Afterglow Dim Indigo Girls Shine Ani’s Awesome Lisa Rundle: Media Washes Over WOMEN’S NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS • Summer 2004 • Vol. 18 No.1 • Canada $5.95/US $5.95 Third Wave

ECOECO WARRIORWARRIOR ELIZABETHELIZABETH MAYMAY HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD IN YOUR SPARE TIME JANEJANE DOEDOE WHAT IS A RAPE VICTIM SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE? ANNANN HANSENHANSEN FROM DIRECT ACTION TO PRISON ABOLITION Made in Canada Publications Mail Agreement #40008866 table of contents SUMMER 2004 / VOLUME 18 NO. 1

BEING DIRECT: AN INTERVIEW 29 WITH ANN HANSEN She spent seven years in Kingston’s Prison for Women for her involvement in bombings that took place in the early 1980’s when she was a member of Direct Action. Today, Ann Hansen says “Prison does not rehabilitate people.” by Deanna Radford

Women still wild for adventure travel. See page 11. ARTS & CULTURE AUTHOR PROFILE: WOMEN’S NEWS 32 HELEN LENSKYJ NAC: Will the Feminist Phoenix Rise? Out on the Field: Gender, Sport and Sexualities 6-15 by Michelle French; Screening a Pressing Profile by Susan G. Cole Issue for Disabled Women by Sujita Day; Women Wild for Adventure by Penni Mitchell; Israeli Women Stand SUMMER on Guard by Anat Cohen; Women mobilize in Sri 33 READING Lanka Election by Lasanda Kurukulasuriya One Hundred Million Hearts by Kerri Sakamoto; The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky by Karen X. Tulchinsky; Family Resemblances by Anne Cameron; FEMINIST VIEWS Decomposing Maggie by Ann Eriksson; Godspeed by Lynne Breedlove. HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD 18 IN YOUR SPARE TIME ISSUES Environmental lawyer and activist Elizabeth May 37 AND IDEAS shares her unique perspective on the empowerment Something to Cry About: An Argument of volunteers in this feature-length interview. An Against Corporal Punishment of articulate feminist, May launched a successful Children in Canada by Susan M. hunger strike and has influenced public policy on Turner; Child Custody, Law and key issues. by Kate Heartfield Women’s Work by Susan B. Boyd; After Shock: September 11, 2001: Global Feminist Perspectives EXPOSING THE SYSTEM: edited by Susan Hawthorne and Bronwyn Winters 23 AN INTERVIEW WITH JANE DOE Feminist hero Jane Doe took on the Toronto Police FEMINIST department after she was raped. In this interview, she 40 CLASSICS talks about her book and about her refusal to act out The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall the role of victim in a sexist system. by Penni Mitchell Review by Stacey Kauder Managing Editor: Penni Mitchell Fulfillment and Office Manager: Phil Koch Accountant: Sharon Pchajek Board of Directors: Ghislaine Alleyne, Phil Koch, Penni Mitchell, Kemlin Nembhard, Valerie Regehr Editorial Committee: Ghislaine Alleyne, Gio Guzzi, Penni Mitchell Advertising Sales: Penni Mitchell (204) 774-6225 MUSIC Design: inkubator.ca 42 REVIEWS Web Mistress: Rachel Thompson/BlueMuse Retail Inquiries: 905) 619-6565 All that We Let In, Indigo Girls Disticor ( Proofreader: Educated Guess, Ani DiFranco Phil Koch Cover Photo: Nicki Corrigall Afterglow, Sara McLachlan HERIZONS is published four times per year by HERIZONS Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. One-year subscription price: $24.26+$1.70 GST ($25.96) in Canada. Two-year COLUMNS subscriptions are $39.16+$2.76 GST ($41.92) in Canada. Subscriptions to US addresses are $29.99 Canadian funds FIRST WORD or $25.96 in US funds. International subscriptions are 2 BY PENNI MITCHEL $32.99. Cheques or money orders are payable to: HERIZONS, PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA Hot Air Policy “A very scary thing is in our midst.” R3C 2G1. Ph (204) 774-6225; Fax (204) 786-8038. Subscription-related inquiries: [email protected] BODY POLITIC Editorial-related inquiries: [email protected] 5 BY JUDY REBICK Website: www.herizons.ca Roses and Revolution “We have to take on patriarchy HERIZONS is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. directly once again.” HERIZONS is available on CD-ROM through Micromedia Ltd., 20 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5C 2N8. GST #R131089187. ISSN 0711-7485. COLE’S NOTES The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire 16 BY SUSAN G. COLE hope and foster a state of wellness that enriches women’s Adopting New Rituals “Flowers, wedding gowns, lives; to build awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to garters—pul-lease.” broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among other marginalized people; to OUT OF BOUNDS foster peace and ecological awareness; and to expand the 31 BY LISA RUNDLE influence of feminist principles in the world. HERIZONS aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse, Third Wave Washes Media “I mentioned Rebecca understandable and relevant to women’s daily lives. Walker (and several other non-fictional people) … Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and but it would have ruined a great story on this new do not necessarily reflect HERIZONS’ editorial policy. No ‘feminism lite.’” material may be reprinted without permission. Submissions and queries will be returned if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Due to limited resources, GLOBAL WARNING HERIZONS does not accept poetry or fiction submissions. 47 BY NAOMI KLEIN HERIZONS is a member of the Manitoba Intifada, Iraqi Style “Up against a shared enemy, Magazine Publishers Association. Sunni and Shiite are beginning to bury ancient HERIZONS acknowledges the financial support of the rivalries and join forces against the occupation.” Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance 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, Plane Truth About Simple Pleasures MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected]

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 1 first word BY PENNI MITCHELL

HOT AIR POLICY To hear the Liberals tell it, we should be quaking in Preston Manning over whether the Reform Party our gumboots, our Birkenstocks, or our whirly girly should be driven by the party’s grassroots or by its flip-flops. A very scary thing is in our midst. leadership (Harper favoured a top-down approach). The scary thing is not a shipping magnate with a The son of an Imperial Oil executive, Harper went on scallywag’s reputation for business. It is not that the to wrestle control of the Alliance Party from Mr. Jet Ski office of a former finance minister reportedly and to engineer an amalgam of the Alliance with a attempted to influence the awarding of federal weakened Tory party under by Peter McKay. Still, research grants. It is not federal surpluses created on Harper stands little chance of becoming prime minis- account of an Employment Insurance surplus engi- ter because Canadians, by and large, do not support his neered by disqualifying tens of thousands of workers views. Nonetheless, Harper has done Martin a huge from EI benefits. It is not the undermining of Ottawa’s favour: allowing him to lay claim to the middle ground. role as keeper of national standards that occurred In the Winnipeg granola belt riding where I live, when the Canada Assistance Plan was dismantled. It scary Stephen stories are being served up at dinner isn’t the largest corporate tax cuts in history brought in parties and in coffee shops. Even some of my NDP under Liberal finance minister Paul Martin. friends have taken the bait. You would be wrong, too, to think that global warm- “Reform, Conservative, whatever—Stephen ing is the scary thing—although you would be getting Harper is pretty scary,” said an NDP friend recently. warmer. The Prime Minister has not introduced a “I think I might vote Liberal.” plan to meet Canada’s Kyoto target, but that doesn’t “What?” I said. “Your vote only counts in the rid- mean the Liberals have not released a hot air policy in ing you live in. Who is your member of parliament?” time for a federal election. “Pat Martin,” she said. An outspoken critic of the The scary thing is not Paul Martin’s past, but Liberals’ shift to the right, Martin is the NDP MP Stephen Harper’s future. who, when targeted by fundamentalists for support- It is a brilliant strategy. Until he found an external ing gay marriage, replied, “Jesus was very firm in his enemy, Martin’s only visible plan to cement power condemnation of the Pharisees, and I answer to a was to diss Jean Chretien’s legacy and ditch Chretien higher power than these assholes.” loyalists. Now that Liberal organizers are busy I wanted to know, “why would you vote out an NDP demonizing Stephen Harper’s right-wing beliefs, MP to give more power to Paul Martin?” voters may be less inclined to notice that the Liberal “Well, voting NDP seems kind of risky,” she replied. party has veered to the right. Witness both an With early polls indicating Liberal party support at increase in former Conservative and Alliance MPs 40 percent, there seems little doubt that the Liberals drifting to the Liberals, while left Liberals like will form the next government. With fewer and fewer Sheila Copps, Jane Stewart, Elinor Caplan, John moderates left in that party, the new Liberals are Manley and Alan Rock are on the move. Even Joe indistinguishable—at least economically—from the Clark appears to be a Liberal now, calling Martin old conservatives. That is scary. But invoking the “the lesser of two evils.” fear of a Harper takeover in order to oust leftist MPs The other evil of course, is Stephen Harper. Dubbed who provide a critical balance in Parliament strikes a ‘mergers and acquisitions specialist,’ he was one of me as downright diabolical. the Firewall Six who wrote a 2001 manifesto urging FYI: After the 2002 federal election, the Liberals held 172 of the 301 seats in Alberta to repudiate the Canada Health Act and boy- the Commons; the Canadian Alliance and Conservatives combined had 88; cott the Canada Pension Plan. He first battled with the Bloc Québécois 38; and the NDP 13.

2 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS letters

NO RELIEF IN SIGHT stake in the Nixon versus Rape Relief strug- Concurrently, the Women Teachers This is the first time I’ve read Herizons,and I gle. While Herizons edited out some of the Federation of Ontario was forced to defend have to say I am disappointed by the amount most inflammatory sections of the original the legitimacy of being a women’s labour of ink given to the opinions of Rape Relief Xtra! West article, the resulting piece remains union at a human rights tribunal and in spokespeople. deeply flawed because it is drawn from such a court. After 80 years of fighting for women’s But I am glad that Robin Perelle’s article biased source. rights as workers, that women’s group was included a link to the Rape Relief website. I It was a victory for women across the blended into the men’s union by 1997. In hope many of your readers take a minute to country when the courts confirmed our right 1995, the lesbian community suffered the look at the website and see exactly how coun- to determine membership in our political loss of an important organizing centre when terproductive and hateful most of the Rape organizations. Justice Robert Edwards noted Vancouver Lesbian Connection closed after a Relief jargon is. that this is a political fight. BC Human Rights complaint by a non-opera- Rape Relief judges, hurts and refuses to Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s tive male-to-female transsexual. acknowledge the right to self-determination Shelter is not the only women’s group to We regret the hurt Ms Nixon experienced. of sex workers, queers and transfolk. experience an attack on women’s groups’ We wish that each party could have gotten the Public support for Rape Relief is waning. right to organize. Pandora, a feminist news- benefit of a constructive dialogue encour- As a recent letter to the editor in Vancouver’s paper in Nova Scotia, came under attack in aged by the BC Human Rights Commission, Xtra! West declared, Rape Relief’s refusal to 1990 by a fathers’rights activist.The Pandora but the commission took a different path. evolve its politics is making the organization collective eventually won at tribunal; but as a Since the state did not act legislatively to irrelevant. It is the organization’s death consequence of the pressures put on the protect the group rights of either transgen- knell. women running the paper, Pandora was dered people or women, Rape Relief women Trish Kelly forced to close operations. Esther Shannon, a decided to defend women’s groups’ right to Vancouver, BC former editor of Kinesis, noted that the Nova organize.Organizing is a political response to Scotia Human Rights Commission acted the political attack on women that is rape, XTRA WEST against the interests of women by allowing wife-beating, incest and sexual harassment. REPORT ‘BIASED’ the complaint to advance. By recommending Since 1995, when the complaint was filed, The Herizons community deserves a more the Pandora case to a full-scale inquiry,“the hundreds of women have answered the crisis careful examination of the equality issues at state sanctioned that level of harassment.” phones 24 hours a day and stood with raped, incested and sexually harassed women in their resistance to sexist violence. Hundreds more women and children have passed through our transition house and out of the crisis caused by male violence. The majority of workers here have always been volunteers. We deserve more respectful representation of our case than offered so far by Herizons.This would include providing a more politically aware examination of the danger of women’s groups losing the right to determine our own membership. Suzanne Jay Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter OLD-FASHIONED WISDOM My grandmother bought me a gift subscrip- tion to Herizons and I find it always relevant to my interests: interdisciplinary, intellectual

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 3 and artsy … you are my best media discov- To suggest that under the Russian revolu- STAY UP LATE ery of the year! tion state prostitution was allowed is simply a Thanks for the great magazine. I read it from Elysee Nouvet lie,and it promotes ignorance,racism and the cover last night! Keep it up. Lethbridge, AB Cold War mentality we are all too familiar Linds Isitt with now. Victoria, BC RUSSIAN PROSTITUTION Unfortunately, the Cold War is not over “A LIE” because the mentality it created it is still TELL US WHAT YOU THINK! I found the last issue of your magazine with us. Write Herizons a letter to the editor—critical (Vol.17 No 4.) quiet concerning. Margaret Cristina Clarke or praiseworthy, it matters not! If we publish Atwood proceeds to talk about the revolution your letter—and we almost always do— in China, but foremost about the Russian Editor’s Note: The subject of state brothels in Russia you’ll get a free subscription to your favourite turns out to be fascinating. Under Tsar Pavel I, for Revolution. Her comments were not only example, ‘public women’ were assigned yellow dresses feminist magazine. [email protected] greatly misinformed, bordering on extreme as their uniform and ‘yellow cards’ were issued. There ignorance, but outright offensive to the mil- were 2,000 officially registered brothels in Russia by the OUR MISTAKE. turn of the last century. After the Bolsheviks came to lions of Soviet women who, because and only power in 1917, the bourgeois institution of the family MAKE THAT TWO. due to the Russian revolution, enjoyed rights and prostitution both came under attack. Many local The writer of “Revving Up the Revolution” Canadian women, and for that matter North governments decreed that single women between 18 was Sara Lukaweski. Her last name was and 32 years of age were the property of the state and American women, cannot even dream of required them to register with a bureau of free love. misspelled in the Spring 2004 issue. enjoying—rights that simply do not exists Men between 19 and 50 years could choose a woman The book Cashing In On Pay Equity was here—rights which, now, under the (her consent wasn’t required). How common the prac- published by Sumach Press, not The tice was is a matter of debate. At the same time, divorce onslaught of the attacks by the right wing,are was made easy and liaisons tended to be temporary, Women’s Press, as reported in the Spring beginning to be seriously eroded. resulting in increased poverty for women and children. 2004 edition.

Each issue of Herizons is a collaborative effort of about 30 contributors, writers and photographers, designers and volunteers. We’d like to introduce you to a few of the people this issue who made this issue of Herizons happen.

ANAT COHEN KATE HEARTFIELD LASANDA IRENE D’SOUZA Anat Cohen Kate KURUKULASURIYA Irene is a gradu- Heartfield Lasanda D’Souza is a ate of the is a free- Kuruku- Winnipeg Hebrew lance jour- lasuriya has writer with University nalist living been a con- an interest in medical sciences. For the in Ottawa. She writes regu- tributor to in the arts. Her interviews for last 16 years, she has been larly for the Ottawa Citizen The New Internationalist, Herizons in recent years have working as a reporter cover- and has written for Ms., Herizons and Now magazine. included Margaret Atwood, ing health, education, Today’s Parent, rabble.ca, Her article on alternative Carol Shields and Anita Rau minorities and women’s The Beaver, and Ottawa City forms of reproduction was Badami. issues for Israeli print media. Woman.She interviewed Herizons’ Spring 1995 cover Photo: United Way of Winnipeg See her news article in this Elizabeth May in this issue story.Currently, she is a jour- issue. of Herizons. nalist in Sri Lanka.

4 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS body politic BY JUDY REBICK

ROSES AND REVOLUTION “But we’ve come so far; that’s the thinking. So far and in the bedroom. Somewhere around the early compared with 50 or 100 years ago. Well no, we’ve 1980’s, however, we stopped talking about patriarchy. arrived at the new millennium and we haven’t While some of us have achieved progress in ‘arrived’ at all. We’ve been sent over to the side pocket male-female relationships, and while a new gener- of the snooker table and made to disappear.” ation of men seems in part less patriarchal, public —Carol Shields, Unless discussion of how to combat patriarchy has come to a standstill. What’s worse, many women who The disappearance of feminist voices in general and achieved positions of power on the shoulders of the of the women’s movement from national politics women’s movement have become what legendary motivated me to write a piece in The Globe and Mail feminist Ursula Franklin calls “female patriarchs.” recently. Judging from the tremendous response it Even with good intentions, women learned that to be generated, it’s safe to say that many others feel the successful they had to act like one of the boys. same void. In it, I said that we need new strategies for Third wave feminists have started talking about a the women’s movement. I don’t have those strategies new script for sexuality, but I have heard little talk of in my back pocket, but after finishing a new book—an the price of patriarchy in politics and in our organi- oral history of the women’s movement called Ten zations and communities. The anti-globalization Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution—I movement has raised some of these issues through think I have some good questions. anti-authoritarian organizing, yet its spokespeople Like, what have we learned? The left in the 60s give no credit to its origins in feminism. and 70s—the women’s movement included—was In my work on participatory democracy, I meet lots of highly sectarian. We battled over who was more rad- young men who understand and fight gender oppres- ical than whom, and then over men’s involvement. sion in their day to day work, and I wonder whether Then we battled over a series of issues, and finally there is way to work more closely with these allies. In over identity and power. As we struggled to invent Europe, for example, there are groups the French call new structures like collectives, the worst patriarchal “mixité” that are feminist groups with male members. behaviours were often reproduced. Many women Economic issues, too, are of critical importance. were driven away by the fierce righteousness of their Our strategies for economic equality like pay equity sisters. If we are to rebuild a pan-Canadian women’s and employment equity have improved the econom- movement, it has to be a kinder, more welcoming ic situation of a minority of women. At the same and more pluralistic place, at least in my view. time, the gap between rich and poor has increased A lot of people are starting to practice a new kind dramatically under neo-liberalism, and the poor are of anti-oppression work that recognizes the damage increasingly gendered (especially young mothers done by various forms of oppression and recognizes and seniors) and racialized. the need to provide support to people inside of the The newly formed Network on Economic and necessary debates about power. bell hooks talks Social Rights has intervened on parental leave and is about building “communities of hope,” and I think working on the development of policy options aimed she’s on the right track. How we build coalitions at supporting young mothers—the vast majority of across differences will be a central discussion for a whom are in the paid workforce—and their families. new women’s movement. In Toronto, a recent report called If Women of Colour We have to take on patriarchy directly once again. In Counted points to the racialized nature of women’s the early days of the women’s movement, we under- poverty and suggests strategies to address it. stood that patriarchy was the enemy and we directly These issues need more discussion, in my view, confronted patriarchal behaviour in the meeting hall and I am sure there are many others.

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 5 nelliegrams news WANTED: WOMEN TO RUN COUNTRY So far, Canada’s four major federal Feminist Phoenix to Rise? parties are falling far short of femi- by Michelle French nists’ call to increase the number of women in Parliament from 21 percent The pot may be boiling over, but women’s to 33 percent. organizations fed up with government cut- The NDP, at the start of May, held backs aren’t likely to find refuge in the once first place at 30 percent of candi- bristling National Action Committee on the dates. Liberal leader Paul Martin Status of Women. The group, which spent promised that his party would run the 30 years at the forefront of women’s advo- largest slate of Liberal women candi- cacy, is still struggling for its survival. dates ever. In 1997, the Liberal slate Since 2001, the organization has been was 28 percent female. The paying down a $200,000 debt. While Conservative Party of Canada has so progress has been made on that front,cur- Dodie Goldney, a former representative of NAC far nominated women in only 10 per rent funding efforts have stalled at the BC, would like to see a new organization at the national level. Photo by Vanessa Orsini cent of ridings. door of Status of Women Canada. NAC is Overall, about 22 percent of those on its third proposal since 2001. nominated federally are women. “It is a never-ending discussion of how Canada is ranked 37th in the world to produce a funding proposal that they in terms of the number of women in will actually respond positively to,”explains its national legislature. NAC board member Anne Kettenbeil. Equal Voice, an organization dedi- Core funding cuts in 1998 have been cated to increasing the number of replaced with less secure project funding.It women in Parliament, is updating the is estimated that three quarters of the figures every week. $500,000 needed to run NAC as a national www.equalvoice.ca voice could be raised through member donations.Operating grants would likely be needed. NAC’s last acting president, Denise Campbell, believes the national umbrella Denise Campbell says NAC was unfairly group was “unfairly targeted by funders” targeted because it was controversial. CP Photo: Tom Hanson because it was a “critical and controversial organization” at a time when the federal government was clawing back social pro- issue-specific groups—they do not have grams. They wanted professionalized serv- the breadth of mandate to represent MORE MOMS CASH IN ice centres, not advocacy groups, she says. women nationally. Within the last generation, the num- “There can be consequences of biting “We need a grassroots voice that speaks ber of mothers in the paid labour the hand that feeds you,” Campbell adds. for the rights of all women, on all levels,” force with young children increased NAC has been unable to host an annual Meslo says. But she says that “[NAC] is in by 84 percent. meeting or employ staff for three years. no position, financially or otherwise, to A new labour force study by Despite this, it has participated in coalition take on that role by itself.” Statistics Canada reports that in projects and is finishing a report on women Dodie Goldney, coordinator of a 2003, 72 percent of women with chil- and globalization. Kamloops women’s centre and former sub- dren under 16 were in the paid work- According to outgoing BC NAC represen- regional representative of NAC BC, would force, compared to just 39 percent in tative Bev Meslo, women cannot afford to prefer to see a new organization at the 1976. Overall, 79 percent of women go any longer without a national voice.And national level. under 55 without children were in the while other national groups have become “The federal government has to take paid workforce in 2003. prominent in NAC’s absence—including some of the blame, but it can’t take all of it. Among women with preschool the Feminist Alliance for International I think NAC needs to own some of what children, the increase is even more Action (FAFIA),the National Association of happened,” she says. Goldney cites NAC’s Women and the Law (NAWL), and other dismissal of a BC pangender subregional

6 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS nelliegrams

dramatic: As of 2003, 66 percent are representative and its refusal to support BC While Canadian women do not yet agree in the paid workforce. That’s up from NAC’s incorporation as a non-profit organ- on what a new national feminist voice 28 percent in 1976—an increase of 135 ization as actions that alienated many should look like, Denise Campbell express- percent. Among women whose women in the region. es the common ground that marks the youngest child is school-aged, 77 Kettlebeil maintains that NAC can return starting place for the debate:“The capacity percent are now in the paid work- to its role at the cutting edge of feminism. of the women’s movement needs to move force, compared to 37 percent in In the 1990s, she points out, the organiza- forward. But is that best done through 1976—a rise of 108 percent. tion developed policies against racism and rebuilding the NAC as it was, or is it time to www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/89F discrimination and elected women of think of a new structure?” 0133XIE/89F0133XIE2003000.pdf. colour to its presidency. No clear answer has yet emerged. ORDER! ORDER! Marlene Bertrand, headaches,” Vaughan explained. “Even a director of properly fitted bra is going to exert a lot of Manitoba’s Family pressure across your shoulders, around Violence Prevention your breasts, and around your chest.” She branch, was says this pressure “is going to slow down appointed a member of the Order of Photo courtesy of Masthead blood flow to those structures and lym- Canada. The award acknowledges her phatic flow out of those structures.So then, enduring commitment to ending fam- you’re going to get congestion in those mus- ily violence. Bertrand is one of the Busting Out cles and in your breasts, and that’s what driving forces behind the province’s by Erin Bockstael causes the soreness.” network of shelters. She has helped Vaughan claims that women who have shape anti-violence policies and A Winnipeg lingerie store advertises that 70 tender breasts at the end of the day and aided in the creation of programs in percent of women are aren’t wearing the tender breasts before their period have shelters across the country. right size bra. I, apparently, am in that unhealthy breasts.“When one goes without majority.I entered the store an average 36C a bra, the tenderness at the end of the day FIGHT CANCER and was buckled into a much more impres- and the tenderness before your period RECURRENCE sive-sounding 34E. clears up. And the lumpy bumpy breasts, According to a study As Sharon Phillips-Nairn, president of the fibrocystic changes, resolve over a peri- presented in March, the BraBar and Panterie, explains,“women od of a month.” 2004 at a meeting of don’t understand the concept of bra-sizing, Many doctors maintain there is no con- the American so they don’t know how to fit themselves clusive research to support claims of detri- Association for properly.” mental or favorable health effects of bras. Cancer Research, She says that discomfort is the number Vaughan admits that her information is exercise—even mod- one problem faced by women in poorly fit- “all soft data” that comes from anecdotal erate activity such as walking—sub- ting bras. Phillips-Nairn maintains that a evidence and her own medical practice. stantially raises survival rates for properly fitting bra can alleviate Among her own patients,Vaughan says she women with breast cancer. headaches, back pain and neck pain, elim- has documented over a hundred cases The study found that women who inate grooves in the shoulders, and pro- where breast cysts and fibrocystic changes exercised after an incidence breast vide support and comfort. She further have been resolved by removing bras. cancer cut their long-term risk of dying claims that in the long term, an improper- Ultimately, women will decide for them- from it by one quarter to one half. ly fitted underwire bra can actually dam- selves whether to burn their bras or get a Exercise improves the physical age breast tissue. new one fitted by a pro. If you do wear a functioning of the body, boosts its Not everyone is running out to buy the bra, wearing the right size may help your ability to ward off disease and can new custom-fitted undergarments, howev- comfort. According to Phillips-Nairn, the help reduce the side effects from er. Dr. Elizabeth Vaughan operates most common error women make pur- treatment. Of course, exercising brafree.org, a website extolling the health chasing a bra is going to a larger back size, makes you feel like you have more benefits of letting your breasts jiggle. “when 90 percent of the time they should control over your body and your life, “Going bra-free will help even more with be going to a larger cup size and a smaller too. sore backs, and sore shoulders, and back size.”

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 7 nelliegrams

NO MORE SECRETS Kingston’s Interval House, a shelter for abused women, will soon move to a historic limestone building on a very public corner in Kingston’s downtown. “It helps the community take a role with the issue of violence in our soci- ety,” says the shelter’s administrator, Linda Murray. “I think the more visible we can be, the more it’s sort of in the community’s face.” The new shelter is also located just a few blocks away from the police station. Until now, women and their chil- dren have been asked to keep the location secret. But not disclosing the location can give women a false sense of security, said Pamela Cross, who heads up the board of directors at Kingston’s Neta Efroni of Machsom Watch, an Israeli women’s organization that monitors the behaviour of Israeli sol- Interval House. ders, outside a checkpoint in the West Bank. Photo by Anat Cohen Current security measures include cameras, bulletproof windows and impenetrable doors. Cross said the blocked because he lacks a paper, we use new building will have even more Israeli Women our contacts and call senior army officers measures, but didn’t specify what to interfere in the specific case,” explains they might be. Stand on Guard Neta Efroni, a retired journalist who par- by Anat Cohen ticipates in these shifts.“There, we usually TRÉS PISSED get proper attention, and commands are When Virgin Atlantic While it is rarely reported in North sent by phone to let that Palestinian cross Airline opened a American media, Palestinian and Israeli the border.” new clubhouse at women have a long history of advocating Lines of children, women, patients and JFK airport in New peaceful alternatives to violence in the workers queue each day, waiting two hours York that featured a urinal in the Middle East. They work together in groups to pass on their way to work, school, or shape of a woman’s open mouth, like Women in Black, and separately in the medical appointments. The 200 or so vol- feminists had a few choice words on Israeli feminist peace organization Bat unteers of Machsom Watch interfere when the matter. Shalom. At the same time, Palestinian and they encounter what they view as an injus- Before the company bowed to Israeli women academics have written tice. Every morning and afternoon, they pressure and cancelled its plan, extensively about their opposition to the travel to one of the checkpoints where they protest letters flushed the company’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. stand with two other members for several headquarters. A new Israeli women’s group, Machsom hours, watching the soldiers and noting Some dared to imagine what the Watch, was formed after reports of harass- their treatment of Palestinians. lips might actually say when cus- ment of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers at According to Efroni, the women’s pres- tomers unzipped. Erin Graham of checkpoints in the West Bank. Machsom ence has made an improvement in soldiers’ Vancouver wrote to Virgin, giving voice means “checkpoint” in Hebrew, and there behaviour.Yet she is not without sympathy to the lips: “Hey big guy—paid your are 600 checkpoints in the West Bank. for the soldiers. child support this month? C’mon—you Members of the Israeli army check individ- “We are talking about young Israeli sol- can afford to fly, you can afford to uals crossing the border in an effort to ward diers, 20 years old, who are forced to per- make sure your children are clothed.” off the entry of potential suicide bombers. form an awful task,” she explains. “Their She continued: “I hope you’ve been “If we happen to witness an emergency frustration translates sometimes into ver- case, say an old, sick Palestinian who is bal aggression towards the population.”

8 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS When Palestinians lack documents, stream media has ignored peace move- they must go back and provide them in ments. This includes Israeli media. nelliegrams order to cross the border. “We are also Machsom Watch, by taking account of the there to help these poor people,explaining suffering of Palestinians, gives voice to the using that thing in your hands respon- to them more gently which documents sentiments of an Israeli public that is fed sibly. Pissing at women is not the only they need,”she continues. up with the message that there is no room inappropriate use of it. (snap).” Since the last Intifada, the world’s main- for protest or dissent. Never underestimate the power of a woman who’s pissed. CAMPBELL MAKES SOUP OF WOMEN’S CONCERNS Girls Embrace Five members of the Coalition of Women’s the Revolution Centres were by Rachel Thompson charged with tres- passing at the BC In 1995, three students at the University of Legislature in March Ottawa Women’s Studies program found Godney was one during a protest of five arrested. njeri-damali campbell and Natasha Burford from themselves absorbed by what they were Photo: Ray Smith, against Premier the Ontario Young People’s Alliance at a recent learning,and wishing they had come across Victoria Times Gordon Campbell. POWER Camp National/Filles d’Action retreat. this stuff earlier. Colonist The women were “If girls had access to this type of info, sexuality, gender identity and ability. demanding the government restore perhaps it would prevent some of the major To date, over 20 communities have $1.7 million in funding for 37 bumps [they] face along the road of adapted the model provided by the group, women’s centres across the province. growing up,”reasoned Tatiana Fraser. and over 50 organizations across Canada Campbell said no. The province’s So in 1996, she and her friends launched participate in its national network. Minister of State for Women’s a summer camp program for girls 11 to 18 And the momentum hasn’t stopped.Last Services, Ida Chong, held that while years of age. The idea was simple: Create the November, the group held the first national provincial funding to the centres was opportunity for girls and young women to conference on girls and girlhood in Canada cut, the government is maintaining get together in a female-centred,supportive, at Concordia University. essential services for women. safe space where they can discuss issues that Transforming Spaces: Girlhood, Agency The crown decided not to prosecute are relevant to their lives. and Power was unique in design and style, those arrested. But it hasn’t restored The program immediately created a incorporating art and other forms of funding to women’s centres, either. buzz across Canada, with requests for expression to explore the issues of girlhood. “It was clear to us then, and is more information and resources pouring Heather Holland, a conference organizer, clearer now, that our actions were not in. So after a national meeting in the fall of described it as a place where “girls, and criminal and that the response was 2001,POWER Camp National was formally those working with them, addressed key heavy-handed—we have a right to launched. issues in their lives and imagined engage in peaceful protest,” said Today, POWER Camp helps create possibilities for change.” Dodie Goldney, one of those arrested. summer day camps, community outreach Power Camp organizer njeri-damali This led observers to point out that programs and school workshops on themes campbell says the most important work of while Campbell’s administration isn’t such as The Earth and Our Bodies, Active the organization is making sure the process prosecuting women, it is nonetheless Living and Activism. is owned by all participants. persecuting them. Through interactive, hands-on activities, “It’s easy to make space for girls who, young women break down barriers, learn through their own experiences of class and DANCE AT THE from one another, develop critical thinking racial privilege, are confident enough to REVOLUTION skills, gain knowledge and tools, and take it. The task is to find and encourage Meanwhile, another develop action-oriented strategies to effect those … who live on the margins of the form of protest was change in their lives and their communities. margins,”she said. launched in BC to Each element of the program weaves in Another challenge is to maintain the protest the cuts. issues of social justice, and works to gender focus of the program. Victory Over Violence eliminate violence against girls and young “I think questions [around boys] are is a new CD that features artists Kat women, while providing strategies to end relevant,”said Fraser. “However, we have to Wahamaa, Kenny Hess, The PMS discriminatory gender-based barriers be careful not to lose sight of girls’ Singers, Judith Reeves, Corey Primus, intersected by race, ethnicity, class, realities.”

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David A. Hunt and Rebecca Miller. Amusing spoofs include a catchy ren- dition of the classic ‘Mr. Sandman’ called ‘Mr. Campbell’! Order now. Four dollars from each $18 sale will go to help women’s cen- tres in the province and help women take the first steps in leaving abusive relationships. Send $18.00 ($15 + GST and $1.95 Wild Women Adventures’ staff, left to right: Beth Mairs, Katie Boomgaardt, Emily Cumins, Lisa Beiler, shipping) to: Penny-A-Line Alice Robinette and Gayle Reed. Promotions, Box 16, Lake Errock, BC V0M 1N0. Women Wild for Adventure SEX RIGHTS AFFIRMED by Penni Mitchell Despite attempts by the US to weaken it, a Canadian-led resolution on vio- According to the founder of Canada’s when fringe met the mainstream. lence against women was adopted at largest outdoor adventure company, “The newer clientele often didn’t share United Nations Commission on Human women’s travel is swinging back to its fem- the same sisterly values as our original Rights in Geneva in April. The resolu- inist roots, after going mainstream in the clients,”recalls Mairs.“We found ourselves tion affirms women’s sexual rights. late 90s. needing to hone our skills in mediation, as The commission reaffirmed support Beth Mairs,of Wild Women Expeditions, incidents of racist and homophobic for the Beijing Platform of Action. In told delegates to the Canadian Women’s remarks arose.” part, the resolution states that Wilderness Network’s annual conference in Mairs’more conservative-minded clients “women have the right to have con- April that the mainstream trend didn’t hurt were, at one time, chiefly American. But trol over and decide freely and business; in fact, just the opposite. From that changed last summer. “Canadian offi- responsibly on matters related to 1997 to 2000, Wild Women doubled its cials wrung their hands after a survey their sexuality.” business, and from 2000 to 2002 it grew reported a majority of Americans were less Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur another whopping 50 percent. inclined to travel to Canada because of the on the right to health, stated that “A proliferation of media articles hyped Canadian government’s lack of support for sexual and reproductive health issues the trend,”she recalls, “and they bent over the invasion of Iraq,”recounts Mairs. “are among the most sensitive and backwards to distance women’s travel from However,the same survey reported that 30 controversial in international human anything lesbian or feminist.” One 1998 percent of Americans were more favourably rights law, but they are also among article claimed women chose women-only inclined to travel to Canada—those who the most important.” adventures because they were “afraid of were not in support of the Bush administra- The US, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi holding their husbands and boyfriends tion. Wild Women had a record number of Arabia criticized Hunt’s work. Suki back.” Its interpretation couldn’t have been US participants last year, up to 20 percent Beavers of Action Canada for Population further from the truth. from 10 percent the previous 12 years. and Development, a Canadian NGO, “Like, what, boyfriends for starters?” Mairs says feminists are drawn to out- praised the Special Rapporteur. Mairs quipped. door travel for four reasons. “The Commission is not a popularity Nonetheless,women adventure travellers “They are seeking a supportive group contest,” she noted. “It is about emerged as a hot market by 2001.According atmosphere to try on new challenges. ensuring that governments meet their to the Colorado-based Adventure Travel Second, they really prefer the company of obligations to respect, protect and Society, women account for over 65 percent other women. Third, they expect a less fulfill all human rights.” of all adventure travel bookings.A National inhibited atmosphere compared to a mixed Post article cited an American operator as gender trip. Lastly, they are avoiding the UNHOLY ALLIANCES saying women’s travel used to be “this possibility of rigid, stereotyped roles. LAST LONGER avant-garde thing that only lesbians did,” Our original clientele—feminists, les- US President George Bush, who is but now the average adventure traveller is bians and other progressive women—are doing everything he can to fight gay 50 and married with two kids. again the core of the business. And we are marriage, wants Congress to dole out Yet there were some difficult challenges still having a blast.”

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 11 nelliegrams

$1.5 billion to encourage straight people to get married. He might start by heading south. Traditionally pro-Bush states in the Bible Belt have the highest divorce rates in the US. According to the Barna Research Group—a firm that specializes in identifying church and cultural trends, Baptists (29 percent) and nondenominational Christians (34 percent) are getting divorced more frequently than atheists or agnostics (21 percent). The five states with the highest rates of divorce are Nevada, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Sharmila Daluwatte (right) and Renuka Priyadarshini (left) of the all-woman group that contested the April Oklahoma. general election in Sri Lanka. Photo: Lasanda Kurukulasuriya THEY’RE KIDDING, RIGHT? Women Mobilize in Sri Lanka Election Kids driving you nuts? by Lasanda Kurukulasuriya Get out the spray. ChildCalm, a new prod- (COLOMBO) A new all-woman group with- Combined, the two leading parties nomi- uct approved in the US, in a party that contested Sri Lanka’s April nated 22 women out of 513 candidates— bills itself as “the only parliamentary election won a symbolic vic- less than five percent.A Women’s Manifesto all-natural spray that tory, coming in sixth among 28 parties and issued by women’s organizations called for a brings a quieting effect independents in this Sri Lanka district. 30 percent quota for women in parliament. to children.” The group fielded 23 candidates in Another key issue on Daluwatte’s mani- No more yelling or behaviour-mod- Colombo and polled 1,273 votes.While the festo was voting rights for 800,000 women ification techniques required. Just number is small as a portion of the one migrant workers in West Asia, mostly take a deep breath and squirt. million votes cast in the capital city dis- housemaids. The women’s group also drew “The therapeutic properties in the trict, the party’s leader was pleased with attention to the illegality of abortion, oils are transferred to the child when the result. women’s health issues, rape and sexual they are breathed in,” oozes the “It’s better than what we expected,”said harassment. promo material. Sharmila Daluwatte. The National People’s The entry of the new group drew mixed ChildCalm is marketed as a new way Party, from which the group fielded its reactions from the mainstream women’s to tame tantrums, ease tension and women candidates, did not poll sufficient movement.“Their courage, I think, is very, promote sleep. Adults use the same votes to win any seats. The relatively new very commendable,”said Kamala Liyanage, active ingredients—lavender and NPP is not a women’s party, but supports professor of political science at the chamomile—for their sedative, relaxing the group’s objectives. University of Peradeniya and a long-time effects. So why not use it on your kids? “We contested symbolically,” she advocate for increasing women’s participa- In fact, if the kids are stressing you explains. The main objective was to “cre- tion in politics. out, you just might want to try a dose ate awareness of women’s political and Nimalka Fernando, chairperson of the yourself, instead. civil rights.” International Movement Against The group includes lawyers, university Discrimination and Racism, is more criti- FOR WOMEN ONLY? students, businesswomen, an accountant, cal. “It’s too early for this,” she says. “If The American College of Preventive housewives and a retired teacher. Women’s women did not poll a respectable number Medicine (ACPM) is recommending representation in Sri Lanka’s parliament, at of votes, the exercise was self-defeating.” that all sexually active women 25 or 4.5 per cent, is the lowest in South Asia, Sepali Kottegoda, co-director of the younger, as well as sexually active with the exception of Bangladesh. Women and Media Collective and coordina- women with other risk factors, should “We will encourage women to partici- tor of the Women’s NGO Forum, sounds a be screened annually for chlamydia. pate in politics, regardless of the party (to note of cautious approval. “The more which) they belong,”Daluwatte says. women can organize and come forward, the

12 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS more women will be seen to use the space participate in parliamentary politics. The available.” UPFA secured 105 seats in the 225-mem- nelliegrams As a result of the election, the left-lean- ber legislature, leaving the right-wing ing United People’s Freedom Alliance has United National Party with just 82. The According to Dr. Katerina Hollblad- formed an alliance with the Janatha result is a hung parliament, and newly- Fadiman, the lead author of ACPM’s Vimukthi Peramuna (People’s Liberation elected President Chandrika Kumaratunga recommendation, “while chlamydia Front), which has a history of violent rebel- needs to win over another eight members has become the nation’s most com- lion in the South but has now reformed to to form a government. mon bacterial sexually transmitted disease, it can, in fact, be controlled by aggressive public health efforts.” captioned, obviously deaf women are not This is serious because chlamydia getting it,” she says. Barile adds that no affects more than 4 million Americans information is targeted to women with each year (and an estimated 400,000 physical disabilities. Canadians). Seventy percent of all According to Statistics Canada, 16 per- reported cases occur in women under cent of Canadian women are disabled. 25, and up to 70 percent of infected Women with disabilities have the same women and 75 percent of infected chance of getting breast cancer as non-dis- men are asymptomatic. Treatment is abled women, yet they are consistently effective and simple. under-served by breast cancer screening Pelvic inflammatory disease occurs centres. American women with motor in up to 30 percent of untreated impairments are three times less likely to women and can lead to ectopic preg- be screened for breast cancer. nancy and infertility. Chlamydia also According to Barile’s research, equip- increases the likelihood of transmit- ment and health centres are frequently not ting and acquiring HIV infection. adapted for women with disabilities. Fair enough. But if STD prevention A new report indicates that equipment and “Once you get into the centre, there is no is the goal, shouldn’t men be included health centres are frequently not accessible. one there to speak to you in sign language. in screening? Photo: Getty Images And in some centres, they won’t even allow the sign language interpreters to come into MISSING WOMEN the room.” According to the Access a According to the Toronto report, 38 per- Spirit Campaign, 500 cent of women with disabilities encoun- Aboriginal women Pressing Issue tered problems with accessibility at breast have gone missing in by Sujita Day cancer screening centres.In Barile’s evalua- Canada. The Native tion,none of the centres surveyed were uni- Women’s Association of Canada You would be hard-pressed to find a woman versally accessible, and only 11 of the 16 (NWAC) is gathering the names and who is unaware of breast cancer. After all, centres were partially accessible. stories of Aboriginal women who have there is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Documentation in alternate formats for disappeared in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Rosie O’Donnell’s crusades for every blind and visually impaired women was Regina, Edmonton, Kenora, Thunder woman to do breast self-examinations, and non-existent. For women with develop- Bay, Fredericton and elsewhere. major corporations boosting their images mental disabilities, other barriers exist. In BC alone, 32 Aboriginal women through breast cancer-related events. But In one centre Barile surveyed, techni- have gone missing along Highway 16 one group seems not to have been invited to cians had a policy of giving information between Prince Rupert and Prince the chick-bonding at the breast cancer only to the family member, not directly to George, now referred to as the Highway marathon: women with disabilities. the woman with a developmental disability. of Tears. Between 1988 and 1995, five According to an evaluation of Montreal- “I know of several women with disabili- young women—Alberta Williams, based breast cancer screening centres by ties who were diagnosed much too late,” Delphine Nikal,Ramona Wilson, Maria Barile, co-chair of Action des says Barile. Roxanne Thiara and Lana Derrick—went femmes handicapées de Montreal, women Her advice for screening centres is that missing along that stretch of highway. with disabilities are not screened on an “they need to be inclusive of women with Despite community vigils and equal basis with non-disabled women. disabilities,with various types of disabilities protests by the Terrace First Nations “If you are blind and most of that and they need to be technically, physically Council of Women and others, neither information is on paper, obviously you and humanly accessible to include women the police nor the media took seri- are not getting it. If it’s on TV and not with disabilities.”

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 13 nelliegrams

ously the disappearance of these women. Then, in June 2002, Nicole Hoar’s disappearance immediately sparked media attention and govern- Ottawa Soft on ment action. How did this case differ from the others? Nicole Boar was the Pollutants first non-Aboriginal woman to disap- by Gillian McCann pear on the Highway of Tears. According to Denise Cook, You wrap leftover vegetables in it. It’s in Pimicikamak Cree Nation, member of your blinds. It’s in children’s toys and their the National Women’s Association of raincoats. It makes your Tupperware con- Canada Youth Council, “it is appalling tainers soft. In the hospital, IV tubing is that these issues do not matter to the likely to be made from it. larger community, just because the It is polyvinyl chloride (PVC), part of a victims are Aboriginal women. The family of chemicals made from chlorine question is why there is no support in that is mixed with petrochemicals. PVC mainstream society for providing jus- production began with the general expan- tice for these women.” sion of the chlorine industry during the More info: http://generalsynod.angli- 1950s and 60s, and today it is widely used can.ca/ministries/committees/acip/ in construction materials such as vinyl sid- sistersinspirit/stories.html ing, window frames, flooring and cords for appliances. PILL POLICY NEEDED Five years ago, Greenpeace sponsored a According to Jennifer Foulds of Environmental In 2000, there were study that revealed high levels of toxic soft- Defence Canada, Canada’s regulations are unwieldy more than 15.7 mil- ening additives in PVC IV bags, syringes, when it comes to chemicals used to manufacture lion prescriptions tubing and catheters used in hospitals. plastic products. Photo: Environmental Defence Canada for benzodiazepines Disposing of these products is also haz- filled by Canadian ardous, because a by-product of the incin- Dubbed “the most hazardous plastic for retail pharmacies—an increase of 12.8 eration of PVC is dioxin—the most toxic health and environment” by Greenpeace percent from 1996. synthetic chemical known to science. toxics specialist Dr. Matthew Bramley, PVC According to Janet C. Currie, author Medical and municipal incinerators burn is just one example of Ottawa’s inability or of a report published with the British large amounts of PVC, and these incinera- unwillingness to regulate chemical pollu- Columbia Centre of Excellence for tors are believed to be one the largest tants whose compounds and by-products Women’s Health, “The majority of those source of dioxins, a hormone-disruptor. are linked to reproductive disorders. who take the drugs for more than one Even a low level of exposure to dioxins Jennifer Foulds, who heads up commu- or two months will become dependent. can disrupt the hormonal systems of nications at the Environmental Defence Fifty to 100 percent will experience dif- humans and animals.The presence of diox- Canada, says the process used to place ficulties withdrawing and recovering.” ins in the body has been linked to miscar- chemicals on Canada’s toxic substances Benzodiazepines are prescribed to riage, low birth weight, birth defects and list is unwieldy. And what happens once help people cope with work or family lower fertility rates in both men and substances are placed on the list is often stress, premenstrual syndrome, grief, women. These chemicals are also linked to unclear. and adjustment to life events such as immune disorders, liver toxicity, In many cases,“the government has childbirth and menopause, or for endometriosis and breast cancer. taken no concrete steps, and there is no chronic illness and pain. Sixty percent Today, there is a growing concern that requirement for industry to label items,” of patients are women, and the majori- the breakdown and release of PVC com- she says. ty are over 60 years of age.Common pounds and by-products is a major con- Morag Carter, Climate Change Program benzodiazepines include Ativan tributor of persistent toxins. PVC products Director of the Suzuki Foundation, agrees. (lorazepam), Serax (oxazepam), contains additives called phthalates to “The regulatory structure put in place by Rivotril and Klonopin (clonazepam), make them flexible. Some softeners the Canadian government is completely Xanax (alprazolam) and Valium become toxic as they break down and enter inept at dealing with the 100,000 chemicals (diazepam). the human body through air, water, food in common use,”says Carter. and tissues. Citizens are left to educate themselves,

14 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS nelliegrams

“Long-term (more than several months) benzodiazepine use can cause she says. The shortcomings of self-policing or aggravate depression, memory are revealed by the fact that the chemical impairment, emotional blunting and industry has not produced data on the pro- suicidal tendencies,” she cautions. duction of dioxins in over three years. What’s needed, is for Health Canada to One solution is to ban organochlo- establish clinical practice guidelines rines, the category of chemicals that on their use of prescription. includes PVC plastic. Denmark and www.bccewh.bc.ca/policy_briefs/ Sweden now limit the use of PVC, and Benzo_Brief/benzobriefv3.pdf companies like Nike, IKEA and the Body Shop have begun to phase out the use of CAMPBELL GETS PVC from their products. Baxter FAILING GRADE International, the world’s largest IV bag Here’s a surprise— manufacturer, has already stopped using nearly 30 percent PVC plastic. Organic plastics created more women than from soy,hemp and other natural materi- men in BC disap- als offer viable alternatives. prove of their pre- Some good news came on May 17,2004. mier’s performance. That’s when The Stockholm Convention According to an took effect. It calls for the elimination of Ipsos-Reid poll of 800 British persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such Columbians released in March, a mere Morag Carter of the David Suzuki Foundation calls as DDT,PCBs and dioxin and has been rat- five percent of women “strongly the chemical regulatory system “completely inept.” ified by 50 countries, including Canada. approve” of Gordon Campbell’s per- Photo: David Suzuki Foundation The impetus for this agreement came as formance as premier. Ten times more the result of lobbying by Inuit communi- women—50 percent—“strongly disap- ties affected by the accumulation of POPs prove” of the way the B.C. Liberal pre- support environmental groups, join renew- in the Arctic. mier does his job. able energy co-ops and join in the move- Ultimately, environmentalists say, ment of citizens around the world to lobby Canada should follow the lead set in UNCHARITABLE ACTS their government once the known effects Denmark and Sweden, where the precau- There is a growing movement afoot in are documented elsewhere. tionary principle has been adopted as an Canada to change Canada Customs Yet national and international action is approach to regulating pollutants.The prin- and Revenue Agency guidelines to needed. Environmentalists say Canada is ciple states that precautionary measures allow equality-seeking organizations behind other countries when it comes to should be taken if there is any indication an and other social change groups to regulating chemicals and measuring their activity threatens human health or the envi- qualify as charities. combined impact on the environment.“We ronment—whether or not it has been fully Under Canada’s charity laws, it is need to be able to deal with chemicals as a established scientifically. This places the charitable to cook a pot of soup for the class,”Carter says. burden of proof on chemical producers to poor, but not to call attention to the PVC isn’t listed on the Canadian govern- demonstrate that their products are safe. conditions that lead to homelessness. ment’s list of toxic substances, despite the Until the Canadian government catches All that may be about to change. fact that it is persistent in the environment up with countries in the EU and moves According to a report by the Institute and fat-soluble (meaning that it accumu- towards a precautionary approach, Carter for Media, Policy and Civil society lates in fat tissue of humans and animals). says “we need to be very vigilant.” (IMPACS), the Canadian Centre for Listing chemicals is only a partial solu- Philanthropy (CCP) and the Voluntary tion, according to Executive Director of the Further Information: Sector Forum (VSF), “Canadians Sierra Club of Canada Elizabeth May. www.greenpeace.org/campaigns/ expect charities to speak out issues “There is no money in the budget of intro?campaign_id+3988 such as the environment, poverty or Environment Canada for enforcement, www.ecobridge.org/content/c_dxn.htm. health care,” says CCP spokesperson leaving us in the pathetic position of hop- www.stopcancer.org Gordon Floyd. ing that if we’re really, really nice to pol- www.davidsuzuki.org www.impacs.org luters they will comply with regulations,” www.environmentaldefence.ca

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 15 cole’s notes BY SUSAN G. COLE

ADOPTING NEW RITUALS If you ask me, the Gay and Lesbian Wedding ly man—plainly, the real thing—emerged. Convention that took place in Toronto last winter Our counsel made the most of the moment. “Your was gag-worthy. Flowers, wedding gowns, garters— honour,” she began, “it is not often that I get to come to puh-lease. Since gays got the right to marry last sum- you in a moment of celebration. So it’s my privilege and mer, I’ve been mystified by the wide-eyed couples pleasure to introduce you to Susan, Leslie and Molly.” making their way up from the United States to tie the I admit, my throat started to constrict a little as knot. When queer couples tell me of their upcoming she outlined the history of our relationship, our nuptials, I am at a loss for words. decision to have a child, and our reasons for being in “Well, love is wonderful,” I mumble—or some- court that day. Then the judge said, “So Molly, will thing like that—hiding my unease. you be keeping your given name?” Leslie and I have been together for almost 20 years “Yeah,” she said. and we have a 16-year-old daughter who we created “Yes, your honour,” I hissed at her, and poked her from scratch, thanks to the gift of sperm from my with my elbow. But his honour could not have cared less brother. The three of us are related by blood, which about the informality of her reply. qualifies us as poster girls for gay marriage. But “Well, it appears that your documents are in order. I we’ve consistently said, “No, thank you.” hereby place an order that Susan G. Cole be given full I mean, why would anyone need confirmation from rights as Molly’s mother. Congratulations.” the state for their partnership? What possible sense It’s fortunate our lawyer stepped in, because I was could there be in going through an old ritual that strangely speechless. Why, exactly, was I overcome with looks either to government or to religious authorities emotion at that moment, I wondered? It was because I for approval? What’s with the precious couple con- felt, in a very real way, a shifting in the system. cept? I’m more interested in relationships that aren’t “Look what we did,” I grinned at Leslie. The “we” about property rights and religious baggage. referred to her and me, and to the movement that The three of us went to court so that I could official- had made this imaginable, let alone possible. ly adopt our daughter. For a variety of reasons—such After the judge declared me official, he came down as protection of my rights in hospital in case some- from his perch and posed with us for a picture. Trust thing happened to Molly, or protection from harass- me, I’ll be treasuring that photograph just as much ment if Molly and I were trying to cross a border—we as all those married couples are cherishing their wanted a piece of paper documenting my legal rights. wedding albums. The hearing was scheduled for 1:59 p.m.. We “I think,” I said later, “that this is what all those slob- arrived together at the courthouse to meet our bering couples feel when they get married.” lawyer, went through security, where my Swiss Army That doesn’t mean we’re gonna do it. We’re not into the knife keychain was confiscated (How can a dyke sur- flowers and the garters, and the stupid bridal gowns and vive without her Swiss Army knife?), and waited to tuxes. And if you add up the lawyer appointments, the be called before the judge. paperwork and the three-and-a-half-minute court At 1:59 p.m. on the dot, the door opened and we date, the whole thing took a couple of hours. were led into the courtroom. Every time one of the But for a second, I almost got what all the same- clerks came out from behind the curtain, we stood sex marriage euphoria is about. up dutifully (too many Law and Order episodes), only Susan G. Cole is Entertainment/Books Editor at NOW to be told to sit back down. Soon, a red-robed elder- magazine in Toronto.

16 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS

How to Save the World in Your Spare Time AN INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH MAY by Kate Heartfield

Elizabeth May launched a hunger strike on Parliament Hill in May, 2001. Citing high rates of cancer and birth defects, she called on the federal government to move about 100 fam- ilies out of a toxin-rid- den neighbourhood in Sydney, NS near the Sydney Tar Ponds. CP Photo: Fred Chartrand

18 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS lizabeth May is a tireless environmental activist and feminist. As executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, she is in a unique situation to influence public policy. She held a public hunger strike on Parliament E Hill to get Ottawa’s attention on the eco-disaster the Sydney tar ponds. A lawyer by trade, May is author of At the Cutting Edge, a Canadian primer on the environmental impact of current forestry practices, and of a lengthy essay called “How to be an Activist” (www. sierraclubofcanada.org). Herizons caught up with May in Ottawa.

Herizons: What made you decide to write “How to Be an just not there. We rely on a lot of volunteers who are Activist”? professionals, volunteer toxicologists who will give Elizabeth May: The work I’ve done over the last 30 us some of their time. years has involved a lot of grassroots organizing. And what I’ve observed, particularly once I started work- Do you remember a moment you began to think of your- ing with the Sierra Club of Canada and members self as an environmentalist? across Canada, is local groups that aren’t members Elizabeth May: From the time I was 12 I thought of but call us for help—it’s like being the 911 number for myself as an environmentalist. Before that I thought the environment. There are a lot of places people can of myself as a little girl. I loved nature, and I partic- call, and they get bumped around from one bureau- ularly loved animals. crat to the other, and they don’t get I was raised to be an activist, helped. We try to help anyone who “UNLIKE MANY OF because my mother was a peace calls, which is very difficult. MY FRIENDS IN THE activist. So I knew how to organize, Every citizens’ group organizing PEACE MOVEMENT, and I knew what campaigning around an issue starts from scratch, I DON’T MIND looked like when it was a whole and they’re constantly reinventing USING WORDS group of volunteers. the wheel. Activism tends to come THAT COME FROM I think if you scratch the surface of down to the same solutions: “This is MILITARY HISTORY. any Canadian, you end up finding an how we organize. This is how we I THINK WE NEED environmentalist. If you tell any group write a press release. This is how we TACTICS, WE NEED of Canadians, “Oh, we’ve decided go to lobby city hall or the local STRATEGIES.” we’re going to put a toxic waste incin- provincial legislature.” But if erator just over here by your school,” activists have some training, they you’ve got concerned parents—but can skip a bunch of steps. they’re suddenly labelled ‘environmental activists.’ You So we started doing activist training courses and notice the media would never label businesses, ‘the published “How to Be an Activist” on our website, polluter lobby.’ and it is now being expanded into a book. That’s what we’re about as an organization: supporting people in A quote that struck me from “How to Be an Activist” is, their communities to take on their own campaigns. “Build love into your campaigns.” How have you done that? Elizabeth May: You can use a number of energies to Can’t the Sierra Club do the work for those citizen’s drive what you’re doing. If your energy is hate, or groups? fear, or anger, those are the kinds of energies that Elizabeth May: In general, Canada has nothing like lead to burnout. They also lead to failure. Not to the capacity of the US groups. When you look at the sound too flaky about it, but if you’re operating from Environmental Defence Fund US, or Friends of the hate, or fear, or anger, you don’t generate the kind of Earth US, and of course the Sierra Club US, they are reaction that’s productive. huge. They have professional staff. They have staff The reaction to fear-mongering is: “You’re exag- lawyers, staff scientists, staff toxicologists—we’re gerating, don’t make me feel fearful.” You get a push

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 19 have a personal problem and say, “Well, I have to drop out of the campaign for a while,” you shouldn’t just say, “Well, who’s going to take up your petition at the mall?” Loving the people you work with may not seem tough, although it often is. I don’t care if it’s the local parish council or partners in a law firm, I’ve never seen a workplace involving human beings where there wasn’t conflict. And a campaign in its own way is a self-organized workplace. There are some peo- ple you just don’t even like, but you have to choose to work with them in a way that reflects love.

What about people outside the organization? Elizabeth May: If we are going to live the change we want to see in the world, then our own campaigns and our networks and our organizations should be Receiving support here from Council of Canadians chairperson Maude built on the premise that we love the whole person Barlow, Elizabeth May urged Ottawa to spend $20 million to move families out of a toxin-laced neighbourhood in Sydney, NS. As a result, then Health we’re working with. That includes loving our enemy, Minister Alan Rock announced a plan for immediate testing of residents which is the really tough part. But it also is effective and relocation if health risks were evident. CP Photo: Fred Chartrand campaigning. back. If you’re operating from anger, people will say, If you are trying to change the opinions of a prime “I don’t want to go anywhere near that person.” minister or a mayor that you really can’t stand, choosing to operate with love means you’re respect- What about civil disobedience as a method of social ful of the person. You don’t let the campaign degen- change? erate into name-calling. It makes you stick to the Elizabeth May: I am in favour of non-violent civil issues, and it leaves open the possibility that that disobedience. I don’t think smashing windows to person can come around to your side. make a point against globalization does any good. It’s practical political advice to love your enemies. The reaction people feel when they see a window It works. But also, as a practicing Christian, to love smashed is that that was a bad thing to do. It creates your enemies, it’s like heaping coals upon your exactly the opposite reaction of what you want— enemy’s head. Our enemies hate it when we love which is to promote understanding. If it’s a non- them. We operate best in a way that suggests we violent protest that involves handing flowers to the expect the best of them. ‘Enemies’ is an odd term, policemen as they go by, or an information picket in but [by that I mean] policy-makers, industry giants. front of the Starbucks, you get a much better chance So we say, “Okay, I’m not going to allow myself to to educate. become like you.” It’s a much healthier place to be in on a personal level. It makes campaigns work better, What advice do you have about nurturing volunteers? and it gets you better results. Elizabeth May: If you build a loving network in the movement you’re in, you are concerned for the Have you found that being a mother changes the way you whole person of the volunteers and activists you work as an activist? work with. You don’t do it like a capitalist system— Elizabeth May: No. [laughs] I mean, I should say it you don’t go at your volunteers and extract what you has. It’s made me, if anything, more driven about want from them, and leave the rest of them as waste. the amount of time that’s going by, and about how You think, “Who is this whole person?” old my daughter is getting, and about how much They’re volunteering. What do they need? If they closer we’re getting to planetary meltdown of some

20 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS very significant systems and life support. things I learned from my mother. I’m so glad I read So I panic more, I suppose. it aloud to her before she died to check some facts — For most of her life, she has been dragged around and she just loved it. with me to meetings all over the place. She’s in grade My father had a dream after she died that she sent 7 now, and it hit a year ago when she said, “You know him a letter from her new project of where she was mom, I really want to be at school working, and she’d enclosed more.” Not that she doesn’t get “I DO MAKEUP FOR colour photos so he could see straight A’s, anyway. That’s one thing TWO THINGS: what she was doing, and it was a that I find gets me down the most, is LOBBYING, package of materials of her in being on the road and not being home. (MEETING WITH Iraq. So I think my father and my She’s given me a lot of good insights, POLITICIANS), AND brother and I have a fairly clear but she hasn’t changed how I work. DOING TV. OTHER sense that she’s probably in Iraq, THAN THAT, I CAN’T doing what she can to help. That I understand that you lost your mother SEE THE POINT.” may sound crazy—I mean, cer- recently. tainly Iraq isn’t heaven. But she’s Elizabeth May: Yes, my mom died in definitely on another plane. August. She died in her sleep, and she was only 76 You know, I miss her. Yeah. She taught me a lot. and she hadn’t been unwell. I didn’t think that she’d die. She was very, very energetic. So her death has One of the things I wrote down from “How to Be an been hard for me. Activist” is that you refer to makeup as “war paint”! This book I’ve been working on, How to Save the Elizabeth May: Yes. I came to work today without World in Your Spare Time (an expansion of “How to Be any, and then I found out I had to do a Newsworld an Activist”), the first chapter was largely about interview. I do makeup for two things: lobbying,

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HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 21 meeting with politicians, and doing TV. Other than right now is as if we’re living with an occupying that, I can’t see the point. It was a friend of mine who force. It’s as if we’re living in a state of occupation. first described it as war paint. When we think about It’s not foreign troops, it’s transnational corpora- it in the context of a custom, well, this is what I wear tions. to be effective in certain places. [We learn from] historical experiences of great It’s slightly related to living in Cape bravery—such as the Resistance Breton. My brother and sister are “IT’S JUST against the Nazis. We operate as active in the preservation of the DIABOLICAL—THE though we’re dealing in a policy Gaelic language. I learned from them DEVICE THAT’S context, or some kind of safe zone, that the word “slogan” is a Gaelic GOING TO DELIVER but the reality is that our struggle is word meaning “war cry.” So again, DEATH AND just as real. It’s actually more dan- there are carry-overs into our cam- DESTRUCTION TO gerous—the stakes on climate paigning work. We have our own slo- YOUR CHILDREN’S change are much higher than the gans and our own war paint. WORLD IS A REAL casualties in the Second World War. COMFY, NICE War? Is there anything you find different Elizabeth May: LITTLE NEST FOR Unlike many of my THEM.” being a female soldier than if you were friends in the peace movement, I a male soldier? don’t mind using words that come Elizabeth May: That’s an interest- from military history. I think we need tactics, we ing question. Certainly, as a young woman it was very need strategies. We need to be able to arm our- different. Less so now than 30 years ago, but it’s still selves—in non-violent ways, obviously. But this kind there. It’s a double strike against you to be young and of language speaks to winning campaigns, and I female. But other than those differences in terms of don’t think that’s such a bad thing. In books like The a societal sexism, the operating principles for Art of War [the ancient military text by Sun Tzu], women in the movement and men in the movement there is a lot of good strategy, the history and tactics are about the same, I think. of military campaigns that apply to non-violent, At our board meeting last week, one of our direc- democratic political organizing. I’m obviously not tors said, “Well, Sierra Club of Canada is a matri- talking about armed insurrection. archy,” and one of the other men said, “Yeah, thank Ursula Franklin, who is professor emeritus at the God for that!” We have a female president right now, University of Toronto and probably the most bril- liant person in Canada, said what we’re living in continued on page 45

22 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS Exposing the System AN INTERVIEW WITH JANE DOE

by Penni Mitchell by Shary Boyle Illustration

1986, Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by a Editor’s Note: An excerpt from The Story of Jane perpetrator who was known to Toronto Doe, appeared as a guest column in the Winter In police as the Balcony Rapist. When she dis- 2004 issue of Herizons. Herizons contract with covered that police knew about the perpetrator, but failed Random House stated that Herizons would send to warn area residents—he had raped four women a layout of the article to the publisher for final already with a similar modus operandi—she sued the approval. However, we neglected to do so. Also, police and won. three footnotes that accompanied the text in the Her riveting, inspiring and often hilarious book, The book were omitted and we did not reproduce Story of Jane Doe (Random House 2003), documents the book jacket in its entirety, as the contract the story of a woman who refused to be victimized by the stated. Herizons apologizes to Jane Doe and court process or by the police. She won the right to sit in Random House for these errors. We have on the hearings of her perpetrator, instead of outside in reproduced the excerpt below, from the chapter the hall, and what she documented in Jane Doe is a “Civil Trial Journal.” The Story of Jane Doe was scathing, humorous, feminist critique of the players in released in paperback in April. the justice system. One year after the release of her book, we asked Jane what has changed as a result of her THE STORY OF JANE DOE EXCERPT expose. by Jane Doe Okay so I’m still here, shoot me Herizons: Your book, The Story of Jane Doe, includes a why don’t you. Please shoot me. scathing commentary on the justice system, and in par- I’ll pay you to shoot me. But I’m ticular the Toronto Police department. After you were going soon. How can I not watch raped, what were your biggest beefs with the police, whose Kim Derry’s opening act? And it’s job it is to protect citizens and apprehend the ‘bad guys’? worth it because get this: Derry has his notebook

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 23 Jane Doe: I think it was, it is, the very culture of with guns, helicopters and enormous budgets, and policing that allows its members to identify like that, we’re in a lot of trouble—still. that allows the majority of civilians to see police offi- cers as our protectors, the ‘good guys.’ I wish it were What lessons did your relentless pursuit of justice for that simple, and I’m not talking about individual women teach the Toronto Police Department? police officers, many of whom are good people. Jane Doe: I don’t think it taught them much at all. (Although true, it’s interesting that I feel compelled There is considerable mythology about what my case to say that, to somehow undermine accomplished. As a result of ‘Jane individual responsibility.) I’m Doe’ it is now possible to sue the referring to the institution of polic- “AS A RESULT OF police for their actions in the inves- ing itself, which is militaristic, ‘JANE DOE’ IT IS tigation of a crime—any crime. That paternalistic and designed to create NOW POSSIBLE TO is the legal precedent which was set. an ‘us versus them’ relationship SUE THE POLICE The myth of Jane Doe is that the between police and other citizens. FOR THEIR police changed or were obliged to It prohibits outside influence and ACTIONS IN THE change their protocol regarding sex- prevents ‘good’ officers from affect- INVESTIGATION OF ual assault investigation or the man- ing change from within. The cops I A CRIME—ANY ner in which they treat women who dealt with in 1986 and the ones I deal CRIME.” experience that crime. That has not with today honestly believe that they changed at all. In fact, the sexist bias are doing the right thing, the best thing for women and systemic discrimination for which they were who experience rape and assault. They believe that convicted continues to inform policing in Toronto they are ‘sensitive’ to our needs and know more than and across the country. women who are experts in the area of anti-violence. The truth—the facts that they are untrained, sexist You weren’t your ‘typical’ rape victim—if there is such a and highly invested in other oppressive behaviours— thing. Your book contains a chapter, “Why Men Rape,” conveniently eludes them. Augment that mindset in which you observe that “They Rape Because They

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24 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS from the Balcony Rapist investigation but all the other documents, the volumes of working files, profiles and investigative strategies he said he used are missing. So, he will use an aide-mémoire Can.” Is the difference here that you were a feminist to that contains his recollections of these things. begin with? Sean objects but the judge says she’s going to let Jane Doe: Absolutely. It’s what saved me, kept me it in for now. I can’t stand it. I’ve got to phone Lee safe, and kept me strong. I understood rape to be a Lakeman 1. She can advise rape counsellors across political act and I was able to translate that into a the country that the whole therapy notes issue has feminist political action also known as “Jane Doe v been solved! Call them aides mémoire. Why you the Toronto Police.” My case and the evidence led could write things that would assist the woman you were based on providing the court with a feminist are counselling. After the fact! Kim’s entire understanding of sexual assault. (I was greatly testimony is an aide-mémoire. assisted in that by my ‘preferred’ race, and class, I like the way Finlay says it: “ayde-memoirrrr.” and sexual identity.) It was an incredible piece of Kim is more subdued than I thought he would be. As work, very exciting at times, and I regret that so if he’s been hauled in. He delivers his testimony much of it was ‘disappeared’ in media accounts, although very little he says can be corroborated by appropriated by the legal community—especially the any document or by any other evidence. Just his notes manner in which my case is taught in law schools. and his memory. The judge is to believe that, although Jane Doe belongs to the women’s community, to there is no paper trail, intensive work was going on feminism. I tried to write it that way. continuously in the month before I was raped, because he (now an acting superintendent) says it In your book, you are clear about the fact you’re a feminist. was. Continuous, intensive activity that left no per- You say that “We suffer under the delusion that patriarchy manent written record, only Kim’s “recollections,” no longer exists.” Who are your feminist heroes? based on his recent “reconstruction” contained in his Jane Doe: I love that question. We never get to talk aide-mémoire. This contrasts starkly with police doc- about our heroes, the women we admire most. I uments we have that state that in 1986 Derry worked would have to start with women who work in shelters extensively throughout August on a case called Two and rape crisis centres, who manage to maintain a Toes 2, until I was raped on the 24th. feminist politic despite the ongoing institutional- Bastard. ization of those agencies. I’m also in awe of women One of his recollections of the investigation, deliv- who work in bureaucracies, who struggle against ered under oath: “We didn’t want to drive him away. enormous odds to be feminist. Those are my heroes, We were sort of close and yet far. We had determined the women on the ground, the women we do not that he was in the area but we hadn’t narrowed it know. Another group is women who are mothers down to that was the only area of attack.” who raise political children, despite any social or In addition to his aide-mémoire, Kim has come other support to do so. There are more: Artists like with a giant blow-up of a map of the area in which Shary Boyle, who created the illustrations in my the rapes occurred. It is an impressive map that book, young women who organize, the countless sits at the front of the room, as if it belongs there. women who are raped and beaten and overcome, Must ask Sean if we can have a map. I would like a continue to live their lives. map of how to get to the cafeteria, which is hidden in the basement, buy a coffee, drink it, and then Has feminism—or, specifically, the way sexual assault get back into the courtroom in fifteen minutes. services are provided—changed since the book was origi- Kim goes on: “It was a low-key investigation … nally written? Our feeling was that although the Annex Rapist Jane Doe: I fear that it has changed in ways that do investigation was successful, he fled … so we not benefit women who experience the crime. didn’t want to drive this person away … we tried to

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 25 Medical and social work models have replaced fem- would prefer to use my real name, as I am proud of inism in many of our services. It is no longer my work, proud of my book—but it’s simply not safe required or even necessary for workers to demon- for a woman to identify as raped. There is immense strate a feminist analysis or commit- stigma attached to it, socially and ment. Current intake procedures and “A RAPE VICTIM legally. A rape victim is caught some- recent legislation require us to treat IS CAUGHT where between Madonna and whore, women who experience violence as SOMEWHERE absent of agency, joy, rage, or analysis. ill, or criminal, or ‘other.’ Feminist BETWEEN The word itself demeans her, requires agencies must deal with funding cuts MADONNA AND us to pity her—she is different from and long waiting lists. We are in cri- WHORE, ABSENT normal or unraped women. I refuse to sis, and yet there is no place or lan- OF AGENCY, JOY, be identified that way. I think that the guage to speak about it publicly, or RAGE, OR Jane Doe option is the only safety net with each other. ANALYSIS.” the courts provide to women who report, and yet it works against us, too, You have done a lot of public speaking keeps us hidden, secret. since you decided to take the police to court. Is “Jane Remember, too, that I and most women who Doe” a term for every woman who’s been raped, or is your report are subject to attack through revelation of our identity a secret to the public? past sexual, medical and family histories. Jane Doe: Both are true. I cling still to the anonymi- Those are my ‘secrets,’ and I choose to keep them ty of “Jane Doe,” although I’m conflicted about it. I relatively private as a Jane Doe.

26 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS ID him through whatever means we had … We were in possession of the Oliver Zink book … We pursued the strategy of not moving the rapist. We had this feeling or whatever that if we mounted massive I’m sure our readers want to know, How is Jane Doe? media coverage, he would leave. Think the heat’s They know you as a feminist of great courage. Are you a on. Criminals are not a stupid person.” different person today compared to the woman who God help us all. wrote the book? More aided memories from Kim: “We elected to Jane Doe: I am—and that is something that contin- talk to a specific group which was previous break ues to evolve for me. I’m smarter and stronger than and enters.” I was. I am ever curious, have more fun. I am some- Translation: We went at night to the homes of times peaceful, almost not crazy. Writing is a self- single women who had previously reported thefts revelation, fearsome and liberating both. of small objects and who, based on the rapist’s Experiencing violence and living though it, going MO, were likely future rape targets, but we didn’t back and examining it, figuring out who benefits tell them that. from it—in a book, through art, or in therapy—is a On the rape of Jane Doe: “The urgency that this victory. And we must grab our victories where we suspect has now changed his MO … four out of five can, and hold on tight and plan the next ones. were near the end of the month. He was dark-skinned but not Negro. If we started knocking on his door, One final question: The portrait by Shary Boyle you word was gonna spread and he was likely to move chose to accompany this interview seems like an unusu- and we would put other people at risk … By moving al choice for a survivor of rape to select. Can you explain? him to a new area, people in the Church-Wellesley Jane Doe: It’s pretty wild, isn’t it? I could explain the area wouldn’t know that he was in their area.” way I read it; the artist would have a different read- Translation: It’s easier when the criminals are ing; and you might see something else. One reason I black. like it is that it’s not what we expect from a “rape If we put out a warning, the rapist would flee.3 survivor” or a “rape victim”—terms I never use, “If we could stop the break and enters, we stopped words that paint me and other women who experi- the rapist and that was our plan. We talked to the ence crime as helpless or marked. This portrait flies prostitutes on the track about kinky tricks” and in the face of all of that, turns rape upside down, “There were little bits of mud like spaghetti. So I makes us rethink it, revisit it. What needs explain- took some of that and put it in a plastic bag.” And ing, I think, is that we are startled by such a repre- my favourite: “We just sort of drove around, sentation. What should a woman who has been looked and talked.” raped look like? Translation: We didn’t know what we were doing.

1 Lakeman works with the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Thank you very much for sharing your experience and Centres (CASAC). She is also on staff with the Vancouver Rape Relief your thoughts. and Women’s Shelter, Canada’s oldest shelter and rape crisis centre. Jane Doe: She is one of many women who have fought the seizure of therapy and Thank you. Um, Can I just say one other medical records by the courts. thing? I wanted to talk a bit about humour—and 2 Two Toes was the major armed-robbery investigation that Kim and Bill completed just before I was raped. joy—and their power to help us to understand dif- 3 The “rapists flee” mythology rests on the notion that men who rape ficult situations, to speak the unspeakable. I relied are transient, live in the bushes and elude detection by teletransport- ing themselves throughout the city. This excuse is regularly served up on humour to live my life long before I was raped, by police when explaining their decisions not to issue warnings. The thinking is rarely borne out in stranger rapes and never in the major- and I used it to understand the monster that is the ity of occurrences, in which women know the identity of their attacker. legal system. We all do. I also used it to write my The Annex Rapist actually left Toronto for his family home in book, and I am always thrilled to hear that women Vancouver before a public warning about him was issued. Excerpted from The Story of Jane Doe by Jane Doe. Copyright © Jane laughed while they read it. It is a victory I hold Doe 2003. Published by Random House Canada. Reproduced by dear. arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 27 Online activism for women’s Canadian Women’s rights and civic participation Health Network An invaluable tool for activists that offers: Bringing women’s • Up-to-date links to international feminist global voices to the national networks • Research on current issues health agenda facing women and Information Communication Technology (ICTs) • Your complete guide to Join Us Today! internet tools for NGOs • The popular Canadian Canadian Women’s Health Network Women’s Internet Directory Toll-free: 1-888-818-9172 TTY (toll-free): 1-866-694-6367 [email protected] • www.cwhn.ca Get Connected. Be Part of the Network. Financially supported by the Women’s Health Contribution Program, www.womenspace.ca Women’s Health Bureau, Health Canada

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28 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS Ann Hansen is dedicated to creating an ideal world, one that is “as decentralized as possible.” Photo courtesy of Between the Lines Press

built a bomb that destroyed the Cheekeye- Being Direct Dunsmuir Hydro substation in rural BC. Later, members built a bomb that exploded outside of the AN INTERVIEW WITH ANN HANSEN Litton Industries plant in Toronto, where guidance system components for cruise missiles were manu- by Deanna Radford factured. The blast caused millions of dollars in property damage. While no one was killed, there Ann Hansen was a member of the militant group Direct were several injuries. Ann Hansen was also part of Action, also known as The Squamish Five. Formed in the Wimmin’s Fire Brigade, which claimed respon- the early 1980s during an era of punk rock, radical sibility for firebombing three locations of Red Hot counter-cultural politics and an active anarchist com- Video in Vancouver and won the tacit approval of munity, Direct Action was made up of Hansen, Julie many women’s organizations. Belmas, Brent Taylor, Doug Stewart and Gerry Hannah. Sentenced to life in prison, Hansen was released in They lived and worked as an underground cell. 1991 after serving seven years at the Prison for Belonging to a radical group, Direct Action’s Women in Kingston. In 2001, she wrote Direct Action: members were united in their desire to draw atten- Memoirs of an Urban Guerilla. Based on her recollec- tion to the environmental impact of hydro develop- tions, on newspaper articles and on court documents, ment, and to Canada’s contribution to the arms race. it is a story that is impossibly true and unbelievable, Some Direct Action members stole dynamite and simultaneously passionate and enthralling. A must-

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 29 read for modern activists, Direct Action represents a with having done what they believed was right, glimpse into a controversial chapter in Canadian even if there wasn’t a mass movement in the next protest history. five years. We’re not living in a revolutionary The first thing many people want to know is how society.” Hansen became involved in Direct Action. What would a revolutionary society do? “Throughout history,” Hansen explains, “when “The problems that most radicals are trying to people are young and are starting to develop a polit- resolve—poverty and racism, injustice—I don’t think ical consciousness, it does occur to a lot of young any of those problems are going to be resolved with- people, ‘Things aren’t right here.’ ‘Why should we be out a major revolution.” Hansen believes that would obeying the laws?’ And [they] go through the same entail “the replacement of capitalism with an alter- political analysis that I went through.” native form of society or economics.” However, Hansen’s group was more Neither repentant nor overly than analytical. Direct Action operat- romantic, Direct Action describes the ed not only outside the law, but out- challenges and pitfalls of working in side the organized left political isolation. community as well. It was during a trip “There was no significant revolu- to Europe in her mid-twenties that tionary movement at the time,” she Hansen was inspired by the European recalls. “We acted outside of any kind urban guerilla movement of the 70s. of mass revolutionary movement. She acquired an active hunger for There was no continuity. We were praxis with her politics, and for taking arrested, and basically that group action. ended.” Around this time, Hansen met a Upon her release from prison, handful of individuals in Vancouver Hansen went on to co-own and oper- who also were interested in direct ate a cabinet-making business in action—which she describes as “tactics that went Kingston. Today she is active in the women’s prison beyond the legal boundaries defined by the state.” abolishment movement as a member of a Kingston Hansen still believes in direct action. However, group called Womyn 4 Justice. she says, “I would never advocate or advise anyone to “This group of women I lived with in prison are put a bomb in a building that people are working at.” [mostly] all active today in the prison abolition At the same time, “if there were people who were movement. Most of them were not political activists doing similar things today, I would not stand up and before,” she says. renounce them.” Helping women on the inside has another benefit. What would she say to them, then? “It’s also therapeutic work for us—a way for women “I would wonder if they were prepared for the who were in prison to deal with their frustration, degree of sacrifice they’d be willing to make, or and bitterness, and anger at the system and all the the degree of political change that they’re going to years of being in prison, in a positive way.” effect. I think people who engage in serious, mil- Hansen’s time in prison convinced her that the itant direct action have to be well-grounded—be prison system’s punishment focus is all wrong. The able to get fulfillment personally from what they alternative is, not surprisingly, revolutionary. have done— because they may not get a lot of rein- forcement from society. They have to be prepared continued on page 46

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

THIRD WAVE WASHES MEDIA Third wave feminism was in the news in March—not Questioned about the fizzling of NAC, Rebick, a past just once, but several times. Of course, the Ottawa president of the organization, talked about a new Citizen’s front-pager left readers thinking that the feminism “bubbling up.” But the media can’t resist video game-inspired movie character Lara Croft is setting new against old. Intergenerational cat fight! the archetypal third-waver. The writer wondered why It’s a waste of time, obviously, but the GP, and some- most third wave role models are fictional–“more times even the more specialized FP (Feminist fashion than philosophy”? Public), can’t seem to help themselves. Gee—I mentioned Rebecca Walker (and several Whenever I’m asked whether the third wave is a other non-fictional people) to the reporter. To my “reaction against” the second wave, I say, “You can’t mind, Walker is one of the most articulate voices of get to three without one and two.” Third is built on the third wave, starting with her 1995 anthology To second; it emerged from it, because of it. The young Be Real. “You have to at least read the introduction,” women who go to the trouble of identifying as “third I said as persuasively as I could. But Rebecca didn’t wave” are the same young women who get this. make it. “You should have said she’s Alice Walker’s That doesn’t mean a group of women from a com- daughter,” my partner suggested later. But I suspect mon generation doesn’t have own ideas–and that’s a even Alice’s fame wouldn’t have trumped the shots good thing, a truly encouraging sign of the continued of Uma Thurman (from Kill Bill), Sarah Michelle relevance of feminism. Gellar (as Buffy) and, of course, Angelina Jolie’s So when Judy Rebick says on CBC Radio’s The Lara. Not to mention that it would have ruined a Current (in that same media flurry) that “third wave great story on this new “feminism lite.” feminism is an idea, not yet a movement,” I think: One surprising thing I learned from this media boon “True. And not true.” This movement definitely isn’t is that people have never heard of third wave femi- in full swing, and it certainly doesn’t look just like nism. “What is it?” reporters asked. “Young women feminist movements that came before in this country. won’t call themselves feminist, right?” Who knew? It’s We don’t have a strong NAC, for example. But I’m not easy—when you try to limit your circles to people who sure feminism will ever be quite like it was before, or are appreciative of the systems of thought that govern that we should look for it to be. However it looks from your life—to forget that your circles are very small the outside, we continue to raise consciousness; to compared with the giant circle often called, suspi- fight all forms of interlocking oppression; to develop, ciously, the “General Public.” The General Public is a chronicle and refine feminist thought. And I imagine strange character that has difficulty communicating something else might just pop up in NAC’s place, with any kind of consistency and is ferociously fickle. I buoyed by its strengths but not weighed down by its mean, one minute it’s kicking Ellen off the air, the next history. I’d argue that something has been developing it’s loving up Will & Grace. (Yes, I’ve always suspected for quite a while, and may just be ready to find a galva- the GP was confused about its sexual identity.) nizing moment. When it does, I fully expect it to be Some reporters tried to get full answers to their intergenerational and inclusive. questions down right. But even when the third wave I just hope that we remember to talk to each other was taken seriously, it ended up pitted against the as directly as possible, avoiding, at all costs, taking “dead” second wave (a health status sealed, appar- what the Mainstream Media says for cash. MM is as ently, by the decline of NAC). The mention at all of apt to be ill-informed as the GP. the third wave in the press can be traced to very much Lisa Rundle is co-editor (with Allyson Mitchell and Lara alive second-waver Judy Rebick, who actually knows Karaian) of Turbo Chicks: Talking Young Feminisms and engages with real live third wave feminists. (Sumach Press, 2001).

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 31 arts culture ARTIST PROFILE Field of Dreams: Helen Lenskyj in Profile by Susan G. Cole hen author Helen Lenskyj male enclave. Lenskyj is one of the first authors to showed her first book on “Both sports put women up against an address the lesbian-in-sports issue head-on. W women and sport to her former establishment boys’ club atmosphere But curiously,she has received more flack for gym teacher, her teacher could not believe where girls were traditionally not her two books on the Olympics—both of her eyes. allowed,”she notes.“But the LPGA has rel- them blistering attacks on the institution. “She practically fainted,” says the atively generous prize money and there’s “People don’t care about my advocacy Australian-born teacher and activist. closer to a level playing field in golf. Many for lesbians,but really react when I’m crit- Lenskyj, who lives in Toronto, was not LPGA players could actually compete on ical of the Olympics. One Australian aca- the jock type as a schoolgirl,but that didn’t the men’s circuit.” demic complained that I wasn’t being stop her from noticing the difference One of the main dividing lines, Lenskyj properly grateful for the fact that Sydney between the ways girls and boys relate to says,is that hockey is a team sport and team won the Olympics.” athletics, or how commercial interests can sports involve a kind of intimacy.“The men None of that stopped her from including corrupt organized sports. Now teaching would say it’s not homoerotic at all,but girls a pointed criticism of the Gay Games and women’s studies courses on health,diversi- doing something together is automatically how they have become increasingly enam- ty and education at OISE, Lenskyj has just oured of the Olympic way. release her fifth book, Out On The Field: “At the beginning, the [Gay] Games Gender, Sport And Sexualities (Women’s were participation-oriented and not as Press,2003).It deepens the political analy- competitive. Now they’re trying to make it sis she began to develop in her first book, so huge that they need large corporate Out OfBounds:Women,Sport and sponsors in order to make the games hap- Sexuality (1986). pen. So they’re looking for water compa- This time out, she expands and updates nies and running shoe companies, and her analysis of how sexual harassment by there are really aren’t any running shoe coaches is a barrier to women’s success,and companies with a clean slate.” she talks at greater length about the invisi- Though the new book’s subtitle is bility of lesbian athletes in the sports arena. Gender, Sport and Sexualities, there is not Lenskyj was one of the key consultants on much content on the transgender issue. Justine Blainey’s famous 1981 human rights Yet that doesn’t mean she hasn’t thought case petition to play on a boys’hockey team. about the subject of male-to-female trans- Now,women’s hockey has become one of the sexuals’ desire to get Olympic status fastest growing sports in the country. among female competitors. In fact, if you look at the social con- “The problem is that male-to-female struction of the game, women’s hockey transsexuals had all the advantages of being looks a lot like men’s. seen as suspect. With track it’s different boys,all the training opportunities and none “After the Olympic championship game because there’s a body type that lends itself of the artificial barriers women face. They they were sharing cigars in the change to success and fits nicely into the tradition- might argue that they never fit in and didn’t room, suggesting they were following their al image of conventional thinness.” benefit because of their sexual ambiguity, male counterparts’lead,”Lenskyj observes. The conflict between conventional and that with hormone therapy the advan- “You see some of the rule-breaking vio- standards of beauty and the image of tage of muscle mass would disappear over lence, women swearing at each other. Just strong women’s bodies is another major time. But if they had been total misfits, they because we’re all girls together doesn’t theme in Lenskyj’s work. Keeping women would never have gotten as far as they did.” mean there won’t be any rules broken.” thin and weak means they’ll fail on the Lenskyj worries that if current trends Over 25 years in the field, Lenskyj has playing field, she says. And looking like continue, more young girls will be like she seen other major developments, including you’re in control of your body means was—inactive and out of touch with their golfer Annika Sorenstam playing on the many athletes get dyke-baited—fearful bodies. Physical education in public men’s tour—another example of a woman straights feel misunderstood and fearful schools is hopelessly meagre, something trying to pound down the doors of an all- lesbians are terrified they’ll be outed. that makes her cautious about throwing

32 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS role models into young girls’ faces. speakers, showing off their medals, as if her first bike in her 20s, studied yoga, and “Women have to know that they don’t any girl can succeed in that way and as if then moved on to the martial art of have to be Martina Navratilova to partici- there is no system that sets up specific Hupkido, a Korean technique that teaches pate,” she says. “I have a problem with barriers to their success.” 200 ways to escape attackers. sending Olympic medalists around to Lenskyj did, by the way, eventually “It completely changed my life,” she schools as inspirational and motivational change her un-jockular ways. She bought says. arts culture SUMMER READING

GODSPEED thing has gone to hell since her departure. This collection aims to please. Readers Lynne Breedlove Godspeed is a new story so well told that may notice several familiar names on the St. Martin’s Press, 2003 it will become a legend. Our hero Jim, at contributors’ list, such as Lesléa Newman, Review by T.L. Cowan once so charming and acerbic, will become Nisa Donnelly,Shani Mootoo,Tamai synonymous with the kind of gloves-off Kobayashi and Carol Queen. However, “I’m consumed by a narrative that keeps playing like a really many of the authors are published for the desire as easily loud song in your head for days and days first time here, and they convey a consid- fulfilled by slaughter after you’ve put the novel to rest. Breedlove erable diversity of perspective and back- as love,”Lynn manages a pounding, unforgiving narra- ground. Breedlove in tive intensity with grace and restraint. Stories range in intensity: Some are Godspeed Everything in this book is too much and graphic, while others are literary and Godspeed is part not enough—and I mean that in a good subtle.As editor Karen X. Tulchinsky extreme sport, part way.When I finished this novel, I found says,“The tone of the stories range from road novel, part love story,part political myself looking for beauty in the ugliness of humour to heartache, from comedy to manifesto, part genderfuck testimony, part life, and ugliness where once I saw only drama; they are satirical, sexy, serious social commentary,part rage machine and beauty.Godspeed manages to make sense and sweet.” part porn novel—and all of this adds up to as a story,and yet turn the world on its And surgical. Especially memorable is one hell of a trip. Lynn Breedlove fronted head all at the same time. It will leave you “Dr. Barrett Closes,”an offering by the dyke punk band Tribe 8 and toured as chastened, angry, horny and wired. Claudia Berty:“Electricity jolts me. Have a spoken word artist with San Francisco’s T.L. Cowan is a spoken word artist and I touched the diathermy by mistake? No, Sister Spit. Her latest tour, Tribe Spit Deep, graduate student living in Edmonton. our hands have touched inside the shell with Sister Spit’s Sini Anderson, has set the of pelvis.We are both wearing surgical bar for genderqueer performance art in gloves, so the touch is intimate but unsat- North America. Her performances are a HOT & BOTHERED 4: SHORT SHORT FICTION isfying.”Assuredly, matters become more speedball rush of love and rage, and her satisfying by the end of the story.Another first novel puts on the page what Breedlove ON LESBIAN DESIRE standout is the wistfulness of “Oceans, has been giving us from the stage for years. Edited by Karen X. Tulchinsky Lakes and Ice Cream”by Judy Lightwater: Breedlove’s hero, Jim—“a butch bike Arsenal Pulp Press, 2003 “Meeting her the first time felt perfect, messenger speed freak”—loses the love of Review by R.J. Stevenson like a quiet path through the woods, trees her life—a smart, sassy, sexy stripper Ye s , you re ad it tangling with each other and crossing named Ally—when her drug habit gets correctly.“Short Short” their branches so beautifully.” out of control. Desperate and broke, Jim indicates that the Fans of the Hot & Bothered series will leaves San Francisco to become a roadie stories in this fourth appreciate the offerings of this new vol- for a dyke punk band going on tour.After volume of the popular ume, and new readers will be pleasantly the tour, Jim settles into a squat in New Hot & Bothered surprised. York City, kicks speed and replaces it with lesbian erotica series If this is your pleasure, these cunning a fancy for good espresso. She tries to run at 1,000 words or linguists will definitely entertain. drive a taxi for a while and ultimately ends less. Not only is brevity the soul of wit, it is R.J. Stevenson is a Winnipeg editor and up back in San Francisco, where every- at the heart of desire as well. writer.

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 33 THE FIVE BOOKS OF Sonny,each fail to save a younger brother. stand up to his father’s banishment when MOSES LAPINSKY This is the story of a nine-year-old he marries outside the Jewish faith. Karen X. Tulchinsky child at the height of the Great Depression My only disappointment with this story who knows that his passion is to become Raincoast, 2003 was the silence of the female characters: a boxer—even though his father,Yacov, Review by Cynthia Callahan Sonny’s mother,his wife,and in particular would not approve.Yacov had fled Russia his eldest child Mary, Moses’ sister, to Moses is the fictional at the tender age of 15, leaving his parents whom we are briefly introduced in the author of a biography and siblings behind to make a better life prologue and never really meet again. of his father, Sonny as a door-to-door peddler. This is the Cynthia Callahan writes legislation for the “The Charger” story of an immigrant family that pros- BC ministry of children and family devel- Lapinsky, from the pers in Canada only to disintegrate under opment in Victoria. immigrant Jewish the strain of the poverty and anti- neighbourhood of Semitism that sweeps Europe, seeps into FAMILY RESEMBLANCES Kensington Market, Canada and culminates in violence. Anne Cameron Toronto. Sonny held the world The defining moment of the novel is Harbour Publishing, 2003 middleweight title from 1948 to 1954. the Christie Pits riot, in which Jewish kids Review by Karen X. Tulchinsky Moses’ need to research his father’s life in defend their territory from British newspaper articles and interviews Canadian boys who make up the Cedar Campbell is the reflects the novel’s themes of guilt, loss “Swastika Club.”The tragedy that befalls product of a shotgun and estrangement in two generations of a Sonny’s youngest brother at the riot wedding. Her mother, Jewish family. develops our understanding of the terri- Kate, is 19 when she Tulchinsky forms her novel by beginning ble guilt and sadness that weave through gives birth to her first with the tragic structure of one family’s life. the lives of Yacov and Sonny.We under- child. Her reluctant She fills it out with each brother’s story and stand where such a young child finds the husband, Gus, turns up concludes with details of the character- heart to stand up to the punishment of at the wedding covered forming scenes in which Yacov and his son, hard training and fighting, and later to in bruises inflicted by his father and Did you hear what she did?

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34 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS brothers—to make sure he does the aspects of that war. honourable thing.Surprisingly,Gus turns A central site that serves various out to be a good, though somewhat reckless narrative functions in One Hundred Million Out ‘n About Travel Inc. father.He dotes on his first-born daughter, Hearts is the Yakisuni Shrine in Tokyo. It is DOES NOT2XW¶Q$ERXW7UDYHO,QF CHARGE SERVICE FEES but he’s a lousy husband who never quite an enormous park in memory of Japan’s on'2(6127&+$5*(6(59,&()((6 Westjet, Jetsgo, Tango, Zip, Canjet gets the hang of fidelity and sees no reason “war heroes.”Years ago, on my first visit to RQ:HVWMHW-HWVJR7DQJR=LS&DQMHW andDQG6N\VHUYLFH Skyservice. why he shouldn’t spend every night Japan, I had no clue about the shrine’s drinking and playing cards at the local significance. I remember spending an hangout, The Domino Club.Kate puts up agreeable afternoon by myself in that huge with his unfaithful and violent behaviour park, eating noodles and other Japanese for a long time, and finally leaves him. snacks.After the fact, when I found out the Later, when her mother becomes significance of the park, I had much more involved with the son of a local hog to reflect on. Those enduring reflections $PHPEHURIWKH,QWHUQDWLRQDO farmer, Cedar learns of her own love of are now bouncing off my reflections on *D\DQG/HVELDQ7UDYHO$VVRFLDWLRQ hogs. Gramps, the old man who owns Sakamoto’s discourse. and runs the farm, teaches Cedar every- One Hundred Million Hearts invokes the thing he knows about hog farming and shadows of modern infernos, the infinite they form a fast friendship. shattering of Nagasaki and Hiroshima When Cedar finishes high school, she from American atomic bombs, the minds gets a job driving for a potato chip compa- of the Japanese pilots who carried out ny and eventually moves in with Gramps. bombing missions from Asia to Pearl The story follows Cedar into adulthood, Harbour, and the devastated psyches of  ²  2VERUQH 6W 6 0F.LP &RXUW\DUG where she struggles to reconcile her survivors in Japan and Ontario. One of the :LQQLSHJ 0DQLWRED ‡ 5/ < SK  ‡ WROO IUHH  stormy relationship with her mother. survivors, Miyo Mori, travels to Japan on a ID[  ‡ HPDLO RDW#PWVQHW My only criticism of the book is that it quest to come to terms with the vexations was difficult to determine the time period of her past and that of her father, Masao, a in which it was set. Nonetheless, the novel kamikaze pilot in Japan’s WWII Air Force. is a page-turner. Family Resemblances is a In the end,what I got from Sakamoto’s fun read, filled with passion and the joy novel is that the apocalyptic never quite and pain of everyday life. ends, for the truly grotesque cannot really Karen X. Tulchinsky is the author of The be resolved. Hence,World War II is not Five Books of Moses Lapinsky. quite past.The aftermath of WWII is in a hundred million pieces, and somehow it is ONE HUNDRED associated with the colour red, as signified MILLION HEARTS by the ever-moving red cravat of another Kerri Sakamoto kamikaze pilot in the novel, who is alive Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2003 long after the official ending of the War. Review by Sook C. Kong Sook C. Kong is a Vancouver poet and World War II is fiction writer. vexatious. It vexes those of us who lost DECOMPOSING MAGGIE much in that horrific Ann Eriksson carnage. It vexes a Turnstone Press, 2003 current generation Review by Karolle Wall of youth who have Ann Eriksson’s first been de-historicized novel, Decomposing from that period. Maggie, is as heart- It is difficult to write about the first wrenching as it is life- war that ravaged Earth on a worldwide affirming.When scale. Many have tried, some have Maggie’s dying succeeded. It is conscientious of Kerri husband expresses his Sakamoto to base her second novel on final wish—“take me

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 35 to the forest ... let me lie down and that rejoices in itself and lends strength to described the immigrant experience in decompose”—she chooses instead to ease those who understand and respect its the United States. In The Namesake, she his pain with an overdose of morphine. heartbeat, its bluffs, its chocolate lilies, sea tells the extraordinary story of a very Upon his death, Maggie falls into a blush and camas. Eriksson’s background ordinary Bengali family. mourning and a guilt so deep that she as a biologist permeates the book, in the The clash of cultures, the realization pushes away her grieving children, her same way the arbutus, Douglas fir, sea, that the old and new worlds rarely meet, closest friend and a way of life that wind, storm and eagles seep into Maggie’s the conflict between parents and their sustained her for years. She turns to soul and bring her back to life. children, and the sudden realization that collecting kelp, sea lettuce, fragments of Many of us dream of owning our own familial ties can be poignantly summed shells and bits of driftwood from the more island, of returning to the land. up by clichés—blood is thicker than isolated beaches of Vancouver. Out of this Decomposing Maggie reminds us that the water—are explored in-depth. Lahiri precious alluvium, she weaves baskets— land, like the human soul, belongs to no proves that she is not a one-hit wonder, baskets to hold the ashes of her husband. one. It gives and it takes, as sure as the but a connoisseur and a sophisticated The novel is itself a fine weaving. The tides rise and fall. raconteur of everyday life and living. Her lateral bits and pieces of first-person mem- Karolle Wall teaches Literature, Composition lyrical prose and keen realistic perceptions ories give way to the more linear, horizon- and Humanities at Emily Carr Institute of eerily evoke the works of Nikolay Gogol. tal, third-person point of view.But even the Art, Design and Media. She escapes to the Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli are young omniscient perspective is not enough to Gulf Islands to sail and ‘decompose.’ Bengalis who settle in Cambridge, hold a broken life together. Maggie’s mem- Massachusetts after an arranged marriage. ories, good and bad, have to work their way The time is 1968.Yet the social upheaval to the top, become whole, before she can THE NAMESAKE Jhumpa Lahiri that dominated North America—with its get a handle on them. She has to return to flower power, mantras and disdain for eld- the tiny isolated Gulf Island where she and Houghton Mifflin, 2003 Review by Irene D’Souza ers—does not penetrate their world, Peter built their life and their love. In order which consists mainly of expat Bengalis. Three years ago, New to let go of Peter, of the ashes she has held Their first child, a son, is soon born. In York-based Jhumpa onto for years, she has to let herself literally India, parents take years to determine the Lahiri’s short-story return to the earth,to become part of rock, child’s formal name, but not so in the US, debut, Interpreter of sea, moss and soil. the Gangulis discover. It’s an ironic Eriksson is adept at painting a picture Maladies, won the reminder that their son will need to of small island life and the community Pulitzer Prize. Her adhere to rules and regulations.Ashoke that supports it. Her island is an island illuminating and names his son Gogol, in homage to his that weeps as Maggie weeps, an island poignant stories favourite author. Yet Gogol is no classical hero. He hates having to explain that his name does not have an Indian meaning, and he formally changes it to Nikhil before he begins to study at Yale University.“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare queried. Should a name determine one’s fate? Gogol/Nikhil soon learns that the perils of adulthood persist, regardless of a name change. The spare, lyrical prose penetrates the book’s complex and enduring relation- ships and is deeply moving. Lahiri explores the tensions within families through love, divorce and death. This won- drous, gentle book is socially significant because it demystifies a culture that often finds itself at odds with the majority. Irene D’Souza’s latest Herizons article was an interview with Margaret Atwood pub- lished in the Spring 2004 issue.

36 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS arts culture ISSUES & IDEAS

WELFARE HOT this shift is undermining the historic BUTTONS: WOMEN, two-way obligation between citizens and their governments.Watch out, she warns: WORK AND SOCIAL This shift is giving rise to a new kind of POLICY REFORM government—what she calls the “duty Sylvia Bashevkin state.”Across all three countries, University of Toronto Press, Bashevkin documents the emergence of a G IRLS W HO B ITE B ACK 2002 “responsibility obsessed duty state that WITCHES, MUTANTS, SLAYERS & FREAKS Review by Susan Prentice demands specific quid pro quo” in return Edited by Emily Pohl-Weary Has welfare improved for public support. This leaner and Girls Who Bite Back fights back in Britain, Canada, or meaner welfare state owes its citizens at the old, worn-out helpless-girl the US since self- very little—and even that is conditional clichés of yesterday’s pop culture styled moderate on tightly scripted norms of behaviour. ... [to show] we are all super- heroines. leaders replaced None of this bodes well for women, conservatives John who discover that their unpaid caregiv- $26.95 332 pgs 35 Contributors Major, Brian ing and child care has virtually no value SUMACH PRESS Mulroney, or George to so-called Third Way governments. Paid [email protected] Bush Sr.? “No,”argues political scientist work is what matters now. Compulsory www.sumachpress.com Sylvia Bashevkin in the book she had workfare, lifetime limits on social assis- 416-531-6250 nicknamed the “How Could They?” tance, and even more stringent regulation project. Post-conservatives in all three and monitoring of welfare recipients is countries instead followed policies that the new normal. Progressives and femi- were fundamentally congruent with the nists have fought hard, but largely unsuc- right wingers who preceded them. cessfully, to resist these shifts.Activists Welfare under Tony Blair, Jean Chretien face “severe obstacles” as they tackle and Bill Clinton was, in fact, more Third Way social policy, and Baskevkin’s punitive and restrictive. prognosis for the possibility of resisting In all three countries, welfare contin- the duty state is grim. ues to be a hot button issue, and welfare Susan Prentice, Ph.D. is Associate reform talk is popular.While it was Bill Professor of Sociology at the University of Clinton who vowed to end welfare as we Manitoba. knew it, he and Tony Blair both solemnly promised to make welfare a ‘hand up, THIS HEATED PLACE rather than a handout.’Canadian govern- Deborah Campbell ments fell in step. Douglas & McIntyre, 2002 The net effect is that poor-bashing is on Review by Emira Mears the increase and access to welfare has For the most part, been massively restricted. Governments modern accounts of have demanded that citizens look to the the Middle East paint market and employment, instead of the a harrowing picture state, for support—a shift that has been of conflict and particularly damaging for mothers of hopeless despair. But young children. In the rush to reduce pub- from Deborah lic costs, women with children as young as Campbell’s This four months have been redefined as Heated Place, a sense of hope emerges. ‘employable’ and pushed off welfare. While she does not gloss over any of the Bashevkin persuasively argues that complex and violent facts of “one of the

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 37 world’s most intractable conflicts,”her the reaction of the children:“The chil- documents evidence on the effects of approach goes beyond the headlines to dren listen for the gunfire to stop. The spanking and other forms of corporal document conversations with people in moment they are certain it is over, they punishment on children. the region.She offers a view that we don’t will race outside to collect the bullet cas- Turner, a parent of three, analyzes the often see reflected in the media, or even ings. They are like kids everywhere with opinions of all involved in the well-being in other books on the subject. The very their collecting crazes.” of a child: parents, social workers, psy- human perspective Campbell brings to Campbell’s talents as a journalist come chologists and the entire judicial system. the ongoing conflict, as well as her talent through in her insightful storytelling.At She opens her book by stating unequivo- for storytelling, make This Heated Place a the same time, she reminds us that for cally that there is no moral justification compelling read. the human spirit, politics is not always for corporal punishment, and then offers Campbell’s collection of essays, each all-encompassing. hundreds of well written pages to support focused around her own interactions her belief. with people from all sides of the conflict, SOMETHING TO CRY Spanking is often used to teach a les- describes the everyday realities of the ABOUT: AN ARGUMENT son, to improve or correct a child’s behav- people who inhabit that contested land. AGAINST CORPORAL iour, say corporal punishment’s Her conversation subjects range from an defenders. Turner’s research, however, Israeli soldier who takes her through the PUNISHMENT OF proves that such punishment weakens Occupied Territories, in an armoured CHILDREN IN CANADA rather than strengthens a child’s personal SUV,to a member of the peace activist Susan M. Turner security and self-confidence. group Women in Black. Through docu- Wilfred Laurier University Turner critiques Section 43 of the menting her journey and chronicling the Press, 2002 Criminal Code, the section that allows everyday activities in Israel and the Review by Danette Dooley caregivers to hit children as long as such Occupied Territories Campbell also offers The Supreme Court of punishment is “reasonable.” a perspective on how the quotidian is Canada recently At the end of the book, the author out- affected by the ongoing conflict. upheld a century-old lines judicial decisions on parental and Over lunch with a Palestinian law that allows teacher assaults held reasonable in Christian university student in parents, teachers and Canada between 1990 and 2001.A quick Bethlehem, Campbell experiences the caregivers to spank glance through the summarized cases conflict first-hand as gunfire erupts out- children. confirms that there is something serious- side interrupting their meal. In addition For that reason, ly wrong with a justice system that con- to noting the political conversation that Something to Cry About takes on a whole dones the assault of children.Assaults follows amongst the adults, she chronicles new meaning.Well researched, the book that have been held reasonable include the case of a four-year-old boy who was slapped in the face because he was yelling. The force of the slap of the MOVING? father’s hand on the child’s face left an Don’t miss an issue. imprint on the boy’s cheek. Perhaps the Phone: 1-888-408-0028 most heartbreaking of all is the case of a Fax: (204) 786-8038 child of eight who was kicked in the but- Email: [email protected] tocks and hit on the shoulders after opening a bag of seeds the wrong way. Mail: PO Box 128 The seeds caught in a baby’s throat. Winnipeg, MB The Supreme Court of Canada’s deci- Canada R3C 2G1 sion goes against everything Turner has uncovered. It’s a decision that all citizens should be up in arms about.Write to your Name: member of parliament and voice your New address: opinion—on behalf of those too tiny to do so themselves. In doing so, suggest City/Town: they pick up a copy of Turner’s book. Province: Postal Code: When they read it, they’ll be as outraged as you are.

38 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS CHILD CUSTODY, LAW, the well-being of mothers is also trou- AND WOMEN’S WORK bling. Despite judicial reasoning empha- Susan B. Boyd sizing the importance of both parents in Oxford University Press, 2003 a child’s life, studies stress that the bene- Review by Cynthia Callahan fits of such contact depend on a lack of conflict between the parents—something Women with that is unlikely during a court battle. children, women In the end, the law is only one forum, considering having and a poor one, for effecting radical children, or just social change to capitalist family struc- women whose tures. righteous feminist The only note of hope in all the legal- anger has faded into ized sexism, according to Boyd, is a pri- the past—read this mary caregiver presumption: a legal book! Second wave feminism? Third presumption that the person who was the wave feminism? We’re not out of the gate yet! primary caregiver for the child should be Susan Boyd weaves thousands of judi- the parent to have custody. This would cial decisions into this highly readable provide continuity in children’s lives dur- text. Expecting a dry piece of legal ing the period of upheaval and rebuilding research, I was surprised to discover that that accompanies separation. style was not the reason I couldn’t gulp it down in a single sitting like a novel—it LYING ON THE was the book’s effect on my feelings that POSTCOLONIAL COUCH: necessitated small mouthfuls.At every THE IDEA OF page, I was bursting with anger at the INDIFFERENCE outrageous way the courts have treated Rukmini Bhaya Nair women and children. University of Minnesota Press, In the 19th century, absolute paternal 2002 ownership of children was standard. The Review by Mridula Nath Chakraborty 20th century dawned without much hope for improvement: In 1907, a Saskatchewan For students of judge gave a girl of seven to her father postcolonial theory despite her sister’s sworn information and purveyors of the that the father had raped the sister. The postcolonial judge reasoned that “appreciable time condition, any new had passed and it should not be held addition to the ever- against him.”In the 1980s charter burgeoning canon of decade, mothers were seen as replaceable writing with the by a good housekeeper or babysitter, so prefix or suffix ‘postcolonial’ is cause both that the courts could perpetuate the for celebration and dissatisfaction. patriarchal heterosexual family model. Celebration, because this much discussed Even when mothers do get sole custody, term has not yet exhausted the range of courts are so concerned about fathers’ its meanings, but also dissatisfaction, rights for generous access that mothers because it constantly “awaits are disciplined with threats of loss of consignment to oblivion”even as it rises, custody if they don’t selflessly volunteer phoenix-like, to change the parameters of to give up relocation plans, regardless of our understanding of identity in the 21st their need to find work, or family mem- century. bers to help with child care. Rukmini Bhaya Nair provides a suc- The courts’ tendency to ignore social cinct definition of postcoloniality as “a science evidence on the connection condition requiring a cure”and suggests between the well-being of children and that “the passage to that cure involves a

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 39 return to buried memories of colonial readers with a humanities background— sensuous theory will incorporate a seri- trauma.”She then guides our way to that that the 21st century will be character- ous and embedded critique of history path in nine erudite chapters that explore ized by a failure of technology to enhance within an emotional understanding of lit- a range of texts ranging from ‘bad’ 18th- human understanding, and by a return to erary texts. century colonial poetry, to 19th-century human affect and emotion. Language and One of the practical applications of ghost stories by Edgar Allan Poe and expression will become all-important this theory is Bhaya Nair’s experiment Satyajit Ray, to religious censorship in the tools in unearthing the key to the inde- with her students: she asks them to 20th century, most notably the case of terminate essences that shape contempo- understand a piece of ‘international’ liter- Salman Rushdie. rary human existence. Globalism will be ature by using their own cultural and lin- Drawing on her experience teaching secured, not by neutral or indifferent guistic assumptions and stereotypes.Yet I literature to science students at the search engines of cyberspace, but by the am not convinced that with this mani- Indian Institute of Technology, Bhaya engaged and passionate politics of what festo of global understanding Bhaya Nair Nair makes the claim—not surprising to Bhaya Nair calls “sensuous theory.”This is actually suggesting such a radical new

by Stacey Kauder

THE WELL OF LONELINESS born into a woman’s Radclyffe Hall form? Stephen Virago Books becomes a liberator for (originally published 1928) ‘inverts’ and turns to Review by Stacy Kauder writing as a means of Are you a lesbian? Bi? Transgendered? Or do you just plain carving out a credible love women? Well if you’re looking for some answers, start and respectable life, with the feminist classic, The Well of Loneliness by along with partner Radclyffe Hall. Mary. Stephen con- Some books are better after you’ve read them, when cludes that while you can reflect and see the truths of the novel laid bare. I ‘inverts’ are a part of remember being at first frustrated with the main charac- nature,“there is work ter’s passive aggressive-character. Now, however, months to do.” after reading The Well of Loneliness, I enjoy the impres- However comfort- sion it left so much more. able Stephen begins to The sadness embodied within Stephen Gordon’s inabil- feel, the character’s envy of “commonplace families” ity to communicate, behave, or express desire is some- begins to grow unbearable. The demands on Stephen thing I am reminded of on a daily basis. Marginalization seem too great for such a fragile love, with everyone on and the inability to fit in is common today, and The Well the sidelines watching, waiting for the fall. of Loneliness evokes contemporary issues such as gender Hall forged a lesbian culture at a time when even the identity, sexual preference and what it means to be idea of women’s independence, let alone gay, lesbian and unfeminine and queer. Hall provides a heroine in Stephen, transgendered liberation, was a radical notion. The book who struggles to overcome familial pressures, societal was banned by the British government until 1948.And expectations and self-imposed choices that become while it has been criticized for its dreary and narrow mes- unbearable. sage of queer acceptance (as the title alludes), the novel’s Stephen is an extraordinary character. Brave, enduring strength lies in the fact that the themes in this ‘bible of and independent, Stephen strives to “conquer conditions” lesbianism’ are still relevant 75 years later. which are imposed upon women. Literary critics still Stacey Kauder is a freelance editor and writer living debate Stephen’s gender: was ‘she’ a lesbian, or a male in Toronto.

40 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS way of understanding the world. If read- O’Toole’s account of lesbian spaces in ers can make their way through her tor- Ireland and Canada recognizes the tuous and involved style of writing, they importance of history as a basis for may discover that sensuous theory as activism. Michelle Mullen’s research into practiced by Bhaya Nair does not make the debates around abortion and the use all that much sense after all. of fetal tissue for medical treatment, and Mridula Nath Chakraborty is trying to Sylvie Frigon’s investigation of the body finish her dissertation and procrastinates as a site of control and resistance for by writing reviews. female prisoners, both prove the possibil- ity for feminist research which is OUT OF THE IVORY thoughtful, balanced and relevant to cur- TOWER: FEMINIST rent hot debates. RESEARCH FOR There is a danger of de-intellectualiz- ing feminist studies in order to produce CULTURAL CHANGE knowledge that serves political agendas. Edited by Andrea Martinez and While few authors explain how feminism Meryn Stuart affects social research on a theoretical Sumach Press, 2003 level, Michelle Mullen proposes a chal- Review by Kris Rothstein lenging and inspiring feminist scientific Feminists at the framework, and Leslie Regan Shade University of Ottawa’s explores how patriarchal structures are Institute of Women’s transferred onto new technology. Studies conceived Although not all the work in this collec- this project as a tion is of a highly rigorous intellectual means of standard, most of the articles successfully investigating the integrate academics and activism. Out of divide between the Ivory Tower is a well-executed collec- research and social reality.In their tion that maps a direction for future mission to bridge the gap between the research while it demonstrates just how wild women academy and society at large, the editors much feminism has already changed expeditions have assembled a series of engaging and both society and the academy. Canada's Outdoor Adventure informative essays which shed light on Kris Rothstein is a writer and editor in Company for Women how feminist academics can use research Vancouver, where she also runs a micro- to affect politics and society.There is a press, Smart Cookie Publishing. Canadian focus, but the implications are global and global issues are within the AFTER SHOCK: scope of the collection. SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: The essays fall within four themes: recovering histories and meanings; sexu- GLOBAL FEMINIST ality and the body; women in public PERSPECTIVES spaces; and gender issues in cyberspace. Edited by Susan Hawthorne and This structure works well, as each piece Bronwyn Winters helps to build a complete picture of the Raincoast Books, 2003 interplay between research and social Review by Kris Rothstein change. Some research illuminates social This ambitious issues from past and present, like the his- volume documents tory of military nursing and the gender- feminist reactions to, 2004 online now! ing of anti-smoking literature. Other and analyses of, the canoe trips • cycling tours • sea-kayaking • flyfishing • boxing • photography • herbal retreats • yoga • work, such as a study of female events of September painting • skiing • dog sledding and more! Aboriginal chiefs, is intrinsically helpful 11 and their www.wildwomenexp.com to the community it is studying. aftermath. The sheer [email protected] 1-888-WWE-1222 Often the two go hand in hand. Tina number of essays,

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 41 letters, poems and lectures gives weight feminism is a global movement that is ings reject the idea that women are natu- to the voices who opposed war in well placed to raise voices of dissent rally more peaceful and caring, they do Afghanistan, while the wide scope about politics,war,patriotism,heroism see peace as a feminist issue and assert provides political and cultural arguments and militarism. By emphasizing the link that a feminist analysis of war and vio- excluded from mainstream debates. After between gender and war, these feminist lence is necessary for change. Shock also preserves the many dissenting critiques of American oil policy, domestic After Shock is both hopeful and dis- opinions that were quickly buried by the violence in military households, turbing. The physical and emotional media. Contributions from women in American consumerism and the war zone impact of violence on women (in Canada include Sunera Thobani’s speech of Wall Street make feminism directly rel- Afghanistan, the Middle East and the US) condemning war and linking the aims of evant to September 11, the war in is unflinchingly reported. This sometimes feminism and social justice (published in Afghanistan and global politics. makes for a harrowing read. But it is also Herizons’ Winter 2002 issue), Theresa’s All the writers in After Shock reject inspiring to find that women will not Wolfwood’s inspiring call for creative women’s oppression as a justification for keep their mouths shut, and that they are resistance, and Nahla Abdo (see Herizons war and discredit that argument. Many agitating vocally at the front of a move- Spring 2003) and her study of attitudes examples of US support for global terror ment to make the world more just. In towards the Third World. against women uncover the empty rheto- doing so, these authors are strengthening As a movement that has always ques- ric of American claims to liberate women the networks of people resisting war and tioned social norms and ‘natural’ ideas, in the Middle East.Although these writ- working for non-violence. arts culture MUSIC ANI DIFRANCO ing, producing and playing all the instru- she writes about getting away and getting Educated Guess ments on Educated Guess herself. some perspective:“I finally drove out Righteous Babe Records, 2004 While past releases have veered from where the sky is dark enuf to see the stars Review by Anna Lazowski the folk mainstream into complicated and I found I missed no one just listening You have to admire experimentation, on this album DiFranco to the swishing of the distant cars.” someone with Ani is much closer to finding a balance. The At its best, art captures a moment in DiFranco’s staunch result is a mix that will definitely res- time.With Educated Guess,fans get deep independent spirit. Not onate, as elements of previous albums inside a moment in DiFranco’s life that only has she never turn up in a pleasant combination. had a profound impact—and we reap the signed with a major label, preferring Influences from folk, rock, pop and jazz musical rewards. instead to release material on her own meld with her spoken-word poems, Anna Lazowski is an associate producer at Righteous Babe imprint, but DiFranco musical experimentation and contempla- CBC Radio’s Definitely Not the Opera. has always worked on her own terms. tive songwriting. Now in her early 30s, she has released If you’re looking for the DiFranco style AFTERGLOW almost an album a year since 1989’s self- of old, with anthemic power songs that Sarah McLachlan titled debut, which makes her back cata- can be belted out as you drive around Nettwerk, 2003 logue one of the most impressive in the doing mundane errands, this isn’t it. It’s a Review by Cindy Filipenko biz.A recent change at home has made more thoughtful, introspective album There is no doubt that DiFranco even more of an independent that delves into love and loss on personal Afterglow will add woman. Following a split from her hus- and political levels.“You Each Time”is a substantially to Sarah band and sound engineer Andrew great portrait of helplessness as you wait McLachlan’s Gilchrist, she opted to work solo, record- for an impending heartbreak. On “Swim,” worldwide sales of 22

42 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS www.mqup.ca million recordings. Her fans are a loyal Sailers and Amy Ray.Featuring six lot who have waited with baited breath songs by Sailers and five by Ray, this for six years for her to release a new solid collection gives listeners what studio album. they’ve come to expect: smooth har- McLachlan has one of the most monies, excellent musicianship and consistently excellent voices in pop inspirational lyrics. music.When that voice is applied to Fans of the Georgia-based duo will great material it can actually raise find this recording strikingly similar in goose bumps. Don’t believe me? Get a tone to 2002’s Become You—both hold of the Freedom Sessions and see thematically and musically. Many of what she does with Tom Waits’“Ol’ 55.” the musicians who appeared on Become A WOMAN’S WAY THROUGH Her piano-driven compositions on You—most notably keyboardist Carol UNKNOWN LABRADOR Afterglow are strong and clean, with just Issacs and guitarist Claire Kenny— Mina Benson Hubbard enough hooks to make them show up again under the direction of Edited and with an introduction memorable and few enough surprises British producer Peter Collins. by Sherrill Grace to keep them from being jarring. Collins, who has worked with acts “... worthy of the same attention Writing equally mature lyrics, however, as diverse as the metal band Rush and given to prominent exploration and continues to elude this accomplished pop-folk gal Jewel, was a fitting choice travel writers on the Canadian North musician. to take the reins on this project, which ... Grace’s introduction is beautifully Stripped of its compelling melody, a written...” Carolyn Podruchny, Western features a couple significant Michigan University typical Sarah McLachlan song consists deviations from the folk-rock 0-7735-2704-4 • $39.95 • cloth • 324pp of little more than adequate high school compositions for which the Indigo Black and white photographs, foldout map poetry. For example, from the single Girls are best known. “Fallen”:“I messed up/ Better I should For example,Amy Ray’s political know/ So don’t come round here and/ anthem “Tether,”with its plaintive Tell me I told you so.” refrain,“Do we tether the hawk or do Since she burst on to the scene with we tether the dove?,”sounds like it 1988’s classically-inspired hit “Vox” could have come from the pen of Neil (Latin for “voice”), McLachlan has Young.And her two-tone wry ode to a released nine albums, produced four broken love,“Heartache for Everyone,”is years of Lilith Fair, endured high profile authentic-sounding ska. The more lawsuits, gotten married, had a baby adventurous songwriter of the two, Ray and lost her mother. Clearly, she’s continues to push the boundaries of her evolved, so why haven’t her lyrics? It’s talents. However, the most surprising of this artistic stasis that ultimately makes her songs is the first single,“Perfect RECONCEIVING MIDWIFERY Afterglow just another pleasant album World.”Musically it is typical Indigo Edited by Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Cecilia that could have been so much more. Girls, but lyrically the song presents an Benoit, and Robbie Davis-Floyd incredibly upbeat take on accepting "This is a timely and important book. ... ALL THAT WE LET IN responsibility and being accountable. [It] is original, diverse, and compelling. Indigo Girls Emily Sailers sticks to her mission of Readers are introduced to leading- Epic Records, 2004 perfecting the emotionally and edge thinking and developments sur- Review by Cindy Filipenko spiritually honest love song that has rounding midwifery practice. I learned something new on every page." Brian The Indigo Girls’ been her hallmark of her 20-year Burtch, author of Trials of Labour: The ninth studio album, career.“Love is like breathing when it’s Re-emergence of Midwifery All That We Let In, true,”she opines in “Free in You.” 0-7735-2690-0 • $29.95 • paper • 352pp resonates with an All That We Let In is as comfortable unabashed hopeful- as an old hoodie, and sometimes that’s McGill-Queen’s ness that reflects the continued political what we need: a little softness and University Press and personal maturation of Emily familiarity.

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44 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS … continued from page 22 (Elizabeth May)

Amelia Clarke, and she’s in her early 30s, or she could still be in her 20s. We have more women than men on the board. There are not a lot of environmen- tal groups with women executive directors. Though I never would have said we were a matriarchy, I would say that we are a committed feminist organization, and maybe that comes to the same thing.

How does that translate into day-to-day things, being a committed feminist organization? Elizabeth May: Well, in terms of policy, we’re the only environmental group that has commitments around reproductive rights, because of work around population issues. We’ve done a lot of work as an organization supporting the agenda from Cairo and Beijing for the rights of women and girls—for improved health care for women, improved educa- tion, literacy and human rights. It is an essential ingredient to any sustainability agenda that looks at the population issue. In terms of day-to-day opera- tions, we seek gender parity whenever we organize conferences, in terms of who are the speakers. We make sure there’s child care at meetings. Elizabeth May, head of the Sierra Club of Canada, takes a drink of water on the 16th day of for hunger strike on Parliament Hill. CP Photo: Fred Chartrand We have a very flat salary structure—more like a cooperative, at the national office, than like a tradi- tional hierarchical structure. We’ve had 20,000 letters to the PMO. We’re not a well-funded organization. So we rely on In general, the issue I worry about the most is cli- a lot of things that come from a woman’s experience of mate change, and that’s related to this issue. Why are juggling a lot of things all at once. Many of the organ- we destroying our fisheries to open things up for oil izations run by men look at what we do, say, in a and gas? It’s the source of the pollution that’s patronizing way: “Oh, you have too many campaigns. threatening to destabilize our whole climate. We’ve Why don’t you just concentrate on one thing?” got more than 30 percent, by concentration, more But I’m not about to drop anything we’re working CO2 than we’ve had at any time in the last many mil- on with communities like the Sydney community lion years. The effect of that is already being felt in and the Sydney tar ponds. droughts, and floods, and fires, and storms, and hurricanes—and that’s just 30 per cent more CO2, What are the things that really keep you up at night these which is virtually irreversible. days? Every time we emit CO2, it is with us for 100 years. Elizabeth May: For the last four years, we’ve been cam- So we’re stoking the furnaces for the planet’s future paigning in Cape Breton in Nova Scotia to fight against climate now. Meeting Kyoto targets is just a very opening up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and inshore small first step, and even that’s difficult. So that’s coastal areas that are very rich fisheries, to oil and gas the issue that scares me the most, a “runaway green- development. We’ve been working in a very tight coali- house effect” is what scientists call it, which is the tion with fishers’ organizations, First Nations’ organi- worst-case scenario. It’s not what most people hear zations, tourism groups, lots of environmentalists. about. We mostly talk about the risks of doubling the

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 45 CO2 in the atmosphere, and causing sea level rise know, you love your family and you love your kids and increased temperature. That’s not the worst- and you think, “I need a vehicle that reflects those case scenario. values.” That vehicle is not an SUV. The worst-case scenario is that CO2 emissions Now they’ve got on-board entertainment systems, continue to rise, that it gets dryer, hotter, more so you can plug the kids into the TV, and the armrest forests burn, as they burn the emit more CO2, so it next to the kiddies has a molded space that’s perfect feeds back more warming gases into the system. The for the juice box, and I mean it’s just diabolical—the Western Arctic is warming faster than any other device that’s going to deliver death and destruction to region in the world–and as the Arctic warms, per- your children’s world is a real comfy, nice little nest mafrost melts. And melting permafrost releases for them. You have to put that together and think, “If methane gas, which is a very powerful greenhouse I think about fossil fuel emissions and what kind of gas–unit for unit far more powerful than CO2. future I want my kids to have, we’re going to squish in There’s a point at which no matter what we do, a hybrid, or they’ll take a bus. But we don’t need this even if we stop burning fossil fuels, we will trip the status vehicle that’s a pollution machine.” planet’s climate into a dramatic and potentially cat- aclysmic shift. At that point, nothing we do will What are your hopes for Paul Martin? make a difference. So that’s why it’s so desperately Elizabeth May: I’ve always liked him as a person. urgent in the beginning of the 21st century to shift Paul Martin did stand up and vote to ratify Kyoto. I’m away from fossil fuels as aggressively as possible. encouraged by his plan for cities. I think a plan for There are a million solutions out there, and greening and investing in the infrastructure of cities they’re all cool. They all help clear the air, and is a good thing. The threats and the weaknesses are reduce smog, and reduce asthma, and make cities the extent to which he’s tied into corporate Canada. more livable—they’re actually affordable and they I’m hoping that he is more able to say, “Sure, you create jobs. helped me get here, but as a matter of policy I’m I think human ingenuity and the survival instinct will going to make good decisions for the whole country.” eventually kick in, and even the dinosaurs will move. We shall see. We need some very dramatic shifts in public Kate Heartfield’s last Herizons article, “Ladies in expectations of what life is supposed to be like. Wading—The Art of Flyfishing” was published in the We’ve got to get people questioning whether, you Spring 2004 issue.

women in prison is Hansen’s way to lay the ground- … continued from page 30 (Being Direct) work for a larger transformation: “one struggle, “Our society has to address the question of Native many fronts,” she says. sovereignty of their own territory,” she explains. “I think what we’re trying to do is walk this fine “There is a need for more treatment centres for drug line of creating the alternatives now, in our political and alcohol addictions.” groups—developing the kinds of organizations and Ultimately, Hansen believes people should be structures that we’re aspiring to in this so-called educated and given job opportunities to prevent ideal world. them from turning to criminal acts. “Prison doesn’t “In my ideal world, it’s as decentralized as possi- rehabilitate people or make them more balanced ble. Power rests as much as possible in the hands of individuals,” she adds. the people.” Hansen and Womyn 4 Justice are working on a Deanna Radford is a freelance writer living in Winnipeg. long-term plan to build a co-operatively-run tran- Direct Action: Memoirs of An Urban Guerrilla was published by Between the Lines Press. The spoken word CD Direct Action: Reflections on Armed sition apartment building and a café operated for Resistance and the Squamish Five was released by Winnipeg’s G7 and by women released from prison. Working with Welcoming Committee. www.g7welcomingcommittee.com

46 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS global warning BY NAOMI KLEIN

INTIFADA, IRAQI STYLE April 9, 2003 was the day Baghdad fell to US forces. including a pregnant woman who had been shot in One year later, it is rising up against them. the stomach and lost her child. Donald Rumsfeld claims that the resistance is just I saw charred cars that dozens of eyewitnesses said a few “thugs, gangs and terrorists.” This is danger- had been hit by US missiles, and I confirmed with ous, wishful thinking. The war against the occupa- local hospitals that their drivers had been burned tion is now being fought out in the open, by regular alive. I also visited Block 37 of the Sadr City’s people defending their homes and neighbour- Chuadir District, a row of houses where every door hoods—an Iraqi intifada. was riddled with holes. Residents said US tanks fired “They stole our playground,” an eight-year-old into their homes. Five people were killed, including boy in Sadr City told me in April, pointing at six Murtada Muhammad, age 4. tanks parked in a soccer field, next to a rusty jungle And then I saw something I feared more than any gym. The field is a precious bit of green in an area of of this. It was lying in the ruins of what was Sadr’s Baghdad that is otherwise a swamp of raw sewage and headquarters in Sadr City. A few hours earlier, wit- uncollected garbage. nesses say, two US tanks broke down the walls of the Sadr City has seen little of Iraq’s multi-billion- centre while two guided missiles pierced its roof, dollar “reconstruction,” which is partly why leaving giant craters in the floor and missile debris Muqtader Sadr and his Mahadi army have so much behind. The clerics at the Sadr office said that US sol- support here. Before US occupation chief Paul diers shredded photographs of the Grand Ayatollah Bremer provoked Sadr into an armed conflict by Ali Sistani, the top Shiite cleric in Iraq. When I shutting down his newspaper and arresting and arrived, the floor was covered in torn religious texts, killing his deputies, the Mahadi army was not fight- including several copies of the Koran that been shot ing coalition forces, it was doing their job for them. through with bullets. And it did not escape the notice After all, in the year it has controlled Baghdad, the of the Shiites here that hours earlier, US soldiers had Coalition Provisional Authority still hasn’t managed bombed a Sunni mosque in Fallouja. to get the traffic lights working, or to provide the For months the White House has predicted that a civil most basic security for civilians. So in Sadr City, war would break out between the majority Shiites, who Sadr’s so-called “outlaw militia” can be seen believe it’s their turn to rule Iraq, and the minority engaged in such subversive activities as directing Sunnis, who want to hold on to the privileges they traffic and guarding factories from looters. In a way, amassed under Hussein’s regime. But now, Sunni and the Mahadi army is as much Bremer’s creation as it Shiite have seen their neighbourhoods attacked and al Sadr’s: it was Bremer who created Iraq’s security their religious sites desecrated. Up against a shared vacuum—Sadr simply filled it. enemy, they are beginning to bury ancient rivalries and But as the June 30 “handover” to Iraqi control join forces against the occupation. Instead of a civil war, approaches, Bremer now sees Sadr and the Mahadi they are on the verge of building a common front. as a threat that must be taken out—along with the You could see it at the mosques in Sadr City, where communities that have grown to depend on them. At thousands of Shiites lined up to donate blood des- Al-Thawra Hospital, I met Raad Daier, a 36-year- tined for Sunnis hurt in the attacks in Fallouja. “We old ambulance driver with a bullet in his lower should thank Paul Bremer,” Salih Ali told me. “He abdomen—one of 12 shots fired at his ambulance has finally united Iraq. Against him.” from a US Humvee. According to hospital officials, This article first appeared in The Nation. (www.then- he was carrying six people injured by US forces, ation.com).

HERIZONS SUMMER 2004 47 on the edge BY LYN COCKBURN

PLANE TRUTH ABOUT SIMPLE PLEASURES I want cookies banned. At the very least, censored. out and the dude across the aisle gets a fabulous view I just thought that over and I realize I went too far, of her orbs, right down to but not quite the nipples. so let me rephrase: I want cookies that do not have His eyes stop, spin wildly, and the camera kind of chocolate chips in them to be banned—at the very fades away, so God knows what those two did after- least censored. And nuts. Maybe I could let the ones wards. Did he unzip his trousers right there? Did she with nuts sneak by. tear off that prissy white blouse? Slip her orbs right But those plain ones with nothing but cholesterol out of that bra, pull her panties down? Did they and trans fats to recommend them, let them be gone boink right there? in a puff of empty calories. Hopefully, they had the decency to head for the Like Simple Pleasures cookies, for example. bathroom to fornicate. Although anybody who’s There’s nothing in them—at least not in the been on an airplane knows it’s almost impossible for plain ones. one normal-sized person to fit in, never mind two. No chocolate, no pecans, nary a peanut, not even Perhaps they stood on top of the toilet. any raisins, not a whiff of caramel, not a soupçon of Anyway, afterwards, according to this ad, he forever marshmallow. Simple they are—the pleasurable part changes his attitude towards Simple Pleasures cookies. is in question. So did I. And then there’s that advertisement. I want SP’s banned. Or at the very least censored. The one on the airplane is what advertisement. For far too long, our society has permitted cookies This man and this woman are sitting across the aisle like Simple Pleasures to be splashed across our TV from each other, and he (a reasonably good-looking screens without thought, supervision or consideration dude) looks over at her a couple of times. She (sort of for the youth of our nation. It’s one thing to have no attractive, but kind of prissy, in a white blouse) is consideration for our youth’s morals after prime time, oblivious because she’s eating these damned plain but to display cookies during prime time, and maybe cookies (to be fair to Simple Pleasures, the company even during Hockey Night in Canada, is outrageous. does produce cookies with almonds and chocolate, What are we saying to our children? That cookies but I can’t see any lumps of either in these ones on on prime time are okay? That wardrobe malfunc- the plane; so if I say they’re plain, they’re plain). tions on airplanes are okay? That boinking on air- Anyway, she gets up to go to the bathroom. (Okay, planes, even if you’ve never met the person before, I’m making an assumption here, because why else is better than hijacking? That even respectable- does someone get up in an airplane ... except maybe looking women should be permitted to wander to hijack it, and what with this being an American ad about with their blouses open. That cookies with no you can be bloody sure the cockpit is locked. And chocolate chips or pecans are okay? anyway, she’d never get through those steel doors We’re saying all of that. And it’s wrong. before somebody took her out. So I’m pretty sure As for those two on the airplane, I hope they had a she’s going to the bathroom, okay?) good time. Mind you, if he’s married he has no business As she gets up she bumps her table and knocks a boinking another woman, no matter if she did have a cookie on the floor. She bends over to pick up this wardrobe malfunction. And if she’s got a boyfriend, bland bit of crap and in doing so experiences a she’s obviously a slut with no sense of loyalty. wardrobe malfunction. Her blouse sort of blouses Pleasures are never simple.

48 SUMMER 2004 HERIZONS

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