WOMEN’S CYCLES (MOTORCYCLES, THAT IS) | TACKLING WIFE ABUSE IN AFGHANISTAN | SUMMER READING GUIDE & MORE!

WOMEN’S NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS Summer 2008 Vol. 22 No. 1 Made in Canada

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Wanna join? Visit: www.caw.ca or call 1-877-495-6551 Email: [email protected] SUMMER 2008 / VOLUME 22 NO. 1 news DOMESTIC ASSAULT IN AFGHANISTAN 6 by Lauryn Oates 8 CAMPAIGN UPDATES MY HEART BELONGS IN THE CAPE 12 by Anat Cohen ITALIAN WOMEN MOBILIZE 13 by Meagan Williams 6: Addressing Domestic Assault in Afghanistan WHAT IF EQUALITY RULED? 14 by Shari Graydon

features HOW THE MEDIA KEEPS US HUNG UP 16 ON BODY IMAGE By Shari Graydon

JANE RULES 20 It has been said that every child on Galiano learned to swim in Jane Rule and Helen Sonthoff ’s swimming pool. The couple bought their house on Galiano Island as a weekend getaway in the 1970s, fell in love with it and never left. Rule’s legacy is explored in this intimate interview completed in the year before her passing. 16: Hung Up On Body Image by Joanne Bealy

ROAD WARRIORS 28 It is rarely a state of forever wedded bliss, the union of motorcycle and woman. As with all great relationships, there are there are highs and lows. There are moments a kick-start is needed—a good fight to reignite the love affair with our iron horse partner; a diversion from life’s many other trials. by Elizabeth Bokfi

FIND YOUR OWN STYLE 36 I knew I had hit bottom when I realized how often I have been wearing the clothes that other people bought me. I have been wearing beige. I need to get back on track. Get back to me. 40: Toshi Reagon by Joy Parks

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 1 VOLUME 22 NO. 1

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MANAGING EDITOR: Penni Mitchell FULFILLMENT AND OFFICE MANAGER: Phil Koch ACCOUNTANT: Sharon Pchajek BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Ghislaine Alleyne, Phil Koch, Penni Mitchell, Kemlin Nembhard, Valerie Regehr EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: Ghislaine Alleyne, Gio Guzzi, Penni Mitchell, Kemlin Nembhand 55: The Tracey Fragments ADVERTISING SALES: Penni Mitchell (204) 774-6225 DESIGN: inkubator.ca WEB MISTRESS: Rachel Thompson/BlueMuse arts & ideas RETAIL INQUIRIES: Disticor (905) 619-6565 ARTS PROFILE PROOFREADER: Phil Koch 40 Toshi Reagon COVER PHOTO: Nathaniel Christopher by Karen X. Tulchinsky

MUSIC MUST-HAVES Vida Hille, Christine Fellows, Sandrine, HERIZONS is published four times per year by HERIZONS Inc. in 42 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. One-year subscription price: $27.50 k.d. lang, Uh Huh Her, The Puppini Sisters, (includes GST) in Canada. Two-year subscription is $45.99 in Sara Melson Canada. Subscriptions to U.S. add $9.00. International subscriptions add $9.00. Cheques or money orders are payable to: SUMMER READING HERIZONS, PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA R3C 2G1. 45 Glass Voices by Carol Bruneau, Limbo by Ph (204) 774-6225. Jacqueline Honnet, Consensual Genocide by SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES: [email protected] Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarashinha, Dirtbags EDITORIAL INQUIRIES: [email protected] by Teresa McWhirter, 20 Miles by Cara Hedley, ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: [email protected] We Are not in Pakistan by Shauna Singh WEBSITE: www.herizons.ca Baldwin, Fight Like a Girl: How to be a Fearless HERIZONS is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index. Feminist by Megan Seely, So This Is The World GST #R131089187. ISSN 0711-7485. And Here I Am In It by Di Brandt Change of The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire hope Plans: Women’s Stories of Hemorrhagic Stroke by and foster a state of wellness that enriches women’s lives; to build Sharon Dalestone, Obsession With Intent: awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the Violence Against Women by Lee Lakeman strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building coalitions and support FILM among other marginalized people; to foster peace and ecological 55 The Tracey Fragments awareness; and to expand the influence of feminist principles in Review by Karen X. Tulchinsky the world. HERIZONS aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse, understandable and relevant to women’s daily lives. Views expressed in HERIZONS are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect HERIZONS’ editorial policy. No material may be columns reprinted without permission. Due to limited resources, HERIZONS does not accept poetry or fiction submissions.

PENNI MITCHELL HERIZONS acknowledges the financial support of the 5 Go Home or Go Home Government of Canada through the Publication Assistance Program (PAP) and the Canada Magazine SUSAN G. COLE Fund toward our mailing and editorial costs.

15 Domestic Problems HERIZONS gratefully acknowledges the support of the Manitoba Arts Council. MARIKO TAMAKI The Fame Game Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866, PAP Registration No. 35 07944. Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, LYN COCKBURN MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected] 56 Clean Sweep Herizons is proudly printed on Forest Stewardship Council- certified paper that is 50% recycled, including 25% post- consumer, acid-free and chlorine-free.

2 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS letters

HOMELAND KUDOS Thanks to you for publishing the article by Maya Khankhoje, “Homeland. Security.” in your Spring 2008 issue. It was a most lovely read. I read the piece as one who also did not grow up in Canada—but who followed a much less circuitous route to get here—and it aroused many issues related to the meaning of home and homelands, and the role of people, as well as place, not only in where one settles, but how settled one can feel there. Thanks to Herizons for once more providing good food for thought. ABBY LIPPMAN Montreal, QC

contributors

ANNA LAZOWSKI KERRY RYAN Anna Lazowski is a producer at CBC Radio, Kerry Ryan lives and writes in Winnipeg. She is a working on shows like Definitely Not the Opera regular contributor to Herizons and her poems and The Signal. A syndicated music columnist, have appeared in several journals and Anna lives in Winnipeg with her husband Mike anthologies. Her first collection of poetry, The and their son Silas. Sleeping Life, was released by The Muses’ Company (J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing) in April 2008. UMA PARAMESWARAN Uma was born and educated in India and has lived ALEN ZUKANOVICH in Winnipeg since 1966. She is the author of several Alen (pictured here at work with youngest daughter works of fiction, including the award-winning Mila) co-owns Inkubator Design with Sanja collection of stories What was Always Hers. Zukanovich. Together, Alen and Sanja pursue excellence in magazine design and raise their JILLIAN RIDINGTON daughters, Pasha and Mila, in Toronto. Jillian has written extensively about violence against women, pornography, women with JOY PARKS disabilities and environmental issues. With Robin Formerly a columnist for the long-defunct Body Ridington, she has worked with the Dane-zaa First Politic, Joy Parks wrote this issue’s article on Nations for three decades. Their latest publication is When You Sing it feminism and fashion on page 36. Last year, her Now, Just Like New (University of Nebraska Press). Jillian lives on short story “Instinct” (The Future Is Queer, Arsenal Galiano Island, B.C. Pulp Press) tied for the 2007 Gaylactic Spectrum Award.

LAURYN OATES GIO GUZZI Lauryn is Herizons’ correspondent in Afghanistan. Gio Guzzi has been a keen and devoted member of She has worked throughout Central Asia, the Herizons’ editorial advisory committee for more Middle East and Africa to advance women’s human than 13 years. When she is not mulling over rights by working with local women’s organizations editorial submissions, she works at the Women’s and their international supporters. She is completing a Ph.D in language Health Clinic in Winnipeg as the Coordinator for Birth Control and education at the University of British Columbia. Unplanned Pregnancy Counselling.

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 3 Welcome Home!

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Here you can relax and read your favourite articles content from past issues for your pleasure. Past from past issues of Herizons magazine. Read some issues can be downloaded for just $2.75 each, or of inspiring Canadian book reviews and music reviews, course you can order past copies by mail for $5.00 or do research for that course you’re taking. each plus postage. Membership has its privileges. Subscribers are Buy gifts online and we’ll send an e-mail notice automatically entitled to download past issues of right away! You can also renew your subscription Herizons at no cost. You will be asked to sign in and or make a donation to your favourite Canadian provide the subscriber number located beside your feminist magazine. name on the mailing label on the front of this copy You’ll even find a Campaign of the Month to of Herizons (e.g., S928). check out, plus we have links to oodles of women’s If you are not a subscriber, there is still some organizations you’ll love to find out more about.

Enjoy yourself ... and stay a while! first word BY PENNI MITCHELL

Go Home or Go Home

If you told me a few years ago that equality would cease to be NAWL board member Pamela Cross sees the changes this a Status of Women policy objective, I would have said you way: “The Harper government is trying to silence women’s were paranoid (or else paraphrasing Margaret Atwood). If groups who speak out against its right-wing agenda. These you told me a few months ago that Ottawa would try to are ideologically driven cuts that demonstrate a defective control the kind of films being made in Canada, I would have concept of women’s equality and democracy.” said the same thing. Given the successful weakening of women’s voices already, Let’s say you wanted to make a film in Canada. It is about it is not surprising to see the “Judeo-Christian morals” crowd a teenager who, after having sex with her best friend, finds in action again. Remember what happened in the U.S. when herself pregnant. Your unwed hero feels little remorse and, in fundamentalist values were scripted over public arts policy? fact, the pregnancy turns into a deeply maturing experience. U.S. Senator Jesse Helm’s attack against the U.S. National My question is whether the Harper Conservatives would Endowment for the Arts won him a censor of the year award approve a film credit for a flick like Juno if they had the power from the American Civil Liberties Union over his attempts to say no to its depiction of choice and single parenthood. to halt funding for art deemed obscene or that “denigrated Bill C-10 proposes to give the federal heritage minister the people’s beliefs.” power to yank valuable tax credits if a film is deemed “contrary Similarly, McVety’s pitch to turn tax credits into to public policy.” As press time approaches, it looks as though Conservative reward points is a denigration of democratic the tax credit segment may be nixed by the sober second values. If the Conservatives launch a tax crusade against thoughters in the Senate. Yet Prime Minister Stephen certain films, there is nothing to stop them from going after Harper’s efforts to put a socially conservative spin on funding the creators of books, magazines, plays and art galleries. Most apparatuses may explain why so few women support his party. cultural producers depend on public funding and tax credits, First, the scheme to yank film tax credits was dreamed up and many depict themes that are contrary to beliefs held by by Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action the Conservatives. Coalition, an evangelical group that seeks to have “Judeo- Heritage Minister Josée Verner, also status of women Christian moral principles” restored in Canada. Recall that it minister, claims the bill is an effort to stamp out gratuitous was an organization with similar values, REAL Women, that sex and violence. But just like the opening scene in The called for Status of Women Canada to be denuded and to Handmaid’s Tale, where the protagonist’s banking have the Court Challenges Program cancelled. They privileges are suddenly taken away, this scene reads more succeeded. In 2006, the Conservatives had the word equality like foreshadowing to me. The danger is just too great that removed from the objectives of Status of Women and the bill would become a blunt instrument to weaken the banished organizations that advocate on behalf of women arms-length governance of all arts and culture funding in from receiving department grants. Verner’s department. And it is unnecessary. Canada has In fact, the overall message to women since Harper took laws dealing with violence, hate, obscenity and child office has been go home or go home. When it closed in pornography to prevent the distribution of films with April, the Women’s Future Fund became the latest casualty illegal content. in the battle between Harper Conservatives and those who It’s an odd move when you consider that our film industry believe women’s equality actually should be an objective of alone is worth over $2 billion a year and creates around Canadian public policy. But a much greater blow to equality 100,000 jobs (that’s more than the number of people directly was the closure of the National Association of Women employed in Alberta’s oil sands, by the way). Ever since offices last fall after the rules changed. NAWL has been Canada introduced the Film or Video Production Services instrumental in improving legislation for women in public Tax credit a decade ago, the industry has doubled. The credit, policy areas that extreme conservatives oppose: family law, equal to 16 per cent of salary and wages paid to Canadian reproductive choice and violence against women. We would residents or taxable Canadian corporations, is a glowing simply not enjoy the rights they take for granted today example of how government can stimulate economic growth. without NAWL’s efforts. Or moral decay—I guess it all depends.  HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 5 nelliegrams WOMEN TAKE ON TURN THE PAGE DOMESTIC ASSAULT A group of British BY LAURYN OATES women’s magazine editors agreed in April to draw up a voluntary code of practice on airbrushing and the use of size zero models. The U.K. Periodical Publishers Association will act as an arbiter for the discussions, to include the British Fashion Council. The discussions follow the publication last fall of a report by Baroness Denise Patricia Byrne Kingsmill that recommended media manipulation of images be subject to a strict code of practice. The Kingsmill inquiry also recommended that models under 16 be banned from London catwalks. It called for mandatory health certificates for models produced by physicians knowledgeable about eating disorders. The inquiry followed the deaths of three South American models, apparently from malnutrition related to eating disorders. Adrienne Key, a psychiatrist who worked on the inquiry, estimated that between 20 and 40 percent of British models engage in health-threatening behaviour to keep their bodies at a starvation level in order to work as professional models. Madrid Fashion Week organizers have banned U.S. size zero models and now use a ratio of height to weight to calculate a healthy size for each individual. Nooria Sadiqi is the second lieutenant in charge of Kabul’s Family Response Unit in District 10. (Photo: Lauryn Oates)

FIRST WOMAN JUDGE (KABUL) A few years ago, two police as a criminal matter. The United Arab Emirates’ first female advisors from the U.S. turned Kabul’s District When I ask what happens when women judge, Kholoud al-Dahiri, was appointed by 10 police station into a model for other report assault, Nooria pulls down an presidential decree in March. The Gulf state stations. They established a records system overflowing black binder from behind her desk. recently amended its laws to permit female for the first time, introduced communications “These are the promissory notes,” she protocols, created Kabul’s first bicycle patrol, explains as she points to two inked federal judges and prosecutors, Reuters and gave the officers computer training. thumbprints. One is from a husband and one reported. The United Arab Emirates has four To their surprise, after some time on the from a wife—both illiterate. With little female ministers and nine women sit on its job, they also discovered that District 10 had support internally or externally, most cases advisory federal national council. four women police officers, and so they set are ‘resolved’ by the perpetrator signing a up the Family Response Unit and housed it in form pledging to stop the abuse. More NEW QUEEN a small, battered container on the premises. serious cases are referred to shelters, on the OF CHESS As a result, women who are assaulted come rare occasions there is any space in Kabul’s Hou Yifan, a 14- to report abuse, receive counselling, undergo three consistently crowded women’s year-old from China a medical exam and give evidence. The unit shelters. It may not be the ideal situation, who is considered looks much like a trailer, with a private Nooria says, but it’s an ambitious start to by many to be a entrance located away from the main station. addressing a problem which has long been future world Nooria Sadiqi, a second lieutenant in shrouded in silence. champion, won the charge of the unit, is responsible for As a result of its slow but steady progress, supporting female victims, having charges the Family Response Unit in District 10 has Ataturk laid and obtaining the cooperation of male been replicated in 11 additional units—four in International criminal investigators. Kabul and seven in the provinces—with plans Women Masters Chess Tournament in While Nooria contends with unsupportive to build more throughout the country. Istanbul in March. male colleagues at times, she notes that her As an oft-cited Afghan proverb says: Hou was the youngest player to unit signals the first serious effort on behalf Gatra qatra darya mesha: Drop by drop, a participate in the tournament, which was of the police to treat violence against women river is made. 

6 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS FORCE OF CHANGE nelliegrams BY LAURYN OATES started as an annual event this year by Turkey’s national chess federation to spur interest among girls and women and to RCMP college. provide a training ground for competitors. Despite her experience, Murray is Iraq will send sprinter Dana Abdul- challenged by a negative public perception Razzaq to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Abdul of the police force in Afghanistan. Razzaq has won more than a dozen medals “Police are seen as corrupt and brutal, at Arab and west Asian competitions and which indeed they are,” Murray says. Here, runs the 100- and 200-metre events. there is little tradition of “to serve and protect,” and the profession enjoys little Iraq’s Olympic committee has reported respect from the public. the death of 104 athletes, coaches, In spite of the country’s high illiteracy rate administrators and referees since Iraq was and its high rates of poverty and invaded by the U.S. in 2003. The former unemployment, educated women can earn a head of the Iraq Olympic committee was decent income in Afghanistan. Most, kidnapped in 2006 and another 21 Olympic Tonita Murray, a Canadian with 35 years of policing therefore, opt for higher paying jobs with officials are still missing. experience, is helping build a more woman-friendly non-governmental organizations or —Reuters police force in Kabul. international organizations. Furthermore, policing remains a ABSTINENCE CAUSES (KABUL) Deep in the heart of Kabul’s shawr- dangerous occupation. There have been PREGNANCY e-naw (“new city”) is an unassuming red more police killed in the current conflict A University of Washington study has found metal gate tucked in between two rundown than Afghan military personnel. The police shops. Behind that gate lives and works force is a visible symbol of the government, that 15- to 19-year-olds who have had Tonita Murray, a Canadian who has lived in and thus a target of Taliban insurgents. For comprehensive sex education rather than Afghanistan’s capital for three years. all of these reasons, families with educated abstinence-only education are less likely to Murray is the gender advisor to daughters are reluctant to see them join become pregnant. Neither form of sex Afghanistan’s ministry of the interior, the the police. education appeared to affect teens’ risk of government department charged with Another challenge is the police training contracting a sexually transmitted infection. training and managing the country’s itself. Murray would like to see less —The Seattle Times fledgling police forces. emphasis on equipping police as part of the With 35 years of experience in Canada’s counter-insurgency effort (i.e., training MADAME RCMP under her belt, Murray’s job involves officers as auxiliaries to the military). Rather, SPEAKER prodding male police officers, policy-makers she believes the police’s focus should be on Pakistan’s and the minister of the interior to protect building peaceful communities. Convincing parliament women’s rights in Afghanistan, a country the financers of policing in Afghanistan (the selected its where patriarchy remains deeply imbedded U.S.) has met with limited success. in political institutions. Her job also includes “History tells us that bringing law and first female training and growing Afghanistan’s female order, peace and building communities speaker, Fehmida Mirza, in March. police force which, at nearly 200 members, where men and women are protected, are Mirza, a nominee of the liberal Pakistan has increased 90 percent since her arrival. effective measures in fighting wars,” People’s Party, won 249 votes in the 342- Ravaged by war, Afghanistan lacks the Murray believes. seat National Assembly. February’s infrastructure required for basic policing; Another reason why policewomen are elections split the legislature between the the police force suffers from an extreme needed is that women coming forward to Pakistan People’s Party, the party of the lack of human capital. Afghanistan is also a report crimes are routinely turned away, late Benazir Bhutto, and the Muslim country with an entrenched resistance to assaulted, or turned over back to their League, led by former prime minister women working outside the home—let abusive families. Murray is working to Nawaz Sharif. alone working in a profession as visibly transform the nature of police work. She Combined, the parties defeated President public as policing. organized the first-ever Islamic women Musharraf’s party in the elections and And yet, Murray has dismantled one major police conference that brought together hurdle after another, helping policewomen policewomen from the region to share agreed to form a coalition government. get up to par with their male counterparts. strategies on helping women victims of She has also waged successful battles crime. Part of her objective was to get the CERVICAL CANCER within the ministry and within police women “thinking of themselves as PROGRAM FOR CHINA departments, where there has traditionally autonomous people,” in order to build their China’s health ministry launched a pilot been little space given to women’s confidence to bring about change in their cervical cancer prevention program in involvement in decision-making. workplaces and in their societies. The March that will provide free screenings to Fortunately, bringing about change in a conference created a network of support over 200,000 women in the next three years. male-dominated sector is not new to Murray. and led to the formation of the Islamic According to official statistics, 90 A veteran member of the RCMP, Murray was Women’s Police Association. percent of the over 100,000 new cervical at the centre of Canada’s era of police Murray’s next challenge is to ensure male cancer cases reported each year in China reform during the 1970s when women were police are trained to enforce women’s civil could be prevented by a screening every first recruited. Her most recent rights. By setting the stage for incremental two years. accomplishment on the Canadian front was changes, her work is helping to lay a overseeing advanced police training at the foundation for bigger changes to come.  —Xinhua News Agency

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 7 nelliegrams campaign updates PAY BEFORE YOU PLAY Illinois has collected more than $1.2 billion in back child support payments since WOMEN WEIGH IN Alliance were shut out, as were the 43,000 Governor Rod Blagojevich vowed to A survey sponsored by the Dairy Farmers of supporters of the Alberta Greens. improve the state’s record on child support Canada found that nearly 86 per cent of Voter turnout was the lowest in history and collection. The latest tactic, publicized in Canadian women want to lose weight to Fair Vote says that if voters know their votes March, has been to withhold state hunting improve their self-esteem. won’t count, they stay home. Fair Vote Alberta and fishing licenses from parents who owe The December 2007 survey polled almost and Fair Vote Canada called on the Stelmach child support. 3,000 Canadian women about their attitudes government to convene a citizens’ assembly on —The Chicago Tribune and emotions towards weight loss. It electoral reform, similar to those held in B.C. reported that 28 percent of women said and Ontario, and hold a referendum on whether BREADWINNING GOOD managing their weight dominates their life. to adopt a more proportional voting system. The majority of men are happy to share the Even an overwhelming majority of women breadwinning role, with only 12 percent of who are at a healthy weight stated they THE FUTURE IS OVER men expressing a problem if their wives wanted to lose weight. The Women’s Future Fund (WFF) was best bring home the bigger paycheque, MSNBC The diary farmers hooked up with Dr. Gail known for its workplace donation program that reported this spring. The Elle magazine and Marchessault, a specialist in the area of disbursed donations to a diverse range of MSNBC joint survey, which surveyed nearly women and weight, and launched a new national women’s organizations. It grew from 3 74,000 men and women, found most couples website called Healthy Weight, designed to participating workplaces in 2000 to over 30 by believed the breadwinner shouldn’t have improve women’s health and eating habits. 2006. Until 2006, the organization was able to primary say in financial decisions. “Women of all ages, races and demographic give out 100 percent of funds raised to member backgrounds are struggling with weight, when organizations, reaching $200,000 per year. BREAKING THE they should be putting their focus on feeling However, the WFF became ineligible for SILENCE IN JAPAN good and being healthy,” says Marchessault. support from Status of Women Canada, and Japanese women are increasingly turning “Women need to change their mindset when subsequently closed in the spring. to police to report domestic violence, with it comes to weight. Instead of trying to change Former WFF donors who want to redirect 15 percent more cases documented in 2007 their weight, they should focus on changing their donation to one or more past member compared to 2006. their behaviour.” organizations can find them listed at “An increasing number of cases concern The web resource is at www.yourhealthy www.womensfuturefund.com. women who had previously suffered in weight.ca. It aims to inspire women not by silence but have decided to come out to focusing on losing weight but by offering MS. REBUFFS seek advice or support from police,” one practical information on how to make healthy JEWISH police official told Kyoto News Agency. lifestyle changes. CONGRESS AD Japan enacted its first domestic violence Skeptics be warned: The website does Ms. magazine refused to law in 2001 and expanded its reach in 2004 provide an online assessment tool to help publish an advertisement in to include former spouses and children. women determine whether they are in a January that featured three —Reuters healthy weight range. prominent women associated with the Israeli EQUALITY SUPPORT GROWS ELECTION REFORM government along with the text, “This is Israel.” Women’s equality is important or very Alberta Premier Ed The ad was produced by the American important to 84 percent of men and 86 Stelmach’s Progressive Jewish Congress (AJC). percent of women among 14,896 Conservatives won a bare The AJC charged that the publishers’ respondents polled in the world’s 16 majority of the popular vote decision not to run the ad amounted to largest nations, according to a poll in the province’s January “hostility to Israel.” The magazine retorted prepared for the March 8 observation of election—53 percent—but that of the last 16 issues of Ms, 11 have International Women’s Day and walked away with 88 percent of the 83 seats in included articles about prominent Israeli conducted by Washington, D.C.-based the province’s legislature. Meanwhile, the 47 women and the feminist movement in Israel. A World Public Opinion. percent who voted for opposition parties were recent issue included a two-page article on People in 14 of 16 nations favoured a rewarded with just 11 seats—or 12.5 percent. Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign stronger role for the United Nations in According to Fair Vote Canada, if Alberta had Affairs Tzipi Livni, one of the women who preventing discrimination. In Turkey, 91 a proportional voting system in place, the PCs appeared in the ad. The two other women percent of respondents supported equal would have won about 44 seats, the Liberals 22, depicted in the ad were Israeli Supreme Court rights for women; in both Mexico and the NDP seven, Wild Rose Alliance six and the President Dorit Beinish and Knesset Speaker the United Kingdom, 89 percent; in Green Party four. More men vote conservative, Dalia Itzik. Indonesia, 81 percent; and in the United while more women vote liberal and green. The controversy centred on whether States, 77 percent. Fair Vote Alberta calculates that it took about publishing the AJC ad carried an implicit In China, more than 125,000 people have 7,000 votes to elect a PC candidate, 31,000 statement of support for the Israeli added their names to a UNIFEM online votes to elect a Liberal MLA and 40,000 votes to government. The publishers of Ms. maintained campaign to end violence against women. elect a representative of the NDP. The 64,000 it was not their job to endorse Israel, or any Nearly 200,000 people around the world voters who cast ballots for the Wild Rose other government.

8 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS campaign updates nelliegrams have joined in the effort, based on UN statistics that indicate one in three women WAGE GAP HURTS WOMEN communities,” she notes suffers physical or sexual violence during Some things never change, and women’s fair The Congo is home to the deadliest war her lifetime. share of the wage pie seems to be one of since World War II—5.4 million men, women —Women’s e-News them. Statistics Canada reported in April that and children have been killed. The report notes young women entering the paid force are paid, that conflict resolution must be paired with PATRICK on average, 15 percent less than men doing resources to enable women and girls to DRIVES the same job. participate in the healing and reconstruction of EQUALITY In 2005, women working full-time for a full their families, communities and country. The She did it. Danica year were short-changed, despite the fact that report also says a post-war plan must include Patrick took the their experience and training was no different. resources to investigate and prosecute those Bridgestone Indy Japan 300 in April, “It’s just incredible, it’s appalling,” said responsible for human rights atrocities. becoming the world’s first female driver to Fran Donaldson, president of the Canadian The sexual violence pandemic entered the win a major open-wheel auto race. Federation of business and Professional international radar in 2002. Since then, there “I imagine we all have dreams of being Women. have been many reports detailing gruesome the best at something,” said Patrick, 26. Women with a graduate or professional sexual atrocities committed against women “It’s a first, and firsts are always in the diploma eared 96 of their male co-workers’ and young girls. This attention has failed, history books.” salaries, while women in the apprenticeship however, to generate effective action; efforts and trades level earned just 65 cents on the to protect women and girls in the Congo are BISPHENOL male dollar. failing spectacularly. A-BOTTLES Read the report at: http://www.enough BANNED WOMEN FACE project.org/reports/congoserious . Canada has TORTURE, become the EXTERMINATION CHAREST first country to ban the use of a In March, a report on GETS IT plastic additive from products designed for rape as a weapon of Quebec Premier Jean Charest Congolese women herald children. The move mirrors a handful war in the Congo has appointed women to half of a breakthrough in peace of U.S. states that have similar laws, negotiations. recommended his cabinet positions, setting a including California. measures to protect Nathalie Canadian record for the highest Heating plastic containing bisphenol A women and girls in the country’s wartorn Normandeau proportion of female cabinet breaks down the ingredient, research has regions. ministers. The Liberal premier’s found. It is particularly, but not exclusively, Getting Serious about Ending Conflict and popularity immediately went up, polls reported. hazardous to babies. Exposure is Sexual Violence in Congo, produced for the “People seemed to regain confidence in associated with some breast and prostate organization, Enough, was written by field their elected officials with the presence of cancer, reproductive defects and premature researcher Rebecca Feeley and policy advisor women” said Nathalie Normandeau, an MNA births among animals. Colin Thomas-Jensen. It outlines how policies from the Gaspé who became deputy premier Biologist Frederick vom Saal of the under development in the eastern Democratic and retained her portfolio as minister of University of Missouri, who conducted a Republic of Congo can be linked to ongoing municipal affairs. recent study on bisphenol A called it “a peacemaking and conflict prevention efforts. And it’s not just junior posts, either. Monique poster chemical for attention deficit A recent ceasefire brokered by the Jérôme-Forget is now finance minister and hyperactivity disorder.” Dozens of studies on European Union, the United Nations, the minister responsible for government the hormone disruptor say it packs an extra African Union and the U.S. is a first step administration in addition to her responsibility punch on the developing brain and toward a comprehensive peace strategy for as president of the treasury board. reproductive systems of animals exposed to eastern Congo. However, systematic and Charest’s approval rating jumped from 32 low doses during pregnancy and early life. It widespread crimes against humanity continue percent to 49 percent, a sign taken that the is believed newborns are at a higher risk move is a popular one in the Canadian to haunt the region. Feeley, based in eastern because their cells are rapidly developing province that was the last to grant women the Congo, notes that ending the crisis in the East and they do not have high enough amounts right to vote, in 1940. will ease the suffering of women and girls. of a liver enzyme that can break it down. Congolese women and girls in particular The next step? “A woman premier,” Ms. bear the vicious brunt of this crisis. Freely notes Normandeau says. “Quebeckers are ready PRO-ANNA BILL that eastern Congo is possibly the worst place for this.” France is debating a bill to crack down on in the world to be a woman or a girl right now. websites that promote anorexic behaviour “Sexual violence and rape exist on a scale VOTE GAP and provide tips to women and girls on how seen nowhere else in the world, as it is part HURTS TORIES to starve. The groundbreaking bill, adopted and parcel of the conflict. It mutilates and On the surface, it appears as by France’s lower house, recommends fines humiliates. Its nature is brutal and vicious; it though the Liberals and of up to $71,000 and three-year prison defies both description and imagination and as Conservatives are in a dead sentences for offenders who encourage a weapon of war is causing the near total heat for Canadians’ “extreme thinness.” destruction of women, their families and their support—33 percent for Liberals, compared to

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 9 New fiction from SUMACH PRESS

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10 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS campaign updates nelliegrams Critics said the bill is too vague. If passed, the law would be the strongest of 30 percent in favour of the Conservatives. But Towards Women. its kind anywhere, fashion industry experts a closer look suggests it is women holding The law would mean that individuals said. The measure was proposed after the back the Conservatives from winning a accused of violence within a family would be 2006 anorexia-linked death of a Brazilian majority government, according to a Harris- formally notified and warned on receipt of the model. The bill’s author, parliamentarian Decima poll in March. first complaint. After a six-month period, the Valery Boyer, said she wanted to promote a Thirty-six per cent of women said they would alleged offender would be liable to nation-wide debate about women’s health back the Liberals, compared to just 26 per cent prosecution if they repeated the assault. and body image. of women who said they would support the A few shelters have been set up in At press time, France’s bill was being Tories. Overall, women are 30 percent less likely Tajikistan with international help, but women’s discussed in the senate. than men to support the Conservatives. rights groups say the government must start Young urban women are the least likely to to take responsibility. The legal age for DOVE SOARS support the Conservatives—just 16 marriage was set at 17 at the end of Dove’s “Evolution” percent—while 40 percent of young urban Tajikistan’s civil war in 1997, however, many campaign—the spot women plan to support the Liberals. Among girls are still married as young as 13. Most that used time- women over 50, a Conservative lead of 10 women remain entirely reliant on husbands release photography points at election time in 2006 has switched for financial support and there are few jobs to show how the fashion and ad industries to a 10 point lead for the Liberals. for women. (See more on women in Tajikistan distort women’s features to sell soap—won NDP support among women and men is in Herizons’ summer 2007 issue) the Grand Prix Award at the Cannes about 15, compared to about 11 percent for In the March 2008 issue of New Advertising Awards in 2007. the Green Party for both men and women. Internationalist, a mother of four from Rudaki The Canadian arm of the Dove Self- whose husband and in-laws beat her on a Esteem Fund created the viral film to REPRIEVE FOR regular basis was quoted as saying: “Death is encourage visits to Campaign for Real TAJIKISTAN better than this daily humiliation.” Beauty (www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca) WOMEN? The woman, ‘Saima,’ 31, tried to set fire to where they could learn more about the In Tajikistan, there herself in the bathroom last year, burning half resources and tools offered by the fund to are hopes that a bill of her body. Since the beginning of her 14-year improve self-esteem. The Dove Self- Women in Tajikistan seek Esteem Fund offers an in-school program, law on domestic assault. on violence against marriage, Saima has attempted to poison women will ease the herself, cut herself with broken bottles and an activity guide for girls and their female lives of the country’s women. tried to drown herself. Each time, her beatings mentors and several other online tools. Women’s groups, including the Association have escalated, according to the report by The Fund donates funds to the National for Gender Development and Preventing Sorrel Neuss and the Instititute of War and Eating Disorder Information Centre and Violence Towards Women, drafted a law 18 Peace Reporting in Tajikistan. ANEB in Quebec. months ago that would make family violence a Organizations estimated that 36 women The Dove item was a hot item on criminal offence. Local women’s organizations committed suicide within a six-month period in YouTube last year and helped further estimate that 70 percent of women in Tajikistan the country in 2006, as a direct result of international debate about women’s are abused by their husband or in-laws. Police systemic abuse. body image. refuse to intervene in ‘family matters’ as there Munira Odinaeva, a doctor who works both is no legal concept of violence within the with the Bovari Crisis Centre and at a Dushanbe FAULTY FOSAMAX family. This creates a climate of impunity hospital’s burns unit, says she frequently sees Women who take among offenders, experts say. women who have tried to burn themselves to Fosamax to reduce their The proposed new law would spell out death and ended up in her centre. future risk of osteoporosis clear prosecution procedures and establish “There are women here who have been be warned: you are at funds to set up victim support centres. driven to despair by their husbands and by their increased risk for atrial “The bill has a preventive and educational husbands’ relatives,” she said. “After trying to fibrillation, a heart condition that intention, above all,” according to Guljakhon commit suicide, many regret they’ve survived.” increases strokes. Bobosadikova of the Association for Gender The domestic assault law is to be Researchers compared more than 700 Development and Preventing Violence considered this year.  women with atrial fibrillation and found that those who had taken alendronate—the generic name for Fosamax—had an 86 percent higher risk of atrial fibrillation. The study’s author, Dr. Susan Heckbert, published the results this spring in the Archives of Internal Medicine. It’s the second drug in its class to be associated with atrial fibrillation, after zoledronic acid, or Reclast. Three million prescriptions for alendronate were dispensed in Canada last year. 

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 11 MY HEART BELONGS IN THE CAPE BY ANAT COHEN

“The first months were terribly difficult,” admits Rabinovich. “It was almost impossible to talk about AIDS openly. The villagers even tried to expel me just because I stated that HIV is prevalent in Cape Maclear.” However, CAP eventually started to win their trust. Rabinovich and her friends created study groups for different age groups. “The study groups were like master- trainer sessions. It was intended that the participants of the study group would later on become instructors themselves.” Each group discussed a variety of concepts and issues, including human rights; the causes, symptoms and prevention of HIV/AIDS; clinical manifestations of HIV/AIDS; care of the sick; positive living with HIV/AIDS; teenagers and AIDS; hygiene; and contraception. The results of the training sessions can be gauged from the example of Sofina, a former participant, who now instructs a group of 170 women about HIV/AIDS at the local church twice a month. Today, CAP organizes monthly lectures. The project has also taken on the singular responsibility of distributing condoms in the village. Every week, CAP directly distributes 5,000 condoms—donated by the district hospital—to the community, including bars and entertainment facilities. Members of the HIV/AIDS group have formed a choir and drama troupe that perform after the Sunday services. The audience is invited to take part. There, CAP workers distribute condoms and members of Irit Rabinovich went on vacation to Malawi and stayed to create an AIDS program that has trained local people to the group receive food rations. heal their community. CAP workers provide medical assistance to HIV-positive villagers by funding treatment (JERUSALEM) While on vacation after village, who began to share their problems. and organizing transport to the clinic. CAP finishing her service in the Israeli Army, Irit She learned that most of the impoverished also provides likuni pala (porridge), maize Rabinovich, 22, encountered a hungry child for women in the area were compelled to have flour, beans and vitamins to the ill. In cases the first time in her life. sex for food. And while the people of the cape where the individual can not tend their crop, She was in Cape Maclear, Malawi, a small had heard of terms such as HIV and AIDS, fishing village on Lake Malawi. A country in they also held to superstitions about the virus. CAP arranges for local farmers to help. East Africa bordered by Mozambique on its “People in Cape Maclear said that the “Today, the young look to the future and are south and east, Tanzania to its north, Zambia people were sick and dying because of the no longer reluctant to talk about AIDS. CAP to the west and the Lake Malawai along most ‘bad spirit’ and not because of HIV/AIDS,” she students have become HIV/AIDS teachers,” of its eastern border, Malawi is often referred recalls. Condoms were also suspect, with Rabinovich says. to as the ‘warm heart of Africa.’ some saying that it was invented by the Another achievement of the CAP project is The expression of a starving child overtook mazongo (white man) in order to spread the a food-for-work program. Locals who want to the pleasure of her scenic holiday and malady all across Africa. The lubricating participate are selected to conduct steered the course of Rabinovich’s life for the substance of the condom, it was said, was HIV. community work, such as construction, road next three years. In 2001, the former tourist established an renovation, lakefront cleanup, graveyard “I had to bring my holiday to an end,” she AIDS program with the support of local maintenance and teaching English. The recalls. “I stayed on to help.” supporters and funds garnered from U.K.- program participants take pride in their work In the beginning, Rabinovich fed about 30 based non-governmental organizations. The and are respected by the community. orphans, providing bread rolls and cups of tea. Chembe AIDS Project (CAP) was founded with Rabinovich has gone back to Israel but Within a month, word got out and the children the support of the government of Malawi. says that her heart lies in Cape Maclear. She coming grew to number 1,500. Most had lost With community involvement, the organization left, in part, because she didn’t want to be their mothers to AIDS. created an awareness and education seen as the woman who saved the village. Gradually, Rabinovich learned the local campaign on HIV/AIDS and provided care and They have the tools, she says, “It is now up dialect and got to know the women in the support to people with AIDS. to the villagers to use them.” 

12 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS ITALIAN WOMEN MOBILIZE FOR CHOICE BY MEGAN WILLIAMS

Women take to the streets of Rome to oppose efforts to criminalize abortion. This sign reads “Free to act, able to react.” (Photo: Megan Williams)

(ROME) Strong opposition to abortion is nothing Yet with the launch of the new anti-choice divorce rights in the 1970s, said the incident new in Italy, where the Vatican’s influence in campaign, there have been disturbing signs sent shivers down her spine. everything from politics to women’s that access is under attack. “When the anti-abortion campaign started a reproductive rights is powerfully felt. But a new In mid-February, police officers stormed a few months ago, I joked, ‘Be careful they don’t campaign launched by a right-wing journalist hospital in Naples and interrogated a woman soon start collecting wood for a bonfire, has many Italian women worried and—for the for several hours on the legality of the abortion because this is a return to the medieval.’” first time in decades—publicly angry. she had just undergone. They seized the While none of Italy’s political parties have The fresh assault on Italy’s abortion law aborted fetus. A judge issued a warrant for the officially adopted an anti-abortion platform, was launched by Giuliano Ferrara, a former woman after an anonymous phone tip claiming many political leaders have personally Communist who swung right in the 1990s to the abortion was illegal. The 39-year-old endorsed Ferrara’s position. Newly re- become Italian Prime Minister Silvio woman, 21 weeks pregnant, chose to abort elected Prime Minister Berlusconi, echoing Berlusconi’s speech writer. Ferrara, now a after amniocentesis revealed the fetus had a the Vatican’s position, said he believes the newspaper editor, began to campaign late last congenital disorder. United Nations should recognize as a human year for an international moratorium on As a result, thousands of women marched in right the right to life from “conception until abortion modelled after the campaign to end protest in major Italian cities—the first such natural death.” Ferrara, who hoped capital punishment. The Vatican immediately demonstration held in many years. While there Berlusconi’s party would adopt his campaign, backed the campaign and large posters of was a strong turnout of men and women, few formed his own anti-abortion party, which fetuses soon began appearing on billboards who hit the streets were under 40, reflecting won few votes. He continues to push the throughout Rome. the scarce political participation of young Italian women won the right to legal women in a country in the grip of older men. issue on national television, where he hosts abortion in 1978. The procedure is legal in In Rome, outgoing Health Minister Livia a national show. state hospitals until the end of the third Turco warmly greeted the protesters. In the meantime, Italian women are month of pregnancy. Italian law also permits “This is a symptom of a climate of organizing to pressure the new centre-right abortions up to the sixth month of pregnancy unacceptable tension around one of most government to address what they say is the if the fetus is determined to have certain dramatic choices a woman can make: to most urgent issue concerning abortion: the disabilities or the pregnancy poses a risk to renounce her maternity. We have arrived at the unacceptably high number of doctors who, the woman’s life. Since abortion was point of making anonymous denunciations.” under Italian law, are allowed to opt out of legalized, not only have women had access Edda Billi, the Italian president of the doing the procedure for religious reasons, to safe procedures, but the rate has dropped International Federation of Women and a thus leaving many hospitals with a chronic by 45 percent. veteran feminist who fought for abortion and shortage of doctors to perform abortions. 

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 13 WHAT IF EQUALITY RULED? BY SHARI GRAYDON

Calling themselves the Women’s Court of disadvantage—laws sometimes affect Canada, a group of feminist legal scholars and women and other marginalized groups very litigators have rewritten half a dozen Supreme differently than men. Court decisions in an effort to demonstrate the Reaume explains that a one size fits all policy capacity of the Canadian Charter of Rights to of interpreting the Charter merely “reinforces support substantive equality. and reproduces past inequalities.” The idea came out of a meeting held four The first six decisions of the Women’s Court years ago. The assembled legal experts address several cases which garnered national expressed disappointment at the failure of headlines and include rulings on taxation, Section 15 to translate into substantive equality. pensions, and social assistance, among others. Moreover, they observed that opportunities to They have been published in The Canadian put forward their perspectives were declining, Journal of Women and the Law. noting that courts frequently deny intervenor Lawyer Melina Buckley chose to rewrite status to women’s advocates who frequently the 1993 Symes v. Canada decision because make substantive equality arguments. of its “lack of acknowledgement of the public Unwilling to abandon the fight, the women good of caring for children.” In contrast to decided to stimulate debate about the the Supreme Court judgment, which capacity of Canadian laws to deliver more disallowed the deduction of child care costs equitable decisions by rewriting some key as business expenses (despite the fact that court decisions themselves. golf club memberships are an allowable Diana Majury, a law professor at Carleton deduction), Buckley’s alternate University and one of the WCC founders notes decision states that child care that “judges’ decisions at every level involve costs must be viewed as a social interpretations. The Women’s Court of Canada responsibility and one that women believes that it’s of critical importance—to incur more often than men. democracy, to equality—that those Jennifer Koshan, associate interpretations be subjected to debate.” professor in the Faculty of Law at She and her colleagues were drawn together the University of Calgary, by the adage that “Supreme Court decisions are rewrote the infamous not final because they are authoritative; they Newfoundland are authoritative because they are final.” (Treasury Board) v. “Our goal,” says Majury, “is to disrupt this NAPE judgment, in finality in the hope of opening up the dialogue which the Supreme and offering alternative, more substantive Court upheld the visions of equality.” provincial government’s They did so by observing the constraints right to renege on its pay within which Supreme Court justices work, yet equity agreement with a strove to interpret the laws in ways that more group of female workers closely considered the unique circumstances due to “fiscal crisis.” of women and other disenfranchised groups. Koshan’s alternate Denise Reaume, a law professor at the decision found that University of Toronto who wrote one of the six financial considerations decisions, confessed, “I thought it was going to should never be the sole be a breeze. It was anything but. I’ve gained reason for avoiding greater appreciation for judges’ work.” At the Charter obligations, that the same time, she says, “above all, the experience fiscal crisis wasn’t proved in reinforced for me that taking gender into any case, and that the government account makes a difference in the analysis of had reasonable options for reducing legal issues.” its deficit without violating women’s Although the exercise of rewriting the equality rights. decisions was challenging, members of the As audacious as the Women’s Court WCC say they found ample legal justification may seem, its members are building on a to support different conclusions. Their point long tradition of equality-seeking Canadian was to respectfully demonstrate that the women refusing to be deterred by court Supreme Court could have used similar judgments that reaffirmed the status quo. reasoning if it had paid closer attention to They’re proud to be following in the substantive equality principles. footsteps of the Famous Five, whose Where formal equality assumes that all tenacity in pursuing judicial alternatives led people should be treated exactly the same, substantive equality takes into consideration to Canadian women finally being declared  the fact that—for biological reasons and persons in 1929. because of the accumulated impact of social Read the decisions at www.thecourt.ca Photo: Getty Images

14 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS cole’s notes BY SUSAN G. COLE

Domestic Problems

Pity those poor feminists fighting for the rights of wife- But it became obvious that Mowatt’s testimony was designed assault survivors. They got creamed in April at the trial of to save her relationship. Chris Harbin in Toronto after a series of bizarre events that When I first heard of the case, I felt for Mowatt. She was saw his abused spouse get arrested for refusing to testify. being treated badly by both her boyfriend and the police. Here’s how it went down. Noelee Mowatt called 911 to And yet by the end, I was dismayed by the fact that she also complain that she was getting beaten up by her boyfriend. clearly wanted to go back to her abuser—who, not The police came and arrested Harbin, but then Mowatt, 19 incidentally, never smiled while she testified, never nodded or years old and pregnant, refused to take the stand against him. showed the tiniest indication that he wanted her back. The cops, under orders from the judge, promptly used the But my heart went out to those women who rallied to material warrant clause, a law designed to force witnesses to Mowatt’s support. They were tireless advocates for a woman’s testify, and threw her in jail. right not to testify. They put out press releases. They gave The case was a sensation in Toronto. In interviews interviews. They fought hard. And then they had to deal with undertaken by just about every media outlet in the city, their own upset as they listened to Mowatt’s testimony. Mowatt vowed never to call 911 again and urged other Pam Cross, a feminist lawyer working with the National women in her situation to stay away from police. Association of Women and the Law, followed the trial closely Women working in the field of violence against women were and has suggestions for how to improve the situation in wife beside themselves. How could police assault cases. She wants the material revictimize this woman? Having warrant abuse amended to exclude previously cheered law enforcement’s We need enhanced victims of domestic violence, to use new policies of zero tolerance for wife investigations that the law’s language. assault, they were astonished that those “We also need to move toward policies could backfire in such ways. don’t rely solely on the enhanced investigations that don’t Racism flared as right-wing bigots victim’s testimony. solely rely on the victim’s testimony. wrote letters to the editor advocating Police can testify after the fact. Yes, it’s that Mowatt be released from jail and shipped back to heresay, but he or she can have their own observations—of Jamaica, and by the time the actual trial rolled around, the the physical injuries or whether the house is in disarray.” hands of every feminist in town were chapped from all the Cross also calls for stiffer penalties for wife assault so hand-wringing we were doing. victims can have a chance to regroup. Mowatt wound up stepping into the witness chair and, in “In a first finding of guilt where there are no significant a barely audible voice, recanted every syllable of her original injuries, the perpetrator will be offered a discharge if he gets report to police. into a program. A long sentence gives the victim space, time She phoned 911 because she was angry at her boyfriend to think, to figure out what to do next, to make custody for throwing her out of their house. Her injuries were the arrangements, or to relocate.” result of a fall, she said. There were no problems in her In the Mowatt case, nobody wins, not even Chris relationship with Corbin and she hoped they could raise Harbin. He’s got Mowatt and the child she’s carrying on their child together. his hands, and he seems interested in neither. The future Front-line workers deal with this kind of bullshit all the for Mowatt, pregnant and desperate, seems to be either time. The “I bumped into a wall” story is classic, but this case rejection or more abuse. was particularly painful. You could interpret Mowatt’s initial And shelter workers? They get to watch another doomed refusal to testify and the testimony she wound up giving as survivor go back to more abuse. examples of a woman taking action in order to save her ass. Not fair, any of it. 

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 15

How the Media Keeps Us

HUNGon UP BODY IMAGE

BY SHARI GRAYDON

he rap sheet gets longer every year—spend five Substitute “makeover-industry culture” for “military minutes in the slow line at your local supermarket industrial complex” and you get the same “disastrous rise of T checkout and you can’t avoid being reminded of the misplaced power” Eisenhower cautioned against. And, just as heinous nature of crimes against women’s body image. America’s dedication of resources to military operations has “Janet Jackson’s shocking weight gain!” scream the grown significantly in recent decades, so has there been a headlines; “Jennifer Love-Hewitt’s butt is enormous!” and veritable explosion in the number of commercial enterprises “Posh has dimpled legs!” with a vested financial interest in ensuring that women and Fortunately, help is at hand, often within the very same girls are more at war with their bodies than ever before. publications. Not coincidentally, they promise “Foods that erase Consider that in 2008 the legion of aggressively promoted belly fat!” and “Professional trainer’s tips to get bikini-ready!” make-over solutions to remedy our failure to live up to After decades of feminist activism and enlightenment, how feminine ideals has gone far beyond mere cosmetics, exercise is it we’re still here? Strange, but true, the cautionary words regimes and diet programs. The fixes now on offer include of Dwight Eisenhower provide an instructive parallel. In liposuction, stomach stapling, anti-cellulite creams, breast, 1960, with a perceptiveness that eluded him in office, the butt, cheek and chin implants, Botox and collagen injections, outgoing U.S. president warned, “we must guard against the chemical peels, facelifts and labia surgery. acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or The list is heart-stopping—sometimes literally. At least

Illustration: Amanda Fisher unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” three prominent women have died in recent years from

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 17 complications from plastic surgery: Olivia Goldsmith, the overwhelming us instead with images of how they ought to American fiction writer who penned The First Wives Club; look. The result is that, compared to our sisters of a generation Micheline Charest, a prominent Quebec communications ago, women today have an unprecedented number of executive; and Donda West, the mother of popular hip hop opportunities to judge themselves against a select and artist Kanye West. No doubt others have, too.They just haven’t genetically freakish few. made headlines, because without the celebrity connection the It’s true that Twiggy inspired some serious dieting news would be merely tragic, as opposed to titillating. behaviour in her day. But the iconic waif was neither Given the advent of size-zero fashions, and, with television ubiquitous nor replicated by dozens of high-profile imitators. series such as Extreme Makeover and The Swan promoting Today, in contrast, stars like Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Ritchie, surgery as a means of achieving the impossible, such deaths Paris Hilton, Misha Barton and Kate Olson are regularly aren’t surprising. But when even the teenagers and twenty- celebrated and condemned alike for what, in a neonatal ward, somethings actually blessed with skinny genes are collapsing would be termed “failure to thrive.” In fact, the voracious from starvation on fashion runways, the damage being caused tabloids have ensured that their performances on the by the cultural normalization of “extreme” is undeniable. consumption stage (eat normally or walk the red carpet with In search of a contemporary trend to feel good about, it was pride—you decide) have largely eclipsed whatever artistic tempting last year to celebrate the fact that fashion shows in talents originally made them famous. Milan and Madrid imposed a minimum body mass index Yesteryear’s magazine racks sported exponentially fewer (height/weight fat ratio) on the female models they hired. publications devoted to fame voyeurism and advising women The British Fashion Council declined to establish a on the finer points of dressing up, dressing down or sculpting minimum BMI, but announced that it recognized its our bodies in pursuit of a profile that we’d be happy to avoid “responsibility” and had asked its dressing altogether. Cosmo and Vogue designers to use only “healthy” are now buried under a deluge of models aged 16 or older. The body parts on other fashion and “fitness” magazines, Unfortunately, all these industry while a host of new titles supplement responses were belated reactions to display have become the print lessons available to male the public outrage that greeted two less and less realistic. readers regarding what’s “desirable” highly publicized deaths. In August and “ideal” when it comes to the sizes 2006, Uruguayan model Luisel and shapes of women’s body parts. Ramos starved herself for her career and was rewarded with Furthermore, the body parts on display have become less heart failure that killed her at the age of 22. Three months and less realistic. In addition to the ubiquitous presence of later, her 21-year-old Brazilian colleague Ana Carolina breast implants, increasingly sophisticated Photoshop Reston also died of complications resulting from anorexia. technology now permits an unprecedented degree of The French have always claimed one must suffer to be artificiality in application to hips, thighs, waists, arms and beautiful, but you’re forgiven for believing that obscenely necks. We are reminded of this only occasionally, when premature death may actually defeat the purpose. Insisting someone like Kate Winslett has the temerity to question the that models conform to a minimum body mass index is also aggressive airbrushing that some magazine has used to not a progressive solution. transform her body into an unrecognizable mannequin. Merryl Bear, director of the National Eating Disorder Meanwhile, models themselves are becoming smaller, even Information Centre, calls the move “completely disingenuous. as real women grow larger. Analyses of the body sizes of The fashion industry has downloaded responsibility to the Playboy centrefolds and Miss America contestants over the very people who have the least power,” she says. “Models are years have demonstrated diminishing trends in both cases. at the bottom of the food chain.” Pageant winners have become significantly slimmer and less At the top are the designers, photographers and editors curvaceous, and almost all of the contemporary centrefolds who continue to deny the political context altogether, assessed in a 1999 study were considered underweight in the maintaining that their preferred slim physiques are merely an context of Canadian guidelines. Close to a third met the aesthetic choice, fuelled by the perception that clothes drape World Health Organization’s BMI criteria for anorexia. better on bodies that resemble wire coat hangers. It may be small consolation to know that our depth of Unfortunately, that aesthetic has helped to drive a understanding about the impact of these images on our multibillion-dollar industry that thrives by distracting emotional, psychological and physical health has improved. women away from a focus on what our bodies do, Dozens of peer-reviewed academic studies now document

18 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS the degree of dissatisfaction women and girls experience company Unilever also markets products like SlimFast and with themselves after exposure to unrealistically thin and Fair and Lovely, a skin-whitening agent.) beautiful female models and actors. Indeed, the more time And yet the explosion of alternative media sources—this we spend immersed in contemporary media, the more likely magazine among them—does give us some options. In 2008, we are to obsess about our appearance or develop disordered it is possible for individuals to avoid mainstream magazines eating behaviour. and TV shows that perpetuate body image trauma while Quantifying the incidence of eating disorders remains a offering news and entertainment. In the process of challenge, says Bear, in part because of differing definitions supporting feminist media producers and promoting the and the dependency of researchers on self-identification. analysis found there, we can also shore up our own resistance Some studies suggest that the rates of anorexia stabilized in to the images’ impact when we are exposed. the 1980s, while those of bulimia continue to increase. The Media literacy programs in schools provide similar affected population is also changing: Many women in midlife protection for young people. Teaching critical thinking in who previously had no history of disordered eating now application to how media industries work—how media appear to be developing problems. images are constructed and why—nurtures kids’ skepticism Media images are never a sufficient condition, of course; and gives them some capacity to challenge the implicit and many other factors contribute. But it’s impossible to deny explicit claims made. their reach. Recent research published in the Canadian Changing the pictures themselves is much more difficult. We Medical Association Journal found can hope the resonance achieved by that close to one in three pre- the Dove campaign signals that the adolescent girls is trying to lose In the process of supporting pendulum has swung as far into weight and one in 10 shows artifice as it can and is now poised symptoms of an eating disorder. feminist media producers to drift back into the authenticity Among younger women and and promoting the analysis zone. Or we can help it along by girls, says Bear, eating disorders mobilizing our networks to deliver have the highest mortality rates of found there, we can also messages about consumer all psychiatric disorders. Girls shore up our own resistance dissatisfaction to the people and affected are 12 times more likely companies, responsible for the to die than those who are not, she to the images’ impact when creation and dissemination of says, and disordered eating has we are exposed. unhealthy, destructive images. become the third most chronic We know this is important, illness in adolescence. though few of us actually take the Nor should we be encouraged by the migration of young time to do it. But as MediaWatch discovered in the 1990s, media consumers away from print and TV sources and onto it’s actually not enough to boycott retrograde companies or the Internet. The vast storehouses of pornography available even to enroll our friends in joining the fight. We actually on the Net reinforce equally distorted visions, not just of have to let the manufacturers, advertisers, publishers and women’s bodies but of how they “desire” to be “used.” And so programmers know that they’re losing business by behaving far the self-posted images of a new generation of young in unethical and destructive ways. In the process, we might women who use social networking sites to become media inform them of recent British research finding that skinny creators as well as consumers suggest the commercial models aren’t any more effective at selling products than landscape’s dominant trends are being replicated more often regular-sized women, and encourage them to capitalize on than they’re challenged. the real-women trend spearheaded by Dove. What can we do in response? The tactics may seem laughably inadequate to the task of On a macro scale, the challenge is as fraught today as it toppling the mammoth make-over industry culture, but at ever was. We’re up against individual plastic surgeons and very least, by engaging in such manoeuvres, we’ll be directing multinational corporations alike, all of whom have a vested our firepower at the real enemy, and away from our own interest in continuing to feed the commodification of perfect reflections in the mirror.  insecurity. Even the makers of Dove, which won the Shari Graydon is the author of In Your Face—The Culture of customer loyalty of millions of women for using images of Beauty and You and a director of the recently revived and diverse non-models, remains part of the problem. (Reflecting renamed Media Action. (See www.media-action-media.com and the cynical self-interest of the industry at large, its parent www.sharigraydon.com .)

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 19 JANE

RULESBY JOANNE BEALY

Photo: Nathaniel Christopher

ane Rule was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on March feature film, Desert Hearts, directed by Donna Deitch), Rule 28, 1931. After spending time in England, she moved to is the author of 11 other books, including This Is Not For You, J Canada in 1956 to teach at the University of British Against the Season,Theme for Diverse Instruments,The Young In Columbia. Rule and her long-time partner, Helen Sonthoff, One Another’s Arms, Contract With The World, Outlander bought a house on Galiano Island as a weekend getaway in (stories and essays), Inland Passage, Memory Board, After the the 1970s, fell in love with it and never left. It has been said Fire, Lesbian Images and A Hot-Eyed Moderate. A new book of that every child on Galiano learned to swim at Helen and essays was published this spring. Jane’s pool. Joanne Bealy interviewed Jane Rule at her home on Galiano While Desert of the Heart, Jane Rule’s first published novel, Island 17 months before Rule’s death on November 28, 2007, as a may still be her most well known (in 1986 it was made into a result of complications of liver cancer. 20 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS HERIZONS: Talk a bit, if you would, about what you think are on me. And suddenly that ownership comes in and wrecks the most important things about a relationship. what has been an apparently good relationship—until that JANE RULE: It seems to me that the best model we have for particular emotional plane kicks in, and then it’s destructive. love, though it doesn’t happen all that often, is the love of a You’ve said you’re not going to write anymore. I’m curious about parent for a child. A friend of mine once asked my mother, the imagination that you might have funnelled into your “When do you start letting your children go?” She said, stories—what do you do with that now? “When they’re born.” JANE RULE: I think fiction writing—at least for me—is a I think that any relationship that’s a good one is based— habit, and if you don’t use it all the time, it doesn’t stay there. for both people—on their freedom to be who they are. I’m Short story ideas don’t occur to me. Novel ideas don’t occur always sorry that people talk about relationships that don’t to me any longer. You really do have to court them and last a lifetime as a failure, because they’re often not. They are, nourish them, encourage them in order to have them happen. for the time that they exist, nurturing, nourishing, growing I had had the chance, as many people don’t, to write all my for both people. Then they go in different directions. And if adult life. And I’d really said most of what I’d had to say, and there’s real love involved, though it’s hard and there’s pain, things that were occurring to me seemed awfully close to you let go if you really care about the other person’s well- what I’d already written. Writing is very hard work, and I being. And if you care about your own, you take the think it’s okay to be in love with your favourite stories and responsibility of being independent. retell them to your friends, but I don’t think you really ought I also think that a relationship based on sexual fidelity is to bore your public with being repetitious. Get on and shut silly. I don’t have anything against sexual fidelity, but I think up. (laughs) using that as a basis for a relationship, rather than really caring about the other person and supporting that other You’ve also been known as a very important activist. Do you see person, doesn’t work. To say I love you so much I forsake writing and activism as being connected? everyone else seems, to me, untrue. Making sexuality the one JANE RULE: I think of political activism as much more commitment that you give to the other person seems archaic connected to essay writing. I don’t think of my fiction as and goes back to men owning political, or propaganda, or on the women and wanting to know that side of any one particular viewer. I their children are their own. I don’t think of my fiction might write about characters whose views don’t correspond with mine You and Helen were in a long-term as political, or propaganda, or even agree with mine, because relationship…. I’m interested in other points of JANE RULE: 45 years. or on the side of any one particular viewer. view and other ways of living. How did you deal with any You took an incredible amount of flak difficulties that arose between you? for Desert of the Heart, and I JANE RULE: We agreed to disagree on some pretty basic wonder how that affected your writing and how you got through things. I can remember a couple of little kids, five and six it at the time. years old, sitting at the pool one day while Helen was JANE RULE: I didn’t know what to expect because we were gardening. Both of them were having troubles at home, both still—at that time, in 1964—illegal. We could have been their parents were fighting, and one of them asked Helen, jailed for five years for living together. It didn’t surprise me “Do you and Jane fight?” Helen said, “Not very often.” She that people were upset about the subject matter of the book. explained that we’d known each other so long that we knew I was writing about a relationship that was against the law, where we disagreed, and that there wasn’t really much point which is hard to remember now, but there it is. That law in fighting. We knew where we differed, and we just had to didn’t change until 1968 and the book had been out for four agree that we couldn’t change each other on that and that years already. there was no need to. So everybody was very circumspect and defensive, and I It’s a mature stance that many people find hard to get to. think so many different things happened after the book. I got JANE RULE: I think that’s partly because of marriage. The a huge amount of fan mail, which I didn’t expect. I thought image of marriage and forsaking all others to become one is movie stars got fan mail. People were writing things like, just a ghastly concept. All the time we see people who live “You are the only person in the world who could possibly together decide to get married, and the next thing you know understand who I am, how I feel. If I’m not able to talk to they’ve separated. Because suddenly you are my husband, you someone I’m going to kill myself.” can’t do that because that embarrasses me in public. Or you Well, I was used to relating to the world as a teacher. If I are my wife, and therefore you can’t do that because it reflects had a student in trouble that I couldn’t help, I had all sorts of HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 21 people that I could call. Suddenly, I was getting cries of help and they all adored her when I finally sat down and wrote my from all over the world about which I could do nothing. I parents a letter. This was right before Desert of the Heart came could answer the letter and be sympathetic, but it just felt to out and I knew they would have to be able to deal with any me overwhelming and depressing that there was so much fear flak from it. and so much self-hatred and so much loneliness. So there’s I had a letter back from each of them and they both said that aspect of it, which was a surprise to me. I don’t suppose they cried all day long for what they must have done to me I was terribly surprised with the outraged reviews. for all those years of being so stupid. They apologized for all the casual remarks they’d made, all the gay jokes they’d It didn’t stop you. You kept writing, kept living your life. cracked, all the prejudice and ignorance they’d spewed out— JANE RULE: Oh, yes. The other thing that happened in and they had, it was their culture. But they became gay our personal life was that the few gay friends we had were advocates in their later years. the ones that dropped us because they didn’t want to be I thought it was an extraordinary response. guilty by association. That did shock me. It felt like a betrayal. And our straight friends defended me by saying What do you think now, looking back and seeing where we are today writers of murder mysteries are not necessarily murderers. So as a community? there was this odd denial, fear. People who wanted to protect JANE RULE: One of the interesting things is to have a gay us protected us in precisely the wrong niece and to watch her process of way. Instead of defending our right to coming out in a family that couldn’t be be who we were, they said we weren’t. better prepared for it. Her mother had a It was a confusing time. hard time dealing with it, but my parents, her grandparents, didn’t. They We take so much for granted today. were fine. But what she expected of Listening to you now, you seemed fearless. them just took my breath away. She was Did you see yourself as fearless? furious that her parents were reluctant to JANE RULE: You have to realize that walk in the gay parade, and I said to her, I had written for 10 years without “I don’t even walk in the gay parade. having anything published because I Give your parents a break.” But it was was preparing to write just exactly what wonderful to see how empowered and I wanted to write and not try to suit my expecting she was, when something like fiction to a particular magazine style. I that would never have occurred to me in believed that if I learned to do this well my time. I thought it was a miracle that enough, finally someone would have to my parents didn’t disown me. publish it because it’s so good, not because it’s saying what they wanted to I know you watch The L-Word with hear. And when I finished Desert of the your niece. What do you think of it? Heart, which was my fourth novel, I JANE RULE: I think it’s a very good suddenly thought, “This is good The film, Desert Hearts, based on Rule’s classic show. I think they deal with a lot of enough to publish.” Desert of the Heart, was directed by Donna Dietch. issues quite interestingly. Sometimes And I felt some panic because I was so they’re oversimplified because of the used to writing without any sense of audience or any sense of medium, but often I think they raise issues and deal with reaction. I look back on that and it seemed discouraging at the them with a fair amount of sophistication. I think it’s a time, but in fact it was a blessing because I learned to pay no marvelous program. attention to the world and to do exactly what I needed to do What books have given you sustenance over the years? without a sense of that outer critic voice. My inner critic voice JANE RULE: A hundred thousand books. In the last years of had to be silenced sometimes, but at least I didn’t have that Helen’s life, when her eyes were going, I read to her aloud every outer world constantly impinging on what I was doing. By the night we didn’t have visitors for about three hours after dinner. time I knew it was going to be published I knew there was We read a lot of contemporary books, but one of the things we going to be trouble. enjoyed was going back to what I call the “dead white males” You must have had a lot of love growing up to have the kind of who actually wrote to be read aloud. We read almost all of confidence required to step forward like that and to keep going. Dickens, and I didn’t even particularly like Dickens until I JANE RULE: Certainly my parents were very innocent, started reading him aloud. Trollope I adored, and we read all of ignorant people who had no notion of what homosexuality Trollope. I also spent a lot of time reading Canadian books, was. I had been living with Helen for years before I ever dealt initially because I was called upon to judge contests. with my parents about it. She was a member of the family I feel nourished, and more companioned by books than I

22 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS feel led by them or guided by them. I feel an enormously deep near you to have to live that kind of blinkered [existence], and companionship with writers like Margaret Laurence, one of the lovely things about giving up writing is that I get the Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Audrey Thomas. But they world instead. I can spend my time with children at the feel to me like companions rather than mentors. I don’t think swimming pool, and read to people who are losing their sight, I had any mentors when I was beginning to write because and be available to people who are in trouble. there wasn’t anybody I knew saying the things I wanted to I have a small building and loans business that I run on the say. I didn’t discover people like Willa Cather until I island and it keeps me in touch with all the young people graduated from college. Gertrude Stein was never taught in who are trying to figure out how to buy trucks or start college. At the time when I was forming myself as a writer, I businesses. If you talk about money, you talk about all sorts of suppose that the writers who mattered most to me were other things as well. And I’m there. The imagination I used Shakespeare and some of the poets. Auden was very to give to my characters I can now give to my friends. important to me. Yeats was very important to me. Didn’t Helen do some writing as well, as part of her academic life? How did you start writing? Did you just know you wanted JANE RULE: She did very good reviews, but she was to write? primarily a teacher. That’s what mattered to her. A wonderful JANE RULE: Yes. I was in my teens and thought that people reader of poems. And she would be willing to review weren’t really saying how they felt or talking about anything Canadian works that none of the academics would touch that mattered. I wanted to tell the truth, which is an arrogant because there wasn’t a body of critical work to tell them and very young notion. So it wasn’t for any great literary whether or not it was good. Helen had no qualms if the work ambition that I wrote. It was for moral reasons. was interesting to her. She wrote some of the first stuff on Ethel Wilson, on Phyllis Webb. But it was not her main Advice or words of wisdom for the youth coming up today? concern. Her main concern was teaching kids how to read a JANE RULE: I always tell my students poem without feeling intimidated by it. who want to be writers, if you’re stupid Other things, too, but she was enough to want to be a writer, be very absolutely spectacular at poetry. smart about everything else. Figure out an economic way to do it. For me it was She would understand the life of a writer. teaching. I was able to teach every other JANE RULE: Yes. year at UBC and write every other year Was it a big decision to move to Canada, from the time I was in my mid-20s, and then after that to a rural community which was a wonderful arrangement. It here on Galiano? gave me a contact with the world so I JANE RULE: Helen and I met in wasn’t too isolated, and gave me enough Concord, Massachusetts, and if money to pay my share of the bills. Screen capture from Fiction and Other Truths: A Film about Jane Rule, Great Jane Productions. somebody had said to us you’re going to What would you say you are most and end your life on a little island off the least proud of? West Coast of British Columbia, Canada, we couldn’t JANE RULE: In writing? possibly have imagined it. I didn’t even like islands. I thought they were isolated and terrible. When we bought this house, Any way you want to read it. In your writing world, your activist we didn’t intend to live here. This was our place to escape. We world, personal world. Anything you regret? found we liked escaping so much we stayed escaped. And I’ve JANE RULE: Oh well, one regret, that’s what you spend been here now for 30 years. your old age doing… . (long silence) I think that the requirement of time to be a practising artist So, no big transition, just a natural occurrence? is enormous and you have to protect your time in order to get JANE RULE: Yes. Life in Vancouver had just gotten too the work done, and that means being a less good friend, a less demanding. We were out four and five days a week with show good social human being than you often would have liked to openings and play openings. It was all fun but it was just too be because you really do have to shut the door to everything. much, so we decided we needed a place to get away. We spent One of the things that was very useful to me in Vancouver nearly every weekend here once we got the place. And then was that a lot of our friends were also artists and somebody Helen took a year’s leave and we came over here and lived for would say, “I’m not going to see you for the next six months a year and liked it so well. And it was very good for my because I’m working on a show,” and that was perfectly okay. writing, so we stayed. You were not frowned upon. I would say, “I’m disappearing I had originally come to Canada to help a friend find an into a novel, I’ll see you next year.” apartment. I had a year off to write, had saved enough money But it is hard on friendships, nonetheless. It’s hard on people to do it, came to Vancouver, and I thought this is the most

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24 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS beautiful spot I’d ever seen in my life. I just couldn’t believe that because I couldn’t talk with anybody about it. It was idiotic. that it existed. I thought I’ll spend the winter here and I did. I knew it was a six-year-old response, not a 60-year-old one. Helen was still married when I met her. So I had left her and, To try to figure out what it was, finally three years after my in the middle of that winter in Vancouver, I phoned her and father died, I wrote an essay called “I Want to Speak Ill of the said, “You know I think we’re both crazy. I think we should Dead.” It was the first time that I was really confronting the come here.” And so she did, for a holiday, a 45-year holiday. fact that I was mortal. That was part of it. It was Helen who said we’ve got to become Canadian You told a story earlier today about a young child who came up to citizens. She was much more political than I, and it really you, looked you straight in the eyes and said, “Your partner died.” bugged her not to be able to vote. And she said if we’re going I think there’s some of that we adults need to get back to, whether to stay here we’re going to have to start participating in the it’s a six-year-old response or not. whole system. And I agreed with her. It wasn’t as high up on JANE RULE: It’s a great relief to have someone the agenda for me as it was for her. But the only trouble she acknowledge that this is a huge part of who you are. I can had was she thought her mother would have a fit because her remember for two years after Helen died, I couldn’t imagine mother was an American patriot. Her mother died and she got her citizenship right after that. For me, my great- why anyone came here. There was nobody here. And people grandparents came from Canada on one side, so my mother would say, “I can feel Helen everywhere.” I can feel her said, “Well, you’re going home.” nowhere. And you know, that’s not the polite thing to say. People are thinking they’re comforting you. There’s just this Is there anything you want to add? Anything you would ask vast emptiness in your life and you have to learn to deal with yourself if you were interviewing yourself? that. Everybody does. It’s very common. But it’s not JANE RULE: There are things that still occur to me that I something we talk about. want to say, and that’s why I write essays. But they’re almost And we don’t have permission to deal with it. My mother always in response to a particular circumstance, like gay said, from the time we were young, “Grief is self-pity; get marriage or Canadian writers, over it.” Of course she grew up about which I just wrote an going to funerals for a lot of people article. Our top writers in Canada People would say, “I can that everybody hated with are women and almost all of them feel Helen everywhere.” I everyone being pious and phony. are mothers. This is a very Neither of my parents allowed any extraordinary thing when you can feel her nowhere. And kind of funeral, any kind of burial, think of the great women writers you know, that’s not the any kind of marking of where their of the past—very few of them polite thing to say. ashes were—nothing. had children. I talked about what So when Helen died and the it was like for them compared to island wanted a memorial service, I what it was like for me. Constant condescension and put- thought, “I can’t cope with this.” But I knew I didn’t own her downs, and then all of the pressure on them because writing and the island needed to say goodbye. It was a wonderful doesn’t pay money and in fact they would have to pay experience. money to have their kids looked after while they wrote. That they persevered and became internationally known Did you participate? and beloved writers changed the climate of fiction. [ Jane JANE RULE: I went. I didn’t speak. And it was just Rule’s “Tribute to Literary Mothers” was published in the extraordinary. I had thought, endure, just get through it, the Spring 2006 issue of Herizons.] island has to do it. It was nothing that I was needing or Sometimes I’ll write a personal essay because I’m trying to wanting. And my niece said she didn’t know that she could bear figure out what I think and feel about something. One of the it, either, so I said, “We’ve done a hell of a lot of hard things for issues for me is dealing with grief. I’ve tried to write something Helen in the last weeks, and this is one that we’ll get through.” about that because people talk very conventionally about grief, And it turned out to be amazing for both of us. It was like if they talk at all. They don’t deal with the amount of anger bringing Helen home. After all those weeks in the hospital, about it, they don’t deal with the sense of isolation. I feel as if by with all of those hostile, angry, stupid nurses, Helen was now—I’m almost seven years into [losing Helen]—I’m home again with the people who loved her and took delight beginning to get the hang of it. I think for each person it’s in her. Twelve-year-olds spoke, asked to speak. It was just different, but for someone to be free to say, “I feel so angry to extraordinary. have been left like this,” that’s not something you say. I That’s what family is. remember when my father died I was just outraged. He was my JANE RULE: Yes, yes. father, he had no right to do that. And when you get to be in your 60s and haven’t lost a parent, you begin to think you’re Do you still speak with Helen? going to get away with it. It took me three years to deal with JANE RULE: No. She’s not there.  HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 25 Join the Growing Community of

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here was no point in trying to salvage my waxing pot—I pulled out the garbage bag that contained T my wax pot—honey wax for the purpose of hair removal. No woman should be without her waxing kit while journeying to the Yukon Territory on her motorcycle. Or so I thought. I hadn’t considered the intense heat and its effects upon wax when I packed the pot into the right saddlebag of my Harley. The heat from my mufflers, paired with the kilometres since leaving Northern Ontario, created one sticky mess, luckily confined to the double bag I had used to pack the darn thing away. The black flies were atrocious. As I threw the pot and its melted-all-over contents into the campground garbage, I reasoned away the financial loss with the fact that the hair on my legs would at least be a minor barrier to the insects that were trying to have lunch: me. I thanked God for the three cans of bug repellant I had packed alongside my melted taffy-pull.

28 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS Tammy Overman, 48, from New Mexico, rides her 2006 Wild West Dragoon to charitable poker runs and attends events held by the local Sundance Ironriders Motorcycle Club. (Photo: Sandra McKinney) Mary Meyer, 53, a legal assistant, is pictured astride her 1983 650 Yamaha Maxim. (Photo: Elizabeth Bokfi)

Elizabeth Bokfi, 41, pictured beside her 1997 Harley Davidson Dyna Superglide at the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan, no longer carries bikini wax on her bike tours. Thankfully, the days were getting longer the further north I travelled, making it easier to see past the dust that collected regularly on my sunglasses. Once past Dawson Creek, British Columbia, I began to notice changes—at first, during campfire respites, just a few extra stars. Eventually, the heavens at night treated me to a wondrous shimmering dance, between lengthening intervals of midnight sun. The air I breathed seemed cleaner. The landscape had gradually turned wilder— punctuated by increasingly regular sightings of bears. My relationship with the motorcycle has seen us criss- cross the North American map many times. I’ve had the great fortune of meeting and riding with other women sharing the same passion for our iron horse partners. When I first began riding in the early ’80s, the sight of a female motorcyclist was a rare one. Over the course of 26 years I’ve gone from lone female rider to joined female rider. Increasingly, women are choosing to vacation by motorcycle, many with like-minded chromosome-XX riders. Of course the trend has not gone unnoticed by manufacturers. In an effort to fuel the female motorcycle market, in 2006 Harley Davidson launched its “garage party” concept—a women-only themed open house geared towards women’s riding interests. In a non-intimidating environment, women were shown motorcycle controls basics, informed how to choose proper riding gear, and given the opportunity to connect with other women already living the motorcycle lifestyle. Chics N’ Chaps, Chrome Divas and Cycle Sisters are just a few of the women’s motorcycle clubs that have surfaced. With national sales of motorcycles to women sitting at close to 30 per cent and growing, it’s apparent that women are not shying away from the once male-dominated mode of transport and recreation. Rising enrollment in Canada’s national motorcycle training program, Gearing Up, also directly reflects their increased interest in the sport of motorcycling. In fact, Greg Dueck, director of operations for Safety Services Manitoba, says women make up 40 percent of motorcycle training program enrollees. “It has increased steadily over the past two to three years,” he says, “about five per cent per year.” Most are between 20 and 35 and are looking for a commute-to-work bike or short cruises.

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32 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS Madeleine Caovette, 54, pictured on her 1985 Suzuki Intruder has been riding 10 years. A nurse's aide, she rides to work and participates in charitable bike runs. Photo: Elizabeth Bokfi

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34 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS body politic BY MARIKO TAMAKI

The Fame Game

It is pretty much a given that if there is a radio, television about that!” The next day, for my trouble, I developed a minor or film personality within a two-kilometre radius, my bladder infection. Reeves went on to make Little Buddha. mother will both run into that celebrity and have Coincidence? something of note to say to them. It’s been happening my As a jaded cynic, I want to scoff at people like my mother, whole life. One minute we’re at Swiss Chalet having our encyclopedias of media trivia, well-oiled cogs in the machine quarter-chicken dinners, the next thing I know my mom’s of celebrity. But at the same time, I admit that there’s standing by the cash register chatting with the new weather something cool about her off-hand and yet intensely open reporter at Global. and cheerful approach to talking with the famous. I mean, “How are you finding it over there? You getting along with yes, she puts them in a category of “famous,” therefore worth the new anchor?” She always has some tidbit of 411 about talking to, which may or may not be true. But at the same their life to bring up in conversation, which somehow time she is completely unintimidated. manages to give the impression that my mother is not a I, on the other hand, am probably what you would describe stalker, but just incredibly well informed. It’s almost as as easily awestuck. Too easily awestruck. Even when I do spot though my mother is some sort of ambassador for the not so television personalities, activists or writers of note on the famous, and her job is to stay in cordial communication with street—people I might actually have something to say to and the people who make their living onscreen. who likely have something interesting to say in response—I My own history with celebrities is both shorter and less avoid them, or just stare at them from a distance. I can’t shake comfortable. Of the limited encounters I’ve had with the nagging fear that if I were to approach said famous prominent people, nearly all have been fraught with nervous person, whatever I have to say would be … lame. And lame, tension. Case in point: I once sat next to Keanu Reeves for I think, is the last thing one would want to be in front of two hours at a table in an Italian restaurant filled with someone like, say, Margaret Atwood or even that guy, what’s giggling 14-year-old girls (Reeves’ sister was the director of a his name, from Saturday Night Live. play I was working on, and after opening night Reeves took But really, what’s the harm? Why fear the people we the company out for dinner). For the entire three-course meal admire? Or, for that matter, why put them in a high place that I sat glued, awkwardly, to my chair. I adamantly refused to get lame-ness cannot or should not touch in the first place? up and go to the bathroom, knowing that should I vacate my Clearly, as the tabloids are happy to point out, lame-ness is all seat, Renata, the lead in the play, would steal my coveted spot over the celebrity world. And here’s another idea: Why not next to Reeves. just treat everyone with the happy reverence my mother has Not that I was taking the opportunity to actually DO or for those who have a high to medium chance of appearing on SAY anything. Instead, I spent the evening combing my Entertainment Tonight Canada? brain to think of something less than ridiculous to say. In the Like the (I’m assuming) non-celebrity man I saw last week end, all I could come up with was, “My Own Private Idaho who got up and gave his seat to the mother and her two-year- was a great movie.” I’m not even sure he heard me. old on the Toronto bus the other day. What’s to stop me from When I got home, clutching his discarded napkin (which approaching him and telling him how much a fan of his work I’ve since lost), my mother said I should have asked him I am. Maybe I could also ask him if he thought My Own about his sister, who is a horse breeder. Private Idaho was a good movie. My mother is fonder of “You ride horses,” she said. “You could have talked to him Speed, but that, I think, is a whole different story. 

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 35 ashion STATE A FEMINIST EMBRACES HER OWN STYLE

BY JOY PARKS

I’m Joy and I’m a clothes horse. (Hello Joy.) Hi. Before you deem me insensitive for mocking the positive change brought about by 12-step programs, hear me out. Growing up and coming out in the middle of the second wave of feminism, my love of fashion has been as much a shameful secret as any addiction. I have hidden my passion for cashmere (preferably vintage) in the same way others have hidden a mickey of gin in their desks, f and my attraction to really cute handbags has required the same level of secrecy as a chronic gambler’s obsession with the ponies. As feminists, we’ve had the benefit of studies that emphasize the blows to body image and self-esteem dealt to women daily via advertising and fashion magazines. There is the (now) mostly unspoken but solidly entrenched directive that looks shouldn’t matter. To be concerned about what we wear, how we look, is thought to be trivial, something the patriarchy has used against us, the thing that divides us, a badge of small thinking and self-involvement. If you’re a feminist, fashion shouldn’t matter—an implication that at times has made me feel as out of place in radical politics as white shoes after Labour Day. 36 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS MENT

Photo: Joshua Sheldon/Photonica

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 37 On my way to feminist or lesbian events, I used to slip into the bathroom in the subway and change out of my work clothes, my skirts and heels and pantyhose.

Like many of my butch lesbian friends, I raided my father’s me a valuable member of the movement, a model of defiance, side of the closet—but with totally different results. I even. But the theory hasn’t always fit the practice and the remember a particularly passionate relationship with a grey disconnect has been palpable. Coming out as a lesbian in the Swedish cable-knit sweater that I wore with black tights and 1970s, I rebelled against the clothes that were supposed to be a belt, making it into a great slouchy mini dress I wore to my part of my rebellion as a feminist and a lesbian—the baggy, small-town high school. Looked great with my grandfather’s fatigue-like trousers, the flannel and the turtlenecks that discarded fedoras, which I wore at a rakish angle. chaffed me, the boxy boots that made my feet hurt. “The This is why I wept when I read It’s So You, edited by personal is political” is noble in theory, but I hated that the Michelle Tea. This book was as much of a treasure as the application seemed to mean ugly shoes were good, but lip (totally brand new and still in the original bag) Hardy Amies gloss was inherently evil. sweater (he dresses The Queen!) I found at Value Village for On my way to feminist or lesbian events, I used to slip into $6.95. In this enlightened volume, 35 women, several of the bathroom in the subway and change out of my work them authors or politicos who are taken quite seriously by the clothes, my skirts and heels and pantyhose. I’d wash the feminist and other progressive movements—Felicia Luna makeup off my face. I’d put on the uniform, in order to be Lemus, Ali Liebegott, Diane Di Prima, Jewelle Gomez acceptable to the women I was meeting to discuss our fight Eileen Myers—write about their own relationships with for the freedom to live as they (and, by extension, I) chose. fashion and style. Each of them, to some degree (including The irony didn’t set in for years, but now I realize that not the editor, whose kooky devil-may-care femme fashion sense wearing what I wanted, dressing in a way that made me more I’ve always loved) acknowledge that writing, nay even acceptable to my sisters, was a greater concession than I’ve thinking, about this subject is fraught with risk. The ever given the mores of the patriarchy. underlying message of the anthology is a joyous chorus that I remember when the very radical editor of a West Coast fashion is self-expression, fashion is identity, fashion is women’s paper and her lover showed up a day early at my feminist. Learning that I’m not alone in this was as freeing as apartment in Toronto, my panic at trying to hide my bubble the first spring day without pantyhose. bath and makeup, get rid of the lacy peignoir set hanging This rush of freedom touched off an examination of my behind my bedroom door. I was so afraid of being found out. own fairly severe case of Feminist Fear of Fashion Syndrome. The beauty of so many of the essays in It’s So You is that it’s My love of clothes, my determination to express myself in obvious that this is the first time many of these writers have what I wear, has been one of the few consistencies in my life. had the opportunity to write about their own sense of style. It has been my rebellion and my refuge, my expression and Or lack thereof. It was their first chance to think about how my entertainment, and when I finally came to understand my the things they chose to put on their bodies reflect who they particular flavour of lesbianism, I realized that it was a are, how they feel and the kinds of things they want to legitimate part of my sexual identity. (I have given up express. More often than not, these essays are smart and sassy explaining that “femme” isn’t about clothes or makeup, and rebellious. They depict how so many of these (mostly) because I found I couldn’t talk about it without talking about young, talented, creative, politically aware women have no clothes or makeup. Or shoes.) It has also been the one thing desire to adhere to any sort of commercialized Vogue-inspired that has always kept me on the fringes of feminism, the mainstream fashion sensibility, but do luxuriate in finding nagging feeling that I couldn’t bring my whole self to a and wearing the things that make them feel good about movement that openly criticized something that was themselves. Sounds oddly like a feminist ideal. But the real genuinely important to me. lesson was, since we know clothes really don’t matter, why The things that originally attracted me to feminism, as I would anyone care what we wear? So equally, to hell with the understood it in my naive youth, are the same elements that fashion industry, and also to hell with anyone and any influence what I wear. I’ve always been a rebel, a fan of political movement that wants to prescribe our choice and freedom, of making my own choices. That should have made behaviour at any level.

38 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS In university, there were all those little (mostly black) that made me look like the ringleader in a femme street gang. cocktail dresses I assigned to the newly minted credit card my Life felt exciting again, new and lusty. I was in bloom. parents had given me for emergencies, the dresses I needed to While I’ve given up the extreme flounce, my wardrobe is wear to the myriad literary parties that I managed to get more colourful and just plain fun than it has been in decades. invited to. The very next day I would carefully sponge and Not a single thread of the uniform remains. Still, this past spot clean, replace the tags and return them to the store. My year has been a difficult one: minor surgery; the selling of one way of sticking it to the man. house and the building of another; my lover’s wonky What I’m wearing is a barometer for where my life is at. For mammogram that turned out to be nothing. I lost 20 pounds nearly 20 years I worked in advertising, and everything I from exertion or stress, and now everything hangs off me. owned was black. A stranger looking at my wardrobe might But I knew I had hit bottom when I realized how often I have ventured a guess that I had a night job as a hired mourner. have been wearing the clothes that other people bought me. My wardrobe was easy to match and slimming, but more I had been wearing beige. I needed to get back on track. Get important, it made possible a certain form of disappearance. In back to me. a tense boardroom, it kept the focus on the work. My most recent clothing purchase was a pair of pink plaid Six years ago, I went through an emotional crisis in which running shoes and three popsicle-coloured cotton sweaters. I I basically ran away from my life. The first place it hit was my need some summer skirts, a pair of sea blue flats, a great sheer closet. I gave up my stiffly tailored black duds and dove nude shade of lipstick. But mostly I need to be brave again, I headfirst into creamy velvet form-fitting blouses with tons of need to take a stand (in kitten heels, if I so desire) and remind buttons in emerald green, ruby and royal blue, lacy pastel myself that if clothes are too minor to matter, then what I’m pearl and rhinestone-studded bras, flouncy skirts, long wearing shouldn’t wear on anyone’s political sensibilities. No earrings, piles of beads and bracelets, and thrift-store silk one will ever again, explicitly or implicitly, send me to the scarves trailing the scent of fresh cucumber or warm vanilla. bathroom to change. I am fearless, I am feminist … and I am I never went anywhere without the leather bomber jacket fabulously dressed. 

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HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 39 arts literature Finding the Good It has been 18 years since Toshi Reagon broke onto the New York music scene with her debut album and her new projects are proof that her star is still rising.

BY KAREN X. TULCHINSKY

Photo: Molly Rubin

40 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS inger-songwriter Toshi Reagon has been compared to person is supposed to do in the world—not necessarily the both R&B artist Stevie Wonder and old school job you are paid for, but your passion, your gift to the world. S rockers, Led Zepellin. An openly lesbian performer, When she was a kid, Toshi was more into sports than Reagon doesn’t define as butch or trans, but you certainly music. But after an injury that affected her ability to run, wouldn’t call her feminine. There’s no doubt she’s a strong she learned how to play the guitar in junior high. Her best woman with a big voice, a big heart and big dreams for our friend lived in Virginia, she lived in Washington, D.C., world and the people in it. Her music is both intimately and they painstakingly taught each other how to play— personal and intentionally political. over the phone. “It’s people who change everything,” Reagon tells me in Today, Reagon and her partner of six years live in New our telephone interview. York with their 13-year-old daughter. “I write what’s in Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1964, raised in Washington, front of me: relationships, living in Brooklyn, being part of D.C., and now a resident of Brooklyn, Reagon dropped out of an active community.” college after Lenny Kravitz asked her to open for him on his Reagon has never been afraid to speak her mind—even first world tour. She hasn’t stopped singing since and has after 2001, in post-9/11 U.S., when many Americans were earned the respect of both her audience and fellow performers, “very afraid to be anti-war, anti-Bush.” Reagon kept on sharing the stage with artists ranging from Ani Difranco to speaking out about injustice. Elvis Costello. She’s played in venues as diverse as the Railway Her music still reflects what she sees in the world. “Until Club in Vancouver and Carnegie Hall in New York. people in leadership and financial power figure out how to Reagon’s most recent release, Have You Heard, features be true leaders and distribute wealth to a lot of people, original music as well as some unique interpretation of cover instead of owning more than they need, we’re always going tunes. For example, her rendition of Elvis Presley’s to be in trouble. We will eventually lose the planet because “Heartbreak Hotel” is breathtaking. She slows it way, way, of it. It is devastating to know we have the science and yet way down and in a voice overflowing with emotion infuses we can’t stop doing the things that we know are not helping all the pain every broken-hearted lover has ever felt at that us in the long term, like driving SUVs.” two-in-the-morning moment when they realize the breakup Right now, Reagon is concerned about the United States’ is for real and they are truly alone. focus on the presidential nomination campaign, because as As for Presley, she says: “Elvis gets so much credit for long as the leaders are campaigning “they’re not doing their being the king of rock and roll. It’s offensive to me, because job. They’re manipulating all the air time.” black musicians were doing this music long before him. At Would she consider marriage if it was available for queers the end of the 20th century, Rolling Stone did a history of in the U.S.? “The laws should be the same for everybody, but rock and roll and gave him credit for being the father,” she I never put all my energy into gay marriage. My girlfriend says. “There’s no way in hell. It was racism—people wouldn’t marry me even if it was legal. We’re planning to wouldn’t acknowledge black musicians at the time.” have a big party after we’ve been together 10 years.” Reagon comes by her music and her activism naturally. Reagon recently collaborated with American novelist Toni The daughter of 60’s protest singers Cordell Reagon and Morrison (Jazz, Beloved), who wrote some of the lyrics for a Bernice Johnson. (Bernice went on to found the 1970s new CD recorded in New York. She has also worked with her feminist a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock.) Toshi mother, who retired from Sweet Honey in the Rock in 2004 Reagon’s music defies definitions. Her musical style has after 30 years. According to Reagon’s website, Toshi and her been called everything from folk, to rock, to hip hop, to mother have collaborated on many projects, including co- gospel, to postmodern rhythm and blues. And she can play producing many of Sweet Honey’s recordings. Their latest and sing in each of these traditions. project is The Temptation of St. Anthony, a musical theatre Reagon also has a great sense of humour. “Everything I work based on a tale by Gustave Flaubert. It has been know about fun,” she says, “comes from revolutionaries.” performed in New York, Australia and throughout Europe. Check out her video on YouTube called This is Toshi Last year Reagon made her L-Word debut for season four’s Reagon, in which she tells a story about Harriet Tubman, finale. Reagon plays with her band, BIGLovely, created in the celebrated woman who escaped slavery to Canada, and 1996 and named after a love letter from her girlfriend then returned 13 times to the U.S. to rescue 300 slaves and addressed to “my BIGLovely.” She also tours the globe, lead them to safety through the Underground Railroad bringing along her music and her passion for a better world. into Canada. Reagon is known for energetic performances and her gift In the video, Reagon tells her live audience, “Once you for writing engaging songs that make people think and have find your goodness, you are not supposed to stop. You are fun at the same time. It is impossible to see Reagon supposed to go back to it. Again and again and again. Until perform, or listen to her music, and not be inspired to “find you die.” By “goodness” she means the good work each your goodness.” 

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CHRISTINE FELLOWS VEDA HILLE don’t have any of Hille’s previous works, This NEVERTHELESS THIS RIOT LIFE Riot Life is an excellent place to start. Six Shooter Ape House Records SANDRINE REVIEW BY ANNA LAZOWSKI REVIEW BY CINDY FILIPENKO As soon as you pick up this disc, you get the On first listening to This Riot Life, you might think DARK FADES INTO THE LIGHT sense that every last detail—from the cover Veda Hille has found God. But what she actually Nettwerk Music Group art to the design and packaging—was found was her grandmother’s hymn book. REVIEW BY CINDY FILIPENKO handled with the utmost care. And when the Inspiration for this album came from a couple of With the acquisition of Aussie singer- first track comes out of the speakers, you can very different places: a happy home life with her songwriter Sandrine, Vancouver’s Nettwerk breathe a sigh of relief, knowing the music husband and step-daughter, and a loss in her records carries on its tradition of finding matches it perfectly. family that opened up new levels of grief. That exceptional independent female artists and The opening track, “Let Us Have Done With experience pushed her deeper into the hymnal, bringing them to the world. the Umbrella of our Contagion,” is an searching for the rapturous possibilities of Sandrine cut her teeth as part of a instrumental with a sense of momentum that’s religion. Because she wasn’t raised with a fundamentalist Christian family act—think the reminiscent of a soundtrack. And in a way it is, religious affiliation, Hille comes at the topic with Partridge Family high on Jesus—at the age of because many of these songs were originally a fresh perspective that works while still being six. This fact somewhat overshadowed the written as part of a score for a solo dance work. wary of potentially touchy subject matter. twenty-something artist’s Australian solo debut That was only part of Christine Fellows’ “Oh Come On” is a memorable highlight in 2004. Despite cracking the Top 20 in that inspiration for Nevertheless. If you want to that was pieced together from opening lines, country, the music press was more interested know what else she was thinking about, and “Book of Saints” seems like an unusual in positioning her as a minister’s daughter gone there’s a handy list of acknowledgments that take on martyrdom: “I will live long and bad than as a serious songwriter. includes references to poetry by Yeats and a happy on your bread and water/ I will not Her new album, Dark Fades Into The Light, nod to an epigraph from a Timothy Findley martyr I will not martyr/ I made you monsters should vanish the titillation factor of Sandrine’s novel. But the real muse behind Fellows’ latest I can make you harder.” Six of the 13 songs background. Consisting of an almost unheard of work is modernist American poet Marianne on This Riot Life were divinely inspired; 15 songs, this disc is a pure listening pleasure, Moore. Inside the front cover of the booklet is others, like “Lucklucky” and “This Spring,” largely due to her incredibly likeable vocals. a quote from Moore: “The weak overcomes its sound like they came out of the life the Sandrine’s guitar-based compositions, like menace. The strong overwhelms itself. What songwriter was living. “Prove Me Wrong” and “Love and Pain,” is there like fortitude!” Hille’s music has always lived on the harken back to the ‘60s sound of gals like Drawing on literary inspiration suits outskirts. Her style is too artistic for Dusty Springfield. Even the uptempo “Where Fellows’ style. What makes her songwriting commercial radio, mingling classical elements Do We Go” would be fairly at home in exceptional is that she can take simple things into a unique pop sound. But that hasn’t Swinging London. and transform them into something stopped her from succeeding on a unique Pop soul for a new generation. beautiful—like holding on to a lock of hair in career path. Some songs on This Riot Life Great fun! “The Spinster’s Almanac,” which features were commissioned for a radio show, a backing vocals from her husband, festival and a theatrical production. In a way, UH HUH HER Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson. this record shouldn’t work. There are too This record seems to be inspired by many topics and different types of inspiration COMMON REACTION strength and by loneliness mixed up with a coexisting. But it does work because it’s Nettwerk Music Group sense of celebration. It’s practically impossible filtered through Hille. As a musician her range REVIEW BY CINDY FILIPENKO not to sing along to “Saturday Night on Utopia is extraordinary, and as an artist her work L-Word fans rejoice: Here’s your chance to Parkway,” and little touches like the sound of keeps getting stronger and more focused. If get more Leisha Hailey—a.k.a. Alice a typewriter or cooing pigeons help to you’re already a fan, this record will be a Pieszecki—time. The former vocalist with transport you into her world. happy addition to your collection, but if you L.A. girl bands The Murmurs and Gush has

42 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS arts culture MUSIC

returned to her musical roots with Uh Huh singing style, and “Once in a While” is a belong to the songwriter. The album’s title Her, a collaboration with singer/producer lovely, naturally unfolding, simply presented track opens with church organs carrying the Camila Grey (Kelly Osbourne). love song that layers lang’s voice with her own listener into the slow groove of a paean to While the band’s name is lifted from the title backing vocals. sexual desire on which she asks an unnamed of a PJ Harvey album, there’s really no There’s also an impressive blend of lover to “Please come find me with your dirty similarities between Harvey and the namesake instrumentation all over this disc, mingling harp, mind/ Hold me down until I cry.” band’s music. Uh Huh Her, who released an EP banjo and vibraphone with the usual suspects. There’s a spiritual underpinning on the last summer that broke into iTunes’ Top 20, My one criticism is that because most of the entire album that Melson addresses in her creates pure electro-pop. songs have a similar feel, the listener can start press material: “I’m trying to embrace all my The combination of Hailey’s soaring vocals to get a little lost in Watershed. That said, if you contradictions. The fact is, I do have a dirty and Grey’s production savvy elevates their full- want to feel the full power of lang’s voice, put mind, while at the same time I have a very length CD debut, Uncommon Reaction, beyond on a pair of headphones and listen to “Close active spiritual life. I celebrate both.” the realm of vanity projects. The 11 songs that Your Eyes.” You’ll hear her sing, “If I were near Amen. make up this recording prove just how serious you would you feel me there/ Would you feel these two women are about their music. me moving softly through the air.” THE PUPPINI SISTERS Uncommon Reaction is a foundation to build a You will. THE RISE AND FALL OF RUBY WOO career upon. Universal On the disc’s more driving tracks, like “Not SARA MELSON’S REVIEW BY ANNA LAZOWSKI a Love Story,” “5 Say So” and “Dance With DIRTY MIND Me,” Uncommon Reaction succeeds brilliantly. The Puppini Sisters aren’t really sisters, but Nettwerk Music Group one of them is actually named Puppini. Italian singer Marcella Puppini got together with K.D. LANG REVIEW BY CINDY FILIPENKO Holy reincarnation, Batman! The venerable Brits Stephanie O’Brien and Kate Mullins WATERSHED entertainment rag Daily Variety likened Sara when they met at London’s Trinity College of Nonesuch Melson to “Laura Nyro hooking up with Music. Inspired by the animated movie REVIEW BY ANNA LAZOWSKI Beggars’ Banquet-era Rolling Stones.” This is Belleville Rendez-Vous, the trio modelled their k.d. lang fans who have been anxiously no exaggeration. name after The Andrews Sisters. awaiting an album of new material will be Melson, who toiled as a kids music teacher An EP and two albums later, The Rise and delighted with Watershed. and yoga instructor while creating this Fall of Ruby Woo finds the Sisters still It’s been about seven years since she last extraordinary 13-song debut, is one incredible resplendent in their 1940s-style corsets, fitted recorded a disc of self-penned songs, and on singer-songwriter—and a lucky one at that. dresses and red lips, which nicely accompany this CD lang wrote or co-wrote all the songs. After wrapping the album, she ended up at a their close harmonies. Their albums are an She also produced the album of gorgeous, party with Nettwerk’s main man Terry unconventional combination of originals and lushly arranged songs inspired by love, nature McBride. They got to talking, he heard her cover songs—they mix tracks like The and introspection. music and a distribution deal was struck. Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” and And while lang is willing to speak out Classifying Dirty Mind is difficult because Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” (with accordion) publicly on social issues like war, gay marriage Melson is so damned proficient in so many alongside songs like “Spooky.” The effect is a and animal rights, her music exists almost as genres. The clean country sound of curious blend of contemporary and nostalgic an entity separate from the famous icon. “Anywhere Anytime” could be perfectly at elements that certainly get The Puppinis press. Part of what attracts me to lang’s music is, home on a Mary Chapin Carpenter record, But while they’re often entertaining, the real naturally, her voice. There’s something about it while a band like Coldplay could cover a highlights on this disc are the five original that is familiar, comforting and calming. And number of her tunes, such as “Turquoise Sky” songs that give a hint at the depth of lyrical she plays up all the elements of her range and “Nuclear Sun,” do a little rearranging and talent and the classically trained musicianship beautifully here. “Coming Home” has that pass them off as their own. that doesn’t always come through on the expansive, breathy quality associated with her But then, some songs here could only really whimsical cover songs. 

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 43 HEDGEROW The Chinese Knot and other stories

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44 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS arts culture SUMMER READING

GLASS VOICES CAROL BRUNEAU Cormorant Books REVIEW BY DIANA GAULT Life has not been kind to Lucy Caines. A survivor of the Halifax Explosion of 1917, in which her daughter Helena disappeared, Lucy has never entirely come to terms with that loss. Through unquestioning acceptance of the tenets of her comfortless religion, she has tried to be—and to some extent succeeded (one treasonous act of adultery aside) in being—the wife and mother she believes she is supposed to be. Lucy’s husband Harry (who lost an eye in the explosion) scorns her self- imposed piety, preferring instead to gamble, party and play his “cordine” or his “poisonous” fiddle. Regardless of their somewhat tenuous bond, they manage to this first collection of poems by queer spoken- any gun to fight them with/except my tongue produce a second child and eventually drag word artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna- my heart.” themselves from mere survival to a life of Samarasinha. Once I began reading, I Consensual Genocide is a demanding read, moderate comfort. wondered how the book’s covers contained and so it should be. There’s no skimming, no Carol Bruneau’s third novel is not for the the explosive force within. sampling, no loitering allowed here; the reader faint-hearted. Its central theme of disaster, The collection is loud, urgent and fearless, must invest energy and empathy in these loss and hardship demands much of the and there’s a lot going on here. Piepzna- poems, and close the covers only after her reader. Nevertheless, Bruneau skilfully Samarasinha explores her Sri Lankan identity, fingers have been singed. compels compassion for 71-year-old Lucy as sexuality, abuse, racism, poverty, post-9/11 she struggles to come to terms with Harry’s politics. It’s a lot of ground to cover in 74 LIMBO recent stroke. In the process she re-examines pages, but it works because of the collection’s JACQUELINE HONNET her own life, her 54 years of marriage and strong personality, clear poetic voice and Turnstone Press some of the judgments and assumptions she visceral images. has made along the way. Piepzna-Samarasinha’s writing is REVIEW BY IRENE D’SOUZA Growing up in Halifax, Bruneau has always excruciatingly raw, as in these lines from The dictionary definition of limbo suggests that been “obsessed with the explosion,” and “happy IWD!”: “guess all you could dream it is a state of oblivion as well as of transition. Glass Voices could be said to be the result of was a sidekick/not my naked cunt bleeding in Jacqueline Honnet makes use of both that obsession. Deftly marrying history with yr hand.” categories in her short story collection. The fictional lives in a complex tale spanning more These poems have blood and guts, but nine stories are sometimes intertwined and than 50 years, the narrative is rich in era- they also have moments of tenderness and inform one another. A married couple vies for appropriate detail, threading smoothly (for the poignancy, like these lines from “when kali attention by concocting morbid funeral stories most part) back and forth through those five and oya met”: “When I stayed in the hood and, in doing so, establishes a new history. We decades. It is a measure of Bruneau’s artistry you moved from/I couldn’t watch the sari smile because we know that it is not an that the reader is so seldom distracted by the cloth in your window flap/ on my bike ride unlikely tale. We ourselves have honed the ever-changing alignment of current and home anymore.” skills of offering preposterous tales to maintain retrospective settings as Lucy attempts to The intimate, confessional style is one of a partner’s interest. Honnet gently reminds us come to terms with her past, her present the elements that gives this collection its that the mystery and nuance of the human reality and their combined impact on her power. Another is the Piepzna-Samarasinha’s heart need to be tweaked at regular intervals. future. Eight years in creation, Glass Voices is ability to connect with the reader as she lays The women who populate these stories perhaps Bruneau’s most challenging work. herself bare. The poems are highly visual and reflect Honnet’s interest in everyday life. Her Lucy Caines is not a feminist by any usual personal—we can see the poet distributing stories of mothers devoted to daughters are definition, but she is tenacious. She is a flyers for seven dollars an hour, wearing a T- intelligent and gentle narratives of the battler, on her own terms, for herself and for shirt that reads “I do bad things,” and wonders and horrors of wanting only the best those she loves, and even for those she has hearing as a child that she must “study hard for one’s offspring. A mother lies about her lost. Whether that battle is worthwhile is for in school/ be white or just one drop of tea in daughter’s IQ and in doing so challenges the each reader to decide. the milk.” status quo while providing concrete ideas The poems are also infused with images of about how to raise a smart child. CONSENSUAL GENOCIDE war—both ongoing unrest in Sri Lanka (“20 In “The Pepper Smuggler,” Honnet explores years of civil war never dented the headlines”) the fascinating ties of childhood friendship LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA and the Iraq war—and the impact they have and the overactive imaginations of the adult TSAR Publications on the poet’s consciousness. In “sweet water, women who are obsessed with murder, REVIEW BY KERRY RYAN 3/19/03,” the last poem of the collection, mayhem and all things that go bump in the The book itself may be slim, but the title Piepzna-Samarasinha offers up her voice in night. It is about a young woman, Vinita, who Consensual Genocide hints at the intensity of solidarity with the people of Iraq: “I don’t have is trapped in a self-imposed nightmare of an

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 45 arts culture SUMMER READING

waiter; “Night of the Leonids” in a Toronto suburb; and the title story on the shores of Lake Michigan. Common to all is the theme of culture clash. It does not have to be the familiar culture clash between races, as in Kathleen’s case in the title story, in which she is the daughter of a white American and a Pakistani-American immigrant. It could be the clash between the straight and gay worlds (“Fletcher”), or the lower-class and elitist world, (“Night of the Leonids”), or between generations (“The Distance between Us”). The most experimental—and to me the most interesting—story is “Naina.” Written in the mode of magic realism, the story is about Naina, an Indo-Canadian university student who gets pregnant by her white-Canadian arranged marriage. Rather than Spider is circling the toilet bowl, in her own lover and takes off for Seattle. The child is acknowledging her life as a 21st-century charming way. Smart and sassy, bold yet born 14 years later, thanks to the intervention inhabitant with ready access to e-mail, sensitive, she falls in love easily, dreams big of a Chinese hypnotist, who makes the baby cellphones and money machines, she and carries the weight of a tragic loss. give the answer to Naina’s question: “Who becomes obsessed with the parcels her The book is divided into three sections: sent you, baby? Where shall I deliver you?” husband receives from India and convinces hitting rock bottom after a string of The recurrent theme of displacement is herself she is being poisoned. relationships implode; a jump back in time to a accentuated by periodic references to the Honnet probes her protagonist’s resolve difficult childhood followed by promising hounds of homeland security, or its and in doing so provides a kaleidoscopic university studies; and a leap past the starting equivalents in the Soviet or Canadian view of those who stunt their growth by point to a budding career and an emerging but contexts, which haunt the characters in the lacking the will to make coherent decisions. solid relationship. stories. Kathleen befriends an Iranian girl at The story works on many levels and its gentle The novel’s momentum matches Spider’s school, and the fact that the girl is given no humour is cerebral. frenzied lifestyle, but at times it feels name is a way of saying there is always Honnet is able to offer insights into the overwhelmingly chaotic. There are a lot of discrimination against minority groups. As sagas on family lore, and she delves into the secondary characters who appear and Kathleen realizes, “Everyone is connected to rituals of baptism, marriage and death to map disappear suddenly. And there were moments everyone. We just need to figure out how.” the lives of her protagonists. These well- when I briefly lost faith in Spider and One wonders if the author recognizes the paced and gentle stories are mellow and McWhirter—a few lines so cheesy and double entrendre in the statement. While it possess a melancholy, whimsical simplicity clichéd that they stopped me in my tracks. seems to say we are all connected as human that touches the reader in all the right places. How Spider and her friends could remain so beings, it also seems to say that everyone witty and highly functional, given their from targeted groups is connected in their DIRTBAGS mounting addictions, is also a mystery. own eyes, and not just in homeland security’s. But, just as it’s easy to forgive Spider her Kathleen, though only one-fourth Pakistani, is TERESA MCWHIRTER faults, the book’s spirit is warm and engaging. drawn to identify with that part of herself. Anvil Press At times I wanted to shout at Spider through Uma Parameswaran was born and educated REVIEW BY KERRY RYAN the pages, but for reasons of sympathy or in India, and has lived in Winnipeg since 1966. Chances are, you have one friend who is empathy I stood by her. Maybe, much like in She is the author of several works of fiction, forever making the same bad decisions over real life, a friend who consistently breaks the including an award-winning collection of and over again. Depending on the issues, it can rules, parties hard and lives on the edge can stories, What was Always Hers. make for a difficult and draining friendship. be fun to live through vicariously—or at least It’s the kind of relationship I found myself makes you feel that your own life is 20 MILES having with Spider, the central character in comparatively manageable. Teresa McWhirter’s novel Dirtbags. Spider is CARA HEDLEY Coach House trapped in seemingly endless cycles—poverty WE ARE NOT IN PAKISTAN and potential, depression and hope, REVIEW BY LISA SHAW dependency and self-reliance. As a reader, it’s SHAUNA SINGH BALDWIN As a hockey player, I was excited to read a frustrating to watch her hop from one doomed Goose Lane book on women’s hockey by a bona fide relationship to the next, one drug of choice to REVIEW BY UMA PAREMASWARAN puckhead. Iz, a talented player from Kenora, an even more addictive and destructive high. Shauna Singh Baldwin’s new collection of 10 Ontario, is playing for the fictitious Winnipeg Spider shares some of the characteristics stories moves across geographical settings and Scarlets while adjusting to university and life of her namesake—she’s nocturnal, drawn cultures. “Only a Button” is set against the in big city. Her dad died early and Iz was toward a solitary life and has the power to Chernobyl explosion of 1986; “Rendezvous” in a raised by her no-nonsense grandmother. She attract everyone around her. But, most of all, Greek restaurant in Texas, with a Mexican grew up in the shadow of her father, Kristjan,

46 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS arts culture SUMMER READING a hockey star, town hero and legend. His legacy haunts Iz: Can she ever measure up? Oddly, her mom never gets ink. Hockey is the most entertaining part of this book. Cara Hedley creates a memorable cast of teammates, complete with goofy nicknames that are a must on any hockey team. Leading the group is the strong captain Hal, who is dealing with a dying mom, along with the outrageous Toad, and Heezer, the Hooters waitress. Stories about drinking games, rookie night rituals and taking one for the team, along with the hilarious one-liners, brought back many fond memories for me. Being on a team is about sticking up for each other on and off the ice. Hedley captures this camaraderie well. She knows her hockey, writing confidently about “TSN turning points,” “choking on a breakaway,” “stay-at-home-D” and the “one- Han Kut is a vital contribution to the sided zebras.” And, of course, there are FIGHT LIKE A GIRL: conversation about what constitute the lesbians, including a classic moment when HOW TO BE A FEARLESS FEMINIST complexities and potential richness of teammates Hugo and Duff progress from MEGAN SEELY Canadian culture, on what it really means to elbowing and headlocks to falling for each other New York University Press be a Canadian resident or citizen in a world in with full support and teasing from the team. which its planetary citizens are multiply REVIEW BY JENNIFER O’CONNOR Overall, the book is like a sandwich. The located. It takes the conversation on Canadian “What can I do?” It’s a simple question, but hockey antics in the middle are meaty and well cultural realities deep into the cavern and lets not one that’s necessarily easy to answer. seasoned, but you have to bite through a dry it surface to flow over the entire terrain, from It’s also one that Megan Seely is often asked, start and then chew through a stale ending. the plains of the West to the archipelago of and it’s what led her to write Fight Like a Girl: Hal’s mom dies and the team rallies around her. the East, from the blinding white storms of the How to Be a Fearless Feminist, a practical, Iz quits the team and goes back to Kenora to North to the peat of the South. passionate overview of the movement. sulk. After Iz has a pity party, her grandma tells There are 35 holistic texts that make up the Seely is a long-time activist and the her to lace up her skates and get back to her collection. Each piece belongs, each one says youngest person ever elected president of team. Hedley does not really give us a reason much, evokes much with no word out of place, California National Organization of Women. to feel sympathy. After all, Iz is living the no journey not respected, no slackness of She’s obviously knowledgeable and engaged, Canadian dream: studying at university on a mind, body and spirit. The writers and artists which comes through in her writing. Chapters hockey scholarship. For the many women who look at everything that a feeling-thinking- cover topics such as politics, body image, played before her, this opportunity was simply embodied woman would want to look at today: violence against women and reproductive not available. However, Hedley’s rookie book is home, self and other, gender, sexual rights. “Women, mostly between the ages of worth the read. orientation, the crazy-nasty outcomes of the 15 and 22, make up 90 percent of all Lisa Shaw is former president of the Winnipeg logic of late capitalism and the often even sweatshop labour,” she writes in the chapter Women’s Hockey League. crazier outcomes between human beings on body image, adding, “Even at the highest entangled in all ways under the sun. rates of pay cited—$1.75 an hour—labourers Almost every piece gave me an aha employed by our corporations cannot afford to HAN KUT: CRITICAL ART purchase the products they create and cannot AND WRITING BY KOREAN moment at the same time that it underscored and expanded my being, my soul. Han Kut’s afford housing, clothing, or food for their families in their home countries….” CANADIAN WOMEN texts made me laugh, made me choke back Most chapters end with a “spotlight” EDITED BY THE KOREAN CANADIAN tears, made me do cartwheels over their segment (such as a spotlight on activism WOMEN’S ANTHOLOGY COLLECTIVE audacious wit and accomplishments. I wish I about the SisterSong Women of Color Innana Publications could single out all the contributors, but I can’t Reproductive Health Collective). There are for lack of space. Full credit goes to all the REVIEW BY SOOK C. KONG also lots of lists of suggested actions writers and artists, including the women of the Han Kut is a text that gives the reader (“Actively unlearn racism by getting informed, collective that put the wonderful anthology endless pleasure, the reader who wants to challenging your own assumptions, and together: Jin Huh, Patricia Lee, Ruthann Lee see a text that is multiply honest, that works examining your position in society”; and Hijin Park. The collective invokes the with mind, body and spirit as a flow and not “Volunteer to work on a campaign: phone mudang—woman as shaman. And the as split. If you know what has been ailing a bank, precinct walk, stuff envelopes”), lot of discourse since the Western shaman-woman knows: She knows that recommended reading (Letters to a Young Enlightenment centuries ago, you will know “Everything is allowed, except interrupting a Feminist, The BUST Guide to the New Girl that many of today’s peoples are reeling, manifestation of love” (Paul Coelho). Order) and Web resources recoiling and suffering very deeply from that Sook C. Kong writes, teaches and does the (clotheslineproject.org, guerrillagirls.com). founding split. laundry in Vancouver. This is definitely a book for those just

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Summer 2004 Fall 2004 Winter 2005 Elizabeth May: How to Change the The Indigo Girls’ One Perfect A Passion for Revolushun: The World in Your Spare Time; Jane World; Nobel Peace Prize-Winner inspiration of a new generation of Doe asks, What is a Rape Victim Sherin Ebadi; The Raging dub poets; Linda McQuaig on Supposed to Look Like?; Ann Grannies. Crude Dudes; Ember Swift on Hansen in profile. politics and music.

Spring 2005 Summer 2005 Fall 2005 Drama Queers: The Canadian Miriam Toews: A Complicated Why Women Love their Tattoos; connection to the edgy drama The Kind of Author; Riot Prrrls: Cast The Search Begins for Canada’s L-word; Feminist artists talk back Off Your Stereotypes; Aboriginal Disappeared Women; Treasured to feminine icons; The rise and Women Inspire Hope; Third Wave Chest: Kyle Scanlon’s Surgical fall of Mothers are are Women. Mothers Rise Up. Journey.

Winter 2006 Spring 2006 Summer 2006 Tanks R US: Artist Sarah Beck Pump Up the Volume: Mary Walsh: Defender of the on the Fine Art of Defence; Doris Throat-Singer Tanya Tagaq; Disenfranchised; Star Feminist Anderson 35 Years Later: Still Big Pharma: Too Hard to Swallow; Michele Landsberg; the fight for Ain't Satisfied; Transfeminism— Jane Rule Pays Tribute to Literary Security for Afghan Women. Shifting Political Ground. Mothers.

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Summer 2007 Fall 2007 Winter 2008 Are Your Cosmetics Toxic? When it Cliks: Androgyny Rock Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine; Fundamental Concern for Women Steps on Stage; Belittling Belinda, The Colour of Loss: A Lesbian in Tajikistan; Time to Close the The Gardasil Controversy. Story of the Infertility Industry; Chapter on Chick Lit; Up Close Bisexual Politics. and Personal with Shani Mootoo.

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constraints placed upon those who are aging. The book also offers readers unique insight into the creative process and the healing power of art. At its heart, My Grandmother’s Hair is an exploration of memory: of the author’s personal recollections of her own life, and of the very nature of memory grounded in the sensory and the social. It is a story of what is lost, and of what is gained by really paying attention. The texture of My Grandmother’s Hair is more spiral than linear, creating occasions to stop and reflect upon what the author has written before going on. Its power is unmistakable and unavoidable, disclosing as it does the marginalization of women that occurs in the suppression of stories held in body and mind. Carson’s writing is smooth and its intimacy is very moving. Her candour, honesty beginning to explore feminism. The her character’s sanity. Indeed, we become and no-holds-barred account stirred powerful introduction includes a definition of patriarchy more and more grateful for their gentle, feelings and awakened memories in this reader. and addresses questions such as “Do all reassuring presence. Clemance-Marie reveals We are all hungry for transformation, and feminists hate men?” and “Is feminism needed her story slowly; she offers detailed portraits are in the process of doing our human anymore?” And, given that Fight Like a Girl is of her parents and siblings, her time in a homework. Carson skilfully demonstrates so U.S.-focused and fact-laden, readers might Winnipeg treatment centre, her art student how stories can be medicine—healing and also want to check out books such as Ten days in Vancouver, and then guides readers inspirational—as they teach and prepare us Thousand Roses to learn about the history of back to her current life, where she awaits the for the experience of change and remind us the movement in this country, or Rebel, Rogue, birth of her second child in the small town of of our need to reclaim our own voices. My Mischievous Babe, an anthology that covered Coalville, Colorado. A life is being recovered Grandmother’s Hair will appeal to serious- many of the same issues, but in a more chapter after chapter, while another one (a minded feminists as well as students of social conversational, creative way. symbol of hope) is being reproduced. We don’t psychology. More casual readers will also Still, Fight Like a Girl is a good intro to learn the fate of Clemance-Marie’s first baby find many riches in its pages. feminism and provides lots of ideas for anyone for several pages into the narrative, but by the In My Grandmother’s Hair, Carson dances wondering what she can do. time we do we fear the worst. between subjective reflection and objective A haunting quality informs the prose in witnessing, showing us that, even in the JACKFISH, THE Jackfish, and Burns sustains an awful sense seemingly insignificant and trivial moments VANISHING VILLAGE of foreboding. I felt mesmerized—pleased that of our lives, there is something profound her writing is so good, impatient to know what and moving. SARAH FELIX BURNS happened, and dreading the details. When Inanna Publications and Education Clemance-Marie finally lets her worse Erin Harris is the chairperson of the Older REVIEW BY CY-THEA SAND memories flow, I was in that tiny therapy room Women’s Network in Toronto. “Sacred, alluring, and lingering, your holding her hand and my breath. homeland is the entity that shapes you. You In her author’s note at the end of the book, SO THIS IS THE WORLD cannot deny it. Place is destiny.” So says Sarah Felix Burns notes that Jackfish is “neither AND HERE I AM IN IT Sarah Felix Burns in Jackfish, the a true story nor an autobiography.” This is an DI BRANDT Vanishing Village. astute reminder that a tale such as Clemance- NeWest Press This novel begins and ends with Lake Marie’s is emblematic of domestic abuse. Superior, the largest lake in the world by REVIEW BY MAYA KHANKHOJE volume. A majestic waterway, Lake Superior MY GRANDMOTHER’S HAIR An essay collection is always a challenge to is described in the narrative’s first sentence review, especially one written over a 10-year ANN ELIZABETH CARSON as a “jagged, blue wolf’s head.” The image period covering subjects as dissimilar as the EDGAR KENT resonates throughout Burns’ lyrical, hard- complexity of honeybee societies, the morality edged account of Clemance-Marie Nadeau, University of Toronto Press of incest, the unwitting appropriation of native born poor and female in the town of Jackfish REVIEW BY ERIN HARRIS land by utopian communities defending their on the shores of Lake Superior in 1957. Storytelling is a powerful teacher. Through own traditions, the mystery of twins, the ethics Throughout her life, the natural world stories in narrative, poetry, myth and hard of cloning and the threats posed not by the remains a symbol of freedom for a science, as well as her own artwork, Ann existence of wilderness, but by its impending protagonist who is horribly traumatized by Elizabeth Carson affirms aging and creates a disappearance. Moreover, Di Brandt, as abuse, shame and terror. legitimate and valued place for elders in our literary critic and poet, speaks from both sides We meet Clemance-Marie when she is society. My Grandmother’s Hair is a story that of her brain, an exercise hitherto discouraged living alone with three pet dogs. Burns is is both personal and political, analyzing as it by Western positivism. She is also a tough never sentimental about their importance to illuminates the cultural, societal and physical cookie with a tender heart who can shock

50 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS arts culture SUMMER READING readers with her world view or disarm them with her passion. Brandt’s critical essays on Canadian literature will appeal to the cognoscenti, whereas her essays based on personal experience will appeal to all readers. Her descriptions of Mennonite communities are not only heartwarming and enlightening, but also help readers understand the importance of cultural diversity. As a teenager, she left her rural landscape for the big city, only to return to her heritage—if not physically, at least metaphorically—with the understanding of a life fully lived. Her account of her stay in Berlin is one that visitors to that vibrant city can fully identify with. Her meditation on twins—she is one herself—reveals that identical twins are not that identical after all and that humans are closer to other animals than we have been a particular theme, such as anger, her book Red China Blues, chronicling her indoctrinated to believe. Her critical analysis helplessness or depression about being time as a fervent Maoist at Beijing University of Adele Wiseman’s novel Crackpot tackles misunderstood, or about accepting what in the early 1970s, have given readers subjects as fraught with anxiety as prostitution could well be lifelong dependence. remarkable insights into a fascinating and and incest. Her poetic exploration of the life of By book’s end, the reader has a complete ever-evolving civilization. honeybees is as delightful as it is informative. picture of the range of problems survivors of Now, Wong is compelled to look back The closing essay that gives the book its name hemorrhagic stroke must deal with. Of interest again, this time to make amends with Yin, a is about how Brandt fits into this world. to the general reader is that many of these former Communist sister-in-arms living in an Plunge into this book. Come up for air now difficulties, such as persistent fatigue and unbridled capitalistic regime. Wong convinces and again. Who knows, your sense of self subtle cognitive impairments, are also true of her husband and their two teenage sons to and your place in the world might be any long-term illness or disabling condition. spend a month in Beijing as the city prepares transformed forever. Of particular interest to me, as the for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Her story is all Whoever said CanLit was boring has never survivor of traumatic illness and as an older about the journey, but is also about seeking heard of Di Brandt. woman made ever more aware of the Yin, whom Wong had turned in to state frailties of the human body, is that Stone authorities for the crime of expressing a desire illustrates how the powerlessness and to travel to the West. A CHANGE OF PLANS: invisibility of a disabling illness have a Looking for Yin is like finding a needle in a WOMEN’S STORIES OF unique impact on women, who are socialized haystack. The capital alone has 16 million HEMORRHAGIC STROKE to accept ineffectiveness and erasure as people. When you consider that 40 per cent of SHARON DALE STONE normal, long before illness strikes. This the population shares 10 surnames and Sumach Press inevitably shapes the ways women come to cellphone users change their numbers acknowledge (or not), how stroke, or any frequently, searching for a friend from the past REVIEW BY ANN ELIZABETH CARSON condition that reduces or eliminates her seems impossible. Sometimes an event in our lives is so painful hard-won skills and social roles, will remake Remarkably, Wong does find Yin—who has that we can’t talk about it. If it’s a prolonged or who she is. changed her name to Lu Yi—and learns about chronic illness, few people want to hear about How important it is to tell our stories. her punishment and life after freedom. what such an ongoing experience is really Ann Elizabeth Carson is the author of Shadows Ultimately, Yin’s words absolve Wong of her like. And so we become victims of the trauma, guilt. Wong writes, “I realize that Lu Yi separated from our stories and thus unable to Light, a book of poetry and sculpture, and My Grandmother’s Hair, reviewed on page. 50 symbolizes the upheaval, the pain, and all the mend around the holes left by our illness. cataclysmic changes that have transformed In Change of Plans, Sharon Dale Stone this eternal city.” interviews 11 women whose hemorrhagic BEIJING CONFIDENTIAL: Wong, a second-generation Chinese- strokes occurred between ages eight and 49, A TALE OF COMRADES LOST Canadian, is amazed that Yin, as well as two showing us how the chance to talk about their other former comrades, Scarlet and Luna, experiences becomes an act of healing. The AND FOUND JAN WONG have given up successful careers to be book is an awakening, for the reader, about housewives. Wong writes, “Lu Yi seems very Doubleday the personal pain and social consequences of happy now. But I can’t help but wonder: is this the often unspeakable and therefore invisible REVIEW BY JANET NICOL what the revolution was all about?” impairments stroke survivors must deal with. Jan Wong is the perfect insider-outsider when Wong’s keen observations give us the big The stories alert us, for example, to how it comes to explaining the homeland of her and small pictures of the new Beijing and its not being recognized as disabled can have an ancestors. Her journalism for the Globe and people. She enlists her family to help, but also impact on self-image and on rehabilitation. Mail, including coverage of the Tiananmen maintains a caring eye for them—all part of Each profile is one survivor’s perspective on Square democracy protest and massacre, and the modern woman’s juggling act and

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 51 Herizons Marketplace

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52 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS arts culture SUMMER READING something that adds another dimension to a story that may be more about the getting of wisdom than the making of revolution.

FOR KEEPS: WOMEN TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR BODIES, GROWING OLDER AND ACCEPTANCE EDITED BY VICTORIA ZACKHEIM Seal Press REVIEW BY JILLIAN RIDINGTON In her introduction to For Keeps, Victoria Zackheim points out a truth that all the relationship experts and all the ads for miraculous face creams, wonder diets, Botox and plastic surgery try to deny: As much as we like to believe that we have full control of the circumstances of If I have a quibble with the content of For What makes Obsession With Intent unique our lives—love, health, relationships— Keeps, it is that I would have liked to hear is the connection that’s made between sexist we do not. . . . Life continues to remind from women who have lived longer than six violence and Canada’s Charter of Rights and us that the control we have fought so decades. Now that I’m in my 70s, I’m Freedoms. Using this lens, Lakeman hard to attain can quickly slip away. . . . experiencing the relentlessness of the body’s constructs sexist violence as a matter of We cannot ignore the message that decline, as are many friends in my age women’s freedom—not as a health or law- hovers out there, just beyond the coast of range. Some of us rage against it, some and-order issue. Violence against women is “a consciousness: Our bodies are for keeps. embrace it—but we talk about it mainly form of discrimination that inhibits women’s No matter what life brings us, we must among ourselves. ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on the forge ahead and celebrate life. But perhaps that is another book. basis of equality with men.” It affects women disproportionately, has impacts for all All the women who have written about their women’s freedom and should mean that the lives for this book have faced difficult, OBSESSION WITH INTENT: state has a responsibility to take corrective sometimes life-threatening experiences. VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN action to protect our Charter rights to security, They have survived and often triumphed. LEE LAKEMAN privacy, dignity and equality. Yet, Lakeman Reading this book is like talking to 27 good Black Rose Books contends, the Canadian government takes no women friends. such action and seems intent on chipping The women in For Keeps go way deeper REVIEW BY LISA TREMBLAY away at reforms previously won. than the superficial discussions of body In Obsession With Intent, Lee Lakeman In this project, CASAC inspired a national image that appear in mainstream women’s describes a recent five-year project carried dialogue and, in the process, reaffirmed magazines. Carrie Kabak describes her out by the Canadian Association of Sexual violence against women as a political emotions as she confronts the mother she Assault Centres. CASAC brought anti-violence category, rather than simply a mental health or knows will reject her. Aimee Liu and Sally women’s groups together to figure out “how criminology problem. CASAC vows to fight for Terrell tell of addiction to sports that the Canadian state avoids identifying, women’s right to a livable income, reject damaged their bodies. Victoria Zackheim arresting, prosecuting, convicting and properly diversion and restorative justice programs for talks about being a large child in a too-soon sentencing men who commit violence against violent offenders, address the increasing womanly body in a tough town. Then there women.” CASAC engaged feminist legal criminalization of women and push the state are Masha Hamilton’s story of doing shiatsu scholars, reviewed policy documents and to protect women’s equality rights. on Afghan women who have rarely received interviewed 100 women who had sought help These resolutions are encouraging for a loving or caring touch and Susan Ito’s from the legal system. Canadian women. search for the biological father who might Lakeman provides a thorough description of solve the puzzle of her body. There is Joan the current context for anti-violence work: Price’s description of healing her broken federal cuts to women’s centres and anti- WORD WARRIORS: body—twice—and learning to find joy in violence organizations, their reshaping into 35 WOMEN LEADERS IN THE dancing and in sex again in her 60s. social service providers under provincial SPOKEN WORD REVOLUTION Reading every one of these vignettes jurisdiction, and the increasing brought back the days of the early rebirth of decriminalization of violence against women EDITED BY ALIX OLSON feminism, when we sat in consciousness- with the use of restorative justice and Seal Press raising sessions and learned that our bodies diversion programs. Lakeman also paints a REVIEW BY T.L. COWAN and our selves were integrated and that our disturbing picture of the impacts for women of There are a couple of the things about experiences might be unique, but always, at cuts to welfare and our social safety net: more feminist performance poetry that many folks some level, had much in common with those women living in poverty and more women like to criticize: a) it’s too personal; and b) it’s of other women. criminalized for poverty-related crimes. too didactic.

HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 53 arts culture SUMMER READING

Within the 398 pages of Word Warriors, Ph.D. dissertation on contemporary spoken cautionary tale, and for further analysis of the you’ll find plenty of the personal as well as word performance in Canada. effects of dismantling oh-so-many Canadian the political-bordering-on-didactic. Each of feminist institutions and structures. the 35 writers featured here contributes a D IS FOR DARING: THE WOMEN personal essay and two poems (one old, one LOVING THE DIFFICULT BEHIND THE FILMS OF STUDIO D new). These contributions frequently reflect JANE RULE GAIL VANSTONE personal journeys through hell: stories of Hedgerow Press sexual abuse, racist and sexist oppression, Sumach Press REVIEW BY EVELYN C. WHITE the shits of being poor and/or queer and/or REVIEW BY SHAWNA DEMPSEY Revered for her 1964 novel Desert of the drug-addicted—you know, what it’s like to If the ratio of tuxes to gowns on Oscar Heart, Jane Rule was also a skilled essayist grow up in capitalism when you’re not the winners isn’t evidence enough, a recent San who, in her 1985 non-fiction collection A Hot- target market. Diego State University study reveals that a Eyed Moderate, explored topics ranging from These poems and essays offer in-yer-face mere 15 percent of Hollywood directors, drag, to AIDS, to her practices as a survival strategies that, most times, include producers, editors and cinematographers are becoming involved in artist/ performance/ women. The “celluloid ceiling” is more conscious carnivore. writing communities like slams or feminist impenetrable than ever: The number of Rule’s final work, Loving The Difficult, reading/performing groups. What is women in positions of filmmaking control has stands as a milestone in gay and lesbian historically so important here is that Word actually decreased by four percent since letters. In the engaging essays, the late Warriors documents, through anecdote, the 2001. So Gail Vanstone’s history of Canada’s author/activist urges readers to love, learn network of feminist and queer reading spaces all-female film production unit, the Academy and laugh with her trademark intelligence across the U.S. We hear of the beginnings of Award-winning National Film Board Studio D, and passion. slams and post-slam feminist reading tours is a timely reflection on gender equity in the In the title piece, Rule examines her like the Sister Spit’s All Girl Spoken Word cultural industries. Who has access to paralyzing childhood fear of the dark. Loathe Circus. We also hear of the ways that these filmmaking, the most universally consumed to ask for a nightlight, she faced her demons, artists have navigated through cultural storytelling of our time? Who determines head-on. “One night, as the rain attacked … minefields in order to arrive on the other side which stories are told? and the wind shadowed frantically dancing with published books, nationwide fan bases, D is for Daring documents the years trees against the walls, I could stand the terror and the confidence that they have language between 1974 and 1996, when sisters with no longer,” she writes. “I got up, dressed and as a weapon to fight back against the demons cameras were doing it for themselves. It walked … into the storm, walked … until and that they know how to use it. charts the rise of the studio in the context of a drenched and very cold, but perfectly safe, I Beyond all the important historical moments larger feminist movement and an expanded went home to bed and slept.” the book documents, there is the aesthetic. vision of Canadian nationalist identity. It also Featuring photos of Rule with her family, Many of these artists are just plain beautiful chronicles the demise of the studio, writer friends such as Margaret Atwood and writers. Michelle Tea always wins me over suggesting questions about the state of her long-time partner Helen Sonthoff, the with her shoot-from-the-hip storytelling in the Canadian feminism and nationalism today: collection also includes her reflections on language of cheap beer with the cadence of Have we reverted to a comfort with all white subjects such as money (it “talks”) and Sylvia Plath. Sini Anderson’s work also shines. men all the time? censorship (“a bad teacher”). In the essay It is heartbreaking, vivid and—as of late—full As a sometime filmmaker, I care deeply about “Sexual Liberation is Not a Spectator Sport,” of love and hope, which Anderson laces with the issues presented by D is for Daring. Heck, Rule observes: “I am interested in both the enough punk rock so that it’s not saccharine, I’m even in the book. I have watched my male pornographic and erotic in relation to just a new kind of radical. Tracie Morris’s work peers go on to make features, while my female people’s real behaviour as well as the role reflects her investment in experimental colleagues and I continue to produce shorts. I either plays in their fantasies. … I have poetics that reach beyond the slam formulas have been present at funding discussions when written endless pages of erotica because I on which some of the other work relies. Her women’s stories are declared “special interest,” have often been separated from a lover.” writing about poetics is smart without being while tales of male derring-do are lauded as In “A Hole in the Ground,” a piece posh and will hopefully compel younger “universal.” We needed Studio D then. The redolent of the moving April 1968 speech current stats on women in filmmaking clearly writers to explore poetry and performance Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the night illustrate that we need it now. histories beyond this contemporary moment. before he was slain, Rule details the Vanstone’s valuable primary research for As in any successful anthology, not dismantling of her swimming pool, a beloved this project ensures that the early history of everything here will float everyone’s boat. gathering place at her home on Galiano feminist film in Canada is not lost. Her Sometimes gender-specific work is just, well, Island, B.C. “I [now] have to look out on scholarship is rigorous, but a lay reader so gender-specific. But what a book like Word what was once a pretty sight of clear blue (such as myself) will find the extensive Warriors does is reveal that gender matters water, often filled with children,” she notes citations and quotations challenging. All but today, and that through spoken word in the essay, penned two months before her the most enthusiastic women’s studies performance many emerging feminist artists death. “We easily understand the shock at student may be driven mad by the book’s have found a creative space in which to the loss of a house to fire, earthquake, flood academic language. … But a pool? It’s … just a status symbol, an breath and grow, and there’s something Nonetheless, there are important lessons to expense, a nuisance. Why does it seem to powerful in that. Personal, political … hey, be learned from D is for Daring and the me so much like an open grave?” that sounds familiar. rollicking rise and tragic fall of Canada’s T.L. Cowan is a writer and performer living in feminist film studio. D is for Daring lays the Salt Spring Island, B.C., writer Evelyn C. White Edmonton. She is currently completing her groundwork for other examinations of this is the author of Alice Walker: A Life. 

54 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS arts culture FILM

Julian Richings as Dr. Heker and Ellen Page as Tracey Berkowitz, in a scene from The Tracey Fragments.

THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS tell the story of a jewel heist from two WRITTEN BY MAUREEN MEDVED different points of view simultaneously, The DIRECTED BY BRUCE MCDONALD Tracey Fragments is told using multiple split- Alliance Films screen images of varying shapes and sizes. It was a brave choice made deliberately to REVIEW BY KAREN X. TULCHINSKY correspond with the theme of angst, The Tracey Fragments is a gritty, emotional, alienation and fragmentation. The story, unsentimental portrayal of teen angst. It which takes place over a period of just a few opens as 15-year-old Tracey Berkowitz rides days, is told in a non-linear style. The hand- out a blizzard in the back of a city bus, naked held camera movements and split-screen except for a shower curtain, searching for images give the film a disjointed quality, her brother, Sonny, who thinks he’s a dog. which works artistically. At times, it adds Sound weird? emotional texture by bringing the audience Well, hang on. It gets weirder. Written by Tracey: In search of truth and self. tightly into close-up shots of hands and feet Maureen Medved and based on her novel, and faces, all at the same time. and directed by Bruce McDonald (Hard Core The film also employs voice-over narration Logo), The Tracey Fragments is a challenging simply “It,” by the other kids. throughout, a technique which produces a Traumatized following the disappearance of film. It’s not a feel-good movie. It’s not a chick strangely intimate result. The performance of her brother, Tracey runs away to Winnipeg, flick or a date movie. It’s not an action film or Ellen Page (nominated for an Academy Award unravelling further as she searches for him. even a family drama, though it is about a rather in Juno) as Tracey is spellbinding and is reason There, she wanders broke and alone, running dysfunctional family. Tracey’s mother holes up in enough to check out the film, now out on video. their cramped home, watching television and into other outcasts and falling prey to the Challenging to watch at times, The Tracey chain smoking. Her father neglects his children, seedier side of city life. Fragments is nonetheless inspiring in the and occasionally brings out a strap. He believes The Tracey Fragments is an ambitious risks it takes.  he can cure Tracey’s angst by sending her to Dr. project in which McDonald uses an Heker, a female therapist played by Julian experimental visual design. Inspired by the Karen X. Tulchinsky’s novel, The Five Books of Ritchings. Life at school isn’t any better. A late 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair (directed by Moses Lapinsky, is in development as a bloomer, she’s called “the Titless Wonder,” or Norman Jewison), which used split screens to feature film. HERIZONS SUMMER 2008 55 on the edge BY LYN COCKBURN

Clean Sweep

Here’s the bad news: A recent U.S. report states that after sons who don’t know how to change a toilet paper roll. She marriage women’s devotion to housework goes up by seven calls these women the Home Made Simple Squad. hours per week, while men’s love of the act goes down by However, I do have one small complaint. In introducing one hour. her squad, Woodburn refers to them as five women “who are Even worse is the fact that this statistic is evident passionate about keeping their homes clean.” I could have worldwide. A George Mason University study of 28 handled “interested in,” or “concerned about,” or even countries shows that, on average, married women do 40 “determined to,” but “passionate?” Passion is a thing best percent more housework than their spouses. reserved for sex, chocolate, sex, hockey, sex, art, sex, laughter, I suspected something like this was happening because, sex and sex. during the last couple of years, more and more ads for cleaning Just how passionate about housework are they? One of products show only women sweeping, scrubbing, dusting, them announces, “I like doing laundry because I love the way washing, mopping and, in the absence of old-fashioned it makes the house smell.” Another says, “It’s important to washing machines, wringing their hands over laundry. have the same fragrance throughout the house.” And my Remember those delightful Swiffer ads of yore, in which favourite: “If you smush the toilet roll a bit, it won’t turn so men leaped about cleaning up floors with considerable easily and it won’t get wasted.” panache? No more! Did I mention that each of them gets a fantastic gift basket Now it’s always women, using a multitude of toxic products of Tide cold water detergent, Swiffer mops, air fresheners that foul up the environment, who are depicted. My favourite and other stuff like that? is the ad for the shower cleaner during which the happy And of course, these commercials are innovative in that they housewife voice announces: “It’s like having a maid!” The feature women only. Far too many ads revolve around male shower curtain whips back like a curtain at Carnegie Hall to characters with women completely excluded, or they portray show four women scrubbing down the shower. There is not, men telling women how to clean, cook, scrub or wash. In Home of course, a naked man in sight. Made Simple, it’s all women telling women how to do stuff. Yes, there is some good news, and here it is: Kim This then represents the new clean feminism, an anti- Woodburn has arrived in Canada to help women learn how bacterial feminism for the still young millennium. In the last to do housework properly, efficiently and joyfully. Some of millennium, recall, we learned to free ourselves from the need you may already know Woodburn from her TV show How to ask men’s permission for everything, including release Clean is Your House. It aired first in Britain and is now on the from strictures upon employment and from the pleasure of W Network in Canada. having 14 children by the age of 32. The Brits, you may remember, gave us tea, rugby, And now, finally, in 2008, we can, thanks to Kim and the governors general, the parliamentary system and the Home Made Simple Squad, free ourselves from the burden Stanley Cup. They also gave us John Cleese, Helen Mirren of relying on men for help with the housework. and Amy Winehouse—all three of whom I love, but that’s On the other hand, we’re also free to not marry at all. Or another column. not marry a man. Or live in hotels. If you choose Kim’s Now, perhaps feeling they haven’t done enough for us option, here’s the website: homemadesimplesquad.ca . If you lately, they have sent us Woodburn, who is determined to choose not to hook up with a man, check which provinces show Canadian women a whole bunch of clever allow same-sex marriage. If you prefer to live in hotels, use housekeeping tricks. Woodburn has gathered together five Craigslist to discover the most reasonably priced option in young Canadian women, all of whom have husbands and your city. 

56 SUMMER 2008 HERIZONS )(0,1,60

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