FEATURES west are not so great; and ARTS A WOMAN'S WORK IS suggests that we concentrate FEMINIST UNDER VIEW: NEVER FUN: MILITARY MONEY on the common plight of Barbara Halpern Martineau Housewives in Flin Flon, MYTHS: women, not the ideological tells a tale of two films seen Manitoba tell it like it is; Is military spending good for differences between coun• at Toronto's Festival of meanwhile feminists get on the economy? Chris tries. Page 4. Festivals in September: P4W: with the hard task of recon• Lawrence debunks some Prison for Women by Holly ciling Marxist theory to the myths, picks apart the logic Dale and Janis Cole, and the reality of housework. of government justification COMMENT NFB's Not a Love Story: A Mariana Valverde reviews for Canada's role in the ar• Film About Pornography, two books: Meg Luxton's maments industry, clarifies LETTER RIP: and draws a connection be• More Than a Labour of our dependency on the US Broadside readers respond to tween the common isolation Love and Bonnie Fox's an• military-industrial complex, articles and to each other in and imprisonment of women thology Hidden in the and asks where will it all the 'Letters' section: Linda in both worlds. Page 12. Household, Page 14. end? Page 8. Ackroyd on a Globe and Mail review of Not a Love FROM RUSSIA WITH Story; Lucie Pepin, president LOVE: of the Advisory Council on MM the Status of Women, to Vic• Dorothy Livesay visits the W, USSR, talks with women toria's Status of Women Ac• about living conditions, tion Group; Gay Bell of Pink family life, pay, rape, vasec• Triangle Tears to a July 1981 Bill mm il ii III Hi lliw tomies; finds that the dif• Broadside review; and more. ferences between east and Page 2. ™_ . SI m page iwo

Broadside: 3) I was one of the many who "dribbled" Broadside: course, she was not wearing underwear and out of Cris Williamson's concert before the when the Hustler photos were taken, her In case you'd like to know why I'm sub• end. I was shocked by her sexist songs, lack The following letter was sent to the Globe & skirt was raised above her waist. But more scribing to Broadside, it was your June 1981 of professionalism, and unkindness to the Mail on September 15, but not published. importantly, she was "sitting" spread- issue, specifically: many women gathered who had found hope eagled, with the point of a four-foot sword 1) Finally, I've heard a woman (women) in her music. If Cris feels misunderstood I I saw the NFB movie Not a Love Story: at her genitals. voice the truth about the Pope. Everyone can sympathize. However, much trouble A Film About Pornography and hardly re• seems to overlook the fact that his "kind• would have been saved if she had an• cognized it as the one Jay Scott reviewed For questioning the role of this kind of ness" is killing women, body/soul, all over nounced her views at the beginning of the last week (September 7, 1981) in the Globe material (and this is not the roughest, by this earth. Thank you for not being si• concert. I, for one, would have politely ask• and Mail. The film is a highly personal one, far), the film is accused of a "whining lenced. ed for my money back and would have left presenting mainly through interviews (with naivete", "Puritan prejudice" and "bour• 2) I had tickets for Adrienne Rich and quietly. both women and men) the views of people geois feminist fascism". It is only harmless Nicole Brossard ('Writers in Dialogue' Thank you for allowing women the space involved in the pornographic magazine and "fantasy", which the film-makers are try• May, 1981) but missed the dialogue because to voice their feelings. For me, Cris Wil• film trades, and of those who have written ing to "censor". In taking this view, Scott I had to leave Toronto unexpectedly that liamson's concert strengthened my own re• and talked on the subject. Scott's review is typical of the so-called liberals who week. I am glad you .gave good coverage to solve as a feminist, and taught me a few prepared me for an anti-male diatribe. equate anti-female propaganda of the Hust• their views. more traps a strong woman should be care• What I got instead was people trying to ler type with healthy openness about sexual• ful to avoid. figure out the effects of pornography on ity, and questioning of it with repression, men and women and on their relationship lack of sophistication, and political conser• Margaret Hecimovich with one another. vatism. We are expected to support or at Toronto least ignore the humiliation of certain peo• jÉÉÉÉÉÉMÉÉÉÉJi Some of the images used as examples in ple (mostly women) because it allegedly the film are sickening or frightening or provides an outlet or safety valve for the both, but none of them are made up. They otherwise inexpressible desires of other peo• EDITORIAL Broadside: are the real thing, and you can find some of ple — including the desire to dominate (by Philinda Masters, Editor them in your local milk store (although you violence if necessary) or be submitted to. Judith Lawrence, Photography Enclosed is a cheque for two gift subs. may, like me, have trained yourself not to Now just who is repressed here? Broadside gets better and better! I par• Jean Wilson, Books look at them). ticularly enjoyed the dialogue with Barbara Halpern Martineau, Films Adrienne Rich (June, 1981). The question A final point. Scott scoffs at the "white Your reviewer misrepresents the film to of women's issues as universal and how middle-class women" who made the film. the point of absurdity. To cite just one ex• PRODUCTION seriously we take our feminist politics is We know (from the U.S. Commission on ample, we are invited to mock the squeam- Philinda Masters, Co-ordinator critical. Obscenity and Pornography) that the ishness of the photographic model who is At our peril do we allow history to repeat consumers of pornography (a very lucrative Moira Armour depressed after spending an afternoon itself by permitting the women's movement business, by the way) are predominantly Beatrice Bailey merely "sitting on a table without wearing to be superseded or displaced or diluted by white middle-class men. So who has a better clothes". This euphemistic description Anna Hoad the "greater good," however defined by right, not to mention a greater responsibili• makes the scene in question (where others. Woman need to make feminism the ty, to react publicly to it than representa• Dana Janssen photographs for Hustler magazine were priority — no one else will. tives of the very women who love and live Elaine Johnson taken) sound like an art school class in life with those men? drawing. As a matter of fact, the model was Anne Leitch Helen Levine wearing clothes the whole time (as the pic• Linda Ackroyd Catherine Maunsell School of Social Work, Carleton University ture accompanying the review shows). Of Toronto Deena Rasky Ottawa

DISTRIBUTION Beverley Allinson, Co-ordinator Elaine Berns Gina Jones Chris Lawrence EDITORIALS Kye Marshall Susan Power Carol Rowe Beth Traynor CIRCULATION Censored Across the Board Eve Zaremba, Co-ordinator The Censor Board of Ontario should get outrageous content, played Cinema 2000 in ing industry on the continent, to encourage Helen Lenskyj its priorities straight. The National Film Toronto a few years ago, and still the en• women and men to cry out against the cam• Flora Macquarrie Board's movie entitled Not a Love Story trepreneurs extracted their profits on the paign and to express their rage at the de• sought to expose the pornography industry strength of advertisements that gleefully basement of women? for what it is: an array of hate literature and celebrated violence against women, only The Board of Censors doesn't seem to ADVERTISING propaganda that relentlessly campaigns for parts of which were censored from the know the difference, and an important Ottie Lockey, Co-ordinator the ongoing putdown of women. The film• movie. But Not a Love Story, without its statement about pornography was seen by Judy Stanleigh makers wanted to present the most compel• crucial footage cannot make its point. only a few hundred people. The decision is ling images, and did so using hard core The events surrounding the NFB film, a typically liberal one: the application of a foe rage and film shot on New York's infa• guideline across the board. At least no one FINANCIAL/LEGAL compared with the experience of the pro• mous n.oS St ret t. ducers of Snuff show the bankruptcy of the can accuse the Censor of bias. We can ac• Jane Hastings, Co-ordinator \.-J „fi£Oi Bofrd allowed only one spec- Censor's values. The sight of genitalia per cuse the Board of being hung up on its ar• ^1 s»iovin<_ of the tiim and denied a request se is not the issue, but the way in which the bitrary guidelines while remaining heedless of the real malaise in our culture. ' h t y c*»r>d saowt.u. diguing that, the film image is used is. Is it being used to keep women down? Are women's genitalia being COLLECTIVE MEMBERS: \ ^ > ~ rifxlvt censorship guidelines. 1 r invaded by fire pokers so that the viewer (Editor's note: Broadside's centrespread in Beverley Allinson., Susan G, Cole, "j> - ~ c v]jj,in on in question is i ' i ^' i_»-al close-ups of geni- can get off? Is the image being used to the November issue will focus on the sub• Jane Hastings, Judith Lawrence, 4~ « • * tG'r&y ot penetration cannot lionize the power men have over women? ject of pornography. Also, see Barbara Philinda Masters., Layne Mellanby, i " „ i ' p ohc i fctre. Or is the footage being used to teli us Halpern Martineau's review of the Festival Deena Rasky, Judy Stanleigh, Jean , ' t* ^ k o^ed only of its most what is really going on in the fastest grow• of Festivals in this issue.) Wilson, Eve Zaremba.

Address all correspondence to: Post Haste Broadside P.O. Box 494 During the recent postal strike, Broad• of the facts of Broadside's financial life. Station P side's revenue was cut by more than 50 per (Did you earn your gold star?) Broadside Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2T1 cent. New subscriptions, renewals, store operates at a deficit of approximately Tel. (416) 598-3513 sales and advertising revenue were either $1,000 per month — even without a strike. lost or badly delayed. Altogether, our cash• This must be covered one way or another. The Broadside Collective does not nec• flow sank to its lowest point ever: we had We have been enormously fortunate that in the last two years a number of women have essarily share the views contained in creditors baying at the door. Just as well extended Broadside substantial financial any article, even if the byline belongs that we planned not to publish in August; support. That means at the end of 1981 we to a collective member. Views of the we could not have made it. will probably be no worse off than we were Collective are expressed only in editori• We are catching up with most of the ad• at the end of 1980 — a triumph of sorts. It als, and essays signed by the Collective. vertising and store sales but subscriptions are another matter. It is unlikely that we also means that donations and fundraising are continually required, in addition to the Broadside is published 10 times a year by will ever recoup the loss of new subs which normal flow of subscriptions, advertising Broadside Communications Ltd., P.O. Box would normally have come in during those 494, Station P, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2T1. weeks. As for renewals, we urge most and sales revenue. Financially we have to (416) 598-3513. Member: Canadian Periodi• strongly that everyone renew as soon as run like hell to stay in place. This is unlikely cal Publishers' Association. This issue: Oc• possible. Do not wait for reminders or for to change, so we must learn to live with it. tober 1981; Vol. 3, No. 1. your subscription to run out. If the expiry Any help you can offer Broadside is not on• date (look above your name on the label) is ly appreciated, it is necessary. Typesetting: PinkType in 1981, please renew immediately — for Meanwhile, this first issue of Volume 3 Kornagraphics two years if possible, at the Sustaining Rate (our third year) will be kept small while we Printing: Delta Web Graphics if you can. It sure would help. a Polish feminist, a review of the politics of Second Class mail registration no: 4771 get ourselves back on an even keel finan• incest, a look at anti-homosexual hate liter• ISSN: 0225-6843 In the last issue (Vol. 2 number 10) our cially. But next month you can expect big• dauntless editor — and bookkeepr and bill- ger and better things: a feature on por• ature, reviews of books by Michelle Cliffe Next production date: October 24, 25 payer — Philinda Masters, spelled out some nography and censorship, an interview with and Margrit Eichler, and more. Copy deadline: October 5

proadside page three-

Broadside: tent of the conference, I agree with you, of Rupert works on women and employment ment, Yonge St., 52 Division, Queen's course, that the information was vital. The and is involved in all aspects of the women's Park, a restaurant and a TV. The design is Below is a copy of a letter we sent to the reason it made more impact in May than it movement. We believe these women to be abstract and fragmentary. In my eyes the owner of Partners Restaurant in Toronto. would have last February is that we were hard-working and dedicated and to repre• set looked cohesive in the way a modern This letter resulted from a complaint re• able to concentrate on constitutional issues sent, during their term, the interests of painting looks cohesive — colours and ceived from the women mentioned. These — family law, custody, social services and women in that region. elements were balanced in the frame. As a women were enraged by the treatment they other areas of day-to-day concern to wo• It is always difficult to comment on the proscenium stage is supposed to be like a received by both the management and the men — other than the Charter. The Febru• social part of conferences. We receive, in all picture frame for the play, so this design men in the restaurant and so decided to take ary conference, although very effective, of our public events, two different criti• was intended to be a modern picture, rather further action. was, as I am sure you will agree, almost cisms. Some women feel that we are not than a traditional naturalistic picture. completely on the proposed new Charter of treated in the same way as a male group in "The major fault of the script was its at• Janet Rowe & Valerie Varah Rights and Freedoms. We felt, and still feel, Ottawa on similar business would be treated tempt to cover a wide range of topics in a Toronto Rape Crisis Centre that the Council has worked very hard, at and some feel that our arrangements are short piece: gay rights, nuclear power, po• great expense and with a high degree of suc• too lavish. It is all good to know in planning lice brutality, provincial politics, racism. Mr' Greg Munn cess on pressing for changes in the Charter future meetings. Focus on one of these issues would have Partners Restaurant and that we ought to move on to other I have sent a copy of your letter to all of given the play more impact." (The review• 836 Danforth Ave., aspects of constitutional reform. I believe our members, so no doubt you will be hear• ers forgot to mention feminism). The On• Toronto, Ontario that the May conference got us off to a ing from some of them as well. tario government is using us to divert atten• good start. The Council has already taken Again, I regret that you did not find the Dear Mr. Munn tion from other repressive and dangerous action on some of the concerns expressed conference valuable, but I would like to by the women at the conference. We will, measures which it is taking. The raids on It has recently come to our attention that on thank you for troubling to give us your for example, be presenting a brief — the gay steambaths is not just one issue. In• the evening of August 12th, 1981 Sue Minns views. We appreciate this. prepared by Mary Eberts, a lawyer in Tor• deed the other topics could've been more and Candice Chong were patrons in your onto and Audrey Doerr of Simon Fraser subtly woven into the script — but this is restaurant. During the course of the even• Lucie Pépin University — to the Parliamentary Task agitprop theatre, political theatre — not ing they were continuously harassed by two President Force on Federal-Provincial Fiscal Ar• psychological internal, nor naturalistic ex• men sitting adjacent to them. They were CACSW rangements, early next week. We plan to ternal, drama. subjected to both verbal and physical abuse have a paper prepared on how to proceed of a most reprehensible nature. When they Picnic in the Drift (also reviewed) is, in with a legal defence fund for women, (I im• complained to the management they re• comparison, non-political theatre because, agine you have already heard from Mary ceived absolutely no response. Upon leav• although it illustrates the nuclear mentality Eberts on this), and we are now preparing a ing they were told that they needn't come Broadside: from a number of points of view, it does kit to cover all of the issues raised at the back if they were dissatisfied. not take a stand. It is basically avant-garde conference which will be extremely useful I am writing in response to Ruth Dworin theatre which can be co-opted by the gov• We believe that the treatment these wo•for women in lobbying federal and provin• & Keltic Creed's critical overview of some ernment/art establishment because it does men received in your establishment is intol• cial government for change. erable. We as women, constantly experience plays in "Onstage '81: In Search of Femin• not incorporate a refusal to participate in this kind of harassment in our everyday The format of the conference remained ist Content" in the July 1981 Broadside, nukes, nor a criticism of our here and now lives. Your behaviour perpetuates the idea the same as that planned in the beginning. particularly in reference to the Pink government which is here and now using that men should have the right to abuse us The conference was designed to be informa• Triangle Tears paragraph. nukes from one day to the next to cream us. Picnic is indeed a very good piece; although with impunity. Your lack of action and tional and in this regard we believe it I want to call these critics on what they I am surprised Keltie and Ruth reviewed it responsibility has made it clear to us once worked very well. I agree with you, though, write. Most of what Keltic and Ruth say given that the program stated that it was a again that we must take a strong stand to on the participation and, in retrospect, I may be true but it is the condescending and work in progress and not to be reviewed. I ensure that women have access to all publicwoul d perhaps say that the agenda was too patronizing tone of the review — all in the suspect that the "fabulous lighting effects, places without the fear or threat of vio• packed. We tried to do too much in one name of feminism — to which I object. I slides and taped narration" — all quite lence. day. I would, again in retrospect, (much the am also angry at what the review did not beyond PTT's budget and capacity — had We are sending copies of this letter to the best way to plan conferences) have had a say, what useful information that para• something to do with Keltie and Ruth's below mentioned asking that they boycottlighte r program. The conference was con• graph could have given to readers. comparative infatuation. I'm mildly sur• your restaurant. In addition we will be trolled only to the extent that the agenda I do not believe that women critics have a prised, in fact, that Keltie's own lighting of handing out leaflets asking individuals not was tight and not because of any lack of in• feminist obligation to be supportive or nice PTT wasn't mentioned in her review as one to patronize your establishment. terest in discussion of the issues by the to women artists: such an unquestioning at• of the piece's redeeming features. Should you wish to formulate a policy Council. Most of the Council members at• titude would not advance our art at all. that ensures women will be free from futuretende d and there were also a large number However, we deprecate male critics for pri• As for the "need for stronger direction" harassment in your restaurant, we would beo f former Council members there. I know oritizing the professionalism of the theatre in Pink Triangle Tears — indeed there was willing to discuss the details of such a policy that most of the members and former piece, rather than the content and purpose no direction. And I agree, now, with Keltie with you. members had discussions with the women present from their region. I am sorry that of it. My objective as a feminist is not the and Ruth. However, let me explain why Yours truly, you did not talk to the members but in a same as that of either traditional or non- there was no direction, apart from the diffi• Janet Rowe & Valerie Varah crowd of over 750 people it is difficult to traditional patriarchal theatre: an analysis culties of getting a director for free who is for the TRCC collective organize discussions between individual from this point of view would have brought lesbian (or hip to us), sympathetic about the persons. out the valuable qualities in Pink Triangle bath raids, available for rehearsals and Tears. In fact, Dworin and Creed succeeded compatible with the actors. I have been The following letter was sent to Shirley The conference was planned to provide in ignoring any of the useful points of the doubtful of the director position. I find it Avril of the Status of Women Action information to women on constitutional re• play by concentrating on what was wrong hard to allow anyone between my writing Group, Victoria, by federal Advisory form and its effects on women and was not with it. and my acting. Egotism? Maybe, but the Council President Lucie Pépin, in response planned in any way as information on the reader may see from this letter just how to Avril's letter (Broadside, July 1981): Council itself. With regard to the represen• The reviewers said "the set was, for the delicate the matter is. tation of Canadian women by the CACSW, most part, ugly and amateur-looking". Al• Dear Ms. Avril: I can only say that while it is true that no though aesthetics are partly personal and So, what do I think the review could have one organization can represent all women barely defensible, it seems to me that the said? It could have described the play as a Thank you for your thoughtful letter of in Canada (life would be simpler if that success of a set can also be measured by feminist criticism of patriarchal behaviour June 10. were so), I think that the Council is repre• whether it achieved its purpose or not. This which causes the bath raids, it could have Needless to say, I was very sorry to hear sentative of a large segment of women. set was designed to adapt a guerilla play brought out the significance of the bath that you were disappointed with the Coun• Having said this, I think it is well to that was done in a meeting hall to a pro• raids to lesbians. It could have discussed the cil's conference on women and the constitu• remember that all of our groups and organi• scenium stage where we had to perform in a fact that we have a community theatre tion. I was surprised too, because all of our zations together do represent all or most of black hole at one end of a block of immov• which is trying to act out what happens to information back on the conference, while the women in Canada. That is why it is very able seats and where the lights could not il• us in order to help us see it as fictionally containing suggestions, has been very posi• important that we work together. We need luminate us elsewhere than on the stage. real, as discussable, as a usable myth. Or it tive. Our impression is that women manag• all of us. You very likely know the CACSW The object of the stage design was to make could have even — in opposition to the the• ed to garner a great deal of information in members in your area. Norrie Preston has a warm space where we were as little as sis of the play — asked "what do the bath the one day session — information that is been active in her community and on behalf possible alienated from the audience, to raids have to do with lesbians"? — at least absolutely necessary if we are to bring our of women for many years. Edith Nee, a maintain the guerilla atmosphere as per the that would have been useful, rather than concerns forcefully to the attention of gov• business woman in Vancouver, is very active political intention of the play and, because just professional criticism. ernments. on the Council's Pension Committee and the set couldn't be changed seven times dur• I would like to comment on several of the works closely with immigrant women, and ing the performance, to have a design which Gay Bell points you made in your letter. On the con• Rhoda Witherly, a broadcaster in Prince looked like a cop's apartment, Gay's apart• Toronto

Broadside: women's issues are universal issues, and it is years. Recently six of our members were or abandoning our analysis, even as we our feminism which has prompted us to part of a coalition of about 30 people who made the compromises necessary in coali• investigate and make the connections bet• organized the April 25 anti-nuke march and tion work. As a member of a women's anti-nuke ween the destruction of the environment, rally and an educational the next day. It was The question of coalitions keeps coming group (Women Against Nuclear Technol• the misuse of technology, the madness of not easy but there were enough of us there up — who with? when? why? — and is ogy, Vancouver), I read with interest the nuclear war game and other excesses of to support each other and the whole group dealt with as each situation arises. We do Adrienne Rich's comments on coalition the patriarchy in action, and the systematic gave further support to those who went to care what the politics are of any group we politics (BroadsideI June 1981). Although oppression of women by men with the same the coalition meetings. In that group we consider working with and we intend to be the question Rich raises are real ones for us patriarchal mentality. The abuses by nu• were a significant force: it was WANT visible as feminists in any coalitions we and not ones for which we have easy clear technology to our bodies, our members who confronted sexism and clas- work in. It is our analysis as feminists that answers, our experience as a women's anti- children's bodies, the food we eat, the sism when these issues came up; it was gives our work its base; it is our experience nuke group has not been the same as she water we drink, the environment we live in WANT who made sure that native people as feminists that gives us the tools for describes it for some American feminists in are all forms of violence against us, and were represented at the rally; it was WANT organizing; it is our anger and our vision as the anti-nuke movement. We are first and some of us focus on this aspect of the strug• who made clear the connection between the feminists that give us the impetus and the foremost a feminist group. Feminism is the gle, just as others of us work to end rape or violence of nuclear technology and other energy to move "about our own destruction issue, the struggle, and anti-nuke is the par• the violence of poverty. forms of violence to women when some and our refusal to go on being destroyed". ticular front around which we are organiz• In the past year we have been very visible members of the coalition objected to the ing against the patriarchy. in this area as an active anti-nuke group, local rape crisis centre bringing its banner to We are not dropping "women's" issues our feminist perspective giving up a distinct the march (the banner was there). The pro• Annette Clough for some "larger" or "universal" issue; we presence in a community where there has cess was draining but we came out of that Women Against Nuclear Technology would agree entirely with Rich that been various kinds of anti-nuke activity for coalition without sacrificing our principles Vancouver

Vol. 3, No. 1 page four

Dorothy Livesay is a well-known Canadian An unusual aspect of this society is visible area of study or may mean digging Marsha is singularly beautiful in the writer with a longtime interest in socialism.in the traffic regulations. At important potatoes. Although equal pay for equal Nefertiti style. Being an interpreter she Her work has been widely published intersections in Moscow, there is a man on work has been the law for many years, speaks English fluently and has a passionate abroad, particularly in such countries as a high glassed-in platform with a micro• women still tend to go into the "caring pro• interest in modern literature. She found Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine. Recently phone. Traffic violators are hailed through fessions" — teaching, nursing, secretarial The Tin Drum fascinating and had just she made her first visit to the USSR in order a megaphone. And indeed, a taxi man who — and although 80 per cent of the medical discovered contemporary Greek poetry. to see old friends there and to meet writers was driving me had to stop his car when he profession is female, I believe that very few Marsha lives with her mother, who is retired and editors. Broadside invited her to record entered a one-way street the wrong way, of these are surgeons or administrators. Not at 50 because of heart trouble. With them her impressions from this trip, especially and climb the steps to receive (shamefaced• many women are taking law courses, but a also is the 90-year old grandmother, bedrid• with respect to women in the USSR. ly) his ticket. You see, the space-soaring large proportion is entering the humanities den, suffering from an incurable disease. Russians do not have radar, and instead of and scientific research. Of course, there "But shouldn't she be in a hospital for by Dorothy Livesay computers, the abacus is everywhere visible have always been, since the Second World chronic cases?" I asked, thinking of our in the markets and stores. "It's faster," I War (called "The Great Patriotic War" in Canadian pattern. "Oh no, never!" said As a* visitor to the Soviet Union for the was told. I could believe it. Russia), a great number of women in heavy Marsha. "My grandmother is still mentally month of May, I had paid my way via a Un• Since my return I have been following the industry. Why then is this direction being alert, she loves to read, and she would be iversity of British Columbia Extension reports, interviews, and comments in de-emphasized today? The answer I was most unhappy in an institution; we want Tour. But once in Moscow I met Canadian Broadside, Kinesis, and The Canadian For• given is that women had to take the places her with us." and English friends married to Russian wo• um concerning the position of women in the of men killed in the war, even in jobs I found the same attitude toward family men and through that connection visited Soviet Union. There are also reports readily dangerous to their health. That era is now solidarity when 1 met a new friend in Kiev. their homes as well as those of women poets available in our daily press and the rest of over, especially in coal mining. "Dangerous Bella is a schoolteacher who was only a and that of a young interpreter. The first the women's press concerning the plight of to her health" may also carry the meaning small child during the war and does not thing that struck me was their willingness to women in Canada. I suggest that one could "We must increase the birthrate from 1.5 remember it. Her first marriage ended in discuss all manner of topics. Like the char• easily find dissident Canadian women who children per family." (In France and in the divorce (due to alcoholism). She lives now acters in three recent Russian films, Mos• might well feel happier in a society where east European countries the same problem with her second husband, her daughter of cow Does Not Believe in Tears, Autumn there is work for all, regardless of age and of low birthrate exists.) 15, her son of 7, and "of course" her Marathon, and Oblomov, people discuss where a pregnant women may take a year's But rather than record statistics I'd like mother. their living problems quite freely, and they leave with pay. In Canada the postal work• to discuss the lives of four women with Although suffering from varicose veins, also reveal their happiness, friendships, ers went on strike largely because they whom I talked for several days. the grandmother does the cooking and devotion to family, and ability to satirize wanted 17 weeks of maternity leave with Emma is the daughter of a Canadian teaches that art to her grandson. They eat in their society. One taxi driver I met did pay! And events of such horrifying violence journalist whom I knew before the war. She the kitchen. Father does the shopping. The nothing but tell joke after joke, poking sly against children as seen in B.C. this past is a mining engineer, aged 50. After living in "babushka" shares a bedroom with her fun at queues (often women line up for lux• summer simply could not take place in the Moscow with her Russian mother during grandchildren' and the living room is also ury goods such as out-of-fashion French Soviet Union. Surely it is time to look at the the war she graduated from the Academy of the husband's study. "Why couldn't you spiked shoes). There are humorous anec• common plight of women the world over Sciences as an "economic engineer" in have placed your little boy in a day care dotes about the black market or "spiv" instead of raising ideological and machine construction. Her job since then centre?" I asked Bella. "Pre-school is not types who harass tourists and give a bad overemotional reactions to one system or has been as an inspector of mining machi• compulsory; we prefer to have my mother impression. "Gom, gom" I was asked for the other! nery. She loves her work and is free to teach him. The standards for kindergarten under the walls of the Kremlin by two In the 15 Soviet republics there are as choose whether the tasks be heavy or light. are not all as high as you see on tours," she youths. And waiters in a fashionable hotel many variations in the lives of women as It takes her 45 minutes by metro to get to said, "and working mothers find it hard to in Kiev were chewing gum as they served us! there are in our 10 provinces. The differ• the job, which is from 9 to 6 for a five-day travel to the day care centres and then on to Status! ence is that, over there, legislation is on the week. There is a one-hour break for lunch; their jobs." Bella believes it would be im• and at 11 and 4, a 20-minute break where possible to make ends meet unless both "we do gymnastics to radio music." Emma parents are working. But is this not equally earns 170 roubles per month (about true of western society today? $310.00) and when a job is satisfactorily Problems facing the young seem to be completed receives a bonus. She is di• much the same as they are all over the vorced, with only herself to look after. Her world. Educationists said that it is becom• daughter is married and working full-time, ing difficult to motivate youth brought up as is her husband. They have a five-year-old on the subsidies "from the cradle to the girl who has always gone to nursery school. grave." Such youths tend to become the When she is six she will learn to read and "spivs" who harass tourists. They will not write in kindergarten. A family of this size wear Russian-made blue jeans, but will pay is entitled to a 4-roomed, heated apartment 100 roubles for what a young American (plus kitchen and bathroom). The rent is wears. As a result, I was told, an American subsidized at 14 roubles a month. The tele• Levi's factory is in the process of being built phone costs 2 roubles a month and the gas in Moscow! At the same time the contrasts for cooking is 16 kopecks (25 cents). All exist: there is always a job for everyone. As these low-cost utilities make incomes soon as a boy or girl has completed the 10 stretch much further than would be the case years compulsory free schooling, he or she in our inflationary system. Holidays and is guided into post-secondary courses suit• travel are very reasonable, at excursion able to their interests and capacities; and on rates. Emma's winter vacation of 2 weeks graduation the student is assigned to a job cost her only 10 roubles because her trade where he or she must stay for two years. I union subsidizes the remainder. do not know what happens to girls, but if a boy refuses that work he is on his own and Because there is still a housing shortage it is free to answer the many newspaper adver• is true that many newly married couples tisements for "help wanted." So besides have to live with their parents. One young social security there is a degree of mobility. woman whom I saw frequently is just start• For instance, a year's military service is ing her career as translator and interpreter. compulsory for men, but students going on Nina lives with her parents because her hus• into graduate studies may have it postponed band is finishing his PhD degree in science (indefinitely?). Women apparently are not at an institute in another city. There he has subject to compulsory military service. an apartment where she can visit on week• ends, or he comes to Moscow. He expects Soviet living provides many such con• to get a job in Moscow and will then trade trasts. Thus, villagers continue to live on his apartment with one which his brother small holdings in the traditional designs, as well as in government collectives. And Dorothy Livesay now occupies in Moscow. Nina clearly yearns for such a change, but she would not alongside the clusters of 16-storey highrises dream of giving up her work. To be a seen on the outskirts of every town and city My purpose was to visit Russia and the books to protect women in all areas of their there are green belts — mile after mile of Ukraine for the first time so as to meet peo• living; abortion, birth control, legal support translator she has spent five years at Moscow University. parks with birch, poplar and maple trees ple — particularly writers and editors — against rape, and equal pay for equal work which will not be cut down. On the other because my own poetry had already been are all guaranteed in the constitution. Nina, like every Soviet woman, is held hand there's a shortage of wood and wood translated and published in the Literary Whereas women in Canada are seeking to responsible for birth control and she can products — there's a lack of paper! And be• Gazette, published by the Writers' Union, get such laws on the books, the Soviet easily arrange an abortion if desired. sides the tremendous energy that has been Moscow. I had a most happy, relaxed time, women are struggling to make theirs work. Naturally this is a delicate subject, and I did put into renovating and rebuilding the staying only briefly at the Cosmos (built for That is the real problem that women in cap• not explore it further with her. Nor with historic houses and churches of the past, the Olympics by French architects) and for italist countries have to face; improving the Marsha, a single woman interpreter. How• and preserving the art collected by the tsars, a full week at the Peking Hotel in down• law is not enough. ever, in a more objective way I brought up there is great emphasis in the schools and town Moscow, which is frequented by Rus• An area where there is considerable dis• the subject of birth control, and of new pioneer recreation centres on painting, mu• sian and eastern European tourists. The agreement concerns the differences between methods being used in Canada, such as sic, dance, and reading. On television I wat• question first asked me by Canadians when Soviet education and our own, especially as vasectomy. Neither Marsha nor an older ched the evening program for children, I got back — "Were there soldiers every• regards the education of women. In the woman friend who was with us, drinking "Good Night," from 8:15 to 9:00. Children where?" — was really upsetting. I could Soviet Union higher education is certainly tea, had ever heard of vasectomy. They do not see overt sex or violence, but ironic• only tell the truth: "The only soldiers I saw available to women to a much greater were sure that no male doctors would ever ally, they do see the annual parades and were young recruits in lorries, on their way degree than in Canada. Students are not perform that operation, since there'd be no mass gatherings where the army and all its to or from their military service training. given loans, but stipends. In the summer men willing to have it done. On the ques• accoutrements reign supreme. Children are These one can see in all European cities, months they do a spell of "social work," tion of rape, both these women assured me not taught religion, but there is a strong east or west!" which may mean an apprenticeship in their that "the man goes to jail."

Broadside page five

ethical pressure to behave in a way that is young women are writing and publishing, socially acceptable. Watching them in the but there is still a long way to go." Not a schools, in the parks, on holiday parades, feminist in the western sense, she is a cele• and in the Pioneer Palaces (recreational and brant. A verse from one of her own poems cultural centres for children) they seemed to could be a description of herself: o6l- 1 7 6* be glowing with good health and high spirits; to be experiencing their own tradi• / know a woman — she's a river bright tional custom, languages, and arts, yet ac• Where peacefulness and radiance tively curious about the rest of the world. forgather They want to make friends. And nothing tokens haste. Although As regards women writers, I had the not wide, ' opportunity to talk with two poets and to The river's depth your full arm cannot hear about two others who had interested fathom, • BY WOMYN FOR WOMYN" me for some time. Were they free to write (translation by Peter Tempest) and publish? If I remember correctly it was LUG EM &00LEEVUM Bella Akhmadulina (b. 1937) a very gifted In conclusion, and in support of my con• poet (a classmate of Yevgeni Yevtushenko tention that women in different societies "Never call a man to do a womyn's work' and Robert Rozhdestvensky at the Gorki may view parallel problems similarly, I Literary Institute), who allowed new poems would like to quote from an article in The to be printed in an unoffical journal, Canadian Forum (February, 1981) in which Métropole, without the sanction of her Marlene Kadar is reporting on the union. She was severely reprimanded, al• Almanach group (see May 1981 Broadside) though I was assured that she is still a mem• in and outside the USSR. She has been dis• ber of the Writers' Union. She gave read• cussing the views being taken by Soviet ings in France in 1979, and this summer in women on "feminine culture:" Moscow she appeared on a 2-hour TV show Like many radical feminists in America and was one of a number of writers offical- they focus their attention on the oppres• ly commended for participating in one- sion of women as women, and not as man/one-woman poetry seminars with stu• workers or students. They also concen• dent audiences. trate their attention on love, marriage, If I had stayed longer I might have been sex, masculinity, femininity and child- able to visit Akhmadulina, who lives out• rearing, at least in the publications I side Moscow; and Novella Matveena, an• have seen. Soviet women believe in the other extraordinary young woman who has difference of female experience, and recorded 12 of her own songs. As it was, I also have faith that the experience could be used to the advantage of society as a was fortunate in being invited to have tea whole. Women, they say, are more "hu• with Margarita Aligher (b. 1915) in her manitarian' ' than men, innately less ag• comfortable old-fashioned apartment in the gressive, and, hence, more socially con• heart of old Moscow, where she has lived scious human beings. Part of this for many years. Like Anna Akhmatova, the ideology includes concepts like "recap• poet of world renown who died in 1966, turing femininity," an area in which Aligher lived through the terror of war and they feel we in the west have shortchang• then the terror of the Stalin regime. Her ed ourselves. Nechayeva has said that poetry is personal and psychological, car• "Western women have come to deny ried forward by a great desire for honesty in their femininity. We reclaim ours — we human relationships. She is still writing and have had equality in law but we have publishing, and giving readings in Europe. been denied the right to basic Many of her poems are now translated into emotions." English, which she reads aloud. Although she spoke of the struggle women have had From my own long experience of living in to get published and accepted as writers, Canada I feel happily able to relate to such she said: "It is better today. More and more a philosophy. Into the Third Year

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Vol. 3, No. 1 page six

MOVEMENT MATTERS

Gregory also focussed on how women Dykes in the Streets Incest Handbook can collectively, in unions, take control over  MARCH FOR LESBIAN POWER, the installation and use of computers in This summer the Toronto Rape Crisis your work environment. If you are in a PRIDE AND VISIBILITY Centre acquired a grant to create a hand• company on the verge of computer conver• LESBIAN POWER You know how good it book on incest which will present a detailed sion, now is the best time to demand input feels to be a strong, independent woman. feminist analysis of why incest happens. and some control. Insisting on no monitor• When we share this strength with other les• They take a look at the present schools of ing program as a part of the system or hav• bians, we know our collective power. We thought, and explain where these schools ing input into the type of monitoring the are here, and we have a right to be here. fail to address particular issues connected to company does through the computer is Being 'discreet' will not protect us. The this political perspective. police have been arresting gay men, even in important. The office lighting and type of The handbook attempts a critique on the video display terminal purchased are items their own homes. Lesbian harassment is on current attitudes prevalent within the 'help• the increase. Will your lesbian co-op house for discussion. Expecting only 50% of your ing' professions, which see incest as the last workday to be on the computer and want• be charged as a common bawdy house? great secret to 'come out of the family ing reasonable breaks while operating the Right-wing bigots like Renaissance and closets'. The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre VDT can be negotiated (this 50% work time Positive Parents are carrying on a witch• hopes to have this handbook available to is legislated in Norway). Protecting the jobs hunt against us. They think we're criminal the public, free, by October 15th. For more of existing employees and ensuring ade• and depraved; they want to take away our , Judith Gregory information phone the Toronto Rape Crisis quate training in the new technology are jobs, our children, our freedom. They Centre. • important issues as well. Where computers won't leave us alone. We can't ignore them. already exist in your work environment many of these issues can be negotiated, par• LESBIAN PRIDE We're told we're not Working Women and ticularly since computer upgrading and im• fit to be mothers or teachers. We're told the New technology provements are always on the corporate we're not fit to be in a family or in a neigh• agendas, affecting us all. bourhood. We can't be in the streets, in the Judith Gregory's strongest message was schools, in the parks, on the TTC, in bars, "We'll charge people extra if they insist that working women have a right to be in donut shops, even in laundromats. So on seeing a human." This statement was informed and to have a say in the new tech• where should we be? made by a member of a company convert• nology they must work with daily. She Lesbians are everywhere. And we have a ing to computers. It illustrates only too could not stress enough the importance for right to be everywhere. clearly how depersonalized service-oriented women to exercise these rights now while companies are becoming when it comes to the technology is still in its introductory LESBIAN VISIBILITY Do you feel dealing with the public. stages in many companies. invisible when someone tells a queer joke — However, a look behind the scenes re• and expects you to laugh? Do you feel in• veals that the work environment for women Note: Judith Gregory has written two pa• visible when your family asks, "when are operating computers is becoming deperson• pers: Race Against Time: Automation of you getting married"? Or when they expect alized as well. Judith Gregory, an associate the Office; and Warning: Health Hazards you to park your lover outside for family of The Working Women organization in for Office Workers. These are available at celebrations? Do you feel invisible when Cleveland, Ohio addressed this and other DEC in Toronto. kids yell "LEZZIE!" at anyone they don't issues at OISE in Toronto on September 1. — Judy Stanleigh like? Initially, Gregory discussed the new work Don't let them tell us who we are. problems that the computer technology has Trainees for Won- Let's get together and be ourselves! Les• created. One major problem is the new ap• bians who are powerful, proud and visible! proach to productivity used by companies Traditional Work or corporations. Since computers can be March: Saturday, October 17, at 2 p.m., programmed to monitor all of your work, Opportunity for Advancement, a Metro starting at 519 Church St., Toronto. your errors, your time on and off the com• Toronto service for sole support mothers on Dance: Saturday, October 17, at 8 p.m., Florida Boycott puter, this instant access to information government assistance is sponsoring a feasi• Bathurst St. United Church, Toronto. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is means the quality and quantity of your bility study funded by LEAP (a branch of (text of LAR flyer) now an issue well know to feminists in North work has never before been scrutinized as Canada Employment and Immigration America. The struggle has gone on for many carefully. As a result, this causes greater Centres). years to ratify this amendment which would stress, and higher expectations from the The project will assess the possibility of state: 'equality of rights under the law shall not employer. In reality, it forces you to work developing a training programme for wo• be denied or abridged by the United States or harder and faster. In one insurance com• men who wish to become general machin• by any State on account of sex'. Thirty-five pany, a wall screen projects all the office ists. The rationale behind this is to provide states have ratified the ERA amendment but employees accomplishments at the end of women who lack job skills and/or have this is not enough for complete ratification. each day for office viewing. The purpose is dead end jobs with skills in a field which is Florida is one of the States that has not yet to instill active competition expecting day- high paying and has a shortage of labour. ratified, although for seven years the polls have to-day higher achievements. Due to the immense sexism in the trades consistently indicated that a majority of Florida Another problem with the new technol• and the sex-role socialization of women, citizens favor ERA. In 1979, the House of ogy is health hazards and their effects on which creates a narrow streaming into Representatives voted for ratification and the the computer user. Sex segregation is perpe• "women's work", it is felt that there is a EÛUAL TIME Senate said 'no' by a close 21 to 19 margin. tuated and intensified in offices where com• need for a programme which will directly As Canadians we can wage an economic puters are installed. The devaluing of the deal with these barriers to women, i.e. IN campaign for ERA. By boycotting Florida as a job occurs in some areas where computer encouraging not only the skills training but tourist we can affect their tourism industry. employees are required to work harder and also components such as consciousness rais• Since the tourist industry is one of the largest faster without being paid better for the ing, assertiveness training, and help with sources of income (over $13 billion per year), task, even though productivity may in• problems such as day care, housing, etc. A FEMINIST choosing to travel somewhere else will have crease from 5°7o to 50%. Since computers One idea is to create a training programme do more work in less time, naturally job which is also a small business, where train• VIDEO PRESENTATION quite an impact. By lending our support and writing to the Chamber of Commerce or Gov• loss is also a hazard we face, particularly as ees will make parts for companies on a sub• ernor of Florida about your choice, your voice women in service and secretarial job areas. contract basis. will be heard. Time is running out on the ERA Basically, according to Gregory, manag• If you have had experience in the machin• OCTOBER 13-17, 1981 amendment and any way you can help may br• ers tend to abuse the computer technology. ing field, or know of women who might be UNIVERSITY COLLEGE ing the state closer to final ratification. This abuse results in rigid rules, strict interested in such training, please contact us — Judy Stanleigh expectations, confinement to one spot do• at (416) 245-4241. Also, we would appreci• PLAYHOUSE ing key entry at a great pace and little per• ate any input into the programme develop• 79A St. George St. sonal contact with other employees. ment. • Toronto from SPINSTERS, INK Seating is limited to 40 renew for two! RD 1 ARGYLE, NY 12809 persons per show THE CANCER JOURNALS $4.95 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORK BY $3 regular AUDRE LORDE "... should be read by every woman." $10 contributing Alice Walker Get a two-year BONES & KIM $6.95 A NOVEL BY subscription to LYNN STRONGIN A Video Art Project about Jane Rule Broadside for $18 "angering facts, healing images women's experiences GIVE ME YOUR GOOD EAR $5.50 save money and A NOVEL BY of incest MAUREEN BRADY trouble. "a valuable, much needed writer." Tillie Olsen RECONSTITUTING THE WORLD: $1.95 Sponsored by: THE POETRY AND VISION OF ADRIENNE RICH A Space and WCREC JUDITH MCDANfEL r "sophisticated and accessible." KateStimpson

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Broadside page sevei

major address, on "The Empowerment of CCLOW Conference, Women: Where and How", wherein she discussed the fact that historically, women Regina have been powerless in Canadian society, but that now, women's culture and feminist by Minor Alexander objectives regarding women's equity in The Canadian Congress on Learning Canadian life are beginning to "empower" Opportunities for Women, Regina Chapter, women to take their rightful place in socie• held a conference on "Women Organizing ty. for Action" at the Westwater Inn, Regina, An informal session on "Women Organi• Saskatchewan, June 6 & 7, 1981. The con• zing Through Song", with Jan Knowles, ference attendance was held to 100 partici• Jan Stoody, Noele Hall, Gloria Ronahan, pants, and there were 10 resource people. and Mandy Kujawa, wound up the Satur• The CCLOW Annual General Meeting was day evening session. held in connection with the conference, Sunday morning, Mary Corkery, the na• with Mairi St. John Macdonald of Halifax, tional CCLOW administrative officer, the retiring National President, and Board from Toronto, led off, "Organizing members from all the provinces and Yukon Models for Women". She talks about & Northwest Territories also present. Len- specific ways women have grouped in order ore Rogers, the Co-Chairperson of Regina to take action, namely, through networks, CCLOW, who was recently elected the new organizations, and coalitions; she also National President, chaired the Annual discussed the influence of feminist ideology TAKE BACK THE NIGHT: Women march around Toronto's Cab- Meeting. on women's ways of organizing. bagetown streets in a 'Reclaim the Night' demonstration The kick-off address was given on Satur• Workshops followed: on "Women as organized by the Rape Crisis Centre on September 18, 1981. day, June 6, by Alison Hayford, who Political Candidates: Learning Gleaned teaches Sociology at the University of Re• from Personal Experience", led by Lynn Equal Time in tions. Each presentation will be followed up gina. She spoke on "Feminist Perspectives: Fogwill and Cathy Blauer, both of whom by a facilitated discussion. A Basis for Strategy", outlining the three have had extensive experience in political Equal Space There are ten showings, each showing al• major groupings within the women's move• 'campaigns; "effective Lobbying," led by located to a particular group (eg. women ment, the Liberal Reformists, the Marxist Milnor Alexander, who worked as a lob• "Equal Time in Equal Space" is designed only, professionals, mothers and children). Feminists, and the Radical Feminists, and byist for the Women's International League as a multiple-system, video installation and Sandra Butler, author of Conspiracy of indicating why they have difficulties getting for Peace & Freedom in Washington, D.C., interactive experience. It is the first public Silence: The Trauma of Incest, best ex• together on strategies for action. from 1964 to 1966; and "Fund Raising", presentation about incest created by women plained her experience when she said, "I Workshops followed: on "Form Reform led by Merran Twigg, who is now Director about women. By creating images of wo• celebrate the coming together of the women to Revolution — A Feminist's Perspective of the Women's Division, Sask. Dept. of men that are self-generated and multi-di• who are in front of and behind these cam• on Making Changes", led by Susan Wis- Labour. mensional, this production is not about vic• eras, for they make it impossible not to mer, from Prince Albert: "Life Stages of "Strategies for the Future" was the idea tims but about women having power over know ... not to see ... not to feel the pain, Organization", led by Sue Smee, of the for the final session, and the participants our own lives. the strength, the clarity and the vision that Secretary of State's office (women's pro• broke up into small groups around the is• This feminist video presentation will be emerges from our coming together to con• gram) in Regina; and "Setting Goals and sues of political campaigns, affirmative ac• held at the University College Theatre in tinue the acts of creation that are our lives Getting There", led by Lenore Rogers and tion, health, education, pensions, child Toronto, from Oct. 13 to Oct. 17, 1981. and the lives of those who will follow after Milnor Alexandra, who teaches political care, and native women, where specific The presentation was created by Ariadne us." science at the University of Regina. plans were laid. The conference ended with and the Los Angeles Women's Video Cen• For more information and reservations Greta Nemiroff, Director of the New a barbecue on Willow Island, in the middle tre. Four of the women who produced this phone (416) 978-6307 or 978-6638 after 5, School, Dawson College, gave the second of Wascana Lake, in Regina. • will be involved in the Toronto presenta• weekdays. 9 FEMINIST PARTY At the election, 3,000 people voted. 1350 Abortion Solbodt people voted pro-choice. 1650 voted anti- POSTER choice. Reportedly, anti-choice voters were Moving? bussed in by Pentacostal and Roman Cath• Printed in four The right to safe legal abortion has suf• olic churches. fered a setback in Victoria, B.C. On Thurs• Anti-choice spokesperson Michael Hall- brillitnt colours day, September 10, 1981, a hospital board Patch says that his group will press Victoria Send Broadside your election took place at the Victoria General General doctors to allow therapeutic abor• subscriber's address label Hospital. The three new board members tions only when the woman's life is endan• with your new address. who were elected are anti-choice on abor• gered. This would not include pregnant vic• tion and will attempt to stop all abortions tims of rape or incest. Please give us 4 to § weeks from taking place at the hospital. Since This hospital board takeover threatens advance notice. seven of the thirteen board members are the health of Victoria women. Few if any now anti-abortion, the right to obtain this applications for abortions will now be refer• essential and legal medical service appears red to Victoria General. If the anti-abor• to have been lost at the hospital. CARAL tionists have their way, most abortions will (the Canadian Abortion Rights Action have to be performed at Royal Jubilee League) is alarmed at the consequences of Hospital, where 4 of the 13 board members the interference in medical activities of are reported to be anti-choice. "single issue" lobby groups who would Since Royal Jubilee has a rotating make pregnancy compulsory and thereby Therapeutic Abortion Committee, in a endanger the physical and emotional health given month, safe legal abortion could be of Canadian women. impossible to obtain in the Victoria area.

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Vol, 3, No. s • page eight

^Jii & m •PI lai

by Christine Lawrence

The Canadian military industrial complex has come to have increasing significance in the economy of Canada. It is one of our major export industries and employs a relatively large sector of the labour force. Like so many other Canadian industries, it is heavily dependent on, and in• fluenced by US policies and spending. It is important for Canadians to understand what this degree of military dependency does to our economy, how it grew to this degree of prominence, and what the political and economic consequences of its continued growth are. Canada is not, relatively speaking, a heavy consumer of defence equipment, purchasing only an average of 2% of Gross National Product (GNP) as compared to the NATO average of 3.6% and US expenditures of 10%. The Canadi• an defence budget had been shrinking: in 1963-64 the defence budget was 22.5% of the total federal budget and 3.9% of GNP; in 1973-74 it was 11% of the total budget and 1.8% of GNP. But there has recently been a change in this trend and pressure to increase the defence budget is mounting. The Trudeau government is committed to expenditures of $2.4 billion on fighter planes between 1978 and 1988. Still, Canada cannot be seen as a big spender, nor has it been keeping pace with the rate of increase in world mili• tary expenditures. In 1978 world military spending reached a record of $425 billion. The rate of increase in world In these times of recession / depression and the resulting military purchases is greater than the rate of inflation. high levels of unemployment, the Canadian populace may There has been a 400% rise in military purchases in under• well look at this new trend to increase military spending as developed countries since 1960 and a 44% rise in developed at least providing relief from the high unemployment rate countries. we are now experiencing. There is, however, ample evidence Generally Canadians have a certain smugness around that the government could make much better use of its their peace keeping role, their small military power and money if one of its objectives is to increase employment. A their lack of nuclear weapons. We focus on the super study done in 1976 by the US Bureau of Statistics came up

powers, the US and the USSR as the villains in the arms with some interesting data. (See accompanying Table 1.) ! race. But, despite its record as a non-purchaser of arms, Canada has become a major exporter. While we regard with horror the US dropping the first atomic bomb, we hide More recently, the Chase Econometrics Associates did a from ourselves the fact that we supplied the uranium that study on the impact of the B-l Bomber program on the US made the bomb possible. While we claim to be selling nucle• economy. (See Table 2.) ar power generators for peaceful purposes, we look on helplessly as India uses our technology for a bomb and spreads nuclear proliferation one country further. The contradiction between Canada's view of itself in the Mean number of jobs world and the reality of its export policy, is, to say the least, Table 1 generated per billion hypocritical. dollars of final demand On May 26, 1978 Prime Minister Trudeau addressed a special session on disarmament at the United Nations out• lining "a strategy for suffocation, by depriving the arms Military: includes aircraft, electronics, ordinance, missiles, petroleum products, shipbuilding race of the oxygen on which it feeds." According to Dick Beddoes in the Globe and Mail (March 29, 1979), Trudeau and repairs 76,000 jobs "described conventional weapons as the 'germs of a highly contagious disease.' " But while Trudeau makes impas• Machinery: includes farm, metal-working and general industrial machinery 86,000 jobs sioned speeches internationally, Canada continues to be a major carrier of the disease. In 1978, Canadian exports of Government: includes state, local and federal - 87,000 jobs specified defence goods amounted to $500 million, $300 million to the US and in 1979, $600 million. These figures Transportation: includes railroad, local and intercity transit and transportation equipment 92,000 jobs do not include exports to the US and other countries of raw materials that will be used in defence industries. Construction: includes new residential, public utility and highway construction as well as Canadians must take responsibility for both its govern• maintenance and repairs 100,000 jobs ment purchases and exports of military goods. There is no Personal Consumption: resulting from a $1 billion tax cut, includes retail and wholesale doubt that Canada is a major participant in the new arms trade, food products, motor vehicles, clothing, petroleum products, communications and build up, both as a consumer and a seller, but why are we personal service sectors 112,000 jobs participating? It has been generally accepted for some years now that it is the role of government to control or at least minimize the Health: includes services, hospitals, and instruments 139,000 jobs effects of depression and/or recession via government spending. In capitalist countries, military spending has al• Education: includes educational services 187,000 jobs ways been a convenient focus for these expenditures. The excuses that the government usually uses for increas• ing military spending relate to increasing employment and the development of new technologies which can be used in the private sector. While government expenditures in de• Table 2 fence industries can easily be explained by the reasons pre• viously suggested, it is much more difficult to find evidence Employment Effects of Alternative Expenditures as Compared to B-l Generated Employment to support the explanations offered by the government. (difference in number of persons employed as compared to B-l)

Wlaw Ifliifef Sp^raiP^i? 1976 1977 1980

• Military spending can easily be increased or de• Tax cut +10,000 + 10,000 + 30,000 creased. As weapons become obsolete there is always an excuse for expenditures. As well, there is nc standard: Housing + 20,000 + 30,000 + 70,000 ysro stick of w'r.&t is an appropriais defence budget. Welfare & Public Works + 20,000 + 20,000 + 60,000 • Military spending does not compete- with ins privste sector as social expenditures do. For example, the building of public housing competes directly with private developers. ô Military spending does not challengs -he = Lai-.is ouo.

The defence industries generally 8n-::!ov • '•ichly skii-e J and v/eli paid workers, so that spending in this * re• The effect is the result of the very high percentage of Gideon Rosenbluth in his book The Canadian Economy does not inflate the cost of labour generally. capital expenditures relative to salary expenditures in the and Disarmament states: "Our review suggests that there • Military spending does not make the average tax• defence industries. As well, the higher cost of salaries in the are no economic obstacles to the maintenance of an ade• payer fee! that he/she is supporting someone else • defence industries also contributes to this effect. quate level of demand through worthwhile public expendi• his/her expense. The feeling Is that the military is there There seems to be no similar analysis of the Canadian tures, tax reductions, and transfer payments. There is no ||||§§||^ economy, but there is no reason to assume that the effects consistency in the position of those who fear that disarma• of military expenditures produce different results in ment may lead to unemployment, and, at the same time, the pockets of the corporate sector and do not affect in• Canada. It seems clear from the tables that generating maintain that we cannot afford increased public expendi• come distribution generally, the corporate sector is employment is certainly not the main goal or even a goal of tures on education, health, and welfare." always willing to support government defence spend u while continuing to deplore government spending in military expenditures. It is precisely the reason that generates such a small re- general.

Broadside page nine

™J III IS m HMF

n in jobs per dollar spent that make this type of govern- development, is that these two elements produce technolo• prehending and meeting the terms of the Production Shar• nt expenditure so acceptable to the establishment. De- gical spin-offs which can be used in private industry. Cana• ing Agreement with the US, and, in general coping with ad• ice spending generates jobs in areas of high demand da has always experienced difficulty keeping technologic• ministrative and diplomatic red tape. In 1972-73 admini• ere cost of salaries and resources are already high. A ally competitive with the world market, particularly with strative services alone to the defence industries cost the 52 study by the US department of labour study found the US, so any assistance from the government should be Canadian taxpayer more than $5.5 million. it 59% of employees in civilian market oriented elec- much appreciated. However, as with unemployment, the The government is also involved in direct financial assist• nics firms held these positions. Therefore, military facts do not support the argument. ance to the defence industries. The Federal Department of mding does not undermine the labour market or produce Industry, Trade, and Commerce spends 40% of its annual y income redistribution. The profits and the high salaries budget for industrial development on defence industries. In nain in the hands of the present establishment. 1973-74, 40% amounted to $43,759,039. In 1967-68, nine• ty-five defence companies received $10,581,000 in indus• \n interesting side effect, considering that inflation is trial modernization grants. One might well ask why this vv public enemy No. 1, is that additional military expen- degree of support for such a highly controversial industry ures put inflationary pressures on the markets that are exists? : most heavily in demand already. So that while govern- Typically the big winners in all this government support nt is using inflation as an excuse for the present high are not all Canadians. The story of the defence industry is el of unemployment and for pursuing monetary and fis- the same as the story of all Canadian manufacturing. Many policies that are likely to create even higher rates of un- of the corporations involved in the defence industry are ployment, it continues to spend in a highly, if not the American owned subsidiaries, and what a deal they get! >st highly, inflationary industry. Another aside — the Norman Alcock, in his article Defence in the 70's, sug• There are virtually no disadvantages to producing in Cana• mding is in the industry that creates the fewest number of gests that "in fact, scientists from around the world have da since a free trade market exists between the US and Can• )s for every dollar spent. concluded that the spillover effect is largely illusionary." ada and there are all the advantages of the Canadian subsi• The federal government appears to have attempted to re• It is estimated that over 50% of all federal funds spent on dies to the defence industries. Ironically, the Canadian gov• tribute income regionally by military expenditures in the research and development are used for military, not civili• ernment's administrative assistance may actually make it lantic provinces with some interesting results. A study an, purposes. Canada is the sixth largest spender for mili• easier for American owned subsidiaries to do business with ne by the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council in 1965 tary R&D with an average expenditure of $89 million be• their own government. lims that defence activities are one of the largest single tween 1967-1970, despite the fact that Canada is not a big urces of employment in the Atlantic provinces. In 1961, spender in the area of R& D: "If the whole of Canada's de• >% of the labour force of the Atlantic region was involv- fence were devoted to civilian R&D, the proportion of civ• in defence related industries, as compared to 2.7% at the ilian R & D to GNP would still be lower than in the United tional level. Obviously, a region experiencing high levels Kingdom, United States, West Germany and Japan (Rosen- àtm unemployment will be thankful for the jobs from de- bluth)." m ice industries. However, this leaves an already vulnerable Surely if the intention of the Canadian government is to sa heavily dependent on a highly undependable industry. make Canadian industry technologically competitive, direct Cancellations of defence contracts are not unusual. (The investment in civilian R&D would do the job more effec• 3 had $12.6 billion in defence contracts pending when the tively. iah of Iran fell.) The whole area of defence changes its Federal government support of the defence industry goes ture overnight from submarines, to airplanes, to satel- far beyond the actual dollar purchases of defence goods. As es. Halifax which has 50% of its population directly or mentioned before, the government invested an average of Between 1967-1971 the federal government awarded directly dependent on defence activities could be wiped $89 million in defence related to R & D between 1967-1970. $458,643,906 to 154 contractors. Forty-five of these com• it by changes in the defence policy. Further, despite the In 1969 the Pentagon spent $14 million minimum on de• panies were found to be American owned; the ownership of avy military expenditures in the Atlantic provinces they fence research in Canadian institutions. The real dollar fifty-two was not traceable. The identified American com• ntinue to experience the highest rates of unemployment figure for defence related R & D is considered by many to panies received 47% of the total grants. A report by Project the country. be well beyond the range of both these figures combined. Anti-War in 1972 traced 654 defence manufacturers in Can• Yet, even if these were accurate figures, they would repre• ada. They were able to trace ownership of only 377 of sent a very significant amount of assistance to the defence them, but of these 54.6% were American and 34.4% Cana• industries. dian. Not only do Canadian taxpayers support the war in• The Canadian government offers further support to the dustry with their own tax dollars but they also watch many defence industries by assisting in marketing their products of the profits cross the border to the US. This causes the abroad. The Canadian Commercial Corporation carries on usual balance of payment problem in the capital accounts. a $3 million business internationally for Canadian manu• But Canada's armaments industries are tied into the US facturers, and by far the majority are defence producers. It in more ways than just ownership. The US is by far our big• even ensures that our defence industries will not have to gest trading partner in armaments. Since the 1950's both cope with the confusion of dealing in foreign currency and countries have accepted the principals of a Defence Pro• reduces all figures to Canadian dollars for their conven• duction Sharing Agreement, which was formally ratified by ience. the Diefenbaker government, and allows for termination by Although it can be easily argued that the Atlantic pro- The Federal Department of Industry, Trade, and Com• mutual agreement at any time or with six months written nces would experience greater degrees of unemployment merce carrying on in the Canadian historical tradition of notice by one of the parties. The result of this agreement ithout federal military expenditures, the evidence would Eaton's, publishes a catalogue of 500 pages of colourful de• was to drop all tariff protection for defence industries by least suggest that it is not a very effective way of dealing tail about defence equipment and goods available in Cana• both governments and to exempt the Canadian defence in• ith regional disparities. The evidence also suggests that da. Further, the federal government gives aid to defence in• dustries from the Buy American Act for goods delivered to deral expenditures in at least a more diversified form dustries through the International Defence Programs a US military department or to a US defence program. ould do more to reduce unemployment and, perhaps even Branch whose two major functions are: (1) to station Can• ore importantly, keep the vulnerable Atlantic region from adian representative at strategic locations around the world By 1967, Canada had netted $190,900,000 in her favour ;ing so dependent on the whims'of federal defence policy. to keep Canadian industry informed on new trends in, or under the Defence Production Sharing Agreement. Al• The other most frequently used excuse for government requests for arms from foreign countries; and (2) to assist though it is understood that the intention of the agreement îfence spending, particularly in the area of research and Canadian suppliers in bidding on defence contracts, com- is that the level of purchases should remain about equal, Canada appears to be the dollar winner in defence exports. We may, however, easily loose this lead on the balance of payments once the transfer of capital from profits is ac• counted for. Further, it is the conscious policy of the agree• ment that Canada produce component parts for American equipment. The result is that defence equipment produced in Canada is useless without American weapon systems. This certainly limits Canada's freedom of action in pursu• ing its own foreign policies. The Defence Production Sharing Agreement puts additional pressure on Canada for a common market in raw materials which are essential to the US defence in• dustry. The Canadian industry is heavily reliant on US pro• curement policies and, therefore, directly vulnerable to decisions made in the Pentagon. Canada is forced to submerge Canadian economic interests in favour of con• tinental interests. In order to reduce this heavy dependence on the US, Canada has begun to look for new purchasers of Canadian defence equipment. However, since Canada generally fol• lows American models and is a producer of mostly component parts for American equipment, she must look to US markets to expand her exports. This puts us in the J \ - N ) bind of having to sell to countries like Brazil and no doubt now El Salvador. None the less, the Canadian government estimates "that I Hi for every dollar's worth of sophisticated, high technology defence equipment sold to the United States under Defence Production Sharing about another fifty cents' worth of the same product is sold to another military." (Ernie Regehr, Making a Killing.) Many of these fifty cents are sold in the # continued page 15

Vol. 3, No. 1 page ten

Mary Meigs: A

/ \ An excerpt from LILY BRISCOE: A SELF-PORTRAIT by Mary Meigs

In her autobiography, painter Mary Meigs writes about her life as an artist; her early life in a New England atmosphere of "ladies" and "gentlemen1' and "authentic manners;" the exploring and understanding of her love for women; her friendships with literary critic Edmund Wilson, writer, civil rights activist and feminist Barbara Deming, and Québéc• oise novelist Marie-Claire Biais. She writes of the difficulty of painting her own self-portrait: "I feel my identity with Lily Briscoe, the painter in TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, who is the artist in me and who knew, too, the loss—of the power of seeing—who suffered cycles of sight and blind• ness (p. 94). " Printed below is Chapter 16 of Mary Meigs' Lily Briscoe: A Self-Portrait which will be published by Talonbooks this fall. \ J

. . . Solitude induces contemplation of one's life, nostalgia perhaps higher than the other, or that the mouth had a What is it doing here? Life in Canada has reduced the size and creeping melancholy. I reflect on the millions of things Calvinist dourness. If I had the obscure wish to torture of the flower and elongated its leaves. I, an alien, like the I have seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched that are myself on a certain day, I would start a self-portrait. Everlasting Pea, have also jumped to Canada. I feel the unrecorded in this book, for it is not a book about my life's Almost nothing remains of these exercises in masochism, familiar ache induced by the sweetness of my life here, the events, of which I hardly speak, but an attempt, rather, to and yet, I continue to hope that some day a self-portrait sight of the grand and subtle landscape and the feel of its define myself through its inscape. I look at myself in the will appear that will seem to be myself. The lines around my small rhythms; and those other terrible images of the mirror and see a cap of pale hair, neither grey nor white, mouth, my anxious eyes, my boyish body with its muscular "real" world superimposed on my peaceful ones. I hear the but greenish-blue, falling from the crown of my head over arms and powerful hands—these are the elements of a por• monotonous voice of a friend who lives on the West Side in my grey eyebrows, with two wrinkles like long vertical com• trait of a Lesbian; my life with its mixture of shame and New York City, where gratuitous acts of violence, beatings, mas that rise at each inner end. I see eyes the colour of fad• pride must be visible in my face like those ambiguous rape, murder, theft are committed every day by people who ed blue jeans, close-fitting eyelids descending at a wide features that are neither masculine nor feminine. have nothing better to do. She has seen three teenagers set angle toward the nose instead of forming a classical cres• upon an old man and beat him senseless. She rushed to her "I have had my vision," thinks Lily Briscoe at the end of cent. Something like a stain in the corner of each eye seems apartment to get her dog, but it was too late, they had To the Lighthouse. All through the book, she has been to set them further behind a smallish straight nose with pro• disappeared. "There is nothing to do but round them up working on a landscape, with alternations of hope and minent nostrils; the mouth, a broad turned-down bow with and exterminate them," she said. This was the mood of despair. When she draws the line "there, in the centre," she wrinkles at the corners leading from the nose; erstwhile people on the West Side who had been beaten and robbed has the sense that the picture, an "attempt at something," dimples; good strong teeth apparently, but much mended and who were watching the city go slowly to rot. I thought whose fate, she thinks, is to be hung in the attic or on the inside; a wide smile, a potential grim look when the of Edmund. "Exterminate them," were his words, too, destroyed, is finished. A moment before, she and old Mr. mouth turns down; a square jaw; two folds leading into a though he had not suffered like my friend in New York. Carmichael somehow know that Mr. Ramsay and the skinny neck. My sunburned face makes me look younger Barbara would have something to say to this woman who children, Cam and James (now grown-up), have landed at than I am. My wrists are thin and brown; my hands almost the lighthouse, "'He has landed,' she said aloud. Tt is square in their broadness, veined, with long tapering finished.' " It is as though Lily Briscoe, the artist, has suc• fingers, the knuckles expanded by arthritis; the index finger ceeded in arresting time, as though only art can arrest time, of my right hand, humped and thick, the result of a basket• the continuum which, in the book, has dissolved insubstan• ball that landed directly on it years ago. They are artistic tial memory, grief and love; and the substantial bodies of and serviceable hands that can draw, paint, carve, saw, Mrs. Ramsay, Prue and Andrew. Mr. Ramsay has with• hammer, sew, garden, type, etc.; in winter, when the sun• stood time almost by the exercise of his ego, it seems, and burn has faded, they are covered with freckles, as my so has James, by the force of his rebellion against his mother's hands used to be, the freckles of age. My thin father. These are held in the present by Lily's vision, as the body with square shoulders, bony shoulder blades, small book makes an eternal present out of the continuous flow virginal breasts, narrow hips and straight legs with thickish of time—and death. Lily is the channel through which time ankles and well-preserved, high-arched feet, is dressed in flows and she suffers throughout the book from her inabili• jeans and a green turtleneck. I have shrunk to a little under ty to arrest it long enough even to speak the words of love five feet eight inches. I wear horn-rimmed glasses for that she wants to speak. She longs to speak of Mrs. Ram• reading, but I can see a bird at a great distance without say, about her death, and can only feel the unexpressed glasses. I look unmistakably Anglo-Saxon, so that, in want of her heart, and, at the centre of what she sees with foreign countries, people always answer me in English, her eyes, "complete emptiness." even when I speak their language, and I remember myself and Barbara in Japan, two tall thin women with brown In the course of To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe becomes bangs, towering above the sea of black heads, whose middle-aged. Writing this book, I have become four years strangeness provoked giggles or fixed stares wherever we older. A life is so enormous, a single day so infinitely long! went. In photographs, my hair looks silvery and my face The inexorable flow of time is braked by visions like Lily very pink; one gets the impression of a woman sweeter, Briscoe's, by any effort to make time yield the fullness of younger and more graceful than I feel inside. Sometimes its meaning. To write about one's life is an attempt to arrest Marie-Claire and I look alike in photographs because of time, as art does; to order it, just as Lily Briscoe ordered our high foreheads which we keep hidden, nervously pat• the elements: light, colour and form, of her landscape; to ting into place hair that is blown back by the wind; and see it rather than just submit to the flow of dissolving because of our strong jaws. Her hands and feet are like nar• minutes. Already, today has its composition and is filling rowed reductions of mine, but pale, almost bloodless, with details: the hummingbird inspected my head as I pick• whereas my blood seems to lie just under the surface, ready ed snowpeas; the sparrow the cat caught and I managed to to rush to my extremities and to turn my face peony-red. set free; the gentle rain in my face as I walked down the hill with the three dogs, saw a female marsh hawk cruising over I do not wish to pronounce judgement on this person I the field, heard the twittering of a goldfinch rising and fall• see in the mirror who at least has the virtue of being more ing, saw a new wildflower growing on the other side of the visually interesting as she grows older. For years I have ditch that runs the length of the road. I slid into the ditch in fought in self-portraits with the intractable facts of my order to cut a spray of the flower and had a hard time get• face, wanting to show something profound and succeeding ting out, saw myself, grey-headed, clambering up the bank only in painting a face either too pretty or too severe. Look• under the barbed v/ire, bearing home the flower and mak• ing in a mirror at my painted image (a way of seeing every• ing it into one of my instant images. It was Everlasting Pea thing one has done wrong), I would see that one eye was {Lathyrus Latifolius), "Alien," it says in the flower guide.

Èfoadsidé' page eleven

1

wanted to take a gun and exact a life for a life, who could a full white satin dress, like a queen, her blonde hair piled "thoroughly live" in the presence of others, really to greet, see no reason not to, and to whom I could give no good high on her head, at a concert, bent over the harpsichord, really to say goodbye, which is a long process of simul• reason that would change her mind. After all, what do I plucking out the shimmering or quick-beating notes with taneous attention and letting-go. Growing old does not know about it? Don't I grow savage when people abuse my the marvellous machinery of her hands. Sylvia, brusque, always make people better at this; reason can speak its precious property rights, kill birds, ride motorcycles on my tough and tender, with her deep laugh, and abrupt, words of wisdom and make its resolves, which the body land? sometimes biting response, whom I feared in my hopeless then betrays. But as I grow older in the body that keeps me What would I be like if my landscape were a hot street lit• timidity—and loved. She was capable of knocking me flat ignorant of my own future, I draw up a defiant master plan tered with garbage and broken glass, if I had never received with some verbal swipe and then picking me up anxiously — promises to myself that will require many years to nor given love in my life, and if the future held only the like a mother bear. Tough and tender, even with the gentle fulfill—and I propose to keep as many as possible. ® prospect of more of the same? Wouldn't I turn on people, Leonid, who sulked a little, but who was never outwardly the more helpless the better, with murderous rage or with angry. She has a passionate respect for everything great in ' careless indifference, and punish them for the way I'd been art and a profound knowledge of music, the mysteries of punished? As it is, living my privileged life, I punish in my which I would be unable to grasp in several lifetimes. She is mind what hurts me and struggle with the inexplicable a vessel for the mystery of art and holds in her brain and anguish beating dully at the heart of every second, existen• hands: Bach, Rameau, Vivaldi, Mozart, Handel, Rietti, de tial anguish, my small share of the pain and fear that is the Falla—all those millions of notes with their hundreds of heartbeat of life. Even as I fix my eyes on the glimmering precise structures. All this, I think about now, willing her to green back of the hummingbird below me as she hovers know that she is not alone, wishing that the body that has over a flower, as I admire the delicate scimitar of her beak, betrayed her artist's mind will again become the sun-loving, I feel anguish squeezing my heart . Is it the accumulation of sensual body I used to see stretched out in a black bathing rltnuûtli great remembered tragedies or those too tiny even to be suit on the Newport rocks, that her voice on the telephone, recorded that scatter their mute evidence like the scattered heavy with pain, will have the old playful brusqueness. Tt feathers of the cat's victims on the garage floor? Or is it the didn't do any good, but thank you,"she tells me when I ask thought of friends, each bound like Lazarus in his shroud, about our concentration on her. She is suffering as much as to whom one wants to say, "Yes, in this, we are identical ever from the aftermath of shingles, but her voice on the twins, all of us, our identical caged selves, beating our telephone sounds better and she says she has at least begun wings and crying for help or huddled in miserable silence." to believe she may get well. Canada's Baroque Orchestra It is 10:30 a.m. I am thinking of Barbara and her pain, In our isolation, out only hope is to try to be "members, which she fears is cancer. I close my eyes and touch her long one of another." I try to tune out my doubts, the knowl• on Original Instruments body in imagination, under her ribs where the pain is, and edge that we can look so often on our fellow human beings my hands draw it out, finer and finer, until it has all flowed as members of an alien race. We are so sure that we could presents from her body and she says, "It has gone!" One can only never behave like the murderers, the torturers, the human share the physical suffering of others by the transfusion of monsters who seem to have multiplied in the world. We AN ENGLISH CONCERT love which flows from life to life, despite the barriers that scarcely know the dark places of ourselves and cannot our pain and our selves erect. A letter has come from Sylvia foresee the reductios ad absurdum that old age is preparing Marlowe, who speaks of a "Job-like suffering." She has for us. Each of my annual visits to Wellfleet is an ordeal of been chosen by the usual obscure forces to be tortured with acceptance of the changes in old friends, the ghostly maps burning scars on her face, eyes, neck; she is drugged and that age seems suddenly to have made of unlined faces, the miserable, her eyebrows and eyelashes gone, her eyes half- departures and disappearances: the senile to rest homes; the featuring the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir dead to their graves. closed; she is tormented by loneliness, by the fear of death and the inauguration of and by unremitting pain. Barbara, who felt peace entering We like to think that death, the brutal metamorphosis Tafelmusik's new hand-bellowed organ her body and steadying her soul when we all thought about that takes life's matter and makes it unrecognizable and her, agreed with me to think of Sylvia in the same way; Bar• stills the wild music in the brain and heart once and for all, bara and Marie-Claire and I intend to concentrate together. is powerless to kill the energy of all those impulses that have in works by Handel and Purcell Again, I close my eyes, hold Sylvia's hand and stroke her been emittted from the living individual, have entered into face. I tell her repeatedly in my mind that she is not alone, the air, and into other minds. The death of friends has only Saturday, 3 October, 8:30 pm that we are there with her, that the scars will fall off and her this comfort to give us. I think of all the friends to whom I Trinity United Church skin be smooth again, that she will feel the peace of our never said goodbye: Edmund, Miss Horti and Wyncie, 427 Bloor St. West (west of Spadina) love entering into her, will sleep, and feel better when she Henry, Bessie, Leonid. Indeed, I have only said goodbye in wakes up. A series of pictures of our long friendship crowd a literal sense to one person, my mother, as she slipped into my head, like dreams. I hear her practising her harp• from sleep to death. Whatever our closeness or distance Seats still available: $6 to $15 sichord in the house in Newport. The notes fly out from from the dead, from the almost careless way in which our Call Box Office 964-6337 under her strong fingers, her artist's hands, rain, like sunlit brains register the megadeaths of our time, to the burning drops in a fountain, or are compressed in emphatic chords. reproaches we make ourselves after the death of someone Concertmaster: Jean Lamon She is practising Bach's Italian concerto with its ringing we love, the thought of death, with its certain and imminent General Manager: Ottie Lockey two-chord opening followed by notes tumbling over each coming, should be a call to shake off the fetters that keep us other in their ardent haste, bound by the decisive rhythm. I from being alive; a call torefuse to accept those pernicious hear this beginning repeated and then rushing like a water• and recurrent deaths of our most living selves that kill as fall along its course. And I see her magnificent self, clad in surely as any disease. Among these deaths is the refusal to

VoL 3, No, 1 page twelve

Festival of Festivals Reeling from the Festival

by Barbara Halpern Martineau

A feminist takes the standpoint of wo• U f lack of a clear stance with regard to censor• men. That is, we begin from this place ship, but the use of porn within the film and and it is the place where we are ...we be• the inclusion of several comments by femin• gin with ourselves, with our sense of ists about the need to see and talk about what we are, our own experience. what we would condemn seems to me to — Dorothy Smith, make the anti-censorship position of the Feminism and Marxism, 1977 film makers apparent, if not strongly so. Toronto's mightly film festival struck me 1 was most impressed by the film's pre• more than ever this year as a microcosm of sentation of Susan Griffin's point, elabor• our society, based on the principles of big ated in her book Pornography and Silence, business, willing therefore to accommodate that pornography itself acts as a censor, anything at all, provided it serves the ends silencing women, showing women bound, of the festival: i.e., to attract wealthy gagged, voiceless, impotent. This is the and/or influential persons, sell tickets, in• analysis of and response to pornography I crease festival prestige, harboring, there• have heard. No confusion, ban the censor fore, an infinity of contradictions. At the board, abolish censorship, ban pornog• gala presentation of Man of Iron, the raphy. Pornography censors women. Porn• Polish film by Andrzej Wajda which docu• ography can be defined as the portrayal of ments the struggle for workers' rights in a human beings in physical subjugation for "workers' state," the balcony of the Elgin the purpose of titillation, and banned. Us• cinema was ostentatiously reserved for ing such material for educational or artistic "VIP passes and the Press," solely, I purposes, as in Not A Love Story, is fine. gathered, so that those who Mattered could The sole criteria for prosecution would be distinguish each other from the Mass. The intent — to titillate with violence is unac• contradictions, as always, come in layers — ceptable. Any sane society, surely would see Wajda's film, strong and uncompromising and agree with this. in its solidarity with the workers, is equally We do not live in a sane society. strong in its defense of the Catholic Church I wish Not a Love Story were a better and the institution of the nuclear family, A still from P4W: June Campbell (I) and Beverley Whitney. June: film. I wish those women from Studio D of and the character used to make this point is "She's very intelligent but she doesn't have an ounce of common the National Film Board of Canada had in• a young woman film maker, who finds sense." cluded some Canadian feminists in their happiness and fulfillment (after she has I talked with Holly Dale about the unex• "Male bile sullies film about porn" — film, instead of relying entirely on Ameri• been fired from her job) in marriage to the pected success of the film, asking what she headline for Michèle Landsberg's col• cans, wonderful as those Americans are. film's hero and in motherhood. (Hey hoped might come of it for the women in umn, Toronto Star, Sept. 15, 1981. What a golden opportunity to validate the Maria, I think we've been shafted again!) the Kingston pen. She is trying to get a re• contributions of Canadian women to fem• view of Janis' parole situation, and will get inist thought, women such as Mary 2) On Friday, September 11, at 1:30 pm Not back to anyone who calls her at O'Brien, Dorothy Smith, Nicole Brossard, a Love Story: A Film About Pornography, A story of two films: 416-964-2892, and would like to help in this Edna Manitowabi, Rosemary Brown ... has its sole festival screening at the Festival attempt. She believes that a successful re• And they blew it. Better still, I wished they 1) On Friday, September 11, at 1:30 pm cinema. A 70-minute documentary from view would establish an important legal pre• had skipped the on-camera interviews and P4W: Prison for Women, a 75-minute doc• Studio D of the National Film Board of cedent. focussed more steadily on the porn industry umentary by Toronto film makers Janis Canada, produced by Dorothy Todd The only serious shortcoming I see in and its effects, using the perceptions of Cole and Holly Dale, camera Nesya Shapi• Henaut, directed by Bonnie Sherr Klein and P4W is the absence of discussion about feminists as a guide rather than as an ele• ro, sound Aerlyn Weissman, shot in the Anne Henderson, camera Pierre Letart, what the Kingston pen means to women pri• ment within the film. There is no suggestion Kingston Prison for Women and produced sound Yves Gendron (with a crew of many soners in Canada — closing that pen down, within the film of possible constructive ac• for a total cost of $43,000, had its "World more), for a budget not publicly released, which has been frequently proposed, would tion to take; and the porn shown is mild, Premiere" at the Towne Cinema. Present in Not a Love Story was received enthusiastic• mean that women would serve their deceptively mild, whereas violent, sadistic the audience were several of the women ally by a packed house and panned, dump• sentences in much worse provincial facil• pornography accounts for more than half who appear in the film, either released since ed on, bitterly attacked by the little boys ities, isolated from other women, without of the market. I wish it were a better film, then or out on day passes. who pretend to be film critics in Trona the as it is; Not a Love Story should be seen any of the programs (woefully inadequate Good. as they are) available to them in Kingston. widely, discussed in depth, certainly not "This is no ordinary 'prison film' or It would be a shame if the film were to en• censored. 'women's film'. P4Wis a dramatic, very Because the festival had cautiously asked courage that reaction in viewers. touching portrait of five women you're for only one screening of Not a Love Story Certainly not censored. not likely to forget." — Festival pro• One very heartening audience response to the Censor Board held them to it; the film On October 6 Not a Love Story is gram the film so far has been the sympathy and was not re-screened, although hundreds scheduled for another Toronto screening at warmth expressed towards Janis' relation• had been turned away. It is not (at press Town Hall, followed by a panel discussion Audience enthusiasm and rave reviews ship with Debbie, probably the first time a time) known whether the Board will ap• on pornography. This is the proper context from Toronto critics led to Pan Canadian lesbian relationship has been shown in Ca• prove further Ontario screenings of the for the film — it would be an outrage if picking up the film for distribution in Cine- nadian film to be positive, nurturing, based film, which is certainly not, contrary to the such an event were blocked by the Censor plex theatres across Canada. P4W is a on mutual need and caring. It is clearly a hysterical accusations of the reviewers, pro- Board. strong film, designed to bring the audience tragedy for Janis that she is losing Debbie, censorship. The film in fact suffers from its closer to the lives of the women, to establish and the audience takes it that way. P4W is a first their humanity, strength, humour, and strong example of the evolution of an grace, and then the inhumanity of their in• objectifying cinema-verité into cinema-in• carceration, an inhumanity which is not im• timacy, cinema-respect, cinema-compas• mediately apparent from surface observa• sion. tion of their lives. They wear their own clothes, eat cafeteria-style, argue wittily and with energy about prison politics, decorate The true subject of pornography is not their narrow cells with cushions, dolls, sex or eros but objectification, which in• photographs. Only as the women talk, tell creasingly includes cruelty, violence their lives, why they are in, what being in against women and children ... The in• means to each of them, only then does the tensification and proliferation of porno• true narrowness of prison life sink in. The graphy in our time can be associated photographs change meaning as we learn of with deeply repressive patterns of politi• children not seen for years, of husbands, cal violence, such as witch. burning, lynching, pogroms, fascism. — lovers, family. The picture on the wall Adrienne Rich, Afterword, Take Back behind Janis is of Janis' lover, Debbie, who the Night, 1980. is there in prison with Debbie, but soon will leave, and Janis will be left to serve years and years more, for a crime she never com• T find the use of human beings as ob• mitted, that no one imagines she commit• jects pornographic,' replied producer ted, for having been present when her hus• Dorothy Todd Henaut, thus throwing band committed a crime and then died, and into question the whole idea of having she was the only one left to take the rap. movie starts, or, for that matter, movies. Another woman makes a video tape for her — Ron Base, Toronto Star, Sept. 14, 1981. daughter, and we watch first her, then her on the monitor, as the child would see her, a lined, fuzzy picture of Mummy smiling, Not a Love Story ... it's an example of playing her guitar, singing for the daughter bourgeois, feminist fascism. — Jay she can't see or hug. Scott, Globe & Mail, Sept. 7, 1981. A scene from Not a Love Story: I'm tired of sitting all day."

Broadside page thirteen

Other scheduled screenings in Canada: nition for derision would have been de• Montreal, October 9; Calgary, October 20; fused. Censorship im Qmh&ri® • Edmonton, October 22; Saskatoon, Oct• ober 26; Winnipeg, October 28, 29; The filmmakers give us ... Robin Mor• gan bawling (literally) about how hard it Halifax, November 15; Vancouver, to be riirn and Video Against Censorship 1. that the Censo: Board be replaced wiln = is for her — a thinking, sensitive, confirmed. Local NFB offices will have {FAVAC) is a group of independent pro• Classification Sosrd similar to those in radicalized woman — to get along in so• details of place and time. ducers of fiim and video and represen• Quebec and Manitoba which does not have ciety. — Jay Scott, Globe & Mail tatives from community access centres, the power to cut or ban m&tedai; public galleries, artists' organizations and (Janis Cole and Holly Dale) produced a If it was contemptible of Jay Scott to 2. that the screening of at! cultural, non• distribution centres. documentary so honest it makes the sneer at Robin Morgan's tears, and I think commercial film and video work should be National Film Board's Not a Love it was contemptible, it was not wise of the Under the Ontario Theatres Act, alt film considered to be outside the jurisdiction of Story: A Film About Pornography look film makers to include her tears in their and videotape must be approved by the On• any Theatres Act in Ontario. f even sicker than it is. — Adele Freed- film, not that emotion in unacceptable, but tario Censor Board which has the authority We urge you to support us in the ight to man, Globe & Mail, Sept. 10, 1981. that the grounds for her emotion haven't to cut or ban any film cr lape. We maintain change this undemocratic piece of legisla• been built filmically. Robin Morgan cries tiiat the Ontario Theatres Act was never tion. The Theatres Act will be before thy meant to regulate cultural and non• It was unfortunate that the festival for an idea, and her husband and son hold legislature this fall fer a men ciment. Now is commercial screenings of film and video scheduled P4W and Not a Love Story op• her hands for support. The image is at vari• the time to act. and is inappropriate because: posite each other, unforgivable that the ance with the mood necessary to sustain the You can help us by contacting your local press used that error of judgement to play rest of the film; it can be accepted only by * such screenings are non-commercial; MPP, writing to The Honourable Gordon one film against the other, praising P4W ai those of us who have shared her experience * they are not "public" in the usual sense Walker, Minister of Consume; and Commer• the expense of Not a Love Story, with not a of battle, and that experience has not been of the word; and cial Relations, 9th floor. 555 Yonge St.. shred of recognition that the subject mat• shown by the film. Women cry in P4W, and * film and video are the only ferns of ^A Toronto. Ontario, M4Y 1Y5; e.nd signing our ters interrelate, that it is the same system the audience cries too — the women cry for and communication subject to such reguis- petition. which imprisons and isolates women their lost children, their lost lovers, their For further infor.vaiim please comae':: unjustly, which objectifies and degrades us imprisoned lives, and we, having just seen FAVAC suggests two changes to the Anna Gronau or Lisa Steele at (416) for profit. We need many films about the how they live their lives, having witnessed Theatres Act: 364-7003. issues which concern us, many films ex• their courage and grace, willingly share pressing our different viewpoints. their grief. I was angry at the end of Not, A Love Within a feminist context, there are some Story, and while the true focus of my anger valuable lessons to be learned from a should have been directed at the patriarchal assages comparison of the two films. The women in makers of porn, somehow lacking a clear P4W clearly knew and trusted the film channel, lacking a sense from the film of makers (all women, minimal crew), but the how to direct my anger, I found myself tur• Passages, a one-woman play written by fragments and fabric to evoke White's film makers are never shown on camera — ning it back onto the film makers — why Patricia White, will be showing at Actor's memories of her family and childhood ... their experience is not central to the film. didn't you make a better film, why no Ca• Lab, October 6 — November 1 in Toronto. There was throughout a strong sense of Had neither film makers nor theorists been nadians, why why? No wonder the little Passages was reviewed while still a "work woman's identity." shown in Not a Love Story, and had their boys exploded. Anger is a dangerous wea• in progress" by Keltie Creed and Ruth perspective been more clearly conveyed by pon — like most weapons it can be turned Dworin in Broadside's July 1981 issue. Said For more information call Stepnen Dale, the film, I think much of the critics' ammu• against its owner.* Creed and Dworin: "It uses dance, song Actor's Lab (416) 363-2853.

Joining a Union: Paths and Pitfalls by Sandra Fox pension plan. But, where do you start? started? Usually they began with one or two "Home visits are especially important After you have contacted a union how do workers talking about unionizing and then for organizing immigrant women work• you go about getting union cards signed? contacting a union about the possibility of ers who have responsibilities in the home GETTING ORGANIZED: Building a Can everyone in your office sign a union organizing in their place of work. But is it that keeps them from attending night• Union, by Mary Cornish and Laurell Rit• card? Did you know that you have 6 just left there for these one or two workers time meetings. Home visits also provide chie; Toronto; Women's Press, 1980. months to get 55% of the bargaining unit to control the process and do all the leg the worker's family with an opportunity for automatic certification? If you get 45% work? Mary Cornish and Laurell Ritchie, to discuss the union. You can explain the "Hey, lady, do ya wanna join a union? of the bargaining unit you can proceed to a authors of Getting Organized, Building a reasons for the meetings, the progress of the campaign, and what you expect to All you have to do is sign here on the bot• vote. But, if the cards are more than 6 Union, see it as absolutely essential that all achieve. Once reassured, the family may tom of the card. Just sign here and that's all months old the Labour Board will not use those active in an organizing drive have as offer support rather than opposition. " there is to it." them to establish membership support for much information at their disposal as possi• automatic certification. That means that Wouldn't it be wonderful if that was all ble. It goes without saying that Getting there was to it. Just sign your name on the you have to get those cards signed again. The information Cornish and Ritchie Organized provides an extremely valuable card and sit back and relax and presto you Then there's the boss, who threatens supply is not just how to fill out the forms, function. It is clear, easy to read and takes have a union with a new contract that gives layoffs, loss of privilege and in some cases what you can expect from the employer and you step by step through an organizing you job security and decent wages. even fires union activists. the Labour Board. While this information drive. It, in fact, does not stop there, but As we know, nothing could be further Millions of workers over the past few is vital and one small mistake can set your proceeds to the negotiating of a first con• from the truth. The process of fighting for years have become members of the trade organizing drive back months, they also see tract, the next step and believe it or not even union certification is complicated and time union movement. Many did so through more directly political aspects of union more difficult than getting certified. consuming. You think that a union in your months of struggles as in the case of organizing as crucial. Their chapter on The book deals mainly with the situation factory or office would make all the differ• workers at Fleck, Radio Shack and Foto- building unity is excellent. It covers the par• facing Ontario workers in dealing with the ence in your working conditions, salary, mat. How were these organizing drives ticular problems of women, immigrant Ontario Labour Relations Board. Unions in women and workers from different racial or Ontario should purchase copies of Getting national communities. Workers involved in Organized and distribute them to their new organizing drives must take into account members. It should go hand in hand with the signing of the first union card. that women work a double day and for many it is difficult to attend evening union But it shouldn't stop there. Those of us meetings. For some women it may be that interested in the growing number of trade union battles for certification and strikes their husband is hostile to them attending during the first contract negotiating should union meetings. Getting Organized does be sure to read Getting Organized. It allows not just outline the problems but gives some us to have a sense of what it means to or• practical solutions to overcoming the prob• ganize a union and fight for a first contract. lems:

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Vol 3, No. 1 page fourteen

unrirv? a Ml ï IM I v •

by Mariana Valverde

Meg Luxton, More than a Labour of Love: This does not in any way invalidate the meaning of these words quite considerably. In an original contribution to the debate, Three Generations of Women's Work in thoughts and experiences of these women, Even if it is true that both her husband and Linda Briskin's article "Domestic Labour: The Home. Toronto: Women's Press, 1980. but their situation in a town where it's ex• her children will likely proceed to the la• A Methodological Discussion" also pro• Bonnie Fox, ed. Hidden in the Household: tremely difficult to be independent of men bour market, there is no direct and immedi• vides a critique of the Seccombe frame• Women's Domestic Labour under Capital• does have some bearing on their approach ate connection between her activities and work. She shows why the categories of ism. Toronto: Women's Press, 1980. to housework, men, and life in general. their selling of labour-power. The concrete "labour, "value", "production", and so Secondly, Luxton is not very precise housewife does not directly produce labour- on cannot be directly applied to the sphere Housewives are — so the television tells about how her analysis of domestic labour power, which, as Marx pointed out, is an of domestic labour; and in general, she us — by nature stupid and gullible crea• affects the Marxist concepts of labour and abstract economic category. The concrete argues that the oppression of women under tures, endlessly worrying about the white• value, which she uses in an ambiguous way. activities of domestic labour — activities capitalism cannot be studied with the tools ness of their sheets or the flakiness of their Her approach is to legitimize women's work which bourgeois housewives also carry out of political economy alone. At the same pastry, and always ready to consume in the home by giving it the status of "pro• — cannot be reduced to a simple abstrac• time, she recognizes that the abstract whatever product promises to solve these duction", a word which Marx would never tion like 'reproduction of labour power'. dynamic of capital and labour — a dynamic worries. Even in the literature of the apply to what feminist theoreticians call This emphasis on the housewife's services which, as she puts it, is "sex-blind" — does women's movement, they have often been 'tension management', or to women's sex• to the capitalist economy tends to ignore influence and shape all areas of capitalist portrayed purely as passive victims (of do• ual services to men. Such an extension of the ideological and cultural components of society, including the home. mestic violence, of the advertisers' ploys). Marxist categories requires more justifica• women's oppression in the family. Luxton This perspective, which recognizes that Other people have spoken about their pro• tion than Luxton provides. But she is, it tends to explain male miners' domination domestic labour is tied to, but at the same blems, but they have seldom been en• seems to be, relying not only on her own of their wives in terms of the men's exploi• time remains outside of, the "inner dynam• couraged to speak for themselves. Meg rather brief arguments: she is part of a ma• tation at work; and similarly, Seccombe ic" of capital and labour, is a fruitful one. Luxton's recent book, More than a Labour jor current within Marxist-feminism, and is tends to explain sex stereotypes in terms of (A similar, much more systematic analysis of Love, does an excellent job of debunking implicitly relying on a whole series of argu• the needs of the capitalist system of produc• is provided by Michèle Barrett in her recent these myths and stereotypes. ments devised by others. It is thus appropri• tion. (They of course allow that there is book Women's Oppression Today, publish• The reader quickly becomes absorbed in ate to now turn to an evaluation of this cur• such a thing as sexism in the working class, ed by New Left Books). The inner dynamic the stories told by these housewives from rent by examining another book on but they tend to explain it away with eco• of capitalist production, i.e. the extraction Flin Flon. Luxton gives us the necessary domestic labour also published by Women's nomic theory). Now, even if it is true that of surplus-value and subsequent reproduc• statistics and tables, but only the strictly ne• Press, Hidden in the Household: Women's domestic labour fulfills an essential func• tion of capital, is a central one in our socie• cessary; mostly, she just lets us enjoy the Domestic Labour Under Capitalism. tion for capitalism, there is nothing in the ty, but it is not a magic solution to all ques• anecdotes and the half-finished thoughts. In the mid-seventies, Marxists in Europe nature of capital that determines that it tions of social theory. And, although her own prose is rather col• and North America began to develop an an• shall be women who perform this work, or In order to concretely understand wo• ourless, she has a brilliant way with quotes. alysis of women's oppression that, among that there will be certain expectations about men's oppression today, analyses of the For example, here's a woman explaining other things, provided an understanding of cleanliness or privacy, or that a married ideology of domesticity and of gender-ster• how she manages to obtain the money she women's work in the home from the point couple is expected to have children. eotyping are as important as abstract eco• needs from her husband: of view of Marxist economics. It was Finally, the Seccombe-Luxton analysis nomic explanations. Feminism is not simply recognized that this seemingly private, non- does not deal with women's oppression as an addition or revision of Marxism, it is an Men are such sucks. They have this big fat economic activity was really work; and women in the labour-force, and how dis• independent component. A socialist ego and it needs feeding. When I need feminist historians pointed out that crimination and job-stereotyping relate to feminism that is not unduly weighted money I have to go through this whole song capitalism greatly affected women's work their role as mothers and housekeepers. toward socialism would recognize that there and dance about how wonderful he is and in the home. Marxists then set out to Marxist economic theory can explain how are more things in Heaven and on Earth how big and strong and how I'd be lost analyze housework in its relationship to the workers in general are exploited, but it does than fit in Marxist economics, while recog• without him. And it works. He coughs up. capitalist economy. Many different views not explain the concrete ways in which nizing that this economic theory can indeed emerged on this debate, an early one being workers are divided according to gender, provide the key to some aspects of women's Luxton's book is a work of sociology, that proposed by Wages for Housework; race, and so on; again, it is necessary to oppression both on the job and in the fami• but it actually shows caring and concern, and there is as yet no consensus on what the take into account political, ideological, and ly. and even a great deal of respect, for the 'correct' socialist-feminist theory of cultural factors when doing concrete ana• people whose lives are being dissected. The domestic labour is. lyses. women speak in what sound like uncon• Wally Seccombe, an early Canadian, con• strained voices: the researcher is clearly not tributor to this debate, has two important just an academic, but also a neighbour and articles in the anthology under review, and friend. Even the last chapter, consisting of the other writers make a point of either political conclusions and strategies, relies as agreeing or disagreeing with his position, so by Elaine Berns much on these women's opinions as on the it is to his contribution that we now turn. Also, Seccombe and Luxton have worked perspectives of the author herself. For ex• Auel, Jean M., The Clan of the Cave Bear, • brilliant examination and exposé of the together very closely, and the theoretical ample, when considering the failings of the Bantam, N.Y., 1981. politics of transsexualism. Raymond writes problems which I see in her work are by and Wages for Housework movement, Luxton • novel set in pre-history, about the life of a about the implications for women and men large problems she shares with him. simply refers us to the views expressed by lost girl, adopted into a tribe of hunter- of transsexuality, analyzes the power of the these women: Seccombe is by no means a vulgar Marx• gatherers. medical establishment, and suggests ist. He recognizes the importance of the changes from a radical feminist perspective. Well, whenever they want us to make more autonomous women's movement, and is Lorde, Audre, The Cancer Journals; babies, they increase the baby bonus or willing to reconsider the validity of certain Spinsters Ink; Argyle, N.Y., 1980. Roberts, J.R., comp., Black Lesbians; change the family tax laws. So the govern• tenets of orthodox Marxism in the light of • a courageous personal and political book Naiad Press, 1981. ment could decide to pay women according feminist theory. But his theoretical frame• about breast cancer. Lorde writes eloquent• • annotated bibliography of works by and to how good a wife and mother they are. work, it seems to me, has not advanced at ly about her feelings about prosthesis, the about Black Lesbians. Then we'd all have to have dozens of kids the same pace as his political ideas; he tends pain of amputation, her confrontation with and keep spotless houses and do home bak• to validate the experience of women in the mortality, and the strength, love and sup• Salmonson, Jessica Amanda, ed., ing and never complain. home by describing it in Marxist terms. port she received from other women. Amazons; Daw Books, N.Y., 1979. Sometimes this is indeed useful, but at • an anthology of fantasy which includes The book deals with such topics as a other times it amounts to a stretching of the Moraga, Cherrie & Anzaldùa, Gloria, eds., stories by André Norton, Tanith Lee, Joan• quick history of the town of Flin Flon, old wineskins of Marxism to contain the This Bridge Called My Back: Writings By na Russ, and Elizabeth Lynn. changing relationships among family mem• new feminist wine. Radical Women of Color; Persephone bers, and of course, detailed analyses of Seccombe wants to vindicate housewives Press, Watertown, Mass., 1981. Warner, Marina: Joan of Arc; Knopf, how these women spend their hours at by proving that their work is crucial for the • prose, poetry, personal narrative and pol• N.Y., 1981. home. Such topics as the impact of technol• capitalist economy, in that it produces the itical analysis by women of color in the US, • excellent biography of Joan of Arc that ogy on housework, the various methods of strange, intangible commodity which work• includes sections on Racism in the Women's emphasizes how she fit into an intellectual managing the family's finances, and the re• ers sell on the labour market, i.e. 'labour- Movement, on Culture, Class and Homo• and emotional tradition of thought con• lationship between the husband's work and power'. (Marx defined labour-power as a phobia as well as Audre Lorde's contro• cerning women. his attitude to the home are explored in person's ability to create and do things, an versial open letter to Mary Daly. minute detail, but without boring repeti• ability which takes the form of a commodi• tions or pedantic elaborations of the ob• ty — something which is bought and sold — These books are all available from the vious. only under capitalism.) Women take are of Raymond, Janice C. The Transsexual Em• pire; Beacon Press, Boston, Mass., 1979. Toronto Women's Bookstore. This book, then, is an important contri• their husbands and they bring up their bution to the small but growing literature of children, hence producing and reproducing the Canadian women's movement. Despitè labour-power. Women's work is thus its value both as a work of empirical validated as 'productive' because it pro• sociology and as an analysis of housework duces a certain saleable commodity — under capitalism, however, there are some labour-power — which is then exchanged in problems concerning its theoretical the market as the worker goes to work. The framework. First, Luxton happily tells us price of this commodity is then obtained in that the experiences of these Flin Flon the form of wages, which then have to be housewives are "typical". Now, these transformed by the housewife into cooked women live in an isolated, one-industry food, clean clothes, etc. The food and the town where there is virtually no paid work clothes help to reproduce the wage-earner's for women. In larger urban centres, how• labour-power, thus setting the cycle in mo• ever, nearly all single women and about tion once more. 60% of married women work for wages: the This explanation shows that women are full-time housewife is increasingly not tied into capitalist production even when typical. Also, Flin Flon is the kind of place they do not work for wages, but it goes a lit• where doctors won't give birth control to tle too far in seeing everything that women unmarried women, where abortions are do in the home through the eyes of abstract simply unavailable, and where everyone economic theory. First of all, the housewife knows your business. Under such repressive performs an endless series of tasks in her social conditions, women are bound to be daily routine, including such activities as less independent than they might be in other playing with the kids or making love with Betsy Lippitt (I) and Thérèse Edell hit a resonant chord with the aud• places: it's very difficult to leave your hus• her husband, which can only be seen as band, it's nearly impossible to be gay, etc. economically productive by stretching the ience at a recent Womynly Way concert at Harbourfront, Toronto.

Broadside page fifteen.

• from page 9.

Canadian components and raw materials are part of US ex• insist that only women can really be trusted with diplomacy. ports as well as our own direct sales to the Third World. But until that time, the machismo factor cannot be com• Third World. The Stockholm International Peace Research Despite the US's recurring excuse of supplying arms pletely excluded." Institute claims that Canadian exports of weapons to the because of USSR involvement, the US has twice as many Certainly many women would agree with him, and wo• Third World have averaged $23 million per year since 1950. clients as the USSR. men have been active in Canada for many years in the peace In 1967 Canadian arms exports reached an all time high of The extent of the effect these transfers have on the arms movement, particularly the Voice of Women. We are pre• $441.2 million; in 1973 the figure was $308.2 million. The economy is made clear in the following figures: in 1963 the sently experiencing the growth of new grass roots organiza• Canadian government has a publicly stated policy of not Third World absorbed 50% of the world arms transfers; in tions generating from the women's movement, such as supplying arms to countries in conflict, yet we continued to 1973, 66%; in 1975, 75%. Meanwhile the Third World ac• WANT — Women Against Nuclear Technology. supply, and made enormous profits doing so, arms to the counts for only 25% of the civilian market. It's an old We must pressure our government to get out of the arms US throughout the Vietnam war. We sold to Malaysia while story, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. This time we trade and out of nuclear power. Many people feel that our she was fighting with Indonesia, to India following the war may all be the losers, rich and poor alike. alliance with the US is what protects us from the threat of with China and to both Turkey and Greece while they were The question that remains unanswered is: What can be Soviet aggression; yet, Norman Alcock finds that "What fighting with each other. Certainly not a record to be proud done to stop it? This time the preachers of doom are pro• little empirical evidence there is suggests that alliances, of! bably right, and we have very little time left. Part of the dif• rather than minimizing the likelihood of war, make war One of the most frightening developments in the arms ficulty in tackling the problem is that there is no sense to the more probable." We can afford to break our alliance with build up is the rapid increase in arms purchased by the problem — no understanding the problem in rational, US imperialism; in fact we cannot afford not to. Third World. Between 1960 and 1978 arms purchases by humanitarian terms. Why would anyone steer such a As the pressure of poverty, hunger and disease increases the Third World increased 400%. This is upsetting just in deliberate course to self destruction as the western world in the Third World, the threat of World War III must also terms of the additional arms available for war, but what is and the USSR are now charting? necessarily increase. Many of these countries have at this even more distressing is the vast sums of money being used Anthony Sampson, in his book The Arms Bazaar, sug• point nothing to lose and the continued sale of arms must on arms while the population of these countries goes hun• gests the problem lies in the nature of the male ego: "No increase the chances of a major war being fought in or with gry. It is also worth noting that since 1945 all wars have politician can altogether afford to ignore the atavistic ap• the Third World. It stands to reason then that a major been fought in the Third World with weapons designed and peal of arms to the male psyche. The word 'weapon' was up peace thrust must include a proposal for income redistribu• usually produced in the industrial nations. till the fourteenth century synonymous with penis; the mis• tion from the industralized nations to the Third World. Reforms to the US military aid program emphasized that siles and machine-guns, and the sexy roar of the tigers, still Finally, we must mobilize internationally for peace. military aid should help promote future military sales. The hold their phallic spell whether in Iran or Los Angeles. It is Grass roots peace alliances must be formed which include US has a deliberate policy of offsetting the cost of military no accident that many of the most effective crusaders large numbers of people in both east and west. It is import• production by selling to the Third World. The net result is against arms have been women, who are not vulnerable to ant to get the message out that no one has anything to gain to cause still further distribution of income away from the this primitive thrill, from Berthe von Suttner to Alva Myr- by another world war. If we are to have a future at all, Third World to the developed countries. dal and the many active young women now involved in the peace must become a major concern in all countries of the The US is the largest supplier of arms to the Third World. movement for arms control; there are even some men who world and it must happen fast. •

LESBIAN PHONE LINE TWO CONFERENCES ON GENDER (formerly part of LOOT) begins its 5th year of service TUESDAY EVENINGS "The Political Economy of Gender Relations in Education" will be held at The 7:30 — 10:30 p.m. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor St. W. on October 29 and 30, Toronto: 960-3249 1981. Admission is free. For further details contact Paul Olson or Alison Griffith at (416) 923-6641 ext. 287. NEW COLLECTIVE MEMBERS WELCOME "Women, Power and Consciousness" at New College, University of Toronto, 20. Willcocks St., Toronto. Sheila Rowbotham will be the keynote speaker. Registra• tion is $15 ($5 for students) ; a banquet is also planned ($10), October 30 and November 1. For details write M. Wilson at New College or phone 978-5404.

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MAMA QUILLA II benefit dance FREEDOM from menstrual pain for the work of the Cruise using herbs, massage, diet, ex• Missile Conversion Project. Fri• ercise. Illustrated pamphlet. day, October 30, 9 pm, St. $1.50. Zook, Box 65673, Station Lawrence Market, Toronto. F, Vancouver, BC, V5W 5K7. ' WOMEN AND MONEY Tickets: door $6, advance $5, students and unemployed $5. At LESBIAN PROCRASTINATORS! Toronto Women's Bookstore, It's not too late to submit to Fire- m nine-week radio course SCM Books, Glad Day Books weed's Lesbian Anthology. and Pages Bookstore. Daycare. Deadline extended to October PIANO TUNING and repair. 31, 1981. Address: PO Box 279, Reasonable rates. For more in• Station B, Toronto M5T 2W2. formation call Jocelyne Wall- Attn: Issue 13. ingford at (416) 531-3148. These programs will help women under• BEACHES DUPLEX: 3-bedroom stand personal finances, money manage• VICTIM OF RENOVATION wants duplex to share, partially fur• ment, credit, investment, pensions and to share house, darkroom with nished, available Oct. 1st, one or making a will. Examine your attitude to other person. Cal! Gai! anytime, two womyn. (416) 698-0582 even• money and take the opportunity to talk with (416) 595-1660. ings. our experts in the studio during the phone- in section of the programs. • Costs are 25$ a word ($3 minimum) • The first word will- be printed in bold type Registration entitles you to attend a day• • Ads accepted by mail on the 20th of the month before they are to appear • All classified ads must be pre-paid, long seminar and to collect the program • Fill out the coupon below and send it, with cheque or money order, to: Broad• guide, course text and other material. side Communications Ltd., PO BOx 494, Stn. P, Toronto, M5S 2T1.

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