obviously as the media pro- lem is repeating itself in Iraq. “We’re not two major independent films have also motes it the film industry catches up,”she talking about what’s happening to the used a documentary, road-trip-like style explains. “The time has come where we lives of ordinary Iraqis. We don’t even to spin telling stories of political fiction have to take a look at Afghanistan and see know the number of Iraqi civilians that about the plight of Afghans. UK director where we are.” The film industry, includ- have been killed—not in the war, but in Michael Winterbottom, best known for ing the fledging Afghan film industry, is the past year after the announcement that the docudrama 24 Hour Party People, one way to continue the conversation. major combat was over,”she says. “There released In This World in the fall of 2003. With a current CBC contract winding are a lot of issues we’re missing out on Shot on digital video using non-actors down,Pazira anticipates new project work because of the nature of what we consider and improvised dialogue, the film for her company, Kandahar Films. Two news and information.” describes two Afghan refugees’ passage to scripts beckon her. One would be a film, In contrast, Pazira’s documentary-like London in search of a better life following set in Canada, that would highlight the films and film-like documentaries probe the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. links between the Arab and Western the unquantifiable realities of Afghanistan. Siddiq Barmak’s Osama, the first all- worlds. Another project planned is a doc- She doesn’t distinguish between films and Afghan film to be released in 2003, takes umentary about the post-Taliban lives of documentaries. To her, it’s all a part of the viewers back to the height of the Taliban Afghan women. “The fear of forgetting same process of telling human stories, regime where a young girl must disguise about Afghanistan and moving on to the using plain language to describe experi- herself as a boy to work for her fatherless other place is very real,”she explains. ences and academic language to strive for family’s survival. Barmak scouted lead With Pazira’s commitment to Afghan context. “I’m kind of a silly idealist who Marina Golbahari after she approached women as strong as ever,it is clear that she likes to break all the barriers and tries to him for change on the street. will not allow us to forget. arts culture FALL READING GEEKS, MISFITS from folks who don’t fit into a world and quirky narrators. Every story is writ- AND OUTLAWS dominated by a normalcy drive. For those ten in the first person, which has a kind ed. Zoe Whittall who have been at the parties where these of numbing effect if you try to read too kinds of stories are revealed, often proud- many at one time. Geeks, Misfits and McGilligan Books, 2003 ly and loudly (like kids showing off their Outlaws is perfect before-bed reading or Review by T.L. Cowan scars), this book will be comfort food. For on-the-bus reading: the stories are just The 42 stories Zoe readers who haven’t been at these parties, long enough to give you something to Whittall has brought and for readers who consider themselves think about. together remind me fairly normal, Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws A diverse collection, Geeks includes of the stories people will be a great introduction to the world North American writers from different tell when they get of un-normal. genders, ethnicities and class back- drunk together for If you are familiar with any of the writ- grounds. This book is heading in a com- the first time. They ers this collection has to offer, you are munity direction, toward a space where are predominantly familiar with the genre of ‘Gen-X freak folks are learning to understand each “how hard life was when I was a teenag- writing.’Michael V.Smith, Michelle Tea, other and recognize some commonali- er,”“the first time I got high/drunk, or Anna Camilleri, Eileen Myles, Emily ties—something that just might make smoked, or had sex”and “when I figured Schultz, Mariko Tamaki and Sky Gilbert you feel like giving a hug to the weirdo out I was totally queer or not normal in are just a few of its purveyors. The writ- sitting next to you. some other way”stories. ing in this collection is, by and large, T.L. Cowan is a writer, spoken word artist This is a good thing.We need to hear clean and generous with vivid minutia and graduate student in Edmonton.

HERIZONS FALL 2004 33 CHERRY him. Conflicts escalate until she learns of YELLOW by Chandra Mayor her pregnancy.Only then does she con- by Janni Visman Conundrum Press, 2004 front the possibility of change. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004 Review by Bev Greenberg Mayor’s raw, visceral prose casts an Review by Jillian Ridington A work of simmering unblinking eye on the heroine’s chaotic Ye l l ow c a n b e l i g ht , intensity, Chandra life. Menacing images of violence and the colour of lemon- Mayor’s debut novel moral decay abound. One of the charac- ade and sunshine. But recounts a young ters makes bannock with drywall and yellow is also the woman’s downward “eats it anyway because he is hungry and colour of jealousy, of spiral after a relation- high.”In her apartment, the main charac- poison gas, of fear ship goes sour. Mayor ter listens to the screams of a neighbour and cowardice,“a is a Winnipeg poet being raped. In Mayor’s book, danger smouldering, unclean whose previous book, lurks everywhere, the city itself “a spring- yellow”—the colour that is a seeping, August Witch, garnered two Manitoba loaded trap … that closes its teeth dominant presence in Charlotte Perkins book awards, including the John Hirsch around you.” Gilman’s feminist classic, The Yellow Award for Most Promising Writer. Interspersed within the text are photo- Wallpaper. It’s also the tint that pervades At the outset, the unnamed female graphs, newspaper articles, letters, poems Yellow, British writer Janni Visman’s sec- character meets Tom, a charismatic skin- and lists, all of which contribute to the ond novel. head. Soon after they move in together, brittle texture of the story. Gilman presented a frightening por- she not only discovers his drug and alco- Cherry presents a compelling tale trait of a woman confined against her hol addiction, but becomes a victim of about the loss of innocence and life on will; Visman portrays a woman confined his volatile temper. Despite her intelli- the streets. It will give the reader pause to by her own phobias. Stella, the agorapho- gence, the need to become part of a consider the impact of an absence of love bic protagonist/narrator of Yellow,is group overrides her inclination to leave on the trajectories of teenagers’ lives. afraid of the world outside, afraid of

34 FALL 2004 HERIZONS revealing herself, of knowing others too to nine-year-old Emilia Rosenberg, “Any thinking person should deeply.She is meticulous, controlled and daughter of a Jewish notary, who is grow- be outraged by the issue controlling.Her first statement is:“In my ing up in relative prosperity in Russia. The raised by Ms. Demerson.” ideal life I am arranged alphabetically.And novel moves back and forth between the – David Suzuki I am never infected with nostalgia.”She is two stories which eventually intertwine. also—it would seem—paranoid.Or is she? Nattel writes vivid prose. Her descrip- Is Stella imagining plotting and betrayal all tion of the cold, mucky streets of London, around her, or can she really not trust her dimly lit by gaslight, where people throw lover, her sister, even her cat? pots of slop and other unmentionable We never find out what brought Stella refuse onto the rooftops and into the to this place in her life, nor do we come streets, is captivating in its realism. She to understand the reasons for her self- conjures the bleak, harsh lives of girls limited existence.Yet we come to sympa- forced into prostitution as convincingly thize, and perhaps empathize with as she illustrates cramped backroom her—even while finding her obsession sweatshops, crowded ghetto streets and with her lover, and her willingness to the long, narrow, smoke-filled pubs that obey him in matters sexual and other- smell of beer and sausage, where women wise, dangerous and offensive. stand at the bar letting their babies suck If Yellow does not have the shock value gin-soaked fingers while men drink of its predecessor, it may be because we warm draught and play darts. are more inured to all forms of violence The Singing Fire has a few structural A powerful and distutbing than were Gilman’s first readers in flaws.There are too many happy coinci- memoir of a white woman’s 1892—or her second wave of readers in dences that are not well set up, and the incarceration in 1930s Toronto. the 1970s.Visman makes us confront our early sections bounce back and forth Her “crime”— loving a self-imposed limitations—the “prisons between the two stories too frequently. Chinese man. we choose to live inside.” Nevertheless, Nattel digs deeply into impor- Jillian Ridington is a writer, researcher and tant themes and reveals the bleak despera- “The memoir of a defiant editor who lives on Galiano Island, BC. tion of poverty, women’s dependence on woman in a moving account men for their very survival at the turn of that could only have been a THE SINGING FIRE the last century,and the incredible healing woman’s life story. Historians by Lillian Nattel power of hope.The Singing Fire takes its interested in recovering the Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2004 readers back to a simpler time, and it does experiences of people without Review by Karen X. Tulchinsky so with integrity and charm. access to formal avenues of The Singing Fire Karen X. Tulchinsky’s latest novel, The Five power typically search in vain for brings to life the story Books of Moses Lapinsky, is set in Toronto the sort of material presented in in the 1930s. of two women and this book—an insider’s look at the child who unites THE OPIUM LADY the regulation and punishment them. The year is of working-class women who by Joanne Soper-Cook 1875. The place is strayed from the moral scripts of Goose Lane Editions, 2003 London. Seventeen- gender and race.” year-old Nehama Review by Kerry Ryan – Carolyn Strange, author of Korzen, a runaway from a tiny Jewish vil- With the click of a Toronto's Girl Problem: The lage in Poland, is tricked by a man who shutter, a camera cap- Perils and Pleasures of the City, claims to represent the Newcomers’ tures a split second of 1880-1930 Assistance Committee, but who is in fact reality, recording just in the business of supplying young one instant from a Paper $19.95 • 0-88920-444-6 • Life Writing series female immigrants to an East End life. But as much as Wilfrid Laurier University Press London pimp. The morning after her can be gathered from w arrival, Nehama is beaten and forced into a a grainy photographic Toll-free 866-836-5551 • Fax: 519-725-1399 life of prostitution.We are then introduced print, a story remains to be told. Look [email protected] • www.wlupress.wlu.ca

HERIZONS FALL 2004 35 through a friend’s photo album and you mation is crucial to the narrator’s own and begs for all three, for this collection discover that each image is just a jump- viewpoint as well—she has come upon is about re-evaluating what we have, ask- ing-off point for a tale of adventure. the photos following her own personal ing ourselves why people, objects, hopes In Joanne Soper-Cook’s The Opium journeys (both physical and emotional), dreams and memories slip through our Lady, a collection of linked very short first of not knowing, and then of coming hands, why we take things for granted. It stories, a photo provides the starting to terms with the truth. is about lists we write in hopes of holding point for each narrative. The photos date Although each of the stories can stand on to or making sense of what might be. back to the first half of the last century, alone, it is the narrator’s perspective and It is about dealing with the inexplicable, and the backdrop for the stories includes knowledge that enriches the collection and exclamatory voids that hit us all. two small towns. But we wouldn’t under- holds it together.And as she tells the stories Hunter’s prose is sparse, cold and stand the intricate connections between of others, she gradually reveals her own. sometimes indifferent, but incredibly the photos and the characters they depict By the last photo—of the narrator her- descriptive. She has a way of playing with if it weren’t for the narrator who steers us self—we have been allowed to discover point of view that is sometimes uncom- through the collection. bits and pieces of her history, much as fortable, yet always appropriate. The Many of the stories are snapshots of she has come upon the photos and lives novella, which bears the same title as the women’s daily lives—women who leave she describes. book, is told entirely in the second per- and who have been left; women who Kerry Ryan is a Winnipeg writer and a son—a strange voice to adopt, given that make do and women who exploit others; regular contributor to Herizons. the “you”is a single pregnant woman women who challenge stereotypes and named Emma. But it is effective in that those who live in the shadows. Each of Emma, who’d rather not deal with the the stories, like each of the characters, WHAT’S LEFT US by Aislinn Hunter ramifications of her life, manages to has its own personality—funny, tragic, implicate us all in her tense relationship poignant, haunting—and Soper-Cook is Raincoast, 2002 Review by Karolle Wall with her single mother, her ongoing affair a fine storyteller. with Adam (the father of her child), and What’s Left Us.The But as much as the narrator can tell us, her endless list of limited options. title of Aislinn she doesn’t know it all.A man’s arm may Like the rest of the stories in the book, Hunter’s collection of be hidden behind his back or may have there are images that are impossible to short stories and a been amputated.A piece of cloth in a shake.Hunter writes as though she holds woman’s hand may or may not be a novella comes with- a camera—one minute she is zooming in handkerchief; her companion may be a out a question mark, on Adam softly sponging Emma’s back; sister or a friend.We discover that this an exclamation mark, the next she is comparing the warmth of combination of details and gaps of infor- or a colon. It aches Emma’s curves and pregnant belly to the coldness of Adam’s relationship with his wife—his forced need to “push his lips into the slits between the buttonholes”of her maternity clothes in order to get close.Adam is the perfect father to be: doting, loving, he fixes and cleans, brings take-out, picks up the mail. Every day “he stays for an hour.”But when he walks out the door to return to his family,“he makes sure he leaves nothing behind.” The ache and hurt Emma feels can’t help but become your own. As pitiful as Hunter’s characters seem, they are all too much like us. Some leave behind what’s left them. Others leave. Still others build upon and use the act of leav- ing as a kind of intangible object, a new step, a pivotal point of arrival. Karolle Wall teaches at the Emily Carr Institute of Art, Design and Media.

36 FALL 2004 HERIZONS arts culture ISSUES & IDEAS

THE TROUBLE organization. Even the most critical mind WITH ISLAM can be influenced by a pre-set itinerary by Irshad Manji that controls what gets seen and heard. Random House Canada, 2003 Her prescription for reform is sketchy. Though she argues change will come Review by Nicole Cohen though ijtihad, she suggests that “God- D OING IT Even if you haven’t conscious, female-fuelled capitalism”will WOMEN WORKING IN read The Trouble With liberate Muslim women. Since when did INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Islam, you’ve heard of capitalism encourage critical thinking? Irshad Manji, the lib- Manji has much faith in the United by Krista Scott-Dixon eral Muslim reformer States’ ability to reform the Arab world, Women fill a wide variety of who wants to over- and even nods to the World Bank, whose Information Technology occupa- tions, yet continue to face barri- haul Islam. loans and adjustment programs, in fact, The former ers. An invigorating critique have done little to elevate the status of from the front lines. Herizons columnist and TV Ontario host women around the world. $26.95 paper 264 pgs spent years trying to reconcile her femi- Still, while her analysis may rub criti- nism and lesbianism with her religion. cal readers the wrong way, Manji raises SUMACH PRESS Yet instead of abandoning Islam, she an important voice for women’s rights [email protected] confronts it head-on. Her book addresses in Islam. www.sumachpress.com the contradictions, anti-Semitism and Nicole Cohen is a Toronto writer and totalitarianism she argues plague main- activist. stream Islam. Manji challenges Muslims to dissent and debate, and solicits a RED THREADS: return of the Islamic tradition of ijtihad, or critical thinking. THE SOUTH ASIAN The cause is a noble one. Questioning QUEER CONNECTION unbending fundamentalism is a useful IN PHOTOGRAPHS exercise for followers of any religion. by Poulomi Desai and And Manji makes important criticisms Parminder Sekhon of the way women are treated in many Diva Books (London), 2003 Arab countries. Review by Mridula Nath Chakraborty But as she picks apart Islam’s nasty If you’ve followed bits, she fails to expand her critical lens. young British novel- She glosses over the larger historical pat- ists, you’ve heard of tern of exploitation and colonialism that Monica Ali’s smash- has given rise to Islamic fundamental- ing debut novel, Brick ism, and brushes off the anti-Muslim Lane.But you’ve backlash that surged—even in Canada— probably never seen the startling snap- after September 11, 2001. shot of another side of Brick Lane— Manji speaks lovingly of Israel, which unless you happened to pick up Red she praises for its pluralism, tolerance Threads. and vigorous debate. But again, she over- Standing on the 500-year-old historic looks Israeli policy and treatment of street are two men, one dressed in a Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. black gallebiya, the other naked except It’s no surprise, as Manji’s lone visit to for a white prayer cap, posing in studied Israel (including a brief stopover in the seriousness. This is the ‘other’ side of West Bank) was sponsored by a Zionist British diversity that Poulomi Desai and

HERIZONS FALL 2004 37 Parminder Sekhon set out to capture in “Authenticity Is Such A Drag!” planned a trip to Europe before entering their stunning collaborative project I have too many favourites from this law school. through the lens of the camera. Raman section to mention, but check out the At this point her career went off Mundair’s preface charts the contexts and poignant “Untitled 1999,”pensive “Guru track. For several months she had herstories of a South Asian Queer cartog- Dutt 1997”and playful “She Looks Just worked as a constituency assistant to raphy that sets the tone for this amazing Like Her Father 1998”for a sampling. Joe Clark, a 33-year-old politician from cloth-bound coffee-table book. Brought to you by Millivres Prowler Alberta.At 21 she married Clark, and Desai’s selection is deliberately Group, in celebration of 10 years of Diva: suddenly all her assets—her intelli- provocative (if somewhat derivative of For the Lesbian in You. gence, courage and independence of Robert Mapplethorpe) and systematically Mridula Nath Chakraborty is addicted to mind—became liabilities. takes it upon itself to prop up and tumble books and procrastinates on her graduate McTeer began the difficult path down every stereotype of South school work in Edmonton by writing towards a law degree and a Master’s in Asianness in a manner that is reflective reviews. law from Dalhousie University, where she of her own non-self-definition:“she won’t was allowed no flexibility to accommo- fit herself into a box, she does not call IN MY OWN NAME: date her pregnancy, her childbirth, or her herself black, she does not call herself a A MEMOIR duties as the spouse of the leader of the woman, she does not call herself Asian, opposition. Requests for rescheduled by Maureen McTeer she does not call herself lesbian.”Thus, exams were met with refusal, and usually Random House Canada, 2003 her photographs are not titled. But they accompanied by advice that she quit. nevertheless provide a key to usurping Review by Joan Givner If her law career was skewed by her the power of identity. Maureen McTeer was role as political wife, the reverse was also Sekhon’s pieces are more radical and in many ways ahead true. The furor surrounding her decision showcase unexpected poses within famil- of her time. She to keep her name upon marriage was just iar surroundings, thereby claiming them determined to go to one of McTeer’s many struggles to main- as sites of legitimation and belonging. university, although tain an independent identity.If she Her wedding photos of an “Arranged and her family was unable became an authority on a subject, such as Approved” gay desi couple, flanked by to provide financial the treatment of rape victims, she was their dressed-to-the-hilt mothers, are support, and to study criticized for upstaging her husband. She even more canon-breaking than her law, although law schools did not admit went on to write three books, to mount series on clothed/unclothed duos. many women in the early 1970s. She won (and lose) her own campaign for Sekhon’s gender-fucking subjects really a scholarship to the University of Ottawa, Parliament, and to gain a national profile bring alive Sabina Sawhney’s slogan, and after her undergraduate degree as an expert on new reproductive tech- nologies. At 50, many of McTeer’s groundbreak- ing ideas are now widely accepted: women routinely keep their name, A calendar become lawyers, run for office and, as supporting spouses of politicians, maintain inde- women’s health pendent careers. The ideal gift for An oddly discordant note in the book your breast friend. Fine Art · 12x12" · 28 pages is her attitude toward weddings.“Some say that even the homeliest woman is To order: www.breastofcanada.com radiant on her wedding day, and there is Phone: 519-767-0142 no doubt that most brides look very spe- Fax: 519-824-9289 cial,”she gushes.A description of her $19.95 ($13.00 US) daughter’s wedding day forms the intro- plus applicable taxes & shipping duction to the memoir, and in the penul- Absolutely timate chapter it is presented as a guaranteed culminating event in her life.Wedding inspire to pictures dominate the photograph sec- conversation tion. It is somewhat surprising that a Independently published by Art Jam woman who was so adversely affected by

38 FALL 2004 HERIZONS the expectations of traditional gender story is not the rape of a 12-year-old by a roles should so uncritically embrace the dirty old man, but the confiscation of one THE AHMADIS convention of marriage. individual’s life by another,”the author Community, Gender, and Politics writes. The atrocities confronting her stu- in a Muslim Society READING LOLITA dents bore some shocking similarities to Antonio Gualtieri those faced by this fictitious girl, and the “This book is original, intriguing, and IN TEHRAN illuminating. Gualtieri's strength lies in by Azar Nafisi book opened up powerful conversations the freshness of his description of con- Random House 2003 in her reading group. temporary Ahmadi life. He succeeds in communicating his appreciation of the Review by Noreen Shanahan Eventually,“they were all but one arrest- ed, tortured and jailed,”Nafisi writes. Ahmadi as a people enduring persecution I read this book while but persevering courageously. To make a “They married almost haphazardly, as if watching hockey in a community come alive in the reader's to negate their former rebellious selves.” Toronto bar. During mind is a measure of successful writing Nafisi writes well of the chador and Gualtieri does this very well.” Sheila commercials I’d pick metaphor, describing how the women McDonough, professor emeritus, Concordia up the book, and the University would literally and figuratively strip off juxtaposition of 0-7735-2738-9 • $24.95 • paper their robes and step into themselves once where I was with in her home. what I was reading She also allows herself an opportunity struck me so intensely I ended up writing to explore her own experience as an a personal essay called “Watching the Iranian woman during this time, fighting NHL playoffs while reading Reading her own battles with her bosses, col- Lolita in Tehran.” M i dway t h rou g h , a n leagues and family.Literature is a kind of Iranian woman came to my table prais- lifebuoy for her. Indeed, the subtitle of ing the book, saying how well it spoke to her book is “a memoir in books.” her. This woman also came to the bar Noreen Shanahan is a Toronto writer. alone. This small drama from my neigh- bourhood shows the diversity that has melted into contemporary Toronto. SPREE: A CULTURAL Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran HISTORY OF SHOPPING describes a meeting of young women and by Pamela Klaffke books. Seven women gather in the Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003 author’s Tehran living room. Review by Kris Rothstein She describes how she hand-picked Shopping as a leisure this group of students with whom to activity began in the study Western literature, always with an nineteenth century eye to the actual situation of their lives in and changed our the Islamic Republic of Iran, in 1995.As behaviour, our desires HANNA'S DIARY, 1938-1941 well as being scholars of fine writing, and our landscape. Czechoslovakia to Canada these women were engaged in a multi- Spree explores the Hanna Spencer tude of rebellious actions and events, evolution of shopping “War tore her lover from her arms; racism from wearing red nail polish in public to spaces, products and implements, as well forced her to bury her roots. But now, marching in demonstrations against the as the history of trade and currency. more than sixty years later, Hanna Fischl regime. Much of the book deals with how we buy, Spencer has unveiled her hidden past. Her story proves that love, courage and “I formulated certain general ques- whether it’s at a store, flea market, or auc- endurance are stronger than grief ... tions for them to consider,”writes tion, or through a catalogue, TV channel, Hanna's story is about more than menace Mafiosi,“the most central of which was or website. It’s a book of fun facts about and vulnerability. It's inspirational, joyful, how these great works of imagination huge malls, famous shoplifters, shopping and it's a love story.” Chatelaine could help us in our present trapped situ- board games and the history of thrifting. August 2004 • 0-7735-2833-4 • $22.95 • paper ation as women.” Pamela Klaffke highlights problems Mafiosi and her “girls”draw an inter- like shopping bulimia and compulsive McGILL-QUEEN’S esting parallel between the character buying, but these are exceptions in her UNIVERSITY PRESS Lolita and the situation of Iranian world, where shopping is just good clean www.mqup.ca women.“The desperate truth of Lolita’s fun.What about consumers who prefer to

HERIZONS FALL 2004 39 use extra money for charity, or those who This collection of essays documents the unsettling; but the reality is, these folks are embarrassed to drop cash on luxury writers’ attempts to regain ownership and have a return ticket in their back pockets, items? Just because we can spend doesn’t settle comfortably into the house, while it destination: home. Then there’s the other mean we will, or that we all dream of showcases the many types of body image type of traveller: migrants and refugees. unlimited funds for shopping.While angst and triumph experienced by people For them, planes, trains and automobiles Klaffke notes that shopping has become in North American culture. are not about satiating wanderlust, an end in itself, there is no exploration in Fatness, of course, is well-represented, they’re about survival. Spree of the complex emotions involved in but so are essays about disability, race- On this theme, editors Prabhjot Parmar shopping, or of the place of the advertis- ethnicity, sexuality, height, colour, athletic and Nila Somaia-Carten have compiled ing industry in creating gratuitous needs. activity, shape and size of body parts, the stories of 27 women in their antholo- A section of Spree is devoted to gender, body decoration, eating, illness, bodily gy When Your Voice Tastes Like Home: but when it comes to shopping and femi- functions and surgery.The mass media is Immigrant Women Write. These short sto- nism, Klaffke’s analysis is way too sim- one typical source of body negativity, ries and poems are moving testaments by plistic. In her view, feminist perspectives along with families, lovers, God, peers, brave women who—alone or with their about shopping fall into two camps: counsellors and oneself. families—endure the painful journey of modern “lipstick” feminists who shop to While reading this diverse collection, it leaving their ancestral homes for what is demonstrate their independence, and becomes evident that feminists have hoped will be a better life. “hardcore”feminists who condemn all indeed, as Edut notes, moved “beyond Hoa Tran’s poem “Departure” retraces shopping as oppressive drudgery.This Barbie”into a more complex, multilayered the inhumane boat trip she and her fami- fails to acknowledge the majority of engagement with issues of body image. ly underwent from Vietnam to North women, who understand the social and None of us, it seems, is entirely satisfied America to escape war. She remembers political context they shop within and with what Ma Nature’s given us,and we her older sister, clutching her photo can appreciate shopping both as labour negotiate this challenge in a variety of ways. album “with her knuckles white/ and and as fun. Though a few essays allude to links arms wrapped tightly/ Her whole life was Since this is a cultural history, I can between forces such as colonialism/impe- in that book.”But sadly, most of it was understand why Klaffke wasn’t eager to rialism and consumer capitalism as sup- destroyed because there was no roof on get into the political consequences of porting players in the body drama, at the boat to shelter them from the rain. The shopping. But it’s difficult to evaluate times the personal could be more politi- last two lines of the poem sum up Hoa’s consumerism, a core activity of our polit- cal. However, the book’s unflinching hon- devastating experience:“An empty horizon ical system, without reflecting on the con- esty makes up for this.As third wave appeared/ My home had sunk into the nection. feminist Rebecca Walker points out in her ocean.”We don’t find out where they Kris Rothstein is a Vancouver writer. introduction, self-esteem born of self- docked, or if life is in any way better.We acceptance is a critical factor in well- simply witness the immigrant child’s pain. BODY OUTLAWS: being, and the “journey to survival is Safety is a major theme in these 21 REWRITING THE RULES mapped on the body’s surface.” poems and 12 stories. Jo Goodwill OF BEAUTY AND BODY speaks to this in her riveting story, WHEN YOUR VOICE “From Africa to Canada: A Lesbian IMAGE Family in Search of Home.” ed. Ophira Edut TASTES LIKE HOME: IMMIGRANT WOMEN Goodwill writes,“We never felt safe Seal Press, Revised and outside our front door—or inside, for that Expanded 2003 WRITE matter.”She and her partner are white Review by Krista Scott-Dixon eds. Prabhjot Parmar and Nila and their two adopted daughters are “For most of my life,” Somaia-Carten black.“Driven by a need to find a commu- writes editor Ophira Second Story Press, 2003 nity we could call home,”they left South Edut,“I’ve treated my Review by Susana Molinolo Africa’s homophobic and racist climate, body like a house I’m Travel tales that choosing Vancouver as their destination. not quite ready to romanticize the dis- When Your Voice Tastes Like Home is an move into.”For many comforts North indispensable addition to the canon of women (and increas- American travellers immigrant literature—hopefully volume ingly men), their bod- endure while visiting Two is in the works. ies are hostile, or at least vaguely foreign, non-Western coun- Freelance writer and poet Susana unfriendly places that threaten to betray tries abound. Sure, Molinolo was born in Argentina and lives them or get out of control at any moment. culture shock can be in Toronto.

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HERLAND by Elizabeth Perkins Gilman

$PHPEHURIWKH,QWHUQDWLRQDO Have you ever envisioned a *D\DQG/HVELDQ7UDYHO$VVRFLDWLRQ country solely inhabited and ruled by women? Well, in 1915 Charlotte Perkins Gilman did. Perkins created an idealized land in her utopian story Herland,giv- ing women the foundation, history and conceptualiza- tion of a land in female  ²  2VERUQH 6W 6 0F.LP &RXUW\DUG :LQQLSHJ 0DQLWRED ‡ 5/ < resplendence. SK  ‡ WROO IUHH  In Herland, Gilman, a ID[  ‡ HPDLO RDW#PWVQHW renowned suffragette, writer, publisher and activist, envisioned a super race of women freed from wild women the “straitjacket”of the nuclear family.She populated her “woman country”with an “army of expeditions women”: strong, athletic, self-reliant women who were unafraid, assured and Canada's Outdoor Adventure determined. (I have to admit, the image of Wonder Woman consistently stuck Company for Women in my head while reading Herland, and I am now suspect of William Marston, who, decades later, invented an Amazonian-like nation of women on Paradise Island.) First serialized in Gilman’s literary journal The Forerunner, Herland chal- lenges the myths that undermine the unionization of women and imagina- tively and humorously discredits them. The male visitors to Herland come to understand that women can be harmonious, civilized, technologically inclined and resourceful. For over 2000 years, these “ultrawomen”invested in the development of a “soul culture”devoted to the progress of the nation as a family, its education and the “virtues of humanity.”The men could not refute the intellectual superiority of this morally advanced nation of women. Gilman stressed that women were oppressed due to their economic dependence. Freed from moral prescriptions, Gilman devised a world where women triumphed and ruled distinctly because the male presence was extinct.At a time when women went into private ownership once married, 2004 online now! Gilman dedicated her life, family, love and writing to the struggle for gender canoe trips • cycling tours • sea-kayaking • flyfishing • boxing • photography • herbal retreats • yoga • equality.Her ideas challenged the notion that “women you had to love up, painting • skiing • dog sledding and more! very high up.” www.wildwomenexp.com [email protected] 1-888-WWE-1222

HERIZONS FALL 2004 41 arts culture MUSIC

THE WAILIN’ JENNYS arpeggios, this recognizable song honest, mature insights into contemporary 40 Days becomes something new with three music’s most prevalent thematic mainstay. Jericho Beach Music, 2004 female voices and one acoustic guitar. “Falling Goes”offers only the vaguest Review by Cindy Filipenko Under the guidance of producer David of romantic hopes, with Campbell opin- Travers-Smith, The Wailin’ Jennys have ing that love can only temporarily ease Folk bands fall into two created an auspicious debut. the pain of loneliness. basic categories: ones “Seems I’m always leaving some disas- that are in need of a ter/ Always pushing faster towards some blood transfusion and AMY CAMPBELL vague and distant goal/ Seems my heart ones with vibrant puls- Architecture: Live at the Opera is always on my sleeve/ Singing baby es.Winnipeg’s The Wailin’ Jennys falls House please don’t leave.” into the latter category. Battle Axe Folk, 2003 If you can’t find Architecture: Live at the Cary Luft, Nicky Mehta and Ruth Review by Cindy Filipenko Opera House at your local record store, whip Moody manage to breathe new life into Amy Campbell’s solo out your credit card and jump onto the genre while steadfastly respecting its debut, Architecture: Live www.amycampbell.ca—you won’t be dis- conventions.While some of the songs on at the Opera House,is a appointed with this breathtaking debut. 40 Days might make their way onto coun- sparse and gutsy affair. try stations or become a mainstay for This isn’t surprising, CBC programmers, the Wailin’ Jenny’s since the 26-year-old Newfoundland THE ORGAN aren’t trying to sneak in any pop native is also the force behind Halifax- Grab That Gun crossover tunes. based label Battle Axe Folk.With only Mint Records, 2004 The lyrics here are sweet and honest— seven songs on the record, there is no Review by Cindy Filipenko rarely spectacular, but never cloying. The padding in this 38-minute disc. If Morrissey and themes are familiar: lost love, new love Launching a career with a live CD might Deborah Harry had and self-discovery.“Beautiful Dawn”and seem foolhardy, but in this case it serves gotten it together to “Heaven When We’re Home,”both by to showcase her vocal prowess and song- have a kid, the result Moody, are the poetic standouts here, but writing excellence. might just sound and there’s not a bad song in the bunch. Simply put, Campbell is well poised to write like Katie Sketch, lead singer of Founded on a whim a couple of years one day inherit Joni Mitchell’s place as Vancouver’s The Organ. Their debut ago, The Jenny’s is a group of three equal- Canada’s quintessential female singer- album, Grab That Gun, shows just how ly accomplished singer-songwriters. Each songwriter.While her powerful vocal deeply this all-girl quintet has its roots woman is a refined musician and song- style has more in common with indie entrenched in 80s new wave. writer who is able to manage the musician Ani DiFranco, her penchant for Catchy melodies, detached vocals and demands of being in band while develop- unique guitar tuning and lyrical style is dark witty lyrics run through this 10-song ing her own unique style. Imagine the pure Mitchell. collection.“Basement Band Song” is a Indigo Girls as a trio and you get an idea This is evident on the title track:“Walk great example of using these qualities to of the type of talent that’s at work here. with me now, through this city all maximum effect. Even if you’ve never lived Not surprisingly, they take advantage strangers and conjectures/ You ask me for underground or thrashed away on six of their ability to pull off complicated answers and I comment on the architec- strings, with its cheesy guitars and watery harmonies on a couple of traditionals, ture/ You can’t press me for confession background vocals you can’t help relating “Saucy Sailor” and “The Parting Glass.” then not tell me what I’ll get/ It’s true that to Sketch singing:“If I give you five dollars The gals also tackle a pair of contempo- heat could burn us but the cold burns will you try to make my bed?/ If I pay you rary covers, John Hiatt’s “Take it Down” harder yet.” ten will you make me well instead?/ I love and Neil Young’s “Old Man.” The Jenny’s Campbell deftly navigates the compli- your baby baby harmonies/ You really take the Young classic and make it their cated terrain of love—lost, found and brighten up my basement suite.” own, while retaining the painful, pleading unrequited—blending familiar imagery The songs here definitely have an “I intent of the original. From the opening with clever turns of phrase to provide don’t give a damn about anything or any-

42 FALL 2004 HERIZONS one but myself”quality, which is as hilar- disappearance seriously.In Genest’s colour- ious as it was the first time around.Who ful interpretation of events,“a constable took Morrissey seriously in 1982 when he took the call, but he did fuck all.” sang,“Why do I spend valuable time with There are enough heartbreakers here people I’d much rather kick in the eye?” to make you spill a tear in your beer. In No one. But we definitely related to his Genest’s world,“Cadillac” rhymes with last vestiges of adolescent angst set to a “Kerouac”in an ode to a man who just danceable beat.And this is exactly what can’t stick around,“You Like Leaving.” makes The Organ’s music great. With her pleasant alto, honest, heartfelt Deborah Cohen’s jangling guitar and songs like “Lavina Brown”—a tribute to Jenny Smyth’s proficiency on the a small-town free sprit—and “I’m The Hammond organ are reminiscent of One”show a diversity of style and a pro- Blondie.Ashley Webber’s bass work is found understanding of the genre. steady and clean.And Shelby Stocks’ drums—well, drums were never very FEIST important in new wave. Let It Die Whether or not The Organ breaks out Arts & Crafts, 2004 depends on whether the world is really Review by Nicole Cohen ready for an 80s renaissance. Grab That Leslie Feist is quickly Gun marks the emergence of the best becoming the stuff of Vancouver-based all-girl band since Cub Canadian indie legend. took the ferry over in the early ’90s. While known in Grab this album. Canada as the woman who belts out pop anthems with pop col- ANNE LOUISE GENEST lective Broken Social Scene, Feist’s second Big Dream solo album, Let It Die,has cemented her Caribou Records, 2004 reputation as a solo artist in France. Review by Cindy Filipenko Let It Die is a showcase for Feist’s Anne Louise Genest is silken, sultry voice. Though the 28-year- living proof that not old is a fave of the indie rock set, her only can you take the record shuns indie standards in favour of girl out of Toronto, but minimal pop arrangements and crys- you can take Toronto talline production. Think more piano bar out of the girl.A former resident of than indie dive—a surprising departure, Megacity, Genest now calls the Yukon considering her album is produced by fel- home and resides in a rustic cabin just low Canadian ex-pat Jason Beck, best outside of Whitehorse. known as raunchy rapper Chilly Gonzales. Genest’s second album, Big Dream,is Feist has matured from her days in the about as country an album as you can Calgary punk band Placebo and her stint as find that wasn’t made on some Nashville electro-punk Peaches’ sidekick Bitch Lap side street. This isn’t Shania Twain’s new Lap.The songs on Let It Die are more akin country pap; it’s twanging vocal, country to Rufus Wainwright’s cabaret-style jazz fiddles, standing bass and occasionally pop.They are soft and layered, the kind that something that sounds like a yodel. grow on you the more they’re played. The experiences of living in the North Many of the songs were written in provide the lyrical territory for this song- Toronto, yet the flavour of the Let It Die is writer.And when she hits the mark, Genest unmistakably influenced by Feist’s sojourn can be truly compelling.In “The Southside in Paris. In fact, listening to Let It Die is of Town”she tells of a First Nations woman, kind of like being in Paris—you need to the victim of a hit and run, who was left to stop for a while, settle down and really lis- die at the side of the road because the ten to understand what the city—or in police didn’t take her son’s call about her this case the album—is saying.

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44 FALL 2004 HERIZONS ness” abounds. … continued from page 25 (Indigo Girls Shine) The enthusiastic audience is rewarded with two appealing and fired up,” says Saliers. “[Canada’s] encores, including the surprisingly whimsical got a real cool thing about it—it’s a different vibe “Drivers Education”—a solo number that will hope- from playing in the States. It’s like there’s an ethe- fully appear on Ray’s sophomore solo recording due real sensibility, a Canada-ness, you know? And I out next spring. really enjoy that.” But the best part of the evening is Amy Ray’s part- ing promise: “We’ll do our best to get Bush out of In concert later that evening, Ray and Saliers run office for y’all.” through a virtual greatest hits package, interspersed And if anyone’s committed to licking Bush, it’s with selections from All That We Let In. “Canada- these women.

ing and inspirational. “Getting people to sing togeth- … continued from page 27 (Musically Challenging) er gives a sense of community,” she says. Acker and meetings in each other’s living rooms, space is defi- Kronseth offer to serenade me one last time before I nitely a limiting factor. The group can only accommo- leave. Halber has yet to learn the lyrics and claps her date so many voices, and not just because their hands to keep time. To the tune of I’s The B’y the off-key rehearsals make neighbours cringe. Grannies bounce and chant, “We’re all strong-minded women who tend to We’re the women who did the work shout a lot,” Acker explains as she waves to a honk- So men could get the credit ing Honda. We said “leave it all to us” Their vocal nature has landed several Grannies in And wished we’d never said it. prison. Acker earned three weeks in the Nanaimo Tuneless, perhaps. But the Raging Grannies radi- Correctional Centre for taking part in protests against ate an enthusiastic spark I’ve never heard before clear-cut logging in the Clayoquot Sound in 1993. The among activists my own age. Maybe it comes from centre allowed her to bring her guitar, and she spent song, or from the wisdom they’ve acquired over the her jail term teaching protest songs to the other years. Either way, their contagious choral protests inmates—seven of them women and 250 of them men. are inspiring other activists to join them in creating Having worked with refugees and peace issues all the kind of social change the Grannies strive for—the her life, Acker finds activism through song energiz- change we all need.

HERIZONS FALL 2004 45 Being a mother has enriched my experiences as a … continued from page 29 (Trap Door to the Sublime) person and a writer and provided me with many cre- qualities of the word, the line, the sentence and ative ideas. Protracted periods of time to develop an whether it’s melodic or dissonant. Words exist as idea are hard to come by, so I tend to be a binge sound, and sound can translate into aural shapes. writer. I could go for several months without writing I’m also working with an understanding of a single thing. This was hard to get used to because I Japanese, so my word choices are affected by my was under the impression that ‘real’ writers wrote knowledge of a second language with a radically dif- every day and would die if they couldn’t. I’m now ferent linguistic structure. I am quite comfortable quite comfortable that this is not how I work. Nor throwing “proper” diction out the window if my own would I die if I never wrote again. sense of language tells me my sentence is ringing true. This, however, seems to drive editors to dis- What are the challenges of the short story as compared to traction. the novel? Hiromi Goto: I think that because of the brevity of Does “transexperience” mean anything to you—that is, the short story, a writer needs to be more careful the experience of lots of co-existing realities in any given with the language and the shape of the narrative. But moment of time? Your works often conjure that. I’m sure many novelists would be outraged at my Hiromi Goto: Transexperience is how I see life. suggestion that novels can be a bit more loose. Although I’m confined to my own senses and per- Let me qualify that I tend to do this. I don’t think ceptions, I am also aware of the experiences of other a short story is confined by a narrative arc. That is, I people, animals and nature which intersect and don’t feel compelled to develop a plot in the inform my existence. It’s a constant, subtle and Eurocentric sense of the word, although I do enjoy complex interaction that delights and dizzies me. this form as well. I think a short story can be carried When I’m writing I’m aware of how each story, or by language or mood or character, rather than point of view, or narrative precludes and includes depending on action and outcome. So my notion of other stories. Just as no one person lives as a com- the short story is rather broad. plete and singular entity, I see literature and other There’s a lot more time to develop narrative art forms as a means to highlight multiple reali- subtleties and layered meanings in a novel. I think ties/experiences. My interests span from the micro- a short story needs to have punch. The punch scopic to the wide-angle lens. Not to mention other could manifest in different forms. I think the dimensions. challenge of a short story collection is to not have all of the stories muddle into one vague feeling. A What pleasure do you get from writing? collection has hit the mark if the reader can leave Hiromi Goto: Writing is a joyful act because it’s cre- the reading with a sense of distinct stories, char- ative. It’s a puzzle, a challenge, a glimpse of a beau- acters and moments. tiful monster flitting past your kitchen window. It’s thrilling to shape a sentence into a line that sings. Does storytelling enable certain things to emerge that Writing is an expression of love. It also becomes a other forms of discourse do not? highly politicized site when it is made public. Hiromi Goto: Stories—well, the ones I like—suggest: they imply, they tickle, bellow, whisper, but they are What is the toughest part about writing? never complete. The reader activates the story when Hiromi Goto: The toughest part for me is finishing. they read it or think about it, but the story is never Also, the beginning, middle and end (Ha!). And the same. People will always have their version of the editing is very hard, too. I’m the mother of two story, and this is what makes the story such an active school-aged children, and this takes a lot of time. site. It does not lie still.

46 FALL 2004 HERIZONS global warning BY NAOMI KLEIN

THE MOTHER OF ANTI-WAR FORCES There is a remarkable scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 when the government of Tony Blair. “My son was just a bit of Lila Lipscomb talks with an anti-war activist outside meat to them, just a number,” she said. “This is not the White House about the death of her 26-year-old our war, my son has died in their war over oil.” son in Iraq. A passerby doesn’t like what she over- And just as Rose Gentle was saying those words, hears and announces, “This is all staged!” Michael Berg happened to be visiting London to speak Lipscomb turns to the woman, her voice shaking, at an anti-war rally. Since the beheading of his 26- and says: “My son is not a stage. He was killed in year-old son, who had been working in Iraq as a con- Karbala, April 2. It is not a stage. My son is dead.” tractor, Michael Berg has insisted that “Nicholas Berg Watching Ms. Lipscomb doubled over in pain on died for the sins of George Bush and Donald the White House lawn, I was reminded of other Rumsfeld.” Asked by an Australian journalist whether mothers who have taken the loss of their children to such bold statements “are making the war seem fruit- the seat of power and changed the fate of wars. less,” Mr. Berg replied, “The only fruit of war is death During Argentina’s “dirty war,” a group of women and grief and sorrow. There is no other fruit.” whose children had been disappeared by the military It is as if these parents have lost more than their chil- regime gathered every Thursday in front of the dren—they have also lost their fear, which has allowed Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires. At a time when them to speak with great clarity and power. This repre- all public protest was banned, the Mothers of the sents a dangerous challenge to the Bush administra- Plaza de Mayo revolutionized human rights activism tion, which likes to claim a monopoly on “moral by transforming maternal grief from a cause for pity clarity.” Victims of war and their families aren’t sup- into an unstoppable political force. They played a sig- posed to interpret their losses for themselves, they are nificant role in the dictatorship’s eventual collapse. supposed to leave that to the flags, ribbons, medals and In Fahrenheit 9/11, Lila Lipscomb stands alone, three-gun salutes. Parents and spouses are supposed to hurling her fury at the White House. But Lila accept their tremendous losses with stoic patriotism; Lipscomb is not alone. Other American and British they are not supposed to question how their loved ones parents whose children have died in Iraq are also are used to justify more killing. coming forward to condemn their governments, and Nadia McCaffrey is carrying her son’s feelings of their moral outrage could help end the military con- deep disappointment beyond the grave. “He was so flict still raging in Iraq. ashamed by the prisoner abuse scandal,” McCaffrey California resident Nadia McCaffrey defied the told The Independent. “He said we had no business in Bush Administration by inviting news cameras to Iraq and should not be there.” Freed from the mili- photograph the arrival of her son’s casket from Iraq. tary censors who prevent soldiers from speaking The White House has banned photography of flag- their minds when they are alive, Lila Lipscomb has draped coffins arriving at Air Force bases, but because also shared her son’s doubts about his work in Iraq. Patrick McCaffrey’s remains were flown to the In Fahrenheit 9/11 she reads from a letter Michael Sacramento International Airport his mother was Pederson mailed home. “What in the world is wrong able to invite the photographers inside. “I don’t care with George, trying to be like his dad, Bush. He got what [President George Bush] wants,” McCaffrey us out here for nothing whatsoever. I’m so furious declared to her local newspaper. “Enough war.” right now, Mama.” Just as Patrick McCaffrey’s body was coming home Fury is an entirely appropriate response to a sys- to California, another solider was killed in Iraq: 19- tem that sends young people to kill other young peo- year-old Gordon Gentle of Glasgow. Upon hearing the ple in a war that never should have been waged. news, his mother, Rose Gentle, immediately blamed This article first appeared in The Nation.

HERIZONS FALL 2004 47 on the edge BY LYN COCKBURN

UPPITY WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE I don’t like Martha Stewart. Let me rephrase that: I Oh well, surely they’ll go to the slammer soon. don’t like all that fuss over the perfect pies, every- Maybe she got five months because she is not a thing-neatly-organized, tied-up-with-bows, look-at- nice person. how-tasteful-everything-is-in-my-house way of life. “What a bitch,” is the comment most heard about Let me rephrase that. Since that perfect way of life Martha, and I bet she is one, too. I bet she is very is who Martha is, or has become, I don’t like her. “I’m Martha Stewart and you’re not.” Maybe that’s too harsh. Maybe I just feel inferior So what? Nobody expects Donald Trump to be every time I think about spa-ing up my bathroom so nice—the mere suggestion is laughable. He and all guests can have an aromatic experience in there. those men like him are hard-headed businessmen Nah, I don’t like her. Need I go on? who are expected to play hardball, cut every throat Yes, I must actually, because I have to tell you that within reach, stomp all over the competition and a couple of my friends have wonderfully pleasant take no prisoners. The world of the male big busi- Martha-type houses which are a treat to visit. This is nessman is a little like stomping into Iraq with because my friends have quietly Martha’d up their weapons of shock and awe—and then lying about why houses when I wasn’t round—and they hide her you did it. bloody magazines whenever they see me coming. We But the woman who dares to dip her toe into the never talk about Martha. lake of big business is supposed to be nice on her As of her recent sentencing, though, somebody’s got way to the top, to not tread on any toes—especially to talk about her. Might as well be me. I am eminently not on toes belonging to the men who play hardball, qualified because I don’t like her; you can count on me cut throats and stomp all over the competition. And to be fair and unbiased. What you can’t count on me to wealthy or not, she ought to know her place. be is neat, organized, coordinated, or baking. Martha didn’t. She just kept on making more and Anyway, she got five months. Twice. Five in jail and more money without showing so much as a modicum five at home. And a $US 30,000 fine. She may have to of humility. Why, there were stories in the papers wear an electronic ankle bracelet—no doubt an attrac- about how rude she was to her neighbours, and a fic- tive colourful one studded with understated gems. tionalized TV biography showed how nasty she was Why? For saving $51,000 as the result of a tip that to her ex-husband. That bio may have been fiction, permitted her to dump some stock—and then, we’re but it certainly made it clear that Martha Stewart is told, she lied about it. (By the way, if people can’t lie selfish, self-absorbed and puts herself first. to the authorities, then the authorities ought not to Something had to be done. be permitted to lie to the people—at least that’s what And so Martha was found mildly guilty on the ethics I’ve got to say about that.) front, and hugely guilty of being an uppity woman. Anyway, her sentence certainly stacks up against By the way, you know that line about ‘if people all those corporate dudes (for example, the Enron can’t lie to the authorities, authorities shouldn’t be boys) who lied about millions of dollars, put thou- able to lie to the people’? Well, I stole it. I made like sands of people out of work and are deservedly serv- it belongs to me. It was a lie. So sue me. ing time in jail. They aren’t? Lyn Cockburn is Lifestyles Editor at The Winnipeg Sun.

48 FALL 2004 HERIZONS Pressing needs • Building equality • A healthy environment • Good jobs in the local economy • Our children’s future All of them good reasons for…

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