Herizons v27n2 Fall 13 (d2)
Transcription
Herizons v27n2 Fall 13 (d2)
SLaying The Perfect Mother Myth Temporary Workers Permanent Problems Women Rise Up In Turkey Fall 2013, Vol. 27 No. 2 Model Behaviour Why Mannequins MUST reflect us Preventing Violence Against Women China’s Emerging Women’s Movement Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866 $6.75 Canada/U.S. CAW Fall 2013 / Volume 27 No.2 news Women targets of Afghanistan attack . . . . . . . 6 Wives of Disappeared Ostracized in Nepal . . . . 7 Women at Forefront of Turkish Uprising . . . . . 8 by Caroline Muscat Preventing Violence Against Women good economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 by Kate McInturff Rape Legacy Sees Shift in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 We Are Family—Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 by Renée Bondy 8 features China’s emerging Women’s Movement. . . . . . . 16 Slowly, a political women’s movement is emerging in China. The brave women, who are often reluctant activists, are making headway on issues like violence against women and cultural expectations of women to dress in certain ways. by Joanna Chiu The Blame Game Time to Slay the Perfect-Mother Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 16 A persistent anti-feminist attack is chipping away at mothers’ self-esteem, and a bevy of new Canadian books on the topic of perfect-mommyism is fighting back. Find out what women are doing to end the hypermonitoring of motherhood. by Jeanie Keogh Model Behaviour Why Mannequins Should Reflect Us. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Research shows that women are more apt to shop when the mannequins displaying the clothes look like they do. Yet the fashion industry still displays clothing on waiflike plastic dummies whose proportions are impossible to achieve. It’s time women demand some fashion justice. by Sharon Haywood Temporary Workers, Permanent Problems Canada Shortchanges Foreign Workers. . . . . . . . . . . . 28 The number of migrant workers is rising as tens of thousands of “temporary workers” take on permanent jobs in a bid to protect corporate profits. Find out why women are especially vulnerable to unscrupulous employers and middlemen. by Sandhya Singh herizons Fall 2013 1 Volume 27 No. 2 arts & ideas Magazine Ink Music Reviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Managing Editor: Penni Mitchell Queer Across Canada by Kate Reid; Everything is Moving by Laura Smith; Espeso by Eliana Cuevas Reviews by Cindy Filipenko Fulfillment and Office Manager: Phil Koch Fall Reading Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The Anatomy of Edouard Beaupré by Sarah Kathryn York; The Selector of Souls by Irene D’Souza; Shadow Girl by Patricia Morrison; Valery the Great by Elaine McCluskey; Night Street by Kristel Thornell; The Only Man in the World by Faith Johnston; Susceptible by Geneviève Castrée; New Zapata by Teri Hall; Priya’s World by Tara Nanayakkara; Basements and Attics, Closets and Cyberspace: Explorations in Canadian Women’s Archives edited by Linda M. Morra and Jessica Schagerl; Cruel but Not Unusual: Violence in Canadian Families Edited by Ramona Alaggia and Cathy Vine; In the Black: New African Canadian Literature edited by Althea Prince; The Complete Journals of L.J. Montgomery: The P.E.I. Years edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston; Talking Derby by Kate Hargreaves; Finding a Way to the Heart: Feminist Writings on Aboriginal and Women’s History in Canada edited by Robin Jarvis Brownlie and Valerie J. Korinek; Trobairitz by Catherine Owen. Tina Renton’s Path Toward Healing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Tina Renton’s memoir, You Can’t Hide: How I Brought my Rapist Stepfather to Justice, describes the author’s sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather and how she was able to release herself from the need for her mother’s approval. Interview by Val. B. Russell Poetry Snapshot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 When This World Comes to an End by Kate Cayley; Undark by Sandy Pool; Hello, the Roses by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge Reviews by Mariianne Mays Wiebe Film Reviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Life and Crimes of Doris Payne and Anita Reviews by Maureen Medved columns PENNI MITCHELL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Quebec Charter No Help to Women 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 Nembhard Advertising Sales: Penni Mitchell (204) 774-6225 Design: inkubator.ca Retail Inquiries: Magazines Canada (416) 504-0274 Proofreader: Phil Koch Cover: Rebecka Silve Kroon HERIZONS is published four times per year by HERIZONS Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. One-year subscription price: $27.14 plus $1.36 GST = $28.50 in Canada. Subscriptions to U.S. add $6. International subscriptions add $8. Cheques or money orders are payable to: HERIZONS, PO Box 128, Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA R3C 2G1. Ph (204) 774-6225. Subscription inquiries: [email protected] Editorial inquiries: [email protected] Advertising inquiries: [email protected] Website: www.herizons.ca HERIZONS is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index and heard on Voiceprint. Herizons is a member of Magazines Canada and the Manitoba Magazine Publishers Association. GST #R131089187. ISSN 0711-7485. The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire hope and foster a state of wellness that enriches women’s lives; to build awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among other marginalized people; to foster peace and ecological awareness; and to expand the influence of feminist principles in 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 reprinted without permission. Due to limited resources, HERIZONS does not accept poetry or fiction submissions. HERIZONS acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) of the Department of Canadian Heritage. SUSAN G. COLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 The Splendour of Gender EVELYN C. WHITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Rediscovering Canadian Masterpieces JOANNA CHIU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 To Boycott or Not To Boycott LYN COCKBURN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Political Differences 2 FAll 2013 herizons With the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866. Return Undeliverable Addresses to: PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3C 2G1, Email: [email protected] Herizons is proudly printed with union labour at The Winnipeg Sun Commercial Print Division on Forest Stewardship Council -certified paper. ® Gift the THAT KEEPS GIVING ALL YEAR LONG Now is the perfect time to order Herizons gift subscriptions for your friends, family, co-workers or volunteers. Because for every gift you buy for $27.50, you’ll receive another gift subscription absolutely FREE! Inform your friends about the ground-breaking changes women are making in Canada and around the world. Whether it’s demanding action to improve women’s equality, confronting racism or promoting sustainable development, they will be inspired by women inside the pages of Herizons. Best of all, your gift subscriptions help Herizons, Canada’s most widely read feminist magazine, continue. Your gift is a gift to Herizons’ future. Act now. We’ll send gift cards to announce your gift purchase. BUY 12 G GGEETTOO IFTS NNEE FREE Send payment for just $27.50 (GST included) for two gift subscriptions to Herizons P.O. Box 128, Winnipeg, MB CANADA R3C 2G1. To order on-line, use the coupon code ‘gift’ to activate your free gift. www cwhn.ca Polygamy Violates Human Rights www.stoppolygamy.com women’s health information you can trust Help stop polygamy in Canada. Invite us to speak to your group. 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Contact [email protected] for more details First Word by penni mitchell Quebec Charter Plan Targets Women The Parti Québécois government’s proposed charter of values would not boost human rights protections for Quebec’s minorities or women, and it wouldn’t improve religious freedoms, either. What the PQ’s proposed charter aspires to do is to take everyone’s religious expression away equally. It’s a new spin on equality—one that aims to prohibit all public-sector employees from wearing “conspicuous” religious symbols while on the job. Since there hasn’t been a public outcry over teachers or hospital workers wearing of crucifixes or yarmulkes, but there has been opposition to women wearing the headscarf or hijab, the move to ban such religious symbols would effectively ban many Muslim women from public-service employment. It could easily be used to systematize discrimination, in other words, rather than to achieve the religious neutrality its supporters claim it would achieve. A charter that safeguards religious freedom would do so by extending liberties, however, not by limiting them. It would state that one religion should not to be treated differently than another. Yet Quebec’s proposed charter of values would actually exempt some of the largest public symbols of Christianity from being banned—notably, the large crucifix hanging in the national assembly (erected by the fervently Catholic premier Maurice Duplessis in 1936) and the 30-metre-tall crucifix on Mount Royal, probably the most notable landmark in Montreal. Apparently, the crucifix, a wooden cross to which criminals were once nailed and left to die, and which later became a symbol of devotion to the Roman Catholic faith, is not a conspicuous religious symbol, but something else. The fine print of the proposed charter states that public crucifixes would be exempt if they are “emblematic of Quebec’s cultural heritage.” I am not making this up. Nor am I making up the fact that Montreal’s first public administrators actually wore head-to-floor religious garb. Orders of nuns from France, after all, operated New France’s first schools, hospitals and orphanages—no irony there. It was also the Catholic Church’s influence in Quebec public affairs that helped keep women from voting provincially until 1940. Quebec bishops and politicians once told women that it was their civic duty to bear more children than the national average—until the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s separated church and state in Quebec. Quebec’s proposed charter should not be mistaken as a human rights document. In fact, the PQ aims to reign in its human rights statute and limit the right to stake a claim for religious accommodation. This makes for a pretty conspicuous red flag, since human rights law should protect minorities from religious persecution, not limit their claims. Human rights statutes signal to majorities that they are neither naturally superior, nor entitled to special treatment. Yet Quebec’s proposed values charter would actually exempt the highest public officials—namely members of the Quebec national assembly—from having to abide by the regulations. Furthermore, the chauvinistic values charter would effectively harm women. It is women, after all, not men, who wear the hijab, while conspicuous beards—a symbol of faith for many men of Jewish and Muslim backgrounds—are not touched by the proposal. Apparently, no one bothered to ask minority women whether the proposed charter could impinge on their freedoms. Yet consider the swift backlash against Bloc Québécois MP Maria Mourani, who spoke out against the proposed charter. A sovereigntist who was the federal party’s only MP of colour, Mourani was abruptly turfed from the BQ caucus for joining a group to denounce the charter proposal on the grounds that it stigmatizes minority communities and women. So much for freedom of speech and the right to political dissent. Mourani, a Christian of Lebanese dissent, sits as an independent MP and quit the BQ. “Firing women from daycare centres because they’re wearing a cross or a scarf … I can’t adhere to such a policy,” she told a news conference where she announced her resignation from the party. Quebec’s proposed charter is a solution looking for a problem, according to Nathalie Des Rosiers, dean of common law at the University of Ottawa. “No one can demonstrate that Quebec citizens receive bad, unfair or discriminatory government services because some civil servants may be wearing religious symbols,” she wrote in the Globe and Mail. Claims that the proposed charter would expand Quebecers’ freedoms appear disingenuous then, since the fight over “Quebec values” has already seen one minority woman in the public service shunned. In response to the PQ’s squelching of dissent over its proposal, Françoise David, a member of the National assembly and one of Quebec’s leading feminists, accused the party of using “the Harper method.” In France, where legislation banned hijabs while claiming it was in women’s interests to do so, 90 percent of reports of violence against Muslims are now directed at women and Muslim girls are kept out of school. Rather than mimicking France’s reaction, Quebec should learn from its mistakes. herizons Fall 2013 5 nelliegrams Women’s Inheritance Rights Won In a landmark ruling, a court upheld the right of four sisters to inherit their father’s property in the Ngwaketse district of Botswana in September. The unanimous judgment went against customary Ngwaketse law that stipulated that only male relatives were entitled to inherit from deceased family members. The women’s nephew had been vying for the property, despite never having lived there. Edith Mmusi, 80, and her three elderly sisters have renovated the family home, where they live. Justice Letedi, who wrote the court’s decision, cited the country’s previous discriminatory laws as outdated. Citing “constitutional values of equality before the law” the court determined that there “is no rational and justifiable basis for sticking to the narrow norms of days gone by.” “The judgment today made it clear that women are not second-class citizens,” said Priti Patel, deputy director of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, which supported the case. “It is a hugely important decision not only for Botswana, but for women across southern Africa,” added Patel. —The Maravi Post First Woman to Chair Big Bank The Royal Bank of Canada has appointed its first female chairperson. Kathleen Taylor, a company director since 2001, will become the first woman to lead the board of one of Canada’s top six banks when she assumes her position in 2014. Women serve as chairperson at 3.5 percent of the 226 publicly traded Canadian companies that have a market value of $1 billion or more. In the U.S., the comparable figure is 1.7 percent, according to Bloomberg.com. At Canada’s six big banks, women make up 65 percent of the workforce and hold only 33 percent of senior management roles, according to the Canadian Bankers Association. “Our numbers are slightly better than the U.S., but let’s not set the bar too low,” remarked Jennifer 6 Fall 2013 herizons Women Targets of attack in Afghanistan Dr. Sima Samar is head of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, to which a former Taliban leader was recently appointed. Several prominent women in Afghanistan have been targeted and killed in recent months by the Taliban and drug traders in the country. Afghanistan’s most senior female police officer, Lieutenant Negar was shot and killed on September 16 by an unidentified gunman outside her home in the province of Helmand. Negar, who, like many Afghans, was known by only one name, became the third top policewoman to be murdered in recent months. In July, Negar’s predecessor, Islam Bibi, was killed by gunmen. “They have given us warning that one of us will be killed every three months and we will be killed one by one,” Afghan policewoman Malala told the Associated Press. Women make up fewer than one percent of Afghanistan’s police force, with about 1,600 females serving and about 200 more in training. Earlier in September, a female parliamentarian in Afghanistan was freed, after being held captive for four weeks by the Taliban, in exchange for detained militants, according to The Associated Press. In August, a female Afghan senator was seriously wounded and her eight-year-old daughter and a bodyguard were both killed when insurgents ambushed her convoy. “Recent cases of targeted killings point to the urgent need to guarantee women’s and girls’ rights as the government of Afghanistan prepares for a full takeover from international forces and moves towards provincial and parliamentary elections,” said U.N. Women executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai came under fire recently from women’s rights watchers for his appointment of Mullah Abdul Rahman Hotak, a former Taliban leader opposed to women’s rights, to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay expressed concern over the June appointment and suggested that Karzai may be sacrificing women’s rights in a bid to win votes for his party. “I urge an extra effort by the president and his government to ensure that the human rights gains of the past 12 years are not sacrificed to political expediency during the last few months before the election,” said Pillay in Kabul. “The rights of women in particular must not be sacrificed, they must be particularly protected.” Women’s rights advocates in Afghanistan have been pleading with the international community for months not to turn their backs on women after years of incremental, but substantial progress electorally, economically and throughout society. With diplomatic support waning, help is coming from organizations like the Asia Foundation, which has partnered with the Afghan Independent Election Commission on a new project to support female elected officials and candidates running for office in the April 2014 elections. The Asia Foundation announced that the project will “provide capacity-building assistance to female members of parliament, female provincial councillors and potential female candidates to run in 2014-2015 elections” and “support women candidates to deliver campaign messages, facilitate networking and mentoring events with public figures and civil society organizations.” In announcing the program, U.K. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander said, “Women are key to building a democratic and safe country. They are the future of Afghanistan.” The Afghan Independent Election Commission has been working to advance Afghan women’s participation in the electoral process through its gender unit since 2009. Its efforts have included public education directed at women voters, the use of female polling staff and observers and the creation of appropriate security measures. Challenges to female candidacy and voter turnout remain, including the inaccessibility of polling booths for women in remote areas as well as concerns for the safety of female candidates and voters. Over four million Afghan citizens voted in the 2010 parliamentary election and about 39 percent of them were women. Currently, women hold 28 percent of seats in the Afghanistan National Parliament. —Penni Mitchell Nepali Women Seek End to Discrimination The wife of a victim from the indigenous Tharu community in Nepal, where many of the victims of disappearance of the conflict live, holds a sign that reads: “Where are our loved ones?” (Photo: Santosh Sigdel/ICTJ) For the wives of the estimated 1,000 men who disappeared during Nepal’s 10-year armed conflict, which ended in 2006, discrimination and poverty have followed. A new report by the International Center for Transitional Justice has documented the experience of the wives of the disappeared in Nepal. It calls for measures to address the poverty, social stigma, and legal limbo they continue to face in their day-to-day lives. “Beyond Relief: Addressing the Rights and Needs of Nepal’s Wives of the Disappeared” is based on interviews with over 450 wives of the disappeared across Nepal. It highlights the precarious economic situation that often results from the loss of a husband, who is most often a family’s sole breadwinner. According to Lucia Withers, head of ICTJ’s Nepal office, “Enforced disappearances have an immeasurable impact on the wives of victims. It places them in situations of extreme vulnerability, even as they live with the uncertainty and unresolved pain of losing their husband.” For the majority of the women, their financial hardship is compounded by Nepali laws that do not recognize the disappeared as a legal category, despite a decade of violence that saw over a thousand people go missing. Without declaring a husband dead, and without the co-operation of in-laws, a surviving wife cannot inherit land or other property. And without land, it is impossible to secure loans or mortgages or to otherwise achieve some level of economic independence. In many cases, living with the disappearance of their husbands has made women vulnerable to additional abuses. Because the wives of the disappeared are considered neither wives nor widows, they lack a recognizable social status in Nepali society. Some report discrimination and harassment by neighbours, public officials and the wider community. Others have been rejected by their husbands’ families and even blamed for their husbands’ disappearances. A government-run relief program provides support to some victims of the conflict, including families of the disappeared. But its short-term, mainly financial benefits do not begin to address the complex and often long-term harm to wives of the disappeared. The ICTJ paper calls on the government to provide stronger inter-ministerial coordination to improve responsiveness to victims and to establish a full reparation program that addresses the rights and needs of the wives of disappeared husbands and other victims. —Penni Mitchell nelliegrams Reynolds, head of Toronto-based Women in Capital Markets, a notfor-profit organization that promotes women in business. Sheelagh Whittaker, an RBC director, said of Taylor’s appointment: “Each upward step we take that makes egalitarian gender choices more normative is a step toward a better and fairer society.” Several women are in the upper echelons at Canada’s largest lenders, including Janice Fukakusa, Royal Bank’s chief financial officer; Colleen Johnston, CFO at Toronto-Dominion Bank; and Laura Dottori-Attanasio, chief risk officer at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The Laurentian Bank of Canada in Montreal was Canada’s first lender to elect a female chairperson when Jeannine Guillevin Wood was appointed in 1997. Gail CookBennett retired in May 2013 from her role as chairwoman of Manulife Financial Corp. Taylor has a master’s degree in business administration from the Schulich School of Business and a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto. —Bloomberg.com Palestinian Women Gain Divorce Ground The Supreme Religious Court in the Gaza Strip is considering legal amendments that would give women the right to divorce their husbands. The proposed amendment is likely to face opposition from hard-line lawmakers from Hamas, the Islamic body that runs the Palestinian enclave that is separate from the West Bank. The West Bank is ruled by President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah party. In the West Bank, divorce is easier for women to obtain. Hassan Al-Jojo, head of the religious court in Gaza, said the divorce proposal will require approval from the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza. Zihab Ghuneme, who heads the Center for Women’s Legal Research and Consulting in Gaza, estimates the divorce rate to be 17 percent, which includes couples who were “engaged” and had obtained a marriage certificate but were not yet living together, as well as those herizons Fall 2013 7 Women at Forefront of Turkey Uprising By Caroline Muscat The Lady in Red became a symbol of defiance against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Every protest movement has its icon. When civil unrest was sparked in Turkey last May, the early iconic image that emerged was the “Lady in Red.” It was no coincidence that Turkey’s symbol of resistance is a woman, as it illustrates the significant role women have played in the demonstrations. Academic Ceyda Sungur was in Istanbul’s Gezi Park in the heart of Taksim Square to support a sit-in protest against government plans to replace a public park in Istanbul with a mall and a residential complex. Sungur, in her red cotton dress, was captured on film as she stood unarmed and defiant while a masked police officer doused her with pepper spray. The image spread like wildfire across social media. It stood out among the thousands of images emerging of excessive police violence against a few hundred protestors camping in the park to stop the project. On May 31, in a pre-dawn raid, riot police moved in. They soaked protesters with pepper spray, dispersed them with water cannons and set fire to their tents. As word and visuals travelled, thousands of outraged citizens filled Taksim Square. After fierce clashes with police that lasted for almost two days, the protesters occupied the square, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. For more than a week, the Our Times 8 Fall 2013 herizons area was turned into a commune. There was no law enforcement; people lived by their own rules. Yet, it was peaceful. It became an all-inclusive space free of violence, discrimination and harassment. People from all walks of life, from different social and political groups, sang and danced together. They shared their food and debated issues. Rival soccer fans united and merged their club logos into one as a sign of solidarity with protesters. At dusk, the bolder men and women among the protesters moved towards the barricades set up on the major streets leading to Taksim Square. Those were the front lines where clashes with police were expected to be rough. It was the scenes from the Gezi Park protests that inspired a movement across the country, spreading to more than 67 of Turkey’s 81 provinces. What had started out as a simple environmental protest turned into a nationwide stand against the government led by the Justice and Development (AK) party, a right-wing party with Islamic roots that has been in power since 2002. About half of the protestors were women. Anthropologist and expert on gender issues Ayse Gül Altinay said one of the most striking aspects of the protests was the large number of women involved at every level of the resistance. “From building barricades, to resisting under heavy tear gas, to setting up tents in the park, women made their mark every step of the way. Women organized around feminist groups were particularly effective in challenging and proposing alternatives to the patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic language of resistance,” Gül Altinay said. Soon after the occupation of Taksim Square, feminists organized an action to clean the surrounding streets of slogans of sexism and homophobia. They crossed out the offending slogans and replaced them with their own, such as “küfürle deǧil inatla diren” (resist with persistence not curses), a slogan that was quickly adopted by the broader movement. After almost three weeks of antigovernment protests, Istanbul Governor Hüseyin Avni Mutlu advised mothers to call their children home and said that their safety could not be guaranteed. In response, mothers descended on Taksim Square and, rather than taking their children home, formed a human chain around the protesters to protect them while chanting “anneler burada” (mothers are here). Protesters across the country reflected a feeling common among Turkish women that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is disrespectful of individual rights. Erdogan, who once called women activists “marginal,” said in 2010 that “men and women cannot be equal.” Women’s grievances include Erdogan’s repeated call for them to have at least three children and his attempts to restrict abortions. Violence against women has skyrocketed under his administration, according to Gül Altinay. The opening of a sports complex in Mersin, during the peak of Gezi Park protests, Erdogan told the crowd that, prior to his election, Muslim women wearing head scarves could not enter universities. He then said that protestors—referring to his secularist opponents—had not done anything for the freedom of Muslim women. Journalist Işın Eliçin says the comments were untrue. “The AK Party government helped head-scarved women join the public arena much more confidently, but they fell short of creating legal, administrative and social policies to ensure their equality,” she said. “The head scarf issue should be dealt with as part of the problem of individual choice and freedom.” Eliçin, a journalist working for international media agencies, had her column in the newspaper Yeni Safak cancelled after she wrote a piece defending dissidents during the Gezi Park protests. Press restrictions are common in Turkey, a country with more journalists in jail than Iran or China. Dicle Tuba Kılıç, who joined the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul and protests in the country’s capital, Ankara, said, “The protests were the sum of citizens’ frustration with government’s anti-democratic decisions.” As an environmentalist leading a campaign to stop a massive dam project that would sink a potential World Heritage site, Kılıç was confronting the government long before the recent civil unrest started. But she has noticed a fundamental change in Turkish society. “People have lost their fear,” she said. This in itself is a game-changer. Millions of people have shed the labels and dogmas that divided them. A new movement has been born that is based on the values of respect, equality and justice for all— a movement that embraces the values of feminism. Anthropologist Ayse Gül: high number of women. Turkish journalist IIşın Eliçin’s column was cancelled. nelliegrams living together with a marriage certificate. The current divorce practice can only be initiated by a husband. “By asking the man for divorce permission, the woman is no longer free,” Ghuneme told Al-Monitor. “This is what we want to fight.” “It seems to me,” Justice Key Dingake of the High Court stated, “that the time has now arisen for the justices of this court to assume the role of the judicial midwife and assist in the birth of a new world struggling to be born. Discrimination against gender has no place in our modernday society.” —Al-Monitor Vatican Blinders Lifting The Vatican appears ready to open a discussion about whether priests should be required to remain celibate. Vatican Secretary of State Archbishop Pietro Parolin said in a recent interview that “celibacy is not an institution” but, rather, has been an established tradition in the Catholic Church. For centuries, Roman Catholic priests have faced a requirement to be celibate—a policy that has been blamed for the decline in the number of young men entering the priesthood, for perpetuating the idea that women are lesser than men, and even for fostering a climate in which sexual abuse by clergy persisted. Parolin, who is the top aide to Pope Francis, made the comments following the Pope’s statement in the summer that gays should not be marginalized or judged. “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” Pope Francis said in a summer discussion with reporters. Then, in an interview published in La Civilta Cattolica, an Italian Jesuit magazine in September, Francis said, “The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.” Commenting on the Vatican’s strict rules on abortion, gays and priestly celibacy, the herizons Fall 2013 9 JOIN THE CONVERSATION ABOUT WOMEN’S EQUALITY October 29, 2013 9:00AM – 5:00PM Government Conference Centre 2 Rideau Street, Ottawa ON With NDP Status of Women Critic Niki Ashton and special guests. Niki Ashton MP, CHURCHILL (613) 992.3018 // [email protected] Register at nikiashton.ndp.ca ‘13 GET EVERYTHING ON YOUR SAVINGS LIST! 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The General Social Survey that affects one in four Canadian women and girls, it is also a leading source of police on Violent Victimization, which is conducted every five years, asks only a few questions and court costs, a drain on the economy about sexual and spousal violence, and it does and a costly component of Canada’s health not ask those questions of a sufficient number care system. of people to provide information about differStudies show that, in Canada, intimate ences at the provincial and territorial level partner violence, for example, accounts (outside of the most populous provinces). Every for an estimated 25 percent of all policeprovince and territory has a different approach reported violent crime in Canada. This rate has remained virtually unchanged for the past to addressing violence against women. The only annual reports on these forms of decade. Justice Canada calculates the total violence currently come from the police and cost of intimate partner violence in Canada is $7.4 billion a year. Additionally, the cost of sex- both sexual assault and intimate partner vioual assault is an estimated $1.9 billion annually. lence are highly under-reported crimes. Only an estimated one in 10 incidents of sexual These calculations are based on estimates assault are reported to the police, and fewer of the direct costs in medical and social serthan one in 100 of such incidents results in a vices, court costs, and lost income, as well as estimates of the indirect costs of pain and suf- criminal conviction. Meanwhile, approximately fering. At $334 per person in Canada, the cost one in five cases of intimate partner violence is reported to the police, and the victims, on of these forms of violence is comparable to that of the use of illegal drugs—an estimated average, report having suffered as many as 10 previous assaults before calling the police. $262 per person—or to the costs of smoking, That’s what we do know. What we don’t which is an estimated $541 per person. know is equally important. The problem is The same cost-effectiveness arguments that Canada’s haphazard reporting makes it that have led to more effective public difficult to determine which efforts are most policies to reduce smoking rates should effective at addressing violence against therefore be applied to violence against women. We simply don’t know the extent of women. The question then should change their success or failure, or why some work from how much do we need to spend to and others don’t. Unless this data gap is filled, address these forms of violence when they efforts to close the gender gap in Canada occur, to how much we can save if we precaused by violence against women will vent them in the first place? remain inexcusably impeded. Currently, the federal government spends Armed with more information about the approximately $80 million a year on programs policies that have succeeded or failed, and services related to intimate partner Canada could launch an effective nationwide violence and sexual assault. This works strategy to end violence against Canadian out to $2.77 per person. Provincial levels women. More than a dozen countries around of spending are even higher. Ontario, for the world have developed such national example, spent approximately $188 million on programs and services related to intimate action plans, including Australia which has a partner violence and sexual assault in the fis- federal system similar to Canada’s. A national strategy to address violence cal year 2011 to 2012. This amount represents against women would, like strategies in $16.87 per person in the province. Although we have calculations on what gov- other countries, be built on the three pillars of prevention, protection and remedy. ernments spend addressing violence against Prevention focuses on the factors that conwomen and girls, we do not have consistent tribute to perpetration and recidivism. Public detailed data on the levels of sexual and spousal violence because Canada doesn’t routinely education is important, but up to this point the gather this information. Unfortunately, it has (Continued on page 12) been 20 years since the federal government nelliegrams Pope added, “We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.” Francis, the first Jesuit to become pope, said women must play a key role in church decisions, but said the door to women’s ordination as priests would remain closed. Home Care Workers Covered In September, the U.S. federal department of labor announced that it will extend minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers, the majority of whom are women and people of colour. Almost two million home care workers, including home health aides, personal care aides and nursing assistants, will now be covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act. U.S. home-related care has grown dramatically over the last several decades as more Americans choose to receive long-term care at home instead of in nursing homes or other facilities, according to the department of labor. Despite this growth, U.S. home care workers are still the lowest paid in the service sector. Only 15 states provide both minimum wage and overtime protections. Only home care workers employed by home care agencies and other third parties will be covered; those employed directly by the person receiving services, or by that person’s family, will still be exempt from protections. Malala Yousafzai Wins Honours Malala Yousafzai, the education activist who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban in her home country of Pakistan last winter, has been given the International Children’s Peace Prize for 2013. In accepting the award this summer in The Hague, she herizons Fall 2013 11 nelliegrams vowed to intensify her struggle for promoting the education of all children, and particularly girls. She said the assassination attempt has made her more determined than ever to continue her campaign for girls’ education. Yousafzai received her prize from another female activist, 2011 Nobel Peace laureate Tawakkol Karman. Yousafzai’s courage and determination have made her a leading contender for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. In July, Yousafzai addressed the United Nations urging the world to provide free, compulsory education for every child. It was her first major address since her assassination attempt. The U.N. responded by declaring “Malala Day” to promote awareness of the importance of education. Invoking the names of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi, Yousafzai said she forgives her attackers, but she has vowed to continue her international campaign. The teenager was shot point-blank in the head last October, along with two friends. France Seeks to Ban Beauty Contests France is considering a move to ban beauty pageants for girls under 16 as a way to fight the hyper-sexualization of children. The French upper house of Parliament has adopted a proposal that calls for the ban of beauty pageants for girls under 16. Under the proposal, organizers of beauty pageants aimed at young children, as well as parents or others who enter young girls in such competitions, could face up to two years in prison and fines of $40,000 Cdn. The measure is part of a wider law on gender equality and was approved by the French Senate after garnering 197 votes in favour of the ban, while 146 voted against it. The measure returns to the lower house for another vote before it is passed. “Let’s not let our daughters think from such a young age that they will be judged according to their appearance,” said senator Chantal Jouanna, who proposed the amendment. 12 Fall 2013 herizons violence against them. Victims are forced to assume more than 70 percent of the total $9 main emphasis has been on teaching women billion in annual economic impacts of sexual and girls about the risks of victimization—an and spousal violence. A recent survey conapproach not taken for any other publicducted by the Canadian Women’s Foundation safety issue. Our response to drunk driving, found that 19 percent of Canadians still put the for example, is not to teach people how to blame for sexual assaults on the victims, rather avoid being struck by an intoxicated driver than the perpetrators. Yet, when public policy but rather to develop ways to stop intoxicated shifts to the behaviour of perpetrators, rates of people from driving. Changing this would be a violence go down. Vancouver police credit the significant shift away from a system in which “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign (a public educapotential victims are held responsible for the tion effort aimed at changing the conduct of crimes that may be committed against them. potential perpetrators) with a steep decline in To be effective in preventing violence and rates of sexual assault in that city in the year protecting women from becoming its victims, since the campaign was launched. Canadian policy must address the specific The appalling rate of violence against needs and vulnerabilities of different comwomen in Canada affects too many women munities. Domestic and international human and girls and comes with too great a personal rights organizations have repeatedly stressed and public cost to be allowed to continue. the urgent need to curb the disproportionate Without a substantially larger investment levels of violence experienced by Aboriginal of political, financial and human resources, women. There is also a growing realization however, levels of violence against women that women with disabilities experience viowill remain at the current shameful level and lence at much higher rates. Girls and young may even get worse. women are far more likely to be victims of Canada can and must do better. The wellsexual assault. Rural and urban communities being of millions of Canadians is at stake, face different problems with their respective and so are billions of dollars in government levels of policing and services. treasuries. The criminal justice system is necessarily Kate McInturff, a Canadian Centre for Policy part of the protection and remedy aspects of addressing violence, but it should not be our Alternatives (CCPA) research associate, leads main focus. Solutions that meet the needs of a new CCPA initiative called Making Women Count. This article has been adapted from her the survivors of violence must help victims longer paper, “The Gap in the Gender Gap: where they live—through the provision of Violence Against Women in Canada.” Find out services at the community level. more about Making Women Count and read Finally, remedies must ensure that victims the longer paper at policyalternatives.ca. don’t have to bear the blame or the cost of the (Continued from page 11) Rape Legacy Sees attitude Shift in India Following the death of a physiotherapy student after a brutal rape, protests erupted to demand stronger enforcement of rape laws in India. A legal advocate at India’s Supreme Court says the brutal rape and death of a 23-yearold physiotherapy student in New Delhi last December has resulted in a shift in attitudes in her country. In September, four men were sentenced to death in India for their part in the rape on a private bus and in the woman’s subsequent death. Another assailant, who was a juvenile at the time of the attack, was sentenced to three years in a reform facility. The driver of the bus reportedly hung himself in prison. The woman’s attack and her death led to huge protests across India about the country’s tolerance of sexual violence. The protests resulted in the quick introduction of new laws to punish sexual offences. Women’s groups charged that the government didn’t go far enough because the reforms did not outlaw marital rape or remove the legal impunity (regarding rape) of members of the country’s armed forces. Still, the measures imposed much stricter penalties for a range of sex-related crimes and aimed to protect Indian women. Karuna Nundy, an attorney and advocate for the country’s Supreme Court, said, “I think the legacy of the case, the most positive aspect, is the change in the law. There has been something of a change in the way violence against women is perceived. There is a shift from victim-blaming to a sense of women’s bodily integrity and dignity. It’s a beginning.” The victim and a friend were trying to get a taxi when the men lured them onto a private bus. They were beaten, and the woman was raped for an hour while the bus was driven around the city. She suffered life-threatening internal injuries as a result of being assaulted with a metal instrument. Afterward, the pair was thrown, naked, onto the road; the woman died two weeks later of severe internal injuries. feminism & etymology We Are Family—Again By Renée Bondy Last summer, the American rock band Train’s hit song “Hey, Soul Sister” blared from car radios and shopping mall sound systems. This ear worm of a song wriggled its way into my brain, and I’d often find myself humming it, in spite of myself. As irritated as I was by the insipid pop tune, I have to admit that it made me stop and think about the use of the word sister, and how the word has changed over time. Siblings aside, the word sister has surfaced in numerous social contexts throughout history where bonds among women are valued and promoted, such as religious communities, trade unions, and Second-wave feminists adopted “sister” as a rallying sororities. In these organizations, sister cry. Sister Sledge amplified the sentiment with its hit has often served women well, but at other single “We Are Family.” times the word has limited their progress. For example, in women’s religious com- the nascent political movement. Examples munities, nuns have used the title “sister” abound of the use of sister in secondwave writing, perhaps the most famous as a sign of unity and belonging for thouof which is the 1970 anthology Sisterhood sands of years. In centuries past, when is Powerful, edited by Robin Morgan, one young Catholic women renounced their of the first attempts to amass a comprebiological families to live in cloistered convents, bonds with one’s chosen sisters hensive collection of writings from the were essential to individual and collective women’s lib movement. (The success of Sisterhood is Global in 1984 and Sisterhood well-being. Paradoxically, the title sister is Forever in 2000 is testament to the duralso set nuns apart from rank-and-file ability of Morgan’s Sisterhood series.) believers, elevating them above the laity Second-wave activists adopted sister and holding them to a higher standard of as a rallying cry. In 1973, the New York holiness. While the privileges attached to Radical Feminists Cabaret performed religious sisterhood could sometimes be “Dear Sisters,” an ode to women in hisused to their advantage, the word sister tory that concludes with a feminist call could also thwart the work of nuns by to action: “Oh Sisters Dear/ Dear Sisters creating distance between them and the Dear./ I implore you not to doubt, or wait, or populations they sought to serve. fear./ Be united in our fight./ Sally forth for When North American women came all our Rights./ Feminism is the Truth./ Oh together under the banner of women’s Sisters Dear.” liberation in the 1960s and ’70s, many employed the word sister as a way to Today, such language seems outdated. identify other like-minded feminists, Its use in the ’60s and ’70s suggested that establish common ground, and institute sister is a word that might bring all women a language of unity and commitment for together, regardless of difference. This seems artificial, at best. Decades later, many younger feminists view the idealized sisterhood of the second-wave as antiquated. My Gen X contemporaries, as well as subsequent Gen Ys and millennials, tend to distance ourselves from language so forced in its inclusivity. bell hooks addresses this shift in language and practice. In Feminism is For Everybody, she recalls that “when the contemporary feminist movement first began, we had a vision of sisterhood with no concrete understanding of the actual work we would need to do to make political solidarity a reality.” As a woman who actively participated in second-wave women’s politics and an astute feminist theorist, hooks offers the explanation that, “as long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized.” This recognition that sisterhood required women to check their privilege, required a radical rethinking of secondwave politics. As the feminist movement became more stratified, hooks argued, many women “simply abandoned the notion of sisterhood.” But that’s not the end of the story. hooks and other feminist scholars and activists, feel that solidarity among women, a coming together not predicated on the erasure of difference, must go hand in hand with sisterhood. Heightened awareness of this distinction is a game-changer, and perhaps this is why the word sister is experiencing a resurgence. Sisters in Spirit is a prime example. A movement dedicated to honouring and advocating on behalf of the hundreds of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada, Sisters in Spirit employs sister in a way that both personalizes victims and unifies supporters. One needs only to attend a Sisters in Spirit vigil, such as those held across the country on October 4, to understand the power of the word sister to unite women in the 21st century. herizons Fall 2013 13 Unmistakably Tel: 1.204.943.0468 www.josefryan.com Cole’s Notes by Susan G. COlE The Splendour of Gender Does gender matter in politics? It’s hard being a smart, forward-thinking woman in politics these days. You’d think it would be otherwise now that Canada boasts—count ’em—six female premiers. But the narrative that has unfolded since out lesbian Kathleen Wynne gained the Ontario Liberal leadership—and the premiership in the process—suggests that there are specific pressures on progressive-minded female politicians. The expectation is that women in leadership positions will be more collegial, treat woman in opposing camps more kindly and generally play well with other women. We have so much in common, after all. Certainly, all the data coming out of the business community suggests that women in the boardroom do behave differently than their male counterparts. A recent study released by the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics reports that women tend more often to take multiple stakeholders into consideration, take into account the interests of other stakeholders and are inclined to consider more than one solution to a problem. And women in the boardroom get results. A 2007 report discovered that boards with high female representation experience a 53 percent higher return on equity, a 66 percent higher return on invested capital and a 42 percent higher return on sales. (The fact that this hasn’t moved corporations to flood their boards with female members is a topic for another time.) But what’s a partisan politician to do? After Wynne’s victory at the leadership convention, the first words out of Ontario New Democratic Party Leader Andrea Horwath’s mouth were not, “You go, girl,” but, rather, a variation on, “First order of business for the Liberals should be to call an inquiry into the gas plant scandals.” She was referring to former premier Dalton McGuinty’s government’s decision during the last general election campaign to cancel the establishment of gas plants in two ridings. It was a blatantly cynical ploy that cost taxpayers half a billion dollars but gained the Liberals two seats—not enough to gain the majority the Grits so desperately sought. Horwath was pilloried by all kinds of commentators, especially women, for not being warm and toasty to Wynne and for choosing to be politically partisan instead of offering the proper congratulations to the first female premier of Ontario. Be nice to a sister, was the message. This strikes me as a knee-jerk response, similar to voting for a candidate because she’s female—warning: you could get a Margaret Thatcher or Sarah Palin type—and for Wynne because she’s a lesbian. What makes Horwath a better role model—making nice with a political opponent, or sticking to her principles and making Wynne accountable for her part in McGuinty’s government? Before you answer that question, consider what happened next. Last summer, the Liberal government called by-elections in five ridings held by the Grits. The NDP took two of the five seats, the Tories one and the Liberals only two. A major outcome from those byelections has been a debate over whether Tom Hudak should continue as leaders of the Progressive Conservatives, given that his party bombed during these votes. But even that conflict was eclipsed by Horwath’s success in gaining another two seats for the NDP, thus doubling the party’s seat count since she gained the leadership. And what was the main talking point during the campaign in those ridings that eventually went NDP? Those cancelled gas plants that Horwath insisted stay on the agenda ever since Wynne won the leadership. It’s true that Horwath worked with the Liberals to pass the budget, making gains for the NDP, especially regarding reduced insurance rates, so Horwath actually knows how to work co-operatively. But it seems to me that Horwath succeeds even more as a role model for showing skilled leadership of her party—and distinguishing herself clearly from her sister opponent. herizons Fall 2013 15 Women’s Movement in China the by Joanna Chiu I n the stifling heat of Shanghai in the summertime, Xiaoyan walks through a subway passage wearing a black cotton sheath that covers her from head to toe with only her eyes showing. Her friend wears a black face mask along with a homemade metal bra over a red T-shirt and miniskirt. They are responding to a comment from a Shanghai metro operator who posted a photo of a woman in a seethrough dress on his blog and wrote, “It’s no wonder that some people get harassed if they dress like this.” Instead of carrying placards, the women display a simple message on their iPads to passersby—“I can dress provocatively, but you cannot harass me”—echoing similar calls around the world against the victim-blaming of sexual assault survivors. “We couldn’t march on the streets like the SlutWalk protests that have happened in other cities,” says Xiaoyan, 33, one year later, during lunch at her favourite restaurant in the city’s former French Concession. “So we did our own small action, then posted photos online and asked others to help promote our message. It led to a lot of debate and media attention.” China is home to one in five of the world’s women. It is also a place where women’s rights seem to be sliding backwards and women are being denied equal access to education and employment. Reports of domestic violence are on the rise. Lacking the right to organize large-scale protests, women like Xiaoyan are striking back in creative ways. On Valentine’s Day last year, three women in wedding dresses splattered with fake blood boldly demonstrated on a Beijing street behind Tiananmen Square, hoisting signs with slogans such as “Love is Not an Excuse for Violence.” 16 FAll 2013 herizons In August, four female students in the city of Guangzhou shaved their heads to protest unfair double standards for female students seeking university admission, inspiring at least 20 other women to follow suit across the country. And in December, a dozen “microbloggers” posted nude photographs of themselves on social media to support a petition for domestic violence legislation. These small acts of defiance have caught the attention of foreign media, and even local media have sometimes covered these actions. Before Xiaoyan became one of a handful of outspoken women’s rights advocates in the country, she was a sociology student interested in contemporary women’s issues. She said her first exposure to feminist activism happened when she helped put on her university’s yearly production of the Vagina Monologues, which was adapted for a Shanghai audience from Eve Ensler’s play. It was at a Vagina Monologues performance in 2006 that Xiaoyan met her current partner, Xiangqi. At the time, Xiaoyan was still coming to terms with her sexuality, while Xiangqi was already a prominent leader in the lesbian community. In 2001, Xiangqi started a website to help lesbians in Shanghai meet. The online forum led to real-life social events and evolved into the city’s only lesbian rights group, Shanghai Nvai (a play on the Chinese words nu ai, meaning love between women). Xiaoyan and Xiangqi now co-lead the organization and hold events and workshops in their living room. “I never thought I would become a lesbian community organizer,” says Xiangqi, who is 36. “After I started the website, the members wanted to meet up in person, but I wasn’t sure it was worth it until I met lesbian activists in Xiaoyan and another Chinese protester appeared at a subway passage last year after a Shanghai metro operator said that women invite sexual harassment by dressing provocatively. Their signs read: “I can dress provocatively but you can not harass me.” Taiwan and Hong Kong at a conference and learned from their experiences.” During my recent travels in Shanghai, Beijing and cities in the southern province of Guangdong, the women I met often told me that they had become activists by accident. Those who have the basic Internet skills to organize online often become reluctant leaders. But, while they are brave, they still need to be careful. “If you do a lot of political lobbying, you run into safety issues, and if your group is shut down, then you can’t do anything,” says Xiangqi. “So we focus on giving workshops in schools and other venues to try to gradually change cultural attitudes.” More often than not, the most outspoken women’s rights advocates also happen to be lesbian, bisexual or transgender. While a grassroots women’s movement in China has barely just begun, the LGBT rights movement started gaining momentum in the early 2000s after online communities spun off into a variety of advocacy organizations. The groups, catered to self-identified women, tend to be interested in women’s issues in general. This trend is especially apparent in Beijing, a political and cultural hub where many non-governmental organizations have their offices. I visited a high-rise building at the edge of the city centre where I asked women’s groups about the risks involved in their work. Xiong Jing, an officer at the group Media Monitor for Women’s Network, says that as well as having the potential of upsetting government authorities, Chinese feminists also herizons Fall 2013 17 GREAT READS for FALL from ROSEWAY If This Is Freedom A Novel by Gloria Ann Wesley Creating Space “A vital story for our times.” — Sylvia D. Hamilton My Life and Work in Indigenous Education by Verna J. Kirkness Turn Us Again A Novel by Charlotte R. 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Kirkness is a visionary who has inspired, and been inspired by, generations of students. Paper • $34.95 • 978-0-88755-743-9 | E-book • $25 • 978-0-88755-445-2 uofmpres s. c a From past to present From coast to coast From culture to culture HERSTORY 2014 The Canadian Women’s Calendar Herstory celebrates the stories of inspiring Canadian women combined with the essential elements of a day planner. Use it through the year to chart and organize the daily herstory of another inspiring woman: YOU! Herstory: a daily reminder of the difference women make. www.coteaubooks.com @CoteauBooks @HerstoryTweets 18 FAll 2013 herizons Ask for Herstory at your local bookstore, order online from www.coteaubooks.com or call us at 306-777-0170. risk being ostracized from society. While many aren’t open about their sexual orientation, she estimates that as many as 90 percent of women’s rights activists, including NGO staff and individual volunteers, are queer women. “It’s because we have less to lose,” she says. “We can’t get married. Straight women need to find husbands and be a part of mainstream society. Gay women can step up and speak out without worrying as much.” When the Chinese Communist Party assumed control of China in 1949, women were deemed equal with men, having already played some key roles in the early development of the party. The new government initially promoted androgynous dress, encouraged late marriages and attacked traditional social beliefs. But, as the party’s rule became more established, government bodies began to actively endorse traditional gender roles and considered the nuclear family to be the bedrock of a stable, harmonious society. Since 2007, for example, according to research from Tsinghua University, the state-sponsored All-China Women’s Federation has been campaigning for women to get married earlier and be less ambitious in their careers. Yet women social activists claim the emphasis on marriage and traditional gender roles has only increased the pervasiveness of domestic violence. The Media Monitor for Women’s Network is one of the non-governmental organizations that formed after United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing in 1995. The network supports small actions that raise public awareness of women’s rights issues, holds community workshops and activities and publishes Feminist Voice, a weekly online journal. The network helped spread the news about the action against domestic violence last Valentine’s Day, in which women in blood-splattered wedding dresses protested near Tiananmen Square, the site of the 1989 government massacre of student demonstrators. The women marched for half an hour before police told them to stop. “We couldn’t make an announcement asking people to come, because we’re organizing a protest. It’s unsafe and illegal,” explains Xiong Jing. “But at the action we took pictures and then reported the activity online and contacted reporters to cover the event.” Sina Weibo, a popular Twitter-like microblogging website, has been especially important in creating unprecedented public space for the discussion of social and political issues. Posts about women’s rights issues are not usually “sensitive” enough to be removed by government censors. Weibo has helped facilitate fruitful interactions between activists in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and communities overseas. Social media are especially important for small women’s groups with limited resources who want their messages to reach large audiences. “I spend half my time on social media,” said Xiong Jing, who manages a Weibo account with over 15,000 followers. Women’s groups also agree that, in a country where one out of every four women will experience abuse from a spouse, domestic violence is one of their top priorities. In 2011, the National Women’s Federation and the National Bureau of Statistics conducted a national survey of women, finding that 24.7 percent of women had suffered insults, beatings, restriction of personal freedom, economic control, forced sex or other forms of spousal violence. In a high-profile case that recently helped raise awareness about domestic violence in China, the eccentric founder of Crazy English, a wildly popular English teaching program, was found guilty of assaulting his American wife and ordered to pay $8,000 in compensation as well as assets of almost $2 million. In an interview with the newspaper China Daily, Li Yang said, “I hit her sometimes but I never thought she would make it public, since it’s not Chinese tradition to expose family conflicts to outsiders.” His comments reveal an attitude common in China, according to Bi Wenjuan, a program officer at the Beijingbased Anti-Domestic Violence Network/Beijing Fanbao. “Gender-based violence is seen as normal,” she says. “Lots of people don’t think it is wrong. Many women are afraid to speak out about it because it would make their families lose face.” The Anti-Domestic Violence Network, along with related organizations, has been lobbying for strong legislation to combat domestic violence. It and holds regular activities to educate the public, police, judiciary and government officials, including workshops, conferences and community advocacy events. Xiaoyan and Xiangqi agree that it is smart for women’s organizations to focus on promoting cultural change and to work with the government to help improve laws and policies. “Family pressure to conform is very serious,” according to Xiaoyan, whose parents do not know she is a lesbian or that she participates in feminist demonstrations. At the same time, she says, “It’s time for all of us to have an intimate discourse and challenge social norms.” Many women are afraid to speak out about violence because it would make their families lose face.” —R. Wen Juan herizons Fall 2013 19 It’s Time to Shatter the Perfect-Mother Myth by Jeanie Keogh Willow Yamauchi, author of Bad Mommy, says the myths surrounding motherhood silence women and are largely “bullshit.” A Gina Wong edited Moms Gone Mad, a collection of stories about madness, oppression and resistance as they relate to motherhood. generation ago, middle-class women grew up with the understanding that it was possible to have it all: healthy, well-adjusted children, successful careers and fulfilling personal relationships. Indeed, many women manage this superhuman multi-tasking balancing act with a surprising level of sanity. However, a persistent anti-feminist attack is chipping away at mothers’ self-esteem. The culprit is the perfect-mother myth. It keeps women isolated from each other and competing with one another. The perfect-mother myth not only sabotages their careers, it sees mothers blame themselves for failing to be perfect. Three Canadian feminist mothers have taken a fresh look at the perfect-mother myth with a view to unseating 20 FAll 2013 herizons Karen Bridson says that instead of benefiting from the women’s movement, mothers are more exhausted, angry, and resentful than ever. these unrealistic expectations of motherhood and encourage mothers to fight the unjust conditions in which most women mother. Their books include Bad Mommy, by Willow Yamauchi (Insomniac Press), Stunned: The New Generation of Women Having Babies, Getting Angry and Creating a Women’s Movement, by Karen Bridson (Health Communications), and Moms Gone Mad: Motherhood and Madness, Oppression and Resistance (Demeter Press), an anthology edited by Gina Wong. Each author talks about the loss of power, status and personal autonomy they experienced when they became mothers. These losses varied, depending on the extent to which each mother was culturally evaluated by, and criticized for, the way she mothered. The mothers report not only that their choices were frequently undermined but that their ability to take care of their children was, at times, called into question. It was a far cry from the glory they expected as mothers, and an eyeopening discovery. “There is a lot of cognitive dissonance in parenting,” according to Willow Yamauchi, a writer, artist and the mother of two teenagers. “Women are brought up to think mothering is beautiful and wonderful, and it’s going to be so satisfying, and it’s what you’re meant to be, and it’s going to make you a complete woman. Then when you do it, you realize that so much of it is bullshit.” Karen Bridson, a digital media producer at TVO and the mother of a young son, has written an analysis about how women are transformed when they become mothers. “Living the carefree lives of men for so long, many of us feel shock when the reality of a mother’s life rains down upon us,” she writes. “We quickly realize the lack of support and limited value our society places on motherhood. Ultimately, we recognize the true inequality that motherhood brings.” At the same time, mothers are still held to impossible standards that only guarantee they will feel like failures. “When a mother doesn’t appear to live up to these new, high standards of über-mothering or tending to her home, she may fall victim to something sociologists call mother judgment,” Bridson explains. “This occurs when women seemingly police each other.” She also notes that one of the reasons women judge other women is their own fears of inadequacy. “The terror of caring for this tiny, fragile being can make people look for just the right way to do things, and to justify to themselves that they are, in fact, doing things that way,” Bridson said. Wong describes this hyper-regulation of mothers as “the ubiquitous observational gaze ... the imprisonment that keeps mothers under malevolent, omnipresent surveillance. There’s self-surveillance, other surveillance, and we’re not even quite sure who is watching us anymore.” It’s as if women, when they become mothers, become public property in a sense. “We all have a voice in the discourse of motherhood, it’s a public discourse. People feel that it’s a public thing they can comment on,” says Wong who is a psychologist, a maternal scholar and an Athabasca University professor. Certainly, ideas about child-rearing are worthy of public discussion. However, in most of these public discussions, fathers don’t face the same scrutiny and aren’t held responsible in the same way. “Men won’t be ostracized for the quality of their kids’ birthday parties. And they won’t be judged by the health benefits of their child’s snack,” observes Bridson. Mother blame and the perfect-mother myth come from the idea that mothers are principally responsible for their children’s Karen Bridson’s book Stunned, and Gin Wong’s Moms Gone Mad examine unrealistic expectations of mothers. development. When a problem arises, the mother is assigned culpability. The father’s role and the child’s personality are factors that are either downplayed or ignored. “While it is certainly true that mothers are important to the development of their children, so are fathers, siblings, grandparents, teachers and the vast and complex social milieu surrounding them,” explains Regina M. Edmonds, in her chapter, “The Persistence and Destructiveness of Mother-Blame,” in Moms Gone Mad. Mother blame can affect a woman’s psychological health if she suffers from post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis, Wong adds. Furthermore, mothers are often labelled as “unsafe” and “unfit” when health care practitioners don’t consider the factors contributing to their breakdown, including an uncooperative, absent or abusive spouse or a lack of familial or community support. “Women’s so-called madness is often an understandable response to wider social conditions,” explains Wong, who believes in moving from shaming the individual to considering the whole. In this way, she says, practitioners would shift from “‘What is wrong with this woman?’ to ‘What happened to this woman?’” The perfect-mother myth is long-standing, and signs are that it is getting worse. “Unrealistic expectations [of ] modern mothers have increased over time and in fact set mothers further back, and to an extent not seen since the 1950s,” according to Wong. Adds Bridson, “As mothers, our roles [bear] more resemblance to the 1950s than to the 21st-century myth of post-feminist total equality we’ve been fed.” Mothering manuals of more than a century ago encouraged mothers to govern their emotions so as not to damage the development of the child. Such supposed harm included anger causing miscarriages, birth defects and poisoning the mother’s milk. A mother’s negative moods were believed to permanently affect a child’s temperament. herizons Fall 2013 21 NEW FROM I N A N N A P U B L I C AT I O N S THE WONDROUS WOO a novel by Carrianne Leung ISBN 9781771330688 / 260 PAGES / OCTOBER 2013 / $22.95 The Wondrous Woo tells the story of Miramar Woo who is the quintessential Chinese girl: nice, quiet, and reserved. The eldest of the three Woo children, Miramar is ever the obedient sister and daughter ... on the outside. On the inside, she’s a kick-ass kung fu heroine with rock star flash, sassy attitude, and an insatiable appetite for adventure. Miramar watches helplessly as her family unravels in the aftermath of her father’s death. Her mother is on the brink of a recurring paranoia that involves phantom hands. Her younger siblings suddenly and mysteriously become savants, in possession of uncanny talents nicknamed The Gifts. As her siblings are swept up into the fantastic world of fame and fortune and her mother fights off madness, Miramar ventures forth from the suburbs of Toronto to university in Ottawa and back again. Along the way she explores new friendships, lust, and a side of herself never seen before. INANNA POETRY AND FICTION SERIES WOMEN+FASHION+ CELEBS+DIY+FOOD +ENTERTAINMENT+ HISTORY+CULTURE+ FEMINISM+SMARTS+ FUN= subscribe online at BUST.COM 22 FAll 2013 herizons www.inanna.ca Yamauchi humorously debunks these myths, which she says are “So many of us are convinced this will never happen to us, still prevalent today. She steers mothers away from the perfectyet the reality is divorce will happen to more than half of us,” mother myth and encourages mothers to be confident in the says Bridson. “Women are four times more likely than men knowledge that loving mothers don’t scar their children for life. to live in poverty after divorce in Canada.” “Where can you mess up? The answer is, at every single step. Perhaps because motherhood is such an elusive, romantiNo matter what you’re going to do, someone is going to say cized ideal, it is an area where we have been much slower to you’re doing it wrong,” concludes Yamauchi. incorporate feminist ideals than, say, the fight for better jobs Examples of decisions for which mothers are routinely and equal pay—definable issues where women share clear, judged include circumcision, vaccination, public breastcommon interests. But even where better pay and workforce feeding, co-sleeping, home-schooling and working versus equality is concerned, working mothers are suffering. Those staying at home. who do return to jobs they previously loved often experience a “The cruel truth is, being a good mommy is pretty much loss in status and have difficulty gaining an equal footing with impossible. This creature exists only as a figment of our collecmen or women colleagues without children. tive hope that we can actually be everything that our families “You will quickly be demoted to the status of someone’s mommy need us to be,” Yamauchi says. first, big shot career woman, not so much,” according to Bridson. The fear of admitting that mothers are not only not perfect She believes many women accept that not getting probut are not coping well is the dirty little secret motions is a trade-off for having children. in the private lives of mothers. Conversely, when motherhood takes a back “You’re constantly failing, so you lie to yourseat to women’s own lives or jobs, they ofself and to others,” writes Yamauchi. ten become either secretly tormented or But while lying to hide imperfection isn’t outwardly chastised for being bad mothers. new, what is new is the bombardment of new And so the perfect-mother myth uses guilt must-have gadgets and the messages teaching to nudge intelligent, highly skilled women women more ways to be perfect. out of positions they might otherwise desire “Instead of hiding mommy guilt and shame if society supported working mothers more. with brave smiles, matching mother-daughter “The right for women to do and be everyoutfits and three o’clock martinis, in Bad thing that men [can] be involves the need Mommy we celebrate our neuroses, shortfor society and families to support women in comings and nasty little habits,” Yamauchi such a way as to make it possible for them to explains in the introduction to her book. do and be whatever it is they want to do and Women would be better off if they were be,” Bridson offers. Bad Mommy celebrates neuroses. truthful about how messy the process of Until we adopt a more evolved, less judgmothering actually is. “It’s okay to not love mental model of modern motherhood, many mothering. It’s okay to not like it. It’s okay to share that and mothers will continue to accept their lot and will refuse to talk to other people about that,” she says. fight for better treatment and opportunities because they are Bridson agrees that it’s time to end the self-censorship. too distracted by the immediate needs of their family and too “While women judge and compete with each other, they rarely racked with guilt to see the big picture. discuss these issues,” she says. “We need to name the tensions In order to change, motherhood will have to reach a cultural and hash them out. We need to stop the disservice we do to tipping point. Once a critical mass of mothers brings down ourselves as women by denying our connection and shared the perfect-mother myth, women will be able to successfully experience at one end of the spectrum, and judging and turntackle the many pressing issues that hold mothers back: ing our backs on each other at the other.” family-unfriendly workplaces, the lack of affordable, quality Her book gives mothers a reason not just to open up but to daycare, discrimination against mothers and mothers-to-be, be downright angry on the professional front. Women with and a lack of better public policies to support motherhood. children are 44 per cent less likely to be hired than women In the meantime, the declining rate at which Canadian without children. In Canada, full-time working women with women are having children—the average stood at 1.61 chilchildren earn an average of 12 per cent less than women dren in 2011—suggests that there is already a silent, private without children. If that’s not bad enough, Canadian men boycott taking place against the state of motherhood. Perhaps with children are paid between 10 and 12 per cent more than women are already silently waiting for the terms of mothermen without kids. hood to become more favourable before they begin to have Then comes the divorce rate. more children. herizons Fall 2013 23 Model Behaviour Why Mannequins must reflect us At Toronto’s Fashion Crimes, mannequins modelling the stores’ goods reflect a racial diversity that’s appreciated by customers. 24 FAll 2013 herizons by Sharon Haywood T riggering women’s insecurity by selling them unattainable beauty has been the golden rule for the fashion industry, but common sense begs the question: Wouldn’t sales naturally increase if consumers actually had models—both reallife models and mannequins—that looked like their own bodies? After all, meta-analyses of existing studies, such as a 2008 review by professors Shelly Grabe, L. Monique Ward and Janet Shibley Hyde, have established that repeated exposure to the thin ideal negatively impacts body image in girls and women and is a significant factor in low self-esteem and disordered eating. It’s no wonder, considering that only five percent of women actually fit this narrow ideal, as social anthropologist Kate Fox confirmed in her 1997 summary of body-image research. Ben Barry, CEO of Ben Barry Models, presents another convincing argument for normal model sizes. Barry conducted a study involving more than 2,500 Canadian and American women of varying ethnicities, ages and sizes. He illustrated that female consumers’ purchasing intentions skyrocketed when women saw clothing featured on models that looked like them in relation to race, age and size. Further, he found that women’s intentions to purchase actually decreased when they couldn’t identify with the model. Out of the three variables, size generated the most extreme results. When models were the same size as the consumer, their intention to purchase rose over 200 percent; for women greater than a size 6, that number shot up to 300 percent. On the flip side, purchase intentions dropped 60 percent and 76 percent, respectively, when the model did not reflect the consumer’s size. These results run completely contrary to the insecurity-inducing business model to which the beauty and fashion industries almost religiously adhere. As Barry wrote for Elle magazine in 2012, “While some women in my study felt insecure when they saw idealized models, their insecurity didn’t translate to purchase intentions as the industry hopes; it actually turned them off the product.” As one of the participants summarized, “Ads like this want us to be part of their world, but they have the opposite effect for me. I feel excluded”. If making women feel lousy about their bodies doesn’t boost sales, why do it? Until the late 1950s, the size of mannequins was much more realistic than the models currently featured in store windows. In 1992, a study by two researchers, Minna Rintala and Pertti Mustajoki, compared Italian, Japanese and Malaysian mannequins from the 1920s to the 1960s. They found that “arm, hip, and thigh circumferences of modern display figures were two to three cm, eight cm, and four to five cm less, respectively, compared to those of figures from before the Second World War.” Furthermore, upon examining calculated amounts of fat, the researchers determined that mannequins used prior to the 1950s reflected a percentage typical of a young, healthy woman. After the 1950s, mannequins grew progressively slimmer and possessed proportions not present in real female bodies. Their waist circumferences also notably decreased during the 1950s, further accentuated by larger, lifted breasts and wider hips. This voluptuous female figure took on a silhouette close to that of a Barbie doll, which was first created in 1959. It was well before this, at the end of the 19th century in Europe, that mannequins transitioned from headless, shaped torsos into wax figures that assumed human characteristics— from the neck up. Details such as real eyelashes, human hair and, sometimes teeth were used in an attempt to make them more lifelike. By the 1920s, the drive for more true-to-life depictions produced more convincing female faces that were widely used in Europe and the United States. Full-body female mannequins also entered the market and tended to reflect the popular boyish figure glamorized by the period’s famous flappers, as described by Marianne Thesander in her 1997 book, The Feminine Ideal. By the 1930s, U.S. manufacturers emerged and began producing mannequins with faces with which American women could identify—the famous and the wealthy. Author Jon Stratton outlined in a 1996 issue of the Australian Humanities Review that Cora Scovil, the first designer to make the shift from wax to plaster, modelled her mannequins after well-known film stars such as Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford. Another pioneer in American mannequin design, Lester Gaba, took his inspiration from a different sector of elite society: young New York socialites. He produced the popular Gaba Girls and the Cynthia mannequin, which even got her own photo spread in a 1937 issue of Life magazine. (Until that time, Life online says, “upper-class women preferred to see how their clothes looked by having them modelled on young, human women.”) During the Great Depression, it was also common to see heavier-set mannequins. In a 1991 issue of Smithsonian magazine, writers Per Ola and Emily d’Aulaire make reference to the size 18 Bertille, created by Dutch artist Pierre Imans. Although Bertille and 1930s mannequins of her size seem to be somewhat of an anomaly in mannequin history, they too projected an elusive body ideal for their era—one that reflected affluence. Clearly, mannequins don’t just sell clothes. As beauty ideals and fashion trends have morphed over the years, mannequins have served as three-dimensional mirrors of such shifts, but they have also acted as instruments within mass media that set beauty standards, enforce stereotypes and shape perceptions of perfection. herizons Fall 2013 25 In 2009, Old Navy started using mannequins that depict various racial backgrounds. (Photo: Sharon Haywood) Mannequins have evolved in their inclusivity—but only to a point. As it stands today, mannequins of various ethnicities and ages are represented in mainstream markets, but the same cannot be said with regard to size—a gap whose closure could cause mannequins to be harnessed as potent tools of change. As “dummies” are clearly not real, it could be argued that inanimate objects cannot be held to the same standards as models. As leading mannequin designer Pucci has noted, the perfect mannequin stands about six feet tall, and, in inches would measure 32-22-32. According to Barry, though, “A customer is better able to see how clothing compliments their body when the mannequin has similar proportions.” In the 1960s, the quest for above-the-neck realism prevailed, but mannequin designers did not reflect the true diversity of bodies; dummies continued to reinforce societal stereotypes and each era’s version of beauty. In 1966, London-based South African designer Adel Rootstein created the famous Twiggy mannequin, fashioned after the internationally popular 17-yearold size 6 model. This drastic shift away from the big-busted, 26 FAll 2013 herizons small-waisted, cartoon-like mannequins of the ’50s fell right in line with the extreme social changes and upsurge of rebellion that defined the decade. In the midst of the civil rights movement, Rootstein broke new ground again by creating Luna, a Black mannequin in the likeness of Donyale Luna, a world-renowned Paris runway model and the first African-American featured on the cover of Vogue. Even though Luna broke barriers in the fashion world, her likeness was consistently positioned in feline-like poses that reaffirmed the animalistic and overly sexualized stereotype for women of colour. As author Sara K. Schneider wrote in the journal Design Issues in 1997, “Most of Luna’s poses showed the mannequin, weight forward, as if preparing to pounce or landing after a long backward jump. All of Luna’s poses came with exceedingly articulated almost claw-like fingers.” Sometimes, manufacturers simply darkened the skin colour of white mannequins to whatever they felt appropriately reflected a desired ethnicity. Mannequin variety continued to expand after the 1970s. There was an increase in authentic facial features from various ethnicities, as well as the introduction of petite mannequins. On the surface, the inclusion of petite figures could be seen as progress on the size-inclusive front. However, as journalist Helen Burggraf noted in Crain’s New York Business, petite mannequins are “universally several inches taller than the women for whom they were designed… because ‘clothes simply look better on taller figures.’” Coinciding with the aging and well-off baby boomer generation, the first line of older mannequins appeared in 1988 with Robert Filoso’s “Classic Drama,” representing women between the ages of 42 and 48. Then, in 1989, Filoso created “Gloria,” the first in another line of older mannequins, modelled after a 58-year-old woman of the same name. He took great care to include details such as laugh lines and facial asymmetry. In 1989, UPI journalist Valerie Kuklenski reported Filoso as saying, “Nobody’s face is the same on both sides…. If mannequins are supposed to reflect live people, they should look alive.” Despite the fixation on creating eerily human-like faces and an increased attention to race, height and age, the mannequin industry continued its quest for realism while essentially ignoring the size and shape of its consumers. The plus-size market began to use more realistic mannequins during the 1990s. As plus-sized fashions by retailers such as Lane Bryant gained in popularity, so did the demand for larger-sized mannequins. Interestingly, even plus-sized mannequins haven’t accurately represented plus-sized bodies. Bust magazine reported in 2013 that, historically, “most mannequins for larger clothes were made by just magnifying the general proportions of smaller mannequins.” This past May, however, two Cornell University fashion design students created the first size 24 mannequin using authentic measurements. Nevertheless, the norm remains that plus-sized mannequins are generally only featured in plus-sizes shops. Rarely do we see size diversity in window displays, even though non-specialty retailers cater to a wide range of sizes. One exception is the U.K. department store Debenhams. In 2010, the Mail online noted that the store became the first to use plus-sized mannequins, motivated by the fact that 42 percent of its profits came from size 16 to size 18 garments. Perhaps the tide is finally changing. In 2007, Spain’s health ministry mandated that healthier-looking mannequins, estimated to be a European size 38 (a British 10 or North American 8) replace the über-slender display models. In 2010, BEAT, a U.K. charity aimed at preventing eating disorders, spoke out against a line of ultra-thin male mannequins called the “Young and the Restless” (yet another Rootstein creation), affirming that such thin figures can have a negative effect on men’s body images, just as they can for women. In 2012, Change.org hosted a petition created by Dr. Dae Sheridan, a U.S. psychotherapist, that targeted department store JC Penny for its use of super-skinny mannequins. At the time of writing, signees numbered beyond 7,300. According to Statistics Canada, 44 percent of Canadian women are considered overweight. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and England’s National Health Service report 63.9 percent of American women and 58.4 percent of British women fall into the same category. Simply put, the majority of women in the global North are not thin. Compare that to today’s size 2 mannequin: A woman of the same proportions would be too thin to menstruate. While the size and proportions of mannequins continue to remain more or less static outside the plus-sizes market, race, age and, to a certain extent, disability are much more visible in store windows. In Toronto, the independent retailer Fashion Crimes has been drawing women into its trendy Queen Street West location since the 1980s with racially diverse mannequins designed by none other than the famous Rootstein. Owner Pam Chorley has always chosen to feature her made-tomeasure designs on what she calls “realistic, stunning mannequins. They all have a personality that brings the clothes to life.” Since 2009, Old Navy’s “SuperModelquins,” mannequins of various races and ages, have been displayed at stores across North America. In 2010, Debenhams incorporated mannequins using wheelchairs into their high street displays. Barry cites Canadian designer Izzy Camilleri as “one of the best examples” of accurate mannequin use. Camilleri’s window displays in her Toronto shop, IZ Adaptive Clothing, feature mannequins in the seated position so her clients—people who use wheelchairs—can clearly picture how garments would fall on their own bodies. According to Barry, “size is still one of the most stigmatized characteristics in fashion. Fashion marketers and retailers have a false fear that consumers are turned off by size diversity … that consumers do not see curves as aspirational.” Plus-sized mannequins can expand retailers’ markets and improve women’s body image. (Photo: Sharon Haywood) As such, the fashion industry has yet to tap into the selling potential mannequins possess. However, many people are beginning to realize the power mannequins wield as vehicles of change. Earlier this year, a photo of a mannequin from the Swedish department store Åhléns went viral, attracting international attention. Little did the rest of the world know that this plus-sized mannequin is one of many various-sized figures the retailer has been using in its window displays for more than 10 years in order to cater to its different-sized clientele. Increasing size diversity across the board in the fashion world carries tremendous potential for improving consumers’ self-image while also maximizing the industry’s bottom line. Applying such logic to mannequins makes sense, considering that their primary function is to act as welcoming ambassadors meant to entice passersby. Rather than capitalizing on and creating insecurities, a shift to a sustainable body-loving business model is what will create loyal shoppers and greater profits—a win-win for consumers and for the fashion industry. herizons Fall 2013 27 Temporary Workers Permanent Problems How Canada shortchanges foreign workers By Sandhya Singh L aura came to Canada from Mexico to work as a seasonal apple picker under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. She fell on the job, and her legs were crushed by a tractor. While she was in the hospital, a Mexican official tried to coerce her to sign documents to give up her right to treatment and benefits in Canada and return home. The goal was to save her employer from increased workers’ compensation premiums. Labour unions and workers’ advocacy groups have documented hundreds of cases of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers in Canada. Stories like Laura’s are representative of migrants’ experiences when they come to work in Canada. “The exploitation is not isolated and anecdotal. It is endemic. It is systemic,” concluded a September 2012 report, “Made in Canada: How the Law Constructs Migrant Workers’ Insecurity,” by labour and human rights lawyer Fay Faraday. “It is no accident that these conditions exist,” she notes, in reference to the changes made to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in the last 10 years. “[They] are profoundly oppressive and are entirely predictable outcomes given the system we have created.” Although some parts of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program are more than 45 years old, a number of changes have been made in the last decade. The program allows foreign workers to be hired in Canada on a temporary basis and includes a number of streams, four of which allow entry to low-skill workers. The oldest and perhaps most widely known streams are the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, which started in 1966, and the Live-in Caregiver Program which has its roots in a program begun in 1981. However, in 2002, the Pilot Project for Occupations Requiring Lower Levels of Formal Training was introduced, and it’s taken off like wildfire. No longer a pilot program, it has 28 FAll 2013 herizons since been named the Stream for Lower-Skilled Occupations. Unlike the two previous sector-specific programs, this program is open to more than 30,000 job titles covering over 500 job categories listed in the National Occupational Classification developed by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. Organizations critical of the new program include the Canadian Labour Congress, which claims that any job in the Canadian labour force is open to temporary workers. Indeed, migrant workers are now pumping gas, serving food at Tim Hortons, Denny’s, McDonald’s and Dairy Queen, cleaning hotels, packing fruit, growing flowers and killing hogs. From greenhouses in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. to slaughterhouses in Alberta and Manitoba, migrant workers are now a vital part of the workforce across the country. And they number more than 300,000. Migrants under the Stream for Lower-Skilled Occupations are given two-year visas, which are renewable for an additional two years. They have almost no pathway to permanent residency in Canada, however. And, while the program was designed to respond to short-term labour shortages, employers can hire new migrant workers to replace ones whose terms have expired. “Clearly, it is only the workers that are temporary,” says Faraday, “not the jobs.” In 2006, for the first time, the number of migrant workers entering the country exceeded the number of immigrants granted permanent resident status. So, while Canada maintains a strict quota on the number of new immigrants allowed entry, there is no quota on the number of migrants that can be hired annually. As a result, the number of migrant workers has more than tripled in the last 10 years. There were 89,746 migrants working in Canada in 2000; in 2011 there were 300,111. According to University of Guelph associate professor of sociology Kerry Preibisch, the percentage of women involved during the pilot project phase increased from 33 percent in 2002 to 40.5 percent in 2007. In their 2012 film documentary The End of Immigration?, producers Marie Boti and Malcolm Guy highlight the fact that immigrants who entered Canada in the 1940s and ’50s on the basis of their ability to perform the same types of jobs now being done by migrant workers would no longer even qualify for permanent resident status. This change represents a major shift in Canadian immigration policy. Now, only migrant workers who come to Canada as managers, professionals and skilled workers can apply to immigrate. There are few options for those who enter under the new stream, as only some provinces admit lower-skilled workers in specific occupations under their provincial nominee programs. Another shift is the huge increase in the number of countries sending workers to Canada. According to Preibisch’s analysis of 2009 Citizenship and Immigration Canada data, in the first year of the pilot, migrants from 52 different countries took up jobs in agriculture and food processing. By 2007, that number had grown to 75. While the number of migrants and the range of occupations they perform may be surprising to many Canadians, it is the working and living conditions that are most alarming to workers’ rights advocates. Gina Bahiwal and Kyla Bahingawan are migrants from the Philippines who work at a greenhouse packing fruits and vegetables in Leamington, Ontario. Featured in The End of Immigration?, they describe their experiences in Canada as “difficult and terrible.” They received little information about the program before coming. Each paid between $4,000 and $5,000 to a recruiting agency in the Philippines to get the opportunity to work in Canada, even though Canadian regulations strictly prohibit this. “Before we came, they told us, never tell anyone that you paid something in the Philippines or else you will be deported,” Bahingawan said. Another change is that, while the seasonal workers program was regulated by agreements between the sending countries and Canada, the new Stream for Lower-Skilled Occupations is largely managed by employers and recruiters. As a result, there is no systemic government follow-up and no appeal process for workers who are dismissed. It would be an understatement to say that this makes workers vulnerable. Their contracts bind them to a single employer and to living in employer-provided housing—often at great profit to the employer. Like Bahiwal and Bahingawan, many temporary foreign workers arrive unaware of their rights, and government regulations designed to protect workers and ensure Immigration lawyer Evelyn Encalada (second from right) appears with migrant workers on the set of an upcoming documentary called Migrant Dreams. herizons Fall 2013 29 fair treatment are not enforced. Understandably, temporary foreign workers are afraid to complain because they fear losing their jobs. They therefore tolerate violations of their rights rather than speaking up. Bahiwal and Bahingawan were approached a second time by their recruiter, who claimed they had to pay $1,500 more, this time to get a document called a labour market opinion so that their contracts could be renewed. The women refused to pay, since they were aware that getting the documents is an employer’s responsibility, not the workers’. Eventually, Bahingawan lost her job and, with few options left, she applied to the Live-in Caregiver Program. In order to qualify, she needed to take a course that cost her $8,000. Because of the vulnerabilities inherent in the temporary worker program, the Live-in Caregiver Program, which has long been criticized for the potential and actual exploitation of its workforce, is now seen by many as a less bad option. A long list of migrant workers’ complaints has been documented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Canadian Labour Congress and Justicia for Migrants. The list includes unpaid overtime; being paid lower wages than promised in their contracts; being made to work longer hours than allowed in employment-standards legislation; and being made to work in hazardous working environments, sometimes without proper safety equipment. Further exploitation occurs when workers are forced to live in substandard, overcrowded or overpriced rental facilities owned by their employers. There are many documented cases of employers renting the same rooms out to both day shift and night shift workers, resulting in severely overcrowded facilities. In one case, there were 18 adults sharing a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house. Workers have limited access to social services, as local community organizations are not mandated or resourced to provide them with adequate services. Many work in small towns, where social isolation is an issue. As workers of colour, they also face racism and xenophobia. It is not only unions that have criticized the program. Fundamental problems with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program were highlighted by Canada’s auditor general in 2009. “Little is being done to catch the abuse occurring on all sides of this program,” Sheila Fraser concluded. “Workers are particularly vulnerable, given they often don’t speak English and owe their status in Canada to their employer.” She also criticized the federal government for not following up to ensure that employers were meeting the conditions of employment outlined in the workers’ contracts. The program has also come under increasing fire from the public after media reports exposed employers’ apparent misuse DEMETER PRESS First Feminist Press on Motherhood New! 2013 Titles! www.demeterpress.org 30 FAll 2013 herizons of the program, in particular by HD Mining and RBC. These alternative care for their children. Even though they strive to examples fuelled arguments by unions and other workers’ provide for their families, women are often accused of being rights advocates, who said employers are using the program to “bad mothers” for leaving their children. bring down wages and reduce workers’ rights, rather than to In Canada, they are aware that biases in the selection of workrespond to genuine labour-market shortages. Recently, Ottawa ers favour men, and this fear is often exploited by employers, responded to public criticism by eliminating regulations that had who sometimes threaten to replace them with male workers. allowed employers to pay skilled migrants 15 percent less than As a result, Encalada observes, they overwork themselves trying the prevailing wage and pay unskilled migrants five percent less. to outperform male workers. The report concludes that it is In her report, Fay Faraday concludes, “There is a deepening women who are most often subjected to exploitative working concern that Canada’s temporary labour migration programs conditions. Encalada reports that women migrants also experiare entrenching and normalizing a low-wage, low-rights ence sexual harassment that goes unreported. Their mobility is ‘guest’ workforce on terms that are incompatible with Canada’s more restricted than the men’s, and they are subject to stricter fundamental charter rights and freedoms, human rights curfews, too. Justicia for Migrants has documented cases in and labour rights.” Naveen which an employer has checked Mehta, UFCW general counsel women workers’ rooms at night or has installed cameras in their and human rights director, deprivate quarters. scribes the Temporary Foreign Worker Program as “indentured Seeking medical services also labour at best; modern-day slavposes potential threats to employery at worst.” ment. “When we need to take When Laura, the apple picker, women for medical care, particureturned to her home in Mexico, larly for sexual reproductive care, she was told that because she it’s like organizing a heist,” says sought help in support for her Encalada. The women are carecase, she was barred from the ful to hide any evidence of sexual program. “When workers assert activity, she explains, including their rights they do not get called possible pregnancies. Justicia for back,” says Evelyn Encalada, coMigrants has documented cases of founder of Justicia for Migrants, a women being deported when their grassroots advocacy organization pregnancies were discovered by for migrant workers. their employers. “The result is that Employers select by gender as women take their health care into well as by country, and women their own hands,” Encalada states. in the agricultural sector are Encalada, Mehta and Faraday Top: Gina Bahiwal addresses a rally in support of migrant workers’ rights chosen to work in greenhouses all agree that the transnational in Leamington, Ontario, in 2010. (Photo: courtesy Marie Boti, co-director of The End of Immigration?) sorting tender fruit. As a result, context is important in unBottom: Migrant workers, including Gina Bahiwal and Kyla Bahingawan at a says Faraday, “the program reinderstanding the experience of rally. (Photo: Courtesy Marie Boti) forces racialized and gendered migrant workers. Encalada stereotypes about who can do contends that Canada has been what work.” The UFCW has noted that there is further segcomplicit in creating the global economic conditions that force regation within workplaces, where employers select, for example, migrants to export their labour. Mehta wants Canada to develop Jamaican men as pickers and Mexican women as sorters and a more robust immigration program, one that would provide packers to reduce socialization among workers. workers with greater opportunities to invest in the Canadian Evelyn Encalada’s 2011 report, “Vulnerabilities of Female economy and to participate in nation building. Migrant Farm Workers from Latin America and the Caribbean Faraday contends that the problems with the Temporary in Canada,” illustrates the additional challenges faced by feForeign Worker Program are not inevitable. Rather, she says, male migrants. Many women who perform farm work come they are made in Canada and are the results of choices defrom rural communities where there are few income-earning liberately made by governments in developing its labour and opportunities. In many cases, they are the primary providers immigration policies. The new program has been in place for for their families. Labour migration provides necessary income 10 years now, and we have seen the results, she says. opportunities but creates emotional stress, as women must find “It’s time to choose again.” herizons Fall 2013 31 Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa Graduate Studies at the Institute of Women’s Studies • Ph.D. and M.A. in Women’s Studies • Collaborative M.A. in selected disciplines with a specialization in Women’s Studies • Substantial Financial Support www.grad.uOttawa.ca ANNABELLE CHVOSTEK This ex Wailin’ Jenny has delivered a joyful, anthemic, and unabashedly political album revealing her p passion for social justice and musical activism. Call it protest music for the indie generation. NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE Visit our website to purchase CDs and high-resolution audio downloads. Also available from iTunes™ and Amazon. borealisrecords.com 32 FAll 2013 herizons Body Politic by Joanna Chiu To Boycott or Not to Boycott The world seemed to pay scant attention to human rights in Russia before the country passed a law prohibiting “homosexual propaganda.” Like many people, I was only vaguely aware that the Russian government was intolerant towards its LGBT citizens, until the photos and videos of brutal attacks on gay activists emerged this summer. Russia won the bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi seven years ago. Since then, human rights organizations have struggled to raise attention about the many problems that make Russia an unfit host. When Human Rights Watch released a report in 2009 exposing the exploitation of migrant construction workers on Olympics sites, in Sochi’s Black Sea coast and in the nearby Caucasus Mountains, the accounts of trafficking, unpaid wages and unsafe working conditions it barely made an impression on the international community. Meanwhile, American diplomacy with Russia had become soft on human rights. As well, there was a rash of killings of human rights activists in the troubled North Caucasus region and the Russian government pursued criminal charges against journalists who investigated the Sochi Olympics preparations. Russian authorities have reportedly evicted homeowners to make room for Olympic venues, forcing them to accept low compensation or forgo compensation. In March, Russia threatened to derail a United Nations declaration urging an end to violence against women and girls—a galling move from the government of a country in which one in four women have experienced violence in intimate relationships. Last year, the imprisonment of members of feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot for staging a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow church elicited global outrage from human rights supporters and musicians. Two band members remain in prison. American conservative pundit Pat Buchanan managed to defend Putin’s efforts to “re-establish the Orthodox Church as the moral compass of the nation” and mocked Pussy Riot members for their “half-naked obscene acts on the high altar of Moscow’s most sacred cathedral.” But even the most outspoken supporters of Pussy Riot did not call for a boycott of the Sochi Olympics, and few politicians outside of Russia spoke out to pressure Russia to improve the country’s regressive treatment of women and minorities ahead of the Olympics. Now this all has the potential of changing. In June, Putin signed into law a ban on “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors,” a deliberately vaguely worded draconian measure that applies to foreign nationals, tourists and Russian citizens. Police officers could arrest anyone suspected of being “pro-gay” and detain them for up to 14 days. The law was part of a slew of anti-gay government measures that added fuel to the epidemic of violence and intimidation against gays and lesbians. Gruesome footage of bloody attacks finally made more people around the world question Russia’s right to host the Olympic Games. Vats of Russian vodka have been poured down gutters in protest, and calls for a boycott of the games are growing by the hour. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson slammed the anti-gay law and said he “join[s] the millions worldwide who are calling upon Russia to end its violent crackdown on the human rights and free expression of the LGBTQ community ahead of hosting the world in Sochi.” I don’t support an athelete boycott of the Sochi Olympics, since the spotlight should not be diverted away from Russia as outrage mounts worldwide. But the criticism has the potential to make Russia address complaints about its human rights abuses from the international community. A new International Olympic Committee (IOC) president was elected in September, and this raises another opportunity. Germany’s Thomas Bach, who will lead the IOC for eight years, will be pressured to prevent similar abuses by future Olympic Games host cities by making respect for equal rights a criterion for hosting the Games, and lifting the IOC’s repressive ban on “political expression” at the Games. These opportunities would be squandered if critics focused only on denouncing Russia’s treatment of LGBTQ citizens, as harrowing as it is, and ignored the bigger picture. Putin’s anti-gay laws enshrine non-heterosexual people as secondclass citizens. It is unlikely that he will stop there. If the goal, as analysts say, is to wage war against “liberal Western ideals,” everyone, including women and minorities, is vulnerable to legislated bigotry. herizons Fall 2013 33 Help Build a Sustainable S ee your name in print in each issue of Herizons when you join the growing community of Herizons Sustaining Subscribers. Pledge a small amount each month and you will help ensure that the feminist ink continues to flow. Your steady, reliable donation nurtures Herizons and provides this small, non profit organization with stability. Once you decide to give every month, just choose an amount you’re comfortable with. Then register by mailing in a blank cheque marked VOID in the postage-paid envelope in this copy of Herizons, showing the monthly amount you’ve chosen—$5, $10 or a higher amount. You don’t have to rip the page out of the magazine to become a sustaining subscriber! Your contribution will be transferred from your account on the first of each month. 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Send a copy of this authorization, plus a ‘VOID’ cheque to: Herizons Sustaining Subscribers PO Box 128, Winnipeg, MB Canada R3C 2G1 Check if applicable: Do not publish my name on this page. arts MUSiC laura smith eVerythiNg iS MoViNg Borealis culture kate reid qUeer ACroSS CANAdA Independent reVieW By CiNdy FiliPeNKo reVieW By CiNdy FiliPeNKo laura Smith had a burgeoning career in the Kate reid’s fourth album, Queer Across arts that saw her win a gemini and pick up Canada, has all the hallmarks of a Kate reid a couple of east Coast Music Awards. this album: witty lyrics, sweet guitar playing and amazing folk/roots performer was derailed interesting harmonies. this time out, the by a prescription-drug addiction that came Vancouver player, who has built her reputaon the heels of a series of debilitating action on penning illuminating and amusing cidents. having overcome her dependency songs about contemporary lesbian life, has in 2010—a recovery story told on the CBC created an album about children living in radio documentary program The Current— queer families. Smith decided it was time to make music Queer Across Canada is a great album. All again. the result is the touching Everything of its 17 songs, including a nicely updated is Moving—a collection of songs built version of the Sister Slegde classic “We Are around the theme of survival. Family,” are interesting and well-produced. Smith’s voice is at once fragile and inBut will kids relate to songs like “Straight credibly strong, bursting with emotion that As An Arrow,” a reverse coming-out tale of serves the folk and blues songs that are her sorts, or “My Wife is a lesbian and She’s an trademark. it is her own compositions, the Unfit Mother?” ones that are Celtic in nature, that are the Writing for kids is tough and one queer most moving. Both “horse and Ploughs,” a performer who managed to do it well was ballad about the rigours of a farmer’s life and heather Bishop. her classic children’s al“Magdalen Mcgillivray,” a folk song about a bum, Belly Button, was particularly effective woman leaving her husband in Canada for because it used great rhymes, silly scenarthe shores of home, have all the hallmarks of ios and easy rhythms. traditional folk: easy melodies and lyrics that reid’s songs are all about the realities of are darker than the music suggests. living in queer families and parents will be other songs on Everything is Moving are one audience that will appreciate them most extremely complex in structure, featuring of all. Butch moms, femme dads, donors and compelling flugelhorn solos and masterful “tummy mummies” all get their due in Queer jazz-infused bass guitar lines. this is not to Across Canada. say these are rockers; they’re more like jighowever Queer Across Canada is not gers—perfect tunes to get your toes tapping, just an album geared to easy family listenlike “John Keane’s Boys.” ing. instead, reid developed it to be used With a sincerity reminiscent of rita as a classroom tool to combat homophobia. McNeil, Smith’s voice illuminates the lyrics She’s developed an educational kit for of her songs, making the characters and classrooms that celebrates diverse families situations at once both familiar and fascinat- and that’s meant to be used alongside Queer ing. An excellent album, from a mature artist, Across Canada (www.katereid.net/shop). for fans of the Celtic sound. Family life class may never be the same. 36 Fall 2013 herizoNS eliana Cuevas eSPeSo Independent reVieW By CiNdy FiliPeNKo For a non-Spanish-speaking reviewer, reviewing a latin album is a little tricky. it’s difficult to dissect the lyrics or parse an overall theme for the work. instead, a reviewer has to rely on the feeling the album generates. Espeso, eliana Cuevas’ new album, evokes feelings of warmth and sensuality, joy and love. With the support of almost 20 of toronto’s finest musicians, Cuevas weaves a rich tapestry of familiar latin sounds and contemporary smooth jazz. the effect is not unlike that of fellow South American eliane elias. like the esteemed elias, Cuevas has a flexibility of style that will come as a surprise to those who equate latin music with the hip-shakers of Shakira and ricky Martin. For example, there’s “lamento” (no translation required), a beautiful blues number dedicated to the singer’s father, who died when she was 11. “Neva Vida,” an homage to the birth of her daughter in 2009, infuses salsa into jazz, creating a richly satisfying composition that pulsates with joy. the other songs dedicated to her daughter, “estrellita” (little Star) and “Antito,” are similarly heartfelt, despite their divergent styles—the first being an energetic danceable number and the latter, a lullaby. on Espeso, Cuevas’ voice is spectacular, and the arrangements are lush and full. Produced by the renowned Jeremy ledbetter, the album handily demonstrates why toronto’s Now magazine predicted that she could be the next Norah Jones. recommended. arts culture FAll reAdiNg the anatomy oF edouard BeauprÉ SArAh KAthryN yorK Coteau Books reVieW By deANNA rAdFord “But memory is a story the heart tells,” writes Sarah Kathryn york, in the voice of protagonist edouard Beaupré’s mother, Florestine. this is an apropos sentiment with which to sum up the spirit of this novel, a fictionalized recreation of the life of a young Métis man who was born in Saskatchewan near the end of the 19th century. in life, Beaupré was known as a “giant” who grew to be over eight feet tall. he worked as performer and strongman in the circus circuit across North America. Beaupré died at a young age of tuberculosis, and his family did not have the funds to transport his remains home. in death, Beaupré’s embalmed body was circulated on display for roughly the first half of the 20th century in service to enterprises that included the circus, a museum and the Université de Montréal. this was unknown to his family members for many years. our point of entry to the story begins there, with a touch of the flesh in a clinical setting. A scientific researcher from Montreal, living well after Beaupré’s death, is obsessed with his case. With Beaupré’s remains, the researcher discovers the biological conditions leading to his anomalous height and proportions. the novel depicts the lonely and antagonistic life Beaupré lived. When someone asks, “Were you born a giant?” his interior response is: “i was made one.” the story imparts the burden of the body. it depicts the unspoken physical and slavish toll the circus business took on Beaupré’s well-being, in spite of his desire to be needed and loved. the story illuminates a fascinating period of Canadian history as well as the difficult social relationship with difference that persists to this day. york has written a well-researched, sensitive story that pays meaningful tribute to the life and death of the person who was edouard Beaupré. the seleCtor oF souls ShAUNA SiNgh BAldWiN Knopf Canada reVieW By ireNe d’SoUzA if one reads Shauna Singh Baldwin’s sprawling opus as a cry for social justice for indian women, it is a compelling read. While the novel encompasses political, religious, caste and class conflicts, it’s shadoW girl mainly an examination of the perils of PAtriCiA MorriSoN Tundra Books being born female in a fundamentalist patriarchal society. reVieW By ClAire roBSoN Baldwin tackles the practice of sex seeleven-year-old Jules is a motherless child lection and her honesty in dealing with the struggling to make sense of her life with subject is the initial draw. in the novel, a an alcoholic father. Shadow Girl tells her well-educated, rich mogul and an uneducat- story—a feat rife with danger for any writer. ed bullock cart owner are equally obsessed it would have been easy for first-time author with sons. indians’ fascination with siring Patricia Morrison to founder on the rocks males is linked to deeply entrenched miof sentimentality, but somehow she’s sailed sogynistic attitudes that are sanctioned at all right by them to produce a highly readable levels of society. account of what is, unfortunately, a true damini and Anu, the female protagonists, story for many young people. are socialized to believe they are mistakes, though Shadow Girl tells a sad story, it’s freaks of nature, while males are a gift from never depressing. From an early and terrifythe gods. the first thought at a daughter’s ing encounter with Jules’ drunken, angry birth is the cost of her wedding. father, through total abandonment and on Baldwin explores the challenges of into foster care, the book steps us through the selection of souls at both the micro the dehumanizing experiences of abuse and and macro levels. how women cope neglect. with the fact that life’s resources are reit is also an easy and interesting read, served for males is captured in stark and written for young adults and older readers. poignant detail. i read it in one sitting, partly because it’s a in the first chapter, damini, a servant, has page-turner in terms of plot—one is never no choice but to kill her week-old grandsure how things will turn out. it’s also exdaughter, whose father refuses to name her tremely well-written. the dialogue is strong, and mother declines to feed her. in delhi, a all scenes are sharply depicted and the beautiful, fair socialite sends her daughter to characters are well-rounded. Jules’ father Canada. Although the two women’s lives are is not exactly likeable, but he’s human and galaxies apart, Baldwin’s unsettling conclucredible in his frailty. sion is that they share an unnervingly close though Shadow Girl is not a first-person bond as women. narrative, it’s infused with voice and the prothe most wrenching aspect of the story tagonist is funny, tough and likeable. though is how Baldwin exposes girls’ lives, which she’s not perfect, neither is Jules a passive are so often deemed expendable. She victim, and part of the book’s considerable has succeeded in advancing girls’ plight. charm is its depiction of her creative stratehowever it remains in the hands of indian gies for survival. society to take up the mantra, “i am woman All too often, young adult fiction is hear me roar,” in order to assert that girls’ preachy and predictable. Shadow Girl bucks souls have equal value and that they must that trend in its complex and honest account be respected. Baldwin is to be commended of an old, old story that has rarely been told for her efforts. from such an intimate perspective. readers herizoNS Fall 2013 37 arts FAll reAdiNg culture her era and her particular circumstances. in doing so, she has created word-canvases that depict the dark and the light of Clarice’s life. the novel is rich with patterns of light and shade, which was thornell’s intention as she imagined Clarice Beckett looking at a landscape, “squinting to soften edges and reach beyond detail.” Clarice found joy beyond all the restrictions in Melbourne, “her city of shifting presences.” thornell expresses that passion brilliantly when she writes: “Clarice and Melbourne were joined; the paintings of her city were love poems, a consummation.” thornell has most clearly given the artist a voice in the letters Clarice writes. And she’s given Clarice Beckett an artist’s life, full of paintings. While doing so, thornell has found her own voice and passion. both young and old will find humour, inspira- throughout the book, but my favourite is: tion, understanding and compassion. Buy it “After Miguel and Jonah, i entered a series of for your kids, your kids’ teachers, your docbrief relationships, the kind you stumble into to erase traces of the last. obliterators.” tor, your book club and your friends. the only man in the World though McCluskey’s characters are on the losing team in the game of life, her skill is FAith JohNStoN valery the great By elAiNe MCClUSKey such that they still elicit if not sympathy, then Turnstone Press Anvil Press reVieW By CoNNie JeSKe CrANe at least understanding. Valery the Great is With this string of stories, in form at least, entertaining, unusual and McCluskey’s secreVieW By SylViA SANtiAgo ond collection of short fiction. i’m already Faith Johnston’s work is reminiscent of the characters who inhabit the short stolooking forward to her next. Canadian writers like Carol Shields and Alice ries in Valery the Great are oddballs and Munro. Johnston’s heroine is stunningly unoutsiders, and author elaine McCluskey night street spectacular: a wearer of sensible shoes, the deftly portrays the motley crew with reKriStel thorNell kind of person who always buys travel insurmarkable ease. Goose Lane Editions ance. While there aren’t dramatic character the collection opens with the story “the twists here, Johnston’s heather Kirk is nonereVieW By MAry ANN Moore Favourite Nephew.” Floyd Barkhouse’s theless highly—even painfully—relatable. Kristel thornell grew up in Sydney and work with the Wahoo Volunteer Search and this is life as compromise: struggling for was inspired by Australian artist Clarice rescue team is his raison d’être, so much so satisfaction through work, marriage, childBeckett (1887 to 1935), “whose art and life that “every night when Floyd went to bed, he rearing, but ending end up with divorce, new drew me into this dream.” Night Street won prayed that someone would get lost in the starts, mixed results and inevitable grievwoods. Confused, disoriented, dehydrated, or several awards when it was first published ing. While the revealing is oh-so-gradual, in Australia and the first-time novelist has near hypothermic—the details didn’t matter, Johnston’s work is resoundingly feminist. created a haunting narrative about another as long as they were lost.” When more than We meet heather first as an awkward time and place. a month passes with no emergencies, Floyd teenager with pale circumscribed advenClarice’s friendships “had to be very spagoes to extreme measures to ensure that his tures. She explains her non-rebellion: “the cious,” thornell writes about the artist as search and rescue team sees some action. line was drawn so clearly then between she imagined her. Clarice also turned down dark humour underlies the stories, bad girls and good girls. everyone knew several proposals of marriage in order to many of which end in surprising ways. that once you crossed over you could never dedicate herself to painting. in “Wishing Well,” a would-be curler’s come back.” She became lovers with a fellow artist ambition is thwarted by his bad balance; We also see heather as an ottawa and later went on to have another married in “Maury,” a lonely 15-year-old girl’s sole teacher showing kindness to her uniformlover she called the doctor. in a scene that source of comfort is Maury Povich’s dayclad students, making child-related is highly sensuous due to its tantalizing time television show. “the teddy Bears’ arrangements with her ex, all the while still restraint, Clarice visits the doctor as a new Picnic,” one of the more unsettling stories chasing the holy grail of romantic love. later, patient using a pseudonym. of the lot, features the ironically named heather juggles rewarding work, travels to While this imagined Clarice Beckett lived Normal, a school bus driver and sometimes see her launched kids and weighs career an unconventional life, she still had her agpopcorn salesman who hides his rage befulfillment against a marriage proposal and a ing parents to look after. her father insisted hind an affable exterior. cross-country move. that she be home after dark; not that she McCluskey’s observations can be as there is, you slowly realize, a subversive followed that rule. Clarice found her passion delightful as they are disturbing. one charelement here. Unlike what the title suggests, in the near-darkness of dawn and dusk. acter “looked like something the dog had there has been no “only man in the world” thornell has crafted a world in which a choked up, a masticated ball of gristle and for heather at all. throughout her life, she’s fat.” there are dozens of clever examples woman artist negotiates the constraints of 38 Fall 2013 herizoNS arts engaged a series of men, each relationship carrying bits of disappointment and compromise, as well as reward. But, aside from such unsexy real-life conclusions, Johnston sneaks in a few beautiful revelations. From her young mournfulness, we see heather progress to firmly take the reins of her life. Whether it’s a brief affair or a whole new life and marriage, heather grows in her ability to accept consequences and stand on her own two feet. She also comes to see “herself from a new angle” that involves, to her own surprise, a rejoicing in simply being alive, regardless of her relationship status. When she must grieve love again, Johnston allows us to glimpse heather’s small but stunning conclusion: “Whenever anyone asked how she was doing, she always answered, ‘Better than i expected,’ and it was true….” susCeptiBle geNeViÈVe CAStreé Drawn & Quarterly reVieW By KriS rothSteiN Susceptible is a graphic novel about goglu, a girl growing up with a single mom in quebec. the story is set at a time of shifting, unsettled social circumstances for young, single parents and when many kids were experiencing different kinds of childhoods due to changing societal norms and the growth of the counterculture. While goglu’s grandmother is an oldfashioned traditional wife and mother of 16 children, her mother, Amère, has embraced new ideas about personal freedom. She does whatever she likes—not that it seems to make her happy. goglu navigates the weird situations brought on by her mother’s drinking, an emotionally abusive stepfather and being freaked out by the lack of stability in her life. She is a bright, lonely kid who later becomes an awkward teen who gets into some trouble involving sex and drugs. this hardcover book is an appealing object, and the drawings are rendered beautifully. geneviève Castreé’s artistic style is visually appealing, with slight elements of chaos and ugliness that never overwhelm or overshadow the story. My only complaint is that the handwritten text is printed so small that it is extremely hard to read. Susceptible is a political story—exploring the sexual revolution, gender roles and ideas about liberty—but it is told as a very personal and engaging narrative. it reads much more like a memoir than a novel. culture FAll reAdiNg embedded in the tale is the scary lack of as “a regular person” who set aside other road maps for a generation of “liberated writing priorities to focus on New Zapata after women” who are raising kids alone. it is she “just got mad—it was the final straw for also a terribly sad story about a girl who is me,” she says—watching tV and finding out unable to be a child because her mother is that U.S. legislators were working to reduce self-centred, co-dependent and refuses to access to birth control, abortion and Planned be the adult in their relationship. it is a pow- Parenthood services. erful story that also has many moments of “the only chance any of us have is to resist sweetness, including the time during which injustice and to fight for the good, to think,” goglu gets to know her father. Ultimately, the says hall. And think her character rebecca story shows how a girl can survive a difficult does: it is a precious and rare copy of Gray’s Anatomy —a long-since banned book in New youth and still emerge whole and liberated. zapata—that gives her new knowledge of her own body and empowers her. neW zapata teri hAll this book, described by hall as “The CreateSpace Independent Publishing Handmaid’s Tale for a new generation,” is a compelling read that drives home just reVieW By AMANdA le roUgetel where today’s regressive anti-choice if you like your fiction to reflect the political policies could take us all if we don’t pay issues of the day, teri hall’s dystopian novel attention and take action. New Zapata is for you. it’s 2052, and the state of texas has sepriya’s World ceded from the Union to become its own tArA NANAyAKKArA republic. it’s a place where people are god-fearing, divorce is illegal and the state monitors women’s menstrual cycles. No choice for women in the republic of texas: Men rule, women reproduce. in the small border town of New zapata, rebecca is facing the life-threatening reality of just what this means. She is pregnant again and because she almost died giving birth the first time she fears that her second pregnancy could end in her death. She has no options. At least, she doesn’t think she has. her Aunt Cathy, however, remembers a time when things were different and calls together her women friends to find a solution. hall, author of two young adult novels, was drawn to write this dystopian “but frighteningly close to possible” story in response to some of the rhetoric of the 2012 presidential race in the United States—“‘legitimate’ rape, for example,” she says. She describes herself Inanna Publications reVieW By CoNNie JeSKe CrANe in Canada there are a disturbing number of girls and women who have eating disorders. Against this troubling backdrop comes tara Nanayakkara’s tale of Priya de Souza. A 25-year-old kindergarten teacher working in ontario, Priya develops an eating disorder in the wake of her parents’ sudden death in a plane crash. despite the sobering content, Priya’s story is deceptively lulling at first. Priya speaks in the prim tones of a good girl and even acquires a chaperone. offering her dour surveillance is Priya’s Aunt renita, who comes to live with her niece in the wake of the family tragedy. this world, Priya’s world, is a blandly conventional one. think cookiecutter Mississauga townhouses and visits to Wal-Mart. even when Priya collapses due to herizoNS Fall 2013 39 arts FAll reAdiNg culture her habit of restricting her food intake, she does it with a Mcdonald’s coffee-and-muffin combo in front of her. Similar conventions are in place for the plot, as Nanayakkara plies a well-worn literary device. how will Priya choose between two male suitors? We see Priya preparing for a date with polite young music teacher trent Perelli, teasing her hair into “fluffy curls.” And we’re asked to wonder, will a mysterious dark stranger from her mother’s past steal Priya’s heart? it is almost a relief, then, when Nanayakkara intercuts this faux harlequin narrative with starker glimpses into Priya’s fractured inner life. From seeing her share cake with the eligible trent, we shift to a tiny bathroom stall. here Priya hides, nauseated, telling herself that as long as she doesn’t purge, she doesn’t have a problem. later, we find Priya on a cold, hard bathroom floor, manically scrubbing grout stains with a toothbrush. Shocking tragedy. the strict expectations of her Sri lankan relatives. Family secrets. Somehow, Nanayakkara manages to help us understand Priya’s restlessness and selfloathing and why she might seek to regain control through an unsuitable romance, obsession, food restriction and purging. A Sri lankan-born immigrant who divides her time between St. John’s and toronto, Nanayakkara blends insights from her own background. this makes her novel a deft exploration of a modern epidemic, but also one that is uniquely Canadian. Basements and attiCs, Closets and CyBerspaCe Explorations in Canadian Women’s Archives edited By liNdA M. MorrA ANd JeSSiCA SChAgerl Wilfrid Laurier University Press reVieW By BArBArA M. FreeMAN taking as its basic premise that “no archive is neutral,” this collection of very diverse essays considers the theories and methods, as well as the processes, ethical issues and restrictions, inherent in depositing into and exploring traditional and unconventional repositories regarding Canadian women. the anthology features three interconnected sections: reorientations, restrictions and responsibilities. “reorientations” explores the challenges and rewards of searching different kinds 40 Fall 2013 herizoNS motivations of women in Canada’s intellectual, political and cultural life. Cruel But not unusual Violence in Canadian Families edited By rAMoNA AlAggiA ANd CAthy ViNe Wilfrid Laurier University Press of “archives.” these are explored through evidence of the “indian Maiden” as an enduring, material history commodity on e-bay; the feminist politics of poet Sina queyras’ blog; the conflicted oral history of feminist/ queer cabaret; fictionalized archives in the writings of Marian engel and Alice Munro; and Nelofer Pazira’s self-reflexive films about Afghanistan’s women. “restrictions” considers privacy versus access—that is, cases in which donors, literary executors, archivists and institutions have intervened in the acquisition, interpretation or restriction of research material, challenging researchers to look to other sources. Missing is an up-to-date critique of library and Archives Canada’s current policies and their impact on women’s history, although Karina Vernon’s essay examines why racialized communities have (perhaps presciently) avoided depositing their records there. “responsibilities” shifts the focus to how researchers should ethically decipher historical records related to prominent and little-known women. the cases in point discuss readers’ letters about suffrage to women’s page editor Francis Marion Beynon; l.M. Montgomery’s purported suicide note; the use of anecdotes regarding artist emily Carr; Sheila Watson’s intellectual legacy in her journal and her letters to Marshall Mcluhan; the memories of a mother with Alzheimer’s disease; and a holocaust survivor’s letters. daphne Marlatt, Penn Kemp, Susan McMaster and Sally Clark punctuate the collection with insights into the pros and cons of archiving their own records. this anthology, with its strong editors’ introduction and Janice Fiamengo’s illustrative afterword, is a welcome addition to the archival researcher’s bookshelf. taken together, its insightful essays amply demonstrate the various complexities involved in responsibly interpreting the lives, experiences and reVieW By liSA treMBlAy Feminist researchers, practitioners and activists have spent decades trying to better understand men’s violence against women and children in families and to advocate for effective public policies and services to respond to it. Cruel But Not Unusual explores the dynamics and scope of violence in families and its long-term impact on the women and children who experience it, as well as our societal response to it. Written for students, academics and professionals in the field, the book offers new insights, critiques and ideas to inspire and enhance our understanding and practice. editors ramona Alaggia and Cathy Vine describe male violence in families as a practice that is perpetuated by patriarchal structures of inequality. they and many of the chapter authors acknowledge the intersection of gender oppression with other forms of oppression, and the need to apply this knowledge in the development of public policies and services in the field. one contributor traces the backlash against feminist analysis of men’s violence and challenges the gender-neutral language that hides and perpetuates the problem. others examine the historical roots of violence against women and children and their impact in our lives and on our bodies and brains. in a section on marginalized communities, contributors describe the links between violence in Aboriginal families and communities and residential schools and the vulnerability of people with disabilities who are institutionalized. others address the structural inequities that increase the risk of violence for immigrants and refugees and lgBtq communities. Cruel But Not Unusual explores the range of violence experienced by children, women and seniors and it challenges current policy responses. Citing research on children exposed to violence, for instance, one contributor criticizes child welfare for removing children from the care of mothers who are being abused by their partners. Another examines family law approaches that ignore arts culture FAll reAdiNg the safety needs of children during custody disputes, leaving them at risk of violence. Vine and Alaggia explain how the effects of violence perpetuated within families are holding us back as a country. this book is a valuable resource for moving us forward. in the BlaCk New African Canadian Literature edited By AltheA PriNCe Insomniac Press reVieW By eVelyN C. White A diverse group of African-Canadian writers probe love, loss, liberation and longing in In the Black, a new collection compiled by ryerson University professor Althea Prince. excitement about her book notwithin “A good Woman,” gayle gonsalves of- in a large container/ to sit in the great … refrigerator outdoors/ … Pray it won’t freeze.” standing, the author is soon beset by a fers a beguiling story with biblical Cain and through its chorus of voices, In The Black melancholia that she’ll battle for the rest of Abel undertones. Set in Antigua, the saga her life. on october 23, 1908, she revealed: deepens our understanding of Africanchronicles the fraught relationship between “i’ve been feeling … depressed, tired, brotwo brothers and a woman who is central in Canadian culture and community. ken.… i ought to have medical advice; but both of their lives. Skilfully paced, the story i cannot consult any doctor here, for that the Complete Journals oF resonates long after its haunting final senwould mean running the gauntlet of gossip tence: “there is no loud thump as she closes l.m. montgomery and surmise.” The PEI Years, 1901–1911 the door.” About her marriage, at age 37, edited By MAry heNley rUBio ANd hip hop performer Motion explores a Montgomery lamented: “if i could have torn elizABeth hillMAN WAterStoN romance restricted by the barriers of prison the wedding ring from my finger and so in her stirring series of vignettes, “locks and Oxford University Press freed myself i would have done it.… i sat at love.” the first-person narrative reveals the reVieW By eVelyN C. White the gay bridal feast, beside the man i had impact of rising incarceration rates, espeAdmirers of famed Anne of Green Gables married—and i was as unhappy as i had cially among marginalized groups. author lucy Maud Montgomery will rejoice ever been.” Mansa trotman delivers a counter to in these journals that chronicle her formaFilled with passion and pathos, The Canada’s much-touted multicultural imtive years in her native Prince edward Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery age in the poem “listen.” She writes: “i’m island. Compiled by Mary henley rubio deepens our understanding of a complex flying/ over lumps and clumps of your clas(author of the superb biography Lucy literary icon. sifications/ look closely and you’ll find that/ Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings) and they’re people/ real people/ … can’t classify elizabeth hillman Waterston (Magic Island: talking derBy them into oblivion.” The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery), this secKAte hArgreAVeS the book also includes work from male ond volume of the series includes photos Black Moss Press authors such as dwayne Morgan, who and other memorabilia that Montgomery decries societal expectations for boys and showcased in her journals. As such, the col- reVieW By liSA ShAW men in his impassioned poem “Man Up.” he lection presents an intriguing portrait of the While growing up in the ’70s, i was captinotes, “look at the world men have built/ vated by gwen “Skinny Minny” Miller from author’s psyche. We’ve got to become more female/ if we on August 16, 1907, Montgomery recount- old-school roller derby, when it was a co-ed ever hope to truly be human.” event with staged fights and theatrics. Forty ed the evolution of her legendary novel: “i readers accompany a youngster through years later, derby has grown up with a big have always kept a notebook in which i a Caribbean village as he collects recyclables jotted down … ideas for plots, incidents, shift to athleticism, skill and strategy. Now to earn money for school fees in “Bottles’ characters and descriptions. … in the spring this women-only sport is even more hardhustle,” a story by another male contributor, hitting and entertaining, and it’s vying to of 1905 … i found a faded entry, written ten Jelani Nias. “My mostly empty bag … swung years before: ‘elderly couple apply to orphan become an olympic sport in 2020. with each step,” Nias writes in the delightful Talking Derby by Kate hargreaves is asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent piece. “the multi-layered smacking sounds her gushing love letter to derby, as she them.’ … the result of this was ‘Anne of fell—in more ways than one—for this sport. helping to keep my spirits high as they clinked green gables.’” growing up in england, hargreaves did not (three dollars) and clanked (fifty cents).” Writing on June 20, 1908, Montgomery in “Christmas eve,” playwright djanet exclaimed: “My book came today, fresh from have the “great Canadian tim horton’s commercial—backyard ice rink on a wobbly pair Sears pays tribute to a Canadian yuletide the publishers. … Not a great book at all— of hockey skates.” hargreaves chronicles season infused with West indian folkways. but mine, mine, mine—something to which her excitement, fear and derby journey in a “Jerk the chicken/ fry the fish/ season the I had given birth—something which, but for series of humorous vignettes. She captures curry goat,” she writes. “i place the turkey me, would never have existed.” herizoNS Fall 2013 41 arts FAll reAdiNg culture what it was like to learn the jargon of jammer, goat and cougaring. the reader rolls along with her, as she trains mentally and physically and experiences the zany antics of her new derby family. you can almost feel the burn in her quads, the blisters on her feet and her need to gulp water after completing her first 25 in 5 drill (25 laps in five minutes). hargreaves describes the explosive hit that “opened her up like baked beans over a fire pit,” her first “velcro kiss”—a.k.a. black eye—and how she wound up with a bloody split lip in practice. hargreaves the writer transforms into Pain eyre. Nicknames are standard in derby, but Pain also hoped somebody paid attention to english literature. her number, 1847, was the year of the publication for Jane Eyre. Witty or maybe not, she unfortunately didn’t factor in her bicep circumference, as her teammate chirped, “you need a shorter number or bigger arms.” More ritual includes choosing a derby wife who promises to share Band-Aids, bruises and bar stories as your partner in grime. derby is authentic, complicated and tough—just like the women who lace up their wheels, put on their knee pads and strap on their helmets. hargreaves captures all the sounds, smells and spirit of derby. this book is a hit and a rocking read. Finding a Way to the heart Feminist Writings on Aboriginal and Women’s History in Canada edited By roBiN JArViS BroWNlie ANd VAlerie J. KoriNeK University of Manitoba Press reVieW By JoyCe greeN Composed in the manner of a festschrift for noted historian Sylvia Van Kirk, this collection features a range of feminist scholars who, like Van Kirk, are interested in Aboriginal and other women who have mostly been invisible in Canada’s historical record. the first three chapters introduce Van Kirk as a research scholar and as a colleague, professor and mentor. Subsequently, contributors riff off of Van Kirk’s contributions to present their own work, which acknowledges Van Kirk’s foundational contributions but is not identical to it, nor always uncritical of it. in that richness and diversity, the book is thoroughly satisfying. Most contributors have gone 42 Fall 2013 herizoNS technical range, but all are worth a read, and most are thoroughly accessible to non-specialists. this book is a most welcome addition to the important contemporary work on Canadian-indigenoussettler issues. troBairitz CAtheriNe oWeN Anvil Press far beyond the sometimes critiqued liberal feminist impulses of especially Van Kirk’s earlier work to deploy critical race and post-colonial theories to examine colonialism, racism, scholarship, and raced and gendered power relations. Several authors take up the imperial and racist presumptions embedded in the university canon and scholarship to good effect: too little attention is generally paid by denizens of the ivory towers to their active complicity in colonialism in their contributions to history, political science, anthropology and so on. Certain chapters take up racism, which is deployed through public policy but also through narratives that have become deeply embedded assumptions in the dominant Canadian cultural and political framework about indigenous inferiority and Canadian exceptionalism. the national myth of white settlement is challenged, as is the myth of the innocence of white women settlers. this is a service to the projects of indigenous justice in the Canadian context and, importantly and relatedly, to the necessity of the dominant populations confronting our shared (though very differently perceived and experienced) history, as well as the phenomenon of white privilege, which is sustained on the foundation of the official historical past and its legal and political consequences. three authors challenge popular and official representations of indian, Métis, and Aboriginal categories, showing us the fluidity and diversity of historical and contemporary communities, as well as the insidious racialization of these communities. the perspectives are feminist, either explicitly and implicitly. Not all authors sing from the same theoretical songbook or with the same reVieW By tArA-MiChelle ziNiUK Catherine owen knows her subject matter. For her latest poetry book, Trobairitz, she researched the trobairitz—essentially a female version of the troubadour, a 12th-century performance poet who worked around themes of courtly love. owen also writes with first-hand experience: She is someone who has played in numerous metal bands since the late 1990s and she has written about the metal scene and about her experience of being in it—socially, politically and emotionally. given her own experience touring her music and poetry, owen could be viewed as something of a trobairitz. She employs formal poetic forms and her work is quite finely crafted. Trobairitz is, as a result of all of these elements, an engaging read. owen doesn’t shy away from the feminist label and isn’t afraid of shifting gender perspectives from their intended directions. Poems are sometimes given literal titles to frame their content, such as “Why the trobairitz Picks Up Men at a Metal Festival.” At other times, the rawness is second to the language and feel of a poem, such as when owen writes a canso (a form of poem intended as a love lyric) for the only trobairitz known to have written a canso for another woman. As with metal itself, Trobairitz is at times so overwrought with dark-curtained dramatics that it’s difficult to tell what is tongue-in-cheek and what is meant in earnest. these poems from the heart and gut are precise and unpredictable, written with equal parts skill, substance and care. Scholars call the sort of love sound found in medieval poetic texts “fin amor,” which is claimed to be a fine love from a man to a woman who represents his feminine ideal in both body and mind. owens’ Trobairitz shakes up all of this—including questions of what is pure in love and what is ideal in women—and tosses it all back out into a mosh pit of poetry and politics. arts culture FAll reAdiNg poetrysnapshot When this World Comes to an end KAte CAyley Brick Books undark SANdy Pool Nightwood Editions hello, the roses Mei-Mei BerSSeNBrUgge New Directions Books By MAriiANNe MAyS Kate Cayley’s luminous first book of poetry, When This World Comes to an End, begins with an astonishing poem in the voice of leonardo da Vinci’s appren- Undark (her second publication) and Hello, tice. “At night, my master dreams time the Roses by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, an and heaven./ i, his apprentice, dream established American poet whose work nothing.// i am the mirror that gives him often engages with visual art and visual back, the sigh/ breathed into his mouth art processes. at night, youth/ that saves him from his Undark is an “oratorio” complete with age./ i am salvation. the angel beating/ dramatis personae and a dramatic arc copper wings.// … i leaped, i flew,” of sorts, from “undark” to “half-light.” she writes. Characters from diverse eras tell the story it’s an unusual book. Framed by a of the “thousands of women … [who] were narrative conceit (kind of like a concept employed painting glow-in-the-dark watch album)—that is, the end of time—it also dials” in early 20th-century North America. includes conceits within it: a litany of the paint they used, called “Undark,” conhistorical characters in the section “Book tained the radioactive element radium; it of days”; a “curio” of turn-of-the-century was later found to have seriously adverse found photographs; a mélange of fairyhealth effects for the factory workers, who tale-like settings in “Signs and Wonders.” launched several largely unsuccessful this kind of structure is difficult to pull off, court cases. and the material occasionally suffers from the collection’s strongest pieces are its overreliance on scaffolding. Cayley’s from the perspective of the scientist gift for narrative is brilliant at its best, the who invented Undark. having removed kind of writing that delivers dazzling won- his own necrotic thumb, the inventor is der and piercing knowledge at once, like haunted by the women who repeatedly an annunciation. “pointed” their paintbrushes with their And when the poet attends to the lips, amplifying their radium exposure. quiet around objects, to resonances “[M]y mouth bleeds/ an illicit alphabet, of specific words—what poetry does sounded// on terrible ancient teeth./ i’m best—we get delicious, distilled images sorry, i have nothing,” he sings in one and Cayley’s musical ear for language, piece. “you// women are waiting to beher striking, often searing, insights. then come what you already/ are, what you the work soars, from the “reverse birth// already have been.// there is an archive as the lake closed over them” of the of this/ emptiness. you meet it again// white, diving show horses that appear in and again, meet it in the loneliness of/ sick beds, in the lengthening// light. you two poems to the deft, discreetly shatmeet it with snarls of blood/ leaking from tering poem “Walking,” which follows your mouths.” a Nagasaki survivor carrying his dead the poems (perhaps better referred wife’s ashes. two more new books to employ a con- to as arias, recitatives or choruses) are ceit, to varying degrees, are Sandy Pool’s themselves haunting, for their circling of the core story and because they lend gradual illumination to the inexorable properties of time, the continual unfolding of histories, however toxic. Both time and light take on eerie meaning. Knowledge is lurid, monstrous. Hello, the Roses contends with knowledge from a radical perspective as well, extending William Carlos Williams’ proposition, “no ideas but in things.” in her five-part poem “Animal Voices,” Berssenbrugge writes, “there’s a sense of pervasiveness; particles go back and forth in me.// i write down today’s encounters, including the mosquito, as a dream to interpret.// Certainly, one’s tie to an insect is imaginative truth.// Not that my horse represents the union of intuition and imagining, she is that.// … ‘is that like saying a pond is my brain?’ i ask and frogs answer, ‘More like the shape of holding our thoughts!’// A horse doesn’t change frequency to change form.// Form is part of my thinking this, like a willow seed’s intent, intrinsic focus on willow trees.” Berssenbrugge is gripped by the task of exploring perception itself. one doesn’t so much read these poems as fall into them, somersaulting between the poet’s phenomenological impressions and her philosophical labour with questions of representation, illusion, form, energy, communication, transformation, time and being. it’s light lifting, though—the work is profoundly pleasurable: intuitive, playful, unpretentious, witty, wry and sumptuous, like a really great painting that also makes you think and feel. herizoNS Fall 2013 43 arts Film culture Reviews by Maureen Medved Life And Crimes of Doris Payne Directed by Kirk Marcolina and Matthew Pond As a tiny girl born into poverty, Doris Payne aspired to be a ballerina, but such a dream was improbable in the segregated pre-1950s U.S. After being told there were no Black ballerinas, Payne decided to challenge her detractors and became a jewel thief. She had a career spanning countries and decades and became one of the most notorious jewel thieves in American history. Still, Payne has largely remained unknown—probably to her professional benefit—until the recent documentary Life And Crimes of Doris Payne. Filmmakers Kirk Marcolina and Matthew Pond reveal a character formed by intense economic and social pressure. Payne shares the secrets of her trade, revealing how she transformed herself into someone who could glide under the radar of high-end salespeople during a particularly acrimonious time in American history. The documentary is a fun ride and even contains a real-crime genre subplot: Payne was on trial during the film’s production. The strongest moments are when the filmmakers drop the usual documentary tropes and just allow Payne to tell her own story. She revels in her achievements and reveals, with a wide warm smile, her elaborate lies and deceptions, which were as hard and glittery and multitudinous as the diamonds that symbolized the prestige of the world to which she both aspired and needed in order to survive. A feature film about Payne starring Halle Berry is currently underway. Life And Crimes of Doris Payne reveals how the jewel thief eluded authorities for years. Anita Hill comes across as someone with iron-clad integrity in the documentary film Anita. a Black conservative from sitting on the Supreme Court. The all-white, all-male Senate judicial committee, including a sheepish Ted Kennedy, confirmed Thomas to the Supreme Court. In Anita, Thomas comes across as an opportunistic coward, while Hill is seen as a martyr with iron-clad integrity. However, Anita even today, both sides continue to have their Directed by Frieda Mock believers. As the documentary suggests, the Hill-Thomas conflict has become symbolic For all her vast achievements, attorney and of many contentious issues between the university professor Anita Hill’s legacy remains the infamous 1992 U.S. Senate judicial U.S. political right and the political left. The inquiry, during which Hill accused then nom- historical context of Thomas’s nomination by Republicans, going back even before inee for the U.S. Supreme Court Clarence President George Bush’s appointment to Thomas, Hill’s former employer at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), President Ronald Reagan’s early positioning of Thomas in the EEOC, adds some subof sexual harassment. stance to the story. Anita, Frieda Mock’s new film, is a hisStill, every great protagonist deserves torical document that exploits the irony an equally powerful antagonist. On the left, of hindsight. The turning point of this event many were deeply troubled by Thomas’s came when Thomas, looking defeated by conservatism. His predecessor on the Hill’s testimony, referred to the trial as a court, Thurgood Marshall, had been a “high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks” by civil rights icon. According to a 2007 liberals who wanted to use a Black man’s alleged sexual transgressions to prevent New York Times article about Thomas’s 44 Fall 2013 herizons autobiography, Thomas believed liberals used the scandal against him because they feared he’d use his role on the Supreme Court to vote to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Thomas took his seat on the court, where he still sits. One year after the hearings, public opinion weighed in Hill’s favour and led to a dramatic climb in harassment complaints within the EEOC and greater awareness of sexual harassment. Anita presents Hill as a woman with integrity who, through her courage, triumphed and became a living symbol for women’s rights and issues of workplace sexual harassment. Still, Mock’s film could have been even stronger had she mined the conflicts of the controversy more deeply by examining its intricacies from the political right and left. The controversy reveals much about the continuing conflicts between contemporary American political agendas. These films were screened at Best of Hot Docs: The Vancouver International Film Festival. Soundings By Evelyn C. White Canadian Masterpieces I’m grateful to have viewed, in person, celebrated artworks such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa in Paris, Guernica by Pablo Picasso at the Sofia Reina Museum in Madrid and Michelangelo’s magnificent statue of David in Florence. But today I find myself meditating on two works in Ottawa that, for me, rank with masterpieces that have wowed art aficionados around the world. I’m talking about the official portrait of former governor general Michaëlle Jean that now hangs in Rideau Hall and the statue of jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (1925–2007) installed on Elgin Street, in front of the National Arts Centre. To be sure, I was eager to see both pieces during my recent first-ever trip to the nation’s capital. But I was unprepared for the emotional impact the artworks had on me, a Black woman born in Chicago who has lived in Canada for more than a decade. Remarkably, news stories I’ve read about the unveiling of Jean’s portrait last fall failed to mention an important fact: Unlike images of previous governors-general dating back to 1867, hers is the first to depict Canada’s titular head of state in community. That is to say that the vibrant painting by artist Karen Bailey features Jean, as well as her daughter and husband, in the midst of a diverse array of people including a First Nations drummer, uniformed soldiers, an elderly couple and energetic youths. During a chat about the portrait with a staffer at Rideau Hall, I learned that a well-known homeless man (bald and with a long, white beard) is also represented in the piece. In her artist statement, Bailey praised Jean for her input on the design of a painting that is rendered in warm and welcoming hues. “Ultimately, mine is a portrait of a woman at work,” Bailey noted. “Madame Jean was not alone as governor general—she reflected and encouraged the efforts, ideas and strengths of all citizens.” Across town, the life-sized bronze statue of Oscar Peterson showcases the musician smiling and seated on a piano bench that is angled next to his signature Bosendorfer piano. Sculptor Ruth Abernethy said she purposefully left room on the bench to entice passersby to “take a moment” with the man, whom Duke Ellington hailed as “the maharajah of the keyboard.” Drawn by the accessibility of the piece, I immediately sat on the bench—a move that triggered a delightful recording of Peterson tinkling the ivories. As the music wafted through the air, I recalled the elegance, peace and (to my ears) poignant patriotism of Peterson’s famed composition, “Hymn to Freedom” (found on his 1997 release, Night Train). Although the Montreal-born pianist suffered prejudice in his homeland (detailed in the riveting 1992 documentary In The Key of Oscar), Peterson never appeared to let injustice get under his skin or sour his views of humanity. Instead, he quietly dismissed “stupid racism” and went on to bedazzle the world with his virtuosity. A New York Times obituary for Peterson made special note of the delicate tone and deft touch that characterized his life and art: “He used his gifts in the service of moderation and reliability.… Even at his peak there was very little tension in his playing.” As one who was marked by the “burn baby burn” mayhem of the U.S. civil rights movement, I’ve been moved by what I’ve come to call the gracious grit of African-Canadians such as Michaëlle Jean and Oscar Peterson. Criticized for eating a raw seal heart during a community feast in Nunavut, the former governor general countered with a cool “take from that what you will” riposte that struck me as both deliciously pointed and diplomatic. In her satirical 2012 novel Sussex Drive, Linda Svendsen features Lise Lavoie, a Black female governor general who finds herself at odds with the prime minister. Might the characters have been inspired by the strained (at best) relationship that existed between Michaëlle Jean and Stephen Harper? Just asking. In her current positions as chancellor of the University of Ottawa and special envoy to her native Haiti for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Jean continues the community activism highlighted in her portrait at Rideau Hall. Rumour has it that Jean plans to write a book about her sojourn as governor general. Mindful of the Montreal gospel choir that performed at her 2005 investiture ceremony, I conjure Oscar Peterson at his piano and sing: “Hallelujah.” herizons Fall 2013 45 arts culture Tina Renton’s Path Towards Healing by Val B. Russell Tina Renton wrote about her experience in the hope of helping other victims. Tina Renton’s memoir, You Can’t Hide: How I Brought my Rapist Stepfather to Justice (Simon & Schuster) chronicles the author’s response to sexual abuse she experienced. For Renton, earning a law degree 17 years after the abuse ended, helped give her the knowledge and the confidence she needed to confront her abuser and to stop seeking her mother’s approval. Ultimately, Renton’s stepfather was convicted of rape in 2011 by a British court. You Can’t Hide recounts not only Renton’s legal battle, but also describes her healing, parenthood and activism. Today Renton works in television production. Herizons: Do you think your mother was consciously aware that her actions made you vulnerable, setting the stage for David Moore to exploit your need for parental love? while yours wasn’t. Have you been able to heal the wounds with both brothers, or is the damage to the relationship beyond repair? TINA RENTON: I think men like David Moore look for families that have something lacking. In my case, it was a mother who, by her own admission, shouldn’t have had children. I would say that when David met my mother, she was missing the one thing she needed: a man. The boundaries in my home were not fixed but shifted to reflect her mood. Maybe when she introduced my brother and me to David he saw the problems in the home, and that’s why he stayed. It’s hard to know what was going on for them; for all I know they do love each other and he didn’t stay just to get to me. TINA RENTON: My feelings about each brother differ. Blake lied in court, denying the violence between David and himself. I feel sorry for Jonathan. I don’t think he lied in court. In fact, some things he said helped expose my mother’s and David’s lies. David is his father, and no one would like to think of their father doing what he did. Either way, there is no relationship to repair. I was outcast from the family, a black sheep. Jealousy, pain, suffering and all emotions that go along with the breakup of families due to sexual crimes are so overwhelming to overcome. As a survivor, self-preservation is important. If I decide to reject them, it is easier for me to mentally cope. As is often the case in families where children are abused, there was a divide-and-conquer dynamic at play. From the outset, you and your brother Blake had an adversarial relationship, putting you both at an emotional distance. When your stepfather entered the picture, the physical abuse to which Blake was subjected was witnessed openly, 46 FAll 2013 herizons There are actually three stories being told in your memoir: your journey through and survival of sexual abuse; your struggle to grow as a woman and mother; and ultimately your release from the need for your mother’s love and approval. arts Do you feel that removing your mother from your life was instrumental in your decision to pursue justice? TINA RENTON: I tried for a number of years to please my mother. I wanted her to be proud of me as her daughter and the woman that I had grown to become, regardless of the struggles and what they had both done. In reality, that was never going to happen. For a long time, I’d wanted to cut her out of my life, but I was too afraid, and my children losing their grandmother was also a consideration. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly. After spending 32 years of my life trying to be loved, I knew the time had come to love myself first. There was also no way I could have gone to the police while she was still in my life. You are the mother of two sons, and it was your love for them that was a stepping stone on the path to your admission to law school and finding your voice. Beyond the obvious pride they must feel for you, are they showing any interest in becoming involved in justice issues or activism? TINA RENTON: My eldest son is not meant to be an academic. Like me, he has serious dyslexia. Therefore he is training for a career in a trade and doing very well. Like me, he does stand up for what he believes and can be very stubborn when he knows what he wants! Daniel is going to study for a law degree in addition to joining the army. When you made the decision to work with writer Ruth Kelly, the retelling of your story must have been a catharsis. Was the prospect of opening up daunting, or was going public an obvious gateway to helping others who have experienced abuse? TINA RENTON: The healing process is ongoing. One could argue that I will never heal, but it doesn’t stop me trying. When I agreed to write the book, it was for one reason: to help other people. How I would feel didn’t really come into it at the time. The week [prior to the book’s release] I was very upset and terrified of people knowing me. Even my best friends didn’t know a lot of the content culture in the book. At no point would I have considered stopping the book’s release, but I was totally terrified. Even after all this time, I felt shame. I shouldn’t, but I still do at times. I receive many emails from other survivors, so I know the book has helped and will continue to. If I can help just one person then my job is done. You are currently working with Child Victims of Crime in England. As an advocate for children, is there improvement in terms of support for child victims of crime and the protection of the rights of children? What still needs to be done to create awareness of what is an epidemic worldwide? TINA RENTON: This is a tough question. Things are getting better because there is now public awareness that our legal systems are not protecting children. This is actually the result of many victims speaking out after so long. More people coming forward translates into increased awareness, but there is still far to go. Sadly, this revolves around money and a lack of resources. Most available aid [in the U.K.] is charity-based, such as Action for Children. But all governments should be spending more money on this problem, as both physical and sexual abuse can and does include neglect, leading to lifelong problems. I know that my own mother’s neglect of my needs will last forever. The government must update laws in keeping with current societal needs. With regard to more awareness, there can never be enough. If you had one message to send to both children and adults who carry the scars of abuse, what would it be? TINA RENTON: Understand that the scars will never go away and don’t try to avoid the feelings connected to the scars. Speak to someone, a friend or therapist, but don’t be alone because isolation is the hardest part. Remember also that just because you have been a victim once does not mean you have to be forever. For all survivors, it is critical to know that, ultimately, abuse is never their fault. herizons Fall 2013 47 On the Edge by lyn cockburn Political Differences A recent University of London study conducted in 10 countries (Australia, Canada, Colombia, Greece, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Norway, the U.K. and the U.S) has been taken by some as proof that women know less about politics than men. This assumption is little different than the one so popular in Canada—that women know less about hockey than men. Both assumptions are misleading. They’re largely based on the fact that many female fans, no matter how enthusiastic, of either or both of politics and hockey, tend to leave the room for a coffee, a beer or a pee every time the boys start fighting. In hockey, the boys trash-talk each other, then often resort to inane fisticuffs. In politics, the boys shout at, interrupt and belittle each other, with occasional threats of bare-knuckle attacks that come to naught, perhaps because there is no penalty box. These time-honoured antics occasion a lot of female disengagement from the male sports of hockey and politics. The study is authored by professor James Curran and co-authored by professor Kaori Hayashi, who, being a female, is rarely mentioned, and, in one publication, is referred to as “he.” They offered 12 multiple-choice questions—eight universal and four relevant to each individual country. The universal questions included ones about the president of France, the Taliban and Tiger Woods. Media outlets worldwide leaped upon the results of this pub-style quiz with headlines similar to the National Post’s “Women, especially in Canada, are more ignorant of politics and current affairs than men.” In Canada, women answered around 33 percent of the questions correctly, and men were just short of 50 percent. However, Canadian women did better than American men. British men answered 25 percent of the questions correctly, British women 16 percent. The highest score went to Norwegian men, at 75 percent. In nine out of 10 of the countries surveyed, there was a distinct gender imbalance, with Colombia the exception—perhaps because both men and women performed abysmally. Curran, while noting that “overall, older men did best on the quiz,” expressed shock and surprise at the results, especially since many of the countries taking part, such as Norway, Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., have visibly progressed in the area of gender equality. 48 FAll 2013 herizons He offered some possible reasons for this disparity. The first was that it was a “patriarchal hangover” from the days when men ruled public affairs and women stayed home to look after hearth and children. Next was the fact that women are often still held responsible for the majority of housework and child care, even if they work full-time, a phenomenon that obviously allows them less leisure time. Fortunately, this was a two-part study, and it is that second half that is of greater importance because it looked at the way news is presented in broadcast, in print and on the web. It found that in 70 to 80 percent of cases, with newspapers being the worst, the experts interviewed or cited for news reports are male. That means women get 30 percent of the media pie—often, says Curran, in reference to soft news or social issues, not hard news. “It’s enormously off-putting for women to always be looking at the news as always being about men,” said Curran, obviously shocked by such results. Many women, if they raised an eyebrow at all, were but mildly surprised that so little has changed in the media in the last 20 years. “What is clear is that TV news is dominated by men in terms of the sources of stories across the world,” Curran said, inadvertently explaining why Lisa LaFlamme’s ascension to anchor on CTV’s evening news does not the problem solve. Not long ago, I watched (should have gone for a pee) as a well-known TV broadcaster introduced a panel discussion on abortion. There were representatives of the country’s three major parties—all men. For the next few minutes, I subjected myself to commentary on abortion conducted by four men. Outraged, I fired off an email to the host, who politely emailed me back with that elderly excuse of We Tried To Get Women But There Were None Available. The answer to which is a question: Would you assemble a panel made up solely of women to discuss vasectomies? Premature ejaculation? Perhaps impotence? “Politics is projected as a man’s world, and that encourages a sense of discrimination,” said Curran. Perhaps the good prof is happily unaware that seven out of the eight “universal questions” on his quiz referred to men. Only one was about a woman—Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany. 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