Gender Outlaws

WOMENS NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS
|
Winter 2011
|
Vol. 24 No. 3 BUY CANADIAN
WHY BURQA BANS
DONT HELP
ARE CO-OP
BROTHELS
THE ANSWER? WOMEN
PORTRAIT OF THE
ARTIST AS
A MOTHER
OUTLAWS
GENDER
S. BEAR BERGMAN & KATE BORNSTEIN
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008866;
Display until March 15, 2011
THE CHARTER
PORN AGAIN
THE ISSUE THAT
WONT GO AWAY
WHAT EVER HAPPENED
TO EQUALITY?
$6.75 Canada/ U.S.
her-052 Winter 2011 v24n3.qxp 12/15/10 12:24 PM Page C1
In Canada and around the globe, employers are accelerating
the transformation of work into more temporary, contract
and part-time jobs. Theyve got cheap labour on their mind.
In doing so they undermine stable incomes, a decent quality
of life and the hope of a strong economic recovery.
Precarious jobs means more insecurity, unstable hours,
low wages and minimal benets. More than 1 in 3
Canadian workers now hold jobs that are
temporary, part-time or in self employment.
Increasingly, unemployed workers say thats all there is.
Canadians must hold employers and government accountable for
the quality as well as the quantity of new jobs.
More precarious work means a more precarious future.
PRECARIOUS WORK
AFFECTS US ALL
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PRECARIOUS WORK
AFFECTS US ALL.
To nd out more go to caw.ca/en/7688.htm
HERIZONS WINTER 2011 1
features
news
SECOND WAVE JOURNEY BEGINS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
by Shari Graydon
CAMPAIGN UPDATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO EQUALITY? . . . . . . . . . . . 10
by Shelagh Day
AFGHAN WOMENS MAGAZINE LAUNCHED . . . . . . . 11
by Lauryn Oates
BENDING GENDER, BREAKING BINARIES . . . . . . . . . 16
Herizons talks to Kate Bornstein, who has teamed up
with fellow author and performance artist S. Bear
Bergman to publish an anthology of new transgender
voices, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation.
by Mandy van Deven
PORTAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A MOTHER . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Are artist mothers still expected to make the impossible
choice between creative self-expression and their
motherhood? KC Adams, Jennifer Linton and
Leslie Sorochan explore the issue.
by Connie Jeske Crane
ARE CO-OP BROTHELS THE ANSWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
An Ontario court has struck down the criminal code
provisions on prostitutions as an infringement on the
rights of prostitute. Meanwhile, Susan Davis continues
to work to establish co-op brothels to protect women
in the sex trade.
by Joanna Chiu
PORN AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Anti-porn feminists were voted off the island 20
years ago by their critics who argued that their focus
on violent and degrading images was anti-sex. Today,
two new books have reignited the discussion on the
effect of pornography on sex, women and men.
by Lisa Tremblay
COVER UP: BURQA BAN REBUFFS EQUALITY . . . . . . 32
Quebecs proposed bill banning full head coverings
for women was, its supporters said, introduced out of
respect for womens equality. The author of this essay
says burqa bans are thinly disguised acts of bigotry.
by Margaret Sankey
WINTER 2011 / VOLUME 24 NO. 3
32
6
20
her-052 Winter 2011 v24n3.qxp 12/15/10 12:24 PM Page 1
2 WINTER 2011 HERIZONS
VOLUME 24 NO. 3
MANAGING EDITOR: Penni Mitchell
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The purpose of HERIZONS is to empower women; to inspire hope
and foster a state of wellness that enriches womens lives; to build
awareness of issues as they affect women; to promote the
strength, wisdom and creativity of women; to broaden the bound-
aries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among
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columns
PENNI MITCHELL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Sisters in Spirit
SUSAN G. COLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Boys of Bountiful
LYN COCKBURN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Thin Ice
arts & ideas
MUSIC TO KEEP YOU WARM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
This is Good by Hannah Georgas; Together by
The New Pornographers; The Strong Survive by
Nikki Lynette; Sticker Album by Lauren Best;
Tiger Suit by KT Tunstall; Imaginings by Hilary Grist.
RADICAL READING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
The Knife Sharpeners Bell by Rhea Tregebov; Her
Mothers Ashes III edited by Nurjehan Aziz; An
Unexpected Break in the Weather by Deborah Schnitzer;
Girl Unwrapped by Gabriella Goliger; Maternity Rolls
by Heather Kuttai; Victims No More edited by Ellen
Faulkner and Gayle MacDonald; Reluctant Bedfellows
by Meredith Ralson and Edmna Keeble.
Poetry Reviews: Bone Dream by Moira MacDougall; Joy is
so exhausting by Susan Holbrook; forage by Rita Wong.
FISH TANK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
by Maureen Medved
MAGAZINE INK
45
letters
MIXED MESSAGES ABOUT SEX
In the Fall 2020 issue of Herizons, I read with much
interest the article The New Sexual Exploitation,
an exploration of Sharlene Azams book, Oral Sex
is the New Goodnight Kiss.
It strikes me as ironic that some ads and images in Herizons
(and other feminist media) send what I consider to be mixed mes-
sages. On one page, I see Azams message Stop sexually
exploiting girls! and on other pages I see sexy images of
women. Case in point: In the same issue of Herizons, in the arts &
culture section, I saw what I perceived to be Cyndi Laupers sultry
repose with heavy makeup and sensually parted lips on her CD
cover in your reviews section.
The protector in me said, Oh greatanother message of woman-
as-sex-object from one of our own. I ask, do these publicized
images in feminist mags still facilitate the objectification of girls and
women, giving a message that our identities must centre around
our sexuality? Is there an age women reach when it is safe (in the
many interpretations of the word) to publicly honour and express our
sexual/sensual sides? When and where is it okay for women to open
up our souls and our bodies to sexual bliss and empowerment?
But then the feminist in me says, Right onthat chick is so
groovin with her sexuality and confidently expressing it in her
way! I applaud Lauper for presenting herself as a 50-plus-year-
old-woman who celebrates her sexuality/feminity/identitywhose
image says she is proud of who she is.
And so I ask, with utmost humility and genuine confusion?what
is a feminist to do? This fence-straddling is starting to get painful! I
see mixed messages in not only this magazine but other feminist
media. Please know I am not slamming HerizonsI love its local-
ity and its mission. And Im not saying we should be girl-cotting
Cyndi Lauper over her CD cover. But what am I supposed to say to
girls who look at images such as this?
Perhaps your readership could help me down from the fence by
pointing me to some feminist blogs, websites or literature, so I can
resolve this heated inner debate.
Thank you for the opportunity to enlist support from the feminist
community. Keep up with the awesome channelling of feminist
voices to your readership!
LISA A.
Winnipeg, MB
TIME HONOURED
I read Penni Mitchells editorial on Time maga-
zines cover photo of Bibi Aisha in the Fall 2010
issue of Herizons as I was en route to Kabul,
and I wanted to let you know that I found it
slightly misleading.
I actually felt that the Time magazine cover was
refreshing. Its not very often that a mainstream news magazine puts
the fate of women front and centre in questioning policy decisions. I
thought it was important that they did not hide the brutality of what
happened to Aisha, because this is the reality of what happens in
Afghanistan sometimes and it should be confronted.
Ive been in touch with Aryn Baker, the Time journalist who
wrote the story and lived a long time in Kabul. I think she told the
story as it should be told.
Did you know that the Afghan womens movement by and large
supports NATOs continued presence in Afghanistan and actively
advocates against its premature withdrawal? Member of Parlia-
ment Fawzia Koofi, for example, who is mentioned in the editorial,
has vocally and publicly insisted that NATO not leave yet and has
specifically appealed to Canada to keep its troops in Kandahar
(though, of course, that is not happening now).
Many Canadians assume that Afghans see NATO as an occupy-
ing force, but this could not be farther from the truth, according to
15 opinion polls conducted in the last five years in Afghanistan.
The poll results affirm what Ive found in my own interactions with
Afghans. Ive yet to meet an Afghan in Afghanistan who wants NATO
out. The feminist organization CW4W Afghan, for example, is work-
ing hard to listen to Afghan women, who have consistently warned
against international forces leaving Afghanistan too soon.
LAURYN OATES,
Bowen Island, B.C.
contributors
ROZENA MAART
Rozena Maart is a writer and educator who
lives in Guelph, Ontario. She is the author of
Rosas District 6, a collection of five short
stories set in Cape Town, South Africa, and The
Writing Circle, a novel chronicling the legacy of
violence against women in South Africa through the lives of the
members of a fictional womens book club.
MANDY VAN DEVEN
The founder of the blog Feminist Review,
Mandy van Deven is a freelance writer whose
work has been published in AlterNet, In These
Times, make/shift and VenusZine. Mandy
interviewed S. Bear Bergman and Kate
Bornstein in this issue.
CONNIE JESKE CRANE
Connie Jeske Crane is an inexpert but
enthusiastic lover of art. A Toronto-based
freelance writer who wrote Portrait of the
Mother as Artist in this issue, Connie
frequently writes about health and wellness,
parenting and environmental issues.
KEMLIN NEMBHARD
Kemlin Nembhard is a Herizons board member
and sits on the magazines editorial advisory
committee. She is the executive director of the
Daniel McIntyre/St. Matthews Community
Association , a neighbourhood renewal
corporation in Winnipeg. Kemlin also hosts a radio show called
Check Ca on CKUW 95.5 FM.
Is your wish list for a better world too daunting?
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is already doing all these things and much, much more.
For over thirty years, we have built alliances with citizen
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It turns out that you can decimate entire nations by deci-
mating the power of their women. It helps if youve got
superior firepower, too, but as far as the colonizing of the
upper half of Turtle Island is concerned the decimation of
Aboriginal societies was successful in large part because of
the sexism that was infused into them under the laws of
European colonists.
The Indian Act of 1870 was a masterful piece of work. It
banished not only the potlatch ceremonies by which Aborig-
inals shared community wealth, but under new rules laid out
it allocated rights over reserve affairs to male Indians. After
all, thats the way the Europeans did things, and it worked
just fine. No more tracing your lineage through your mothers
side of the family. No more women speaking up at gatherings
where decisions are made.
To speed up assimilation further, the federal government
forced the removal of children from their families under res-
idential school laws. Languages were banished, religions
demonized and the bond between mothers and children was
severed. It worked well. Aboriginal women went from being
central forces in their communities to having little value.
Today, there is no clearer symbol of the lost power of Abo-
riginal women during colonization than the 582 missing
Aboriginal women who are counted in the database of the
Sisters in Spirit project. Their lost lives are the imprint of the
racialized and sexualized discrimination and violence deliv-
ered under the enforcement of colonial laws. The status of
Aboriginal womenwho are five to ten times more likely to
be assaulted than non-Aboriginal womenis denigrated
further when law enforcement agencies show little concern
for Aboriginal women who are victims of violence. And
when Aboriginal women come into conflict with the law,
they are imprisoned at a much higher rate than non-Aborig-
inal women.
In other words, there are trust issues here. The treatment of
Aboriginal women at the hands of law enforcement authori-
ties is part of a larger problem that has to be fixed. The
culture in which law enforcement officials work and the ways
crimes are prioritized must be corrected if Aboriginal women
are to stop disappearing.
You might expect the federal government, which just set
aside $10 million to beef up efforts on the missing Aborigi-
nal women file, would have consulted the Native Womens
Association of Canada (NWAC) when it set out to put some
resources behind the problem of missing Aboriginal women.
But it didnt. And you might think the Harper government
would want to keep Aboriginal women involved by contin-
uing to fund the Sisters in Spirit initiative begun under
NWAC. After all, Sisters in Spirit provided the impetus for
the national campaign that has led to a national profile for
an issue that, five years ago, didnt exist outside of Aborigi-
nal communities.
Again, Ottawa didnt. In fact, Ottawa excluded Sisters in
Spirit from receiving a nickel of the $10 million, and it set up
a new law-and-order campaign to be run by the RCMP to
address the missing persons problem.
Does this sound familiar? A campaign of law and order cre-
ated the very legacy of abuse, poverty and destruction that led
to generations of abuse. More law enforcement isnt the solu-
tion. Lawsfor example, those that stipulate who is Indian
and who is notare part of the problem. It isnt that Aborig-
inal women dont want these 582 crimes solved. But giving
more firepower to a policing institution in which Aboriginal
women have no say isnt what NWAC had in mind. And its
not the justice Aboriginal women seek.
Sisters in Spirit has identified gaps and procedures in law
enforcement that need to be changed in order to improve
results in the cases involving missing and murdered Aborigi-
nal women and girls. By squelching the voices of these
experts and not funding their groundbreaking work, the gov-
ernment is pushing Aboriginal women aside once again.
Giving more resources to the RCMP, an institution domi-
nated by white men who carry guns, isnt going to fix this.
Until a few hundred years ago, Aboriginal women served
as advisors on matters of war, oversaw the equitable sharing
of food and were valued as negotiators between traders. They
served as peacemakers and translators. Their voices were
heard. Today, Ottawa owes it to the Aboriginal women at
Sisters in Spirit to listen to their voices, involve them in the
process and treat them with the respect they deserve.
first word
BY PENNI MITCHELL
SISTERS IN SPIRIT
LEADER
FREED
The November
release of Aung
San Suu Kyi, the
democratically elected leader of
Burmaalso known as Myanmar
spurred qualified commendation from
womens groups in the country. The
Womens League of Burma said it hopes
that Suu Kyis freedom of movement will
be restored.
The group was careful to parse the
news. Though her release brings us joy
and hope, we also clearly recognize
that this alone does not fully ensure
democratic progress for the country
unless all political prisoners are
released unconditionally.
The leader was released from house
arrest after seven years. Suu Kyi and her
party, the National League for Democ-
racy, won the countrys first election in
decades by a landslide victory 20 years
ago. The military regime did not honour
the result and has kept her under house
arrest for 15 of the last 20 years. In that
time, she demonstrated political leader-
ship, provided inspiration to the countrys
pro-democracy movement and garnered
respect from people around the world.
She received the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
NIQAB DEFENDED
The Ontario Court of Appeal has con-
firmed that a sexual assault complainant
can testify wearing a niqab.
The Womens Legal Education and
Action Fund intervened in support of the
rape victim in R. vs. N.S. LEAF legal
director Joanna Birenbaum said This is
a significant decision affirming the
importance of fair trials and access to
justice for Muslim women and all sexual
assault complainants.
The Court of Appeal judgment recog-
nized the powerful nature of the
complainants decision to wear her
niqab while testifying, as well as the
particularly vulnerable position suffered
by women who report sexual assault.
The court also recognized that Muslims
are a minority that many believe is
unfairly maligned and stereotyped in
contemporary Canada and said a fail-
ure to adequately consider
complainants rights could legitimize
that negative stereotyping.
The court held that the ultimate deci-
Margaret Thatcher once said she owed
nothing to feminism, which always made
me wonder how she figured she came by
the right to vote, let alone run for office and
serve as prime minister.
And yet Thatchers apparent ignorance of
the decades of activism that were neces-
sary to win suffrage for women is shared by
many in Britain and in Canada. Despite the
work of feminists to document womens his-
tory, its fair to say that most people remain
largely unaware of the investments previ-
ous generations made to secure womens
hard-fought equality rights.
Legal historian Constance Backhouse and
of the Womens Legal Education and Action
Fund (LEAF) co-founder Beth Atcheson are
working to change that. Over dinner, the two
found themselves deploring the fact that no
one had truly captured the spirit and impact
of second wave feminism. So they decided
to remedy the situation in time for the sec-
ond waves 50th anniversary last year.
Wed had a bottle of wine, Backhouse
confesses, so nothing was beyond our
grasp!
The former law school roommates
brought 25 feminists from across the
country together in February 2008, and the
Feminist History Society was born. A non-
profit venture with the mission of
publishing books about the womens
movement in Canada between 1960 and
2010, the society recently released its first
volume, Feminist Journeys, edited by
author Marguerite Andersen, a regular
DOCUMENTING
FEMINIST HISTORY
BY SHARI GRAYDON
Beth Atcheson, Beth Symes and Constance Backhouse at the Toronto launch of Feminist Journeys in October.
nelliegrams
nelliegrams
sion on whether a witness can testify
wearing a niqab must be determined on
a case by case basis. LEAF asked the
Court of Appeal to consider the demand
that a sexual assault complainant
remove her niqab in the context of the
long history of sexual assault com-
plainants being harassed, re-victimized,
humiliated and intimidated, especially at
a preliminary inquiry.
PAKISTAN FORUM
APPOINTS WOMAN
Human rights activist Asma Jahangir was
elected the first female president of Pak-
istans Supreme Court Bar Association,
Reuters reported. The Supreme Court Bar
Association is Pakistans most influential
forum for lawyers.
DRIVING
CHANGE
Were not sure
this is a big
equality mile-
stone, but its an
interesting trend. LeaseTrader.com, a U.S.
car leasing marketplace reports that for
the first time the number of women under
30 driving luxury vehicles is greater than
the number of men.
The announcement comes on the
heels of U.S. reports that in certain aca-
demic and financial areas the number of
female students has begun to surpass
the number of male students. According
to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau data, women
in metropolitan centres between 22 and
30 earn up to eight percent more than
their male counterparts. LeaseTrader.com
found that 51.2 percent of luxury vehicles
are driven by women, compared with 42.6
percent in 2005.
Sergio Stiberman, founder of Lease-
Trader.com said that especially as it
relates to education, young women com-
manding higher salaries are becoming a
larger customer base in shopping and
trading for luxury leases.
WOMEN TO UNITE
IN OTTAWA
Women from around
the world will gather in
Ottawa this summer
for a global womens
conference called
Womens Worlds, billed as a gathering
for academics, activists, researchers,
policy-makers, advocates and artists.
Herizons contributor. The collection brings
together more than 90 short essays from a
diverse group of women exploring the
roots of their feminism.
As Backhouse explains, 1960 was the
year the peace advocacy group Voice of
Women in Canada was founded, 10 years
before the Royal Commission on the Status
of Women reported. Although feminist
activism predated these events by decades,
many characterize the second wave as
beginning at this time.
Backhouse was inspired by early Ameri-
can feminists who documented the history
of the U.S. suffragist movement in a six-vol-
ume series of books edited by Susan B.
Anthony and others.
My daughter had just been born and I
lusted after those books. She recalls scour-
ing second-hand bookstores before she
eventually found a set, which now occupies
a prominent spot on her shelf. She says the
purpose of the Feminist History Society is
similarly to describe, document, preserve
and celebrate the work of our times.
For her part, Atcheson recalls studying
the law case of Edwards vs. Canada, which
established the living tree doctrine. In rul-
ing on the case, the British Privy Council
ruled that a constitution is organic and must
be read so as to adapt to changing times.
But it was not until Atcheson became
involved in establishing LEAF that she real-
ized Edwards vs. Canada was the Persons
Case, which established that Canadian
female British subjects were eligible for
appointment to the Senate and had the
same rights as male subjects.
At the time, she says, Id had no idea of
its relevance, or its significance.
Soon, Atcheson and Backhouse were
making their own contributions to feminist
activism alongside Diana Majury, now a law
professor at Carleton University, and lawyer
Beth Symes, who took on a pivotal Supreme
Court case that sought to secure child care
expenses as a tax deduction. In the early
80s, the four worked with others to estab-
lish a Toronto womens health clinic to
perform abortions. Thirty-five years later,
Majury and Symes are volunteer members
of the societys steering committee.
Backhouse remembers the exhilaration
they felt. We learned so much and we
were so gutsy. We phoned people up and
demanded they meet with us. And they
all agreed!
Although the group was unsuccessful at
establishing a clinic, Backhouse describes
the effort as one of the most meaningful
experiences in her career. We were one of
many cyclones of feminist energy all across
Canada doing exciting, revolutionary work.
Atcheson explains that womens history
comes with unique challenges.
Much of the work thats gone on is invisi-
ble, she explains. It resides in our hearts,
minds and basements. We chuck it out when
we move. But we need to record it because it
constitutes a challenge to the dominant story.
We had to push our way to do the work, and
well have to push our way to report it.
Movements are by definition ad hoc, tran-
sitional and varied, she continues. There
are many, many stories to be told. We intend
to honour the diversity, the different interests
and tensions. And we need to write about
these in the first person because we know
there will be a pile of third-person histories.
The excitement is palpable and infectious.
At one of a series of launch events held in
2010, 40 women gathered in the apartment
of Ottawa feminist lawyer and co-founder of
the National Association of Women and the
Law Shirley Greenberg. The event had the
feel of a celebratory reunion and the con-
versation quickly turned from the
importance of preserving second-wave
activism in books to the need to supplement
the effort with oral histories and video ele-
ments to engage younger people.
So much of what feminists achieved over
the past 100 years is now taken for granted,
according to Backhouse and Atcheson.
They tick them off: the right of married
women to keep their wages; the right to
vote; the right to attend university; the right
to birth control and reproductive choice; the
right to a share of a partners estate and
pension. And its because these rights are
well-established that many simply dont
know how hard-fought the battles were.
Backhouse notes that the great man
tradition of history that focuses on wars and
battles is usually better financed. In con-
trast, the largely volunteer-run Feminist
History Societyalthough it has benefited
from some donationsis heavily reliant on
reader subscriptions. For $100 a year, mem-
bers receive the hardcover book of the year
and a charitable receipt for $30. Some sub-
scribers have purchased multiple
memberships as legacy gifts for friends,
daughters or granddaughters.
The subscription plan allows a kind of
independence that wouldnt be possible if
they had approached a traditional publisher.
Because were publishing ourselves,
explains Atcheson, we can control the
process. Theres no intermediary. We can
tell as many stories as possible. And we
can be more sensitive and open in the way
we do it.
Backhouse acknowledges that poses its
own challenge.
(Continued on page 8)
nelliegrams
Among the speakers announced for
the July 3 to 7 conference are Monica
Chuji Gualinga, a one-time youth activist
during the 1990 uprising who thrust
Indigenous rights onto Ecuadors
national stage. She was a member of
the constituent assembly that wrote
Ecuadors new constitution in 2008.
Another presenter will be Devaki Jain,
a feminist economist who is internation-
ally known for her innovative work on
development in India. She frequently
contributes to governmental forums
and civil society initiatives in the
areas of equity, development, self-gov-
ernment and population. Andrea Smith
Provoker will also be on the podium.
She is an anti-violence activist from the
Cherokee nation, a co-founder of
INCITE! Women of Color Against Vio-
lence and a professor in the department
of media and cultural studies at the Uni-
versity of California.
The purpose of the conference is to
develop strategies to mount effective
challenges to the dominant attitudes that
perpetuate inequality; highlight and share
successes and strategies; and amplify
womens voices and ideas within the dis-
course on globalization.
Registration begins in January and
conference fees start at $385 for four
days ($100 for students). See
www.womensworlds.ca.
WOMEN
LEADERS HIT
20 PERCENT
Dilma Rousseff,
Brazils first
female president-elect, brings the num-
ber of female heads of state among
leaders of the G20 states to a record-
breaking four, or 20 percent. At the
recent summit in Seoul, South Korea,
Rousseff was joined by Argentinean
President Cristina Fernadez de Kirchner,
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
FGM RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
UNICEF has released a report urging
intervention programs that address the
needs and wishes of the entire commu-
nity in eradicating female genital
mutilation. An estimated three million
girls and women are at risk in Africa
each year, but interventions from West-
ern aid agencies motivated by outrage
are unlikely to succeed, says the report.
CAMPAIGN
UPDATES
BUBBLE ZONE PROTECTION
According to the Abortion Rights Coalition of
Canada (ARCC), bubble zone protection
may be the answer to unwanted harassment
of clients and staff at Canadas abortion clin-
ics. An ARCC-backed study found that 64
percent of abortion clinics in Canada cur-
rently experience unwanted interference
from protesters. The level of protesting may
be related to the fact that 73 percent of clin-
ics have no bubble zone protectionbylaws
to prevent the harassment of clients and
staff near abortion clinics or in their homes.
The court injunctions and B.C.s law have
been quite successful they have signifi-
cantly reduced protest activity at every clinic
that uses them, sometimes completely elimi-
nating it, says Joyce Arthur, coordinator for
ARCC and co-author of the study. Women
have a right to access necessary health
services privately without being bullied.
The survey, conducted by a University of
British Columbia law student, was based on
interviews with staff at all 33 abortion clin-
ics in Canada. The survey asked clinics
about the effect of protesters on patients
and staff and also about the effectiveness
of measures undertaken to protect them.
Sixteen clinics, 53 percent of those sur-
veyed, reported that patients and staff are
negatively affected by the presence of pro-
testers, including feeling upset, frightened
or bullied. Sixty-four percent of clinics
say they have tried to reduce the impact
of protester activity by obtaining private
injunctions, recruiting volunteer escorts for
patients and staff, using security guards or
calling local law enforcement, or training
staff on how to respond to protestors.
The harassment of protesters at 21 per-
cent of clinics surveyed was significant
enough that they obtained private court
injunctions to protect staff and patients
from protesters. Only two clinics are pro-
tected by B.C.s provincial law, the Access
to Abortion Services Act (which creates
protest-free bubble zones around clinics
and hospitals where abortions are provided,
as well as around the offices and homes of
abortion service providers). All clinics with
injunctions or bubble zones reported heavy
and/or aggressive protest activity prior to
obtaining their injunction or bubble zone.
The full report is available at
http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/presentations/
ARCC-survey-protest-activity.pdf.
MCIVOR TAKES
FIGHT TO UN
Fed up with Canadian
courts slow pace of
progress on the issue of
Aboriginal womens
rights, Sharon McIvor is
filing a sex discrimina-
tion complaint at the
United Nations.
Sometimes the idea of writing a book
sounds scary. Its weighty, [We imagine] it
has to be written in a certain way. But, she
counters, most women in the first book are
not primarily writers. We want women to
know they dont have to be writers in order
to contribute. We will support them.
The first volume reflects that approach.
The initial call to contribute to Feminist
Journeys was essentially an invitation for
women to tell the stories of how they
became feminists. Disseminated on a blog
and forwarded by individuals, it generated
enough responses for a bookand theyre
still coming.
Thats the miracle, says Backhouse.
But there are 9,000 others! We want those
on the record. And the great thing is, with a
website we can do that.
To celebrate the societys first book,
launch parties held in several cities. In the
second volume, due out in 2011, journalist
Michele Landsberg will revisit her Toronto
Star columns, chronicling Canadian femi-
nisms second wave, discuss the movements
successes and failures. Also planned is a
biography of retired Chief Justice Claire
LHeureux Dub to be written by Backhouse.
Atcheson has high hopes for the series
potential impact. We learned from some of
the tactics of the first wave, she says, cit-
ing women who were tough, funny and
smart , who did not back down.
By chronicling and honouring the second
wave, the societys books are on course to
deliver comparable value.
History becomes very flat and static
when it doesnt talk about whats going on in
communities, when its not focused on why
things change. Without womens voices, you
lose colour and context. The story is neither
as interesting nor as accurate.
For more information on the Feminist
History Society, visit feministhistories.ca.
Sharon McIvor has

vowed to take her
fight for Aboriginal
women to the United
Nations.
(Continued from page 7)
...because a world that is good
for women is good for everyone.
Benet from our work.
Support our work.
Learn more about our work.
Our groundbreaking research has
generated changes in policies and
practices for critical social issues for
women and families. Never before
has our work been so relevant.
Never before has it been so needed.
www.wcwonline.org
35 YEARS OF RESEARCH AND ACTION
Just like eating a box
of chocolates,
Really sublime,
An immensely
valuable work.
These are among the early reviews of
Feminist Journeys/Voies fministe, the
rst book published by the Feminist
History Society/Socit dhistoire
fministe. Feminist Journeys/Voies
fministe, is a collection of almost 100 short stories from women from
all parts of Canada about how they came to feminism.
To order your copy, join the Feminist History Society/Socit
dhistoire fministe by sending in your Membership Form to support
our publishing efforts. You can also become a member on line at
www.feministhistories.ca
Please mail this form to the
Feminist History Society,
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www.FeministHistories.ca
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The most successful projects build up
local trust by reinforcing positive aspects
of local culture, as well as incorporating
development projects into their work with
local communities.
FIRST TRANS
JUDGE ELECTED
IN U.S.
Victoria Kolakowski,
an administrative
law judge with the California Public Utili-
ties Commission, was elected Superior
Court judge in Alameda County, Califor-
nia, becoming the first openly
transgendered person to serve as a trial
judge in the U.S.
The 49-year-old defeated rival John
Creighton, with 162,082 votes to his
152,546, according to the San Francisco
Chronicle. For Kolakowski, the victory is
especially celebratory. When she
applied to law school, the Louisiana
State Bar Association first rejected her
application.
I was initially denied because they said
I was not of a sound mind, she recalls.
Kolakowski, who is married to Cynthia
Laird, was called to the bar in 1990.
PHONE APP FIGHTS
HARASSMENT
Hollaback, a group that confronts the
street harassment of women, has
released an iPhone application that
allows users to report harassment in sec-
onds, according to the New York Times.
The data is used by Hollaback to send a
follow-up email asking for more detail
regarding incidents of harassment.
REMEMBER THIS ALZHEIMERS
PREVENTION TIP
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certain areas of the brain are unable to
take in glucose. According to research
conducted by Dr. Mary Newport, coconut
oil may help because it is a good source
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liver converts a key ingredient of MCT
into ketone bodies, which can help
reverse dementia, she believes.
MCT increases a persons metabo-
lism. The upshot is that Newport
observed improved gait, conversation
skills and short term memory after
coconut oil therapy.
For more information check out
www.coconutketones.com
Canada continues to discriminate against

Aboriginal women and their descendants in
the determination of eligibility for registration
as an Indian, she says. The Indian Act has
historically given preference to male Indi-
ans as transmitters of status and to
descendants of male Indians, says McIvor.
Canada refuses to change the legislation.
Despite amendments made when the
Charter came into effect in 1985, Aboriginal
women are still not treated equally as trans-
mitters of status. Many thousands of
descendants of Aboriginal women are
denied status as a result.
McIvor contested the discriminatory provi-
sions of the act under the Charter and, after
20 years, has achieved only partial success.
Canada needs to be held to account for
its intransigence in refusing to completely
eliminate sex discrimination from the Indian
Act, McIvor says.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled that sec-
tion 6 of the Indian Act violated Section 15
of the Charter. However, when Canada
appealed, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled
that although the Indian Act was discrimi-
natory, the bulk of the discrimination was
justified because the governments purpose
was to preserve the existing rights of the
Aboriginal men and their descendants who
had been given preferred status.
Parliament is poised to amend the act with
Bill C-3, which would make some female line
descendants newly eligible for status. But
they will still have a lesser ability to transmit
status than their male line counterparts. In
addition, Bill C-3 will exclude many descen-
dants of Indian women who were unmarried.
Many people in Canada, Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal, recognize that this long-
standing discrimination against Aboriginal
women and their descendants is wrong and
should end, says McIvor.
Before me, Mary Two-Axe Early,
Jeanette Corbire Lavell, Yvonne Bedard
and Sandra Lovelace all fought to end sex
discrimination against Aboriginal women in
the status registration provisions in the
Indian Act, she said. I will continue
until Aboriginal women enjoy equality.
MIND YOUR BUSINESS
A coalition of investors managing over $73
billion US in assets called on companies to
increase representation of women on boards
of directors and in senior management. The
call from Pax World, Calvert and Walden
Asset Management came in response to a
survey of 4,200 global companies that found
that only 9.4 percent of directors on U.S. cor-
porate boards are women.
The findings led these investors to identify
gender balance and diversity as a strategic
issue. The new coalition has asked 54
selected companies to improve the gender
balance within their organizations.
We view gender equality and womens
empowerment as strategic business and
investment issues, says Joe Keefe, presi-
dent of Pax World. Companies that advance
and empower women are, in our view, better
long-term investments. We are encouraging
companies in our portfolios to enhance their
performance on gender issues.
The investor initiative is a response to a
set of womens empowerment principles
developed by the United Nations Develop-
ment Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the
United Nations Global Compact. The
Womens Empowerment Principles are
designed to help companies take specific
steps to advance and empower women in
the workplace, marketplace and community.
The members of the coalition are signa-
tories to the UN-backed Principles for
Responsible Investment (PRI).
This engagement shows that gender
balance within senior corporate manage-
ment is not just a social issue but also a
shareholder issue, adds James Gifford,
executive director of the PRI Initiative.
Companies that effectively attract, hire,
retain and promote women are often better
equipped to capitalize on competitive
opportunities than those who do not.
Gender equality is an important aspiration
for our own business as well as the compa-
nies in which we invest, says Barbara J.
Krumsiek, president and CEO of Calvert
Group, which recently released its own
report Examining the Cracks in the Ceiling.
That report notes that while women make
up more than half the U.S. workforce, 56
percent of companies in the Standard and
Poors grouping have no female or minority
representation in their highest-paid execu-
tive positions.
Krumsiek adds that without a pipeline of
female and minority executives in highly
paid, highly responsible positions, it will be
very difficult to achieve board diversity,
which is critical to strong governance and
good management.
In Canada, 13 percent of directors on the
boards of the countrys Top 500 companies
are women. Some European countries have
legislation stipulating that a minimum of 30
percent or 40 percent of the board members
of publicly traded companies must be
women (the Netherlands, Norway and
Spain). Four other countries are considering
similar legislation (Belgium, France, Ger-
many and Sweden).
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Com-
mission adopted new rules for proxy
disclosure in 2010 that include a require-
analysis
ment for companies to disclose how their
nominating committees consider diversity in
identifying board nominees.
In Canada, 21 of the top 1,000 companies
have female CEOsrepresenting two per-
cent. In the U.S., three percent of the top
1,000 companies have female chief execu-
tive officers.
INFANTICIDE DEFENCE DEFENDED
In the fall, LEAF intervened in an appeal
court trial to offer its feminist perspective on
the ongoing relevance and importance of
infanticide as a homicide offence that is sep-
arate and distinct from murder.
In the past few years, LEAF says, there
has been an emerging trend of the Crown
charging women who have killed their
newly born children with murder as
opposed to infanticide. The result is that
these women face life imprisonment with no
eligibility for parole, says LEAF legal direc-
tor Joanna Birenbaum.
LEAF points out that the offence of infanti-
cide, which carries a maximum sentence of
five years imprisonment, is intended to
account for the complex and gendered
social, economic, psychological and medical
context in which the offence occurs.
Birenbaum says those who commit infan-
ticide tend to be young, poor, socially
isolated and without adequate social and
economic supports to cope with childbirth
or caring for a child. They have often expe-
rienced sexual or other abuse and have
often denied the pregnancy to others, and
even to themselves. Additionally, many of
these women have given birth alone, and
commit the offence in a state of panic,
intense pain, shock, disassociation,
exhaustion and alienation.
The offence of infanticide is treated dif-
ferently in law than murder because of the
many overlapping social, cultural, psycho-
logical and medical factors which may affect
the state of mind of accused women follow-
ing childbirth, she adds. It is a very serious
crime, but it is a crime which recognizes the
reduced culpability of women whose minds
are disturbed due to the interaction of these
complex factors related to childbirth.
Infanticide applies only to women who
have recently given birth. LEAFs factum
argues that where the elements of infanticide
are present, the infanticide offence should be
available to women, regardless of whether
the Crown seeks murder charges.
When Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of

Rights and Freedoms came into force 25
years ago, no one imagined that govern-
ments would become major obstructers to
the promise of equality enshrined in the
Constitution. Yet that is what has happened.
Women were excited and hopeful in the
early 1980s when they fought for strong lan-
guage in the equality provisions in the
Charter in Section 15. They argued from the
outset for a substantive version of equality,
that is, for equality in the substance or con-
tent of the law, for a version of equality
capable of addressing and transforming the
real conditions of inequality that women
face, including economic inequality. If the
right to equality was given a substantive
interpretation, it would help women to us
address the deeply rooted social inequali-
ties that affect them because of sex, race,
colour and disability.
So when Section 15 came into force in
1985, with its new guarantees of equality
before and under the law, and equal benefit
and equal protection under the law, women
expected, in the words of constitutional
scholar Melina Buckley, the development of
a governmental ethos of equality.
However, when we now ask whether
Canadas Section 15 has moved governments
to design policies and allocate resources in
ways that advance substantive equality, the
answer has to be no. Basic programs and
protections that should be firmly in place in a
constitutional democracy committed to
womens equality are absent, partial or
shaky. These include equal pay for work of
equal value, a national child care program,
adequate civil legal aid, reliable police pro-
tection from male violence, adequate income
assistance and housing, and concerted
strategies to move Aboriginal women and
girls out of entrenched disadvantage. Many
essential programs and services have been
weakened by years of government restruc-
turing, cuts and privatization.
Turning the equality promise into reality
would require deliberate action and spend-
ing by governments, not withdrawal and
deference to the market. Moving towards a
more equal society would require setting
goals and allocating resources to achieve
them. But this has not happened.
Studies by the Standing Committee on
the Status of Women and by Auditor-Gen-
eral Sheila Fraser have said that Canada
has no working gender machinery. There
have been no plans, or paper plans with no
resources behind them. The result is that
conditions, particularly for the poorest
women, have worsened since 1985.
Cuts to essential programs and services
are not the only way that equality has been
undermined by governments. Equality
rights expert Gwen Brodsky notes in her
contribution to the book Poverty: Rights,
Social Citizenship and Legal Activism, that
in some cases, attorneys general have
argued for interpretations of Section 15
that drain it of substantive content and, in
particular, of any capacity to deal with
womens material conditions.
Provincial and federal governments
have argued in Charter cases that the right
to equality does not impose any obligations
on governments to redress social inequal-
ity or to alleviate conditions of poverty.
They have also argued that courts cannot
review government decisions about the
allocation of resources.
The case of Newfoundland (Treasury
Board) vs. Newfoundland and Labrador
Association of Public Employees (NAPE)
provides a good example. The government
negotiated a series of payments to compen-
sate female health care workers for
long-standing discrimination in their pay.
But in 1991, the province said it was experi-
encing a financial crisis and cancelled the
$24 million in pay equity adjustments. NAPE
challenged the government on the grounds
that the cancellation violated Section 15. In
response, the provinces attorney general
argued that government had no obligation
to address sex discrimination in wages and
that the repeal of a non-obligatory scheme
cannot constitute discrimination.
The attorney general of British Columbia
then intervened in support, arguing that the
courts have no role in reviewing decisions
PROGRESS ON
EQUALITY STALLED
BY SHELAGH DAY
(Continued on page 13)
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(KABUL) Transformative change has taken
hold of Afghanistan since the ousting of the
Taliban in 2001, and, thanks to a new
magazine focussed on womens
empowerment, women are documenting
more of those changes.
Legal reform in the country, which has
been characterized by both progress and
regress, has seen a gradual, overall
improvement. Last year, Afghan women
secured domestic abuse legislation under
the Elimination of Violence Against Women
law. They also managed to win reforms to
legislation drafted by the conservative
cleric Mohammad Asif Mohseni that would
have given Shia husbands power over their
wives, including the right to decide whether
they work outside the home and how often
they must submit to sex. The bill was
passed by the lower house of Parliament,
the Wolesi Jirga, but only after women,
together with supportive MPs, lobbied for
amendments.
The development of the Afghan media
sector stands out as a particular success
story. Independent media outlets have
burgeoned. New television and radio
about public expenditures. In effect, the con-
sistent position of governments is that the
courts cannot enforce a right to substantive
equality because that would engage them in
commenting on, or interfering with, govern-
ment decisions about spending.
And the courts have agreed. In fact,
although courts have been accused of judi-
cial activism, they have been the most
activist in protecting governments from hav-
ing to deal with the full implications of the
rights they enact. Louise Arbour, when she
was the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights, called the Supreme Court
of Canada timid, and with good reason. The
court has been fearful when faced with the
remedial consequences of finding violations.
And from an apparent desire to deny or nar-
row the remedy, the court has reasoned
backwards, with rights to equality and secu-
rity of the person thinned out as a result.
In NAPE, the court ruled that canceling
pay equity adjustments violated Section 15.
But it also determined that the government
was entitled to cancel them because the
province faced a financial crisisthat is, it
was expecting to run a deficit. As feminist
scholar Sheila McIntyre has noted, the
court tends to defer to governments, even
when cost-cutting reallocates social bene-
fits away from disadvantaged groups.
There have certainly been Charter victo-
ries in the last 25 years, and some that have
set out significant interpretive principles. In
Eldridge, for example, the court ruled that
governments were obligated to ensure serv-
ices are provided in a way that takes the
needs of disadvantaged groups into
accountin this case, the need for a hospi-
tal to provide interpreter services for a deaf
woman giving birth. In Vriend, an Alberta
court ruled that the provinces human rights
legislation was not compliant with the Char-
ter because it did not include protection from
discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Another Charter victory came in the case
of Ewanchuk, in which the court rejected
the defence of implied consent in cases
of sexual assault. Falkiner struck down the
spouse in the house rule in Ontarios wel-
fare legislation, and more recently the court
ruled in McIvor vs. Canada that the status
registration provisions in the Indian Act dis-
criminate against Aboriginal women and
their descendants.
However, in some of these cases, victory
was qualified. Ewanchuk prevented a step
backwards in sexual assault law. Eldridge
was followed by a decision which ruled that
governments were not obliged to bring in
new programs to ensure equality, only to
ensure that existing ones did not discrimi-
nate. And the remedy in the original McIvor
ruling was narrowed by the B.C. Court of
Appeal, allowing the government to con-
tinue to deny status to many Aboriginal
women and their descendants.
So far, Section 15 has not been the pow-
erful tool that feminists hoped would help
shape public policy and spending priori-
ties. Canadas governments have
obstructed womens advancement and
even diminished womens equality while
Section 15 has been in effect. And the
Supreme Court has not given Section 15
the forward-looking, steady and tough-
minded interpretation that is needed to
give full reality to the concept of substan-
tive equality.
There is nothing wrong with the wording
of Section 15. But there is something wrong
when governments refuse to live up to the
Charters promise of equality and when
courts permit government backsliding.
Now, because the cancellation of the
Court Challenges Program, women (as well
as members of other Charter-identified
groups) have no access to the modest
funds that were once available to bring for-
ward Section 15 cases. Perhaps the worst
irony of this moment, 25 years later, is that
we have constitutional rights that we fought
for, and helped to shape, but now cannot
afford to use.
Shelagh Day is a director of the Poverty
and Human Rights Centre in Vancouver.
MAGAZINE RALLIES
AFGHAN WOMEN
BY LAURYN OATES
Humira Saqueb started Afghanistans first womens magazine, Negah-e-Zan dedicated to womens empowerment,
in May. (Photo: Lauryn Oates)
(Continued from page 11)
stations, newspapers and magazines, as
well as an active blogosphere, are
flourishing. Exposure to regional and
international programming, and the
runaway popularity of shows like Afghan
Star, a kind of American Idol have changed
the media scene over the last decade.
Within this increasingly vibrant media
environment, a new womens magazine is
fighting to find a foothold. Negah-e-Zan
(vision of women) was launched in May
2010. Its a unique effort in the buzzing new
media environment: a political magazine for
women. Behind its artistic card-stock cover
are black-and-white pages filled with
feature articles on inspiring women from all
over the world, including Afghanistan.
Gracing the pages are women like Nobel-
Prize-winning Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi,
the humanitarian Princess Diana, British
writer Hilary Mantel, Finnish President Tarja
Halonen, U.S. Congresswoman Nancy
Pelosi, Mother Theresa, South African
singer Miriam Makeba and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel. The latest cover
includes a photo of a young womans hands
held in front of her face. On one hand the
word woman is written in Dari script and
on the other hand is the word man, with
an equal sign inked onto her thumbs.
Editor Humira Saqeb proudly flips through
the neatly laid-out pages.
There is nothing ordinary in our
magazine, like beauty or actresses. Its
political, she asserts, her fingers tapping a
page of the magazine over a photo of
politician Rachida Dati, the first woman of
North African descent to hold a cabinet
position in the French government.
A popular topic in Negah-e-Zan is
women in Parliament. Current Afghan
women MPs are interviewed in order to
share their ideas with the magazines small
urban-based readership. The importance of
voting is discussed in another article,
drawing comparisons between the
suffragette movements in the West of the
19th and 20th centuries and Afghanistans
struggle to make the ballot box accessible
to women.
Afghan women political figures of the
past are profiled, too, including Queen
Soraya, the popular modern wife of Shah
Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan who
appeared unveiled in public in the 1920s.
As we sip chai sabzi (Afghan green tea)
in Kabuls hip coffee house the Wakhan
Caf, Saqeb, a psychology graduate of
Kabul University, explains to me her
magazines approach: I emphasize the
psychological problems women face as
barring them from empowerment. I try to
help women by showing them you are
powerful. I try to support them spiritually
and mentally, to show them, you are not
weak. I want to show, through my
magazine, famous and powerful women
both inside and outside of Afghanistan, to
show that women can be powerful.
Saqeb is consciously connecting the
lives of women from the East and the West,
placing a long article, for example, on
Afghanistans revered poetess of the 9th
Century, Rabia Balkhi, next to an essay
about Virginia Woolf. Women musicians are
profiled on a page opposite to news about
medals won by female athletes. Feature
articles look at womens status in different
countries, such as Saudi Arabia and India,
allowing Afghan women to connect their
struggles within the broader global
womens movement.
Saqeb honed her media skills working for
small magazines, then as editor-in-chief of
Ehmarehsola, a publication focused on
peace-building. Like many Afghans, Saqeb
spent a good part of her life living in exile.
She spent 24 years in Iran, where she
devoted much of her time to researching
womens history in Afghanistan. There, she
discovered a rich legacy of queens, poets,
revolutionaries and social activists and
decided that her countrywomen needed to
better know the heritage they inherited.
Saqeb recalls being perplexed that the
ultra-misogynist Taliban rose to power in a
society that was once a modernizing force
in the Muslim world. I am really against the
Taliban because they are fundamentally
against women, she tells me.
The Taliban doesnt make a lot of sense
for Afghanistans history because women
have been more free in the past than they
are now.
Its a past she is helping to regain. Saqeb
has won praise and appreciation from
readers thirsty for content relevant to
women in a changing society and for the
progressive views espoused by the
magazine. But with the first issue also came
the first threats against her. By the second
issue, the phone calls had a serious tone to
them and the mother of three closed the
magazines office and set up shop at home.
She changed her cellphone number, but she
still received threats.
One caller speaking in Pashto asked her:
Do you want to live or do you want to keep
your magazine? Make a choice.
Another challenge is financing the
magazine. Saqeb has used her own savings
to supplement Negah-e-Zans advertising
revenue, which covers a third of its
expenses. She had hoped to print the
magazine monthly but instead prints an
issue whenever she can afford to. Negah-
e-Zan has a circulation of 3,000 and is
distributed only in Kabul. Saqebs focus is to
attract more advertising and increase its
readership. By the second issue, two
women members of Parliament were paying
to take out ads for their election campaigns.
Saqeb anxiously ponders Afghanistans
future. She is critical of the latest effort at
peace talks, pointing out that only nine of
the 69 peace council members are women.
She is also wary of talk of international
forces looking for ways out of her country
as the war enters its ninth year. We dont
have enough security at this point. We need
them to stay in Afghanistan for the near
future, she says, referring to NATO and
U.S. coalition troops.
Space for women in public life, the kind
that Negah-e-Zan models in its profiles of
powerful and influential women, is a
precious commodity in Afghanistan and one
that is highly vulnerable in any future
power-sharing agreement with the Taliban.
It is this space that Saqeb wants to
expand. She tosses her black scarf over her
shoulder, learning forward, her expression
impassioned.
This is the first step for women to
recognize their own power, she says. I
believe that if you want to have a powerful
society, you need powerful women,
because its women who educate the
children and shape the society.

What do the pornography and polygamy debates have in com-
mon? Both make me feel like women dont have much choice.
Ive been fascinated by the current B.C. trial attempting to
determine whether the boys over there in the community of
Bountiful ought to be allowed to continue to take multiple
wives. Lawyers for the Bountiful patriarchs are arguing that
making polygamy illegal is tantamount to discrimination
based on religion, an attack on the religious freedom guaran-
tee in the Canadian Charter of Rights.
Lawyers on the other side are defending the two-person
model of marriage. The crowns argument is that polygamy is
really another word for the abuse of women and children, and
there are women who have managed to leave Bountiful who
agree. In online chatter, however, there are other warnings,
namely that decriminalizing polygamy will lead to an influx
of undesirablesMuslims, in particularwho will flock to
Canada with their many wives.
Talk about picking your poison. Where
exactly does a lesbian-feminist who is
opposed to marriage, period, fit in to that
dichotomy? I can either support patriar-
chal polygamy, with all its male privilege,
or the plainer patriarchal model of mar-
riage that hasnt suited womens needs
either, if my memory serves me right.
It reminds me of the dilemma we faced during the famed
pornography debates of the 80s. Then, we were supposed to
choose between two models of sexuality: the pornography
model and its unremitting colonization of womens sexual-
ity, or a more repressive model based on a fundamental fear
of sexualityand, in particular, womens sexuality. Hey
women, choose between oppression and repression, be a
whore or a virgin.
Feminists like me ache for better optionsexpression
instead of oppression, empowerment in sexuality instead of
the simplistic either-or binary of the shiny, happy porn star
on one side and the enforced chastity promulgated by the
religious right on the other.
Those supporting the Bountiful boys talk about having
freedom from the constraints of marriage that is steeped in
patriarchal privilege from a historical perspective. But, as
with sex work, freedom does not automatically equal equality.
While its tempting to accept the liberal fiction that opening
the polygamy door will expand womens sexual horizons, I
cant help but notice that organized communities of women
who have multiple husbands are not exactly, er, bountiful. We
have to look at the power dynamic here, just as we have to
take into account whos buying and whos selling when it
comes to prostitution.
Feminist observers, including Queens University gender
studies prof Beverley Baines, are searching for ground that
takes womens experience into account. Baines has argued
that keeping polygamy illegal makes abused women in polyg-
amous relationships fearful of escaping or speaking out
against the abuse because of what might
happen to others in the family. There are
already laws that deal with violence against
women, she says, and they are enough to
handle the problem.
But isnt that what some said about
wife-abuse laws that women wouldnt
call for help because they didnt necessar-
ily want their breadwinner husbands put in jail? Besides,
polygamy poses more than the problem of individual abuse.
Communities organized to fulfill the sexual power desire of
male patriarchs who have been known to pimp their 16-
year-old daughters to men decades their seniors, while
shipping out young men as slave labour in other Mormon
communities to make sure the young studs dont get in the
wayconstitute systemic abuse.
As I write this, the court case is in full swing. And
though the details are intriguing, the debate itself is dis-
tressingyet another example of how both sides in a
situation can claim to be promoting womens interests,
while not fully understanding exactly what freedom and
choice really mean.
PICK YOUR POISON

coles notes
BY SUSAN G. COLE
Freedom does
not automatically
equal equality.
Kate Bornsteins Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us exposed the cracks in the construction of gender in 1995.
BY MANDY VAN DEVEN
BREAKING BINARIES
I
n the 15 years since Kate Bornsteins groundbreaking
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
exposed the cracks in the construction of gender, the
world has seen some significant changes. Not only has it
begun to see the inclusion of trans and genderqueer people
in popular films and television series, but their experiences
and needs are also being addressed in academic discourse and
on legislative agendas.
British Columbia Member of Parliament Bill Siskay is
working to include the protection of trans people in Canadas
Human Rights Act and Criminal Code, and the U.S. State
Department recently eased its requirements for altering gen-
der identification on U.S. passports, no longer mandating
gender-affirming surgery prior to a change in gender status.
Given the increasing visibility of this subject, it seemed
like perfect timing for an update to Gender Outlaw. And so
Bornstein teamed up with fellow author and performance
artist S. Bear Bergman to compile an anthology of new
transgender voices in the newly released Gender Outlaws: The
Next Generation, published by Seal Press.
The collection of personal stories and comic drawings is an
exploration of trans activism, as well as a call to action. In
Gender Outlaws, Bergman and Bornstein have compiled an
accessible resource that captures the many ways trans people
are challenging the status quo with creativity, intellect, sin-
cerity and humour.
HERIZONS: Your book Gender Outlaws: The Next Gener-
ation is an outgrowth of a similarly titled book authored by Kate
Bornstein in 1995. How do you view this version in relation to
the original?
S. BEAR BERGMAN: The original Gender Outlaw was
really the first book that talked in ways anyone could grasp
about what a big mess culturally constructed and enforced
gender isand how its possible to be a dissident. That idea
has been growing, becoming more and more accessible and
visible, and it has influenced peoples lives, relationships and
genders in a very real way. I dont think Kate would credit her
work this way, but I know its true.
Our new book builds not just on the original ideas, but also
on the results of those ideas. When we started this project,
we said we wanted exponential thinking about gender,
another quantum leap forward. And I think we got it.
In the books introduction, Bornstein talks about these essays
reflecting a cultural version of epigenetics. Can you explain the
meaning of that idea?
KATE BORNSTEIN: Some stages of evolution take thou-
sands of years, but it is possible that other often
S. Bear Bergman teamed up with Kate Bornstein to compile the anthology Gender
Outlaws: The Next Generation. (Photo: Bull Pusztai/radiantpage.com)
majorevolutionary changes take place in just one generation.
Epigenetics is the study and science of that big-change-in-one-
generation evolution. Cultures primarily emerge slowly over
hundreds or thousands of years, adjusting themselves to the
lives of those who live in them. But sometimes a culture or sub-
culture turns on a dime. Thats whats happened with
transgender subculturebig changes in just one generation.
What brought those changes about?
KATE BORNSTEIN: Epigenetic changes occur by reason
of a major disaster: pestilence, war, famine and death. It takes
one or more of the four horse-riders of the Apocalypse to
cause a species or a culture to undergo a verifiably major evo-
lutionary shift. For us, it was AIDS in the 80s that pretty
much decimated our gay male and drag cultures. Young trans
women, trans men and genderqueer trans things, as yet
undefined have risen from those ashes.
Over the last 20 years, the cultural face
of transgender has shifted from mid-
dle-aged man in a dress trying to be a
real woman, to hot young female-to-
male folks who are defining their male
gender as they go along.
Two primary points of reference in
this shift have been feminist theory
and postmodern theory. Then we
ended up with queer theorywhich
itself is rapidly being outstripped by
genderqueer theory. Oh, what a ride
its been! And in this book our authors
represent a surprisingly large percent-
age of this newly emerging generation
of gendernauts.
In a couple of places, being a gender out-
law is discussed as a position of
enlightenment. Do you see the destruction
of the gender binary as a sort of evolutionary path to liberation?
KATE BORNSTEIN: Yes, primarily as a template for the
deconstruction of other culturally enforced, oppressive bina-
ries. Binaries are useful to the same degree that binary
computer code is useful to programming: garbage in, garbage
out. But the value of breaking the gender binary will be to use
what weve learned to help break down the false binaries
masking hierarchal vectors of oppressionnamely age, race,
class, religion, looks, ability, language, citizenship, family and
reproductive status and sexuality. We did something really
smart with gender and we did it while having a whole lot of
fun. Now its our job to help do that with all those other isms.
S. BEAR BERGMAN: I find myself a little resistant to this
question because Im afraid it contains a continuum in which
people who feel comfortable within the binary are somehow
less enlightened. And I dont think thats true. But I do think
enforcing the binary is less enlightened, and most of the
institutions and ideologies that are served by it arent things
I support.
Binaries are fantastic for quickly categorizing people and
things, for separating people from their true natures, making
outliers feel disenfranchised, creating ideal conditions for
privilege to thrive unchecked and supporting the spread of
capitalism. Best ally ever. Super-great.
Are we still in the defining stage, which is to say the undefining
stage, of a gender binary-less existence and activism?
KATE BORNSTEIN: A teeny-tiny percentage of people on
the planet are talking about binary-less gender existence. An
even smaller number than that are doing activism in the
name of binary-less gender. Gender theory, art, practice and
politics beyond the binary are cracks
in the door, moonbeams through a
prison-cell window, a couple of leaks
in the dike. The next generation of
gender outlaws has accomplished the
cultural equivalent of splitting the
atom, and no one in major media is
paying attention to that part not
even on The Rachel Maddow Show.
What can feminism learn from trans
politics?
S. BEAR BERGMAN: That feels
like a super-complex question. I wish
that trans politics and feminism could
go away on one of those Outward
Bound-style trips together, you know,
where you have to rely on your team-
mates or face the elements alone. I
mean, were there in real life, but I
dont think we notice it. We need the
microcosm experience because the wilderness of a culture
that privileges gender normativity, maleness, heterosexuality,
Christianity, middle class-ness and so on is already starving
us and freezing our extremities off. And we are feeling the
pain. We just dont have the tools yet, I fear.
Do you think the Internet aids trans and gender nonconforming
peoples ability to discover and settle in to their identities?
S. BEAR BERGMAN: A lot of trans-related information
even medical informationis still anecdotal. Much of the
research thats at all useful is qualitative, not quantitative.
Trans people have more and better opportunities than ever
before to try things out, seek help, get support, buy things pri-
vately, read things privately. I also think that the Internet has
normalized so many more things in its wild, woolly way
of having a place for everything. So many things feel like
they have come out of the closet, if you will, as people get
peer support, join Facebook groups and make themselves
visible and known. Its truly amazing.
KATE BORNSTEIN: I think it comes down to this: in
cyberspace, were not tied down to any identity, desire or
power that may be based in any number of cultural factors
triggered by our physical bodies. In cyberspace, we are dis-
embodied and thats a big freedom. To that, add the
possibility of anonymity. Anything we say or ask isnt going
to come back to our wives, or our husbands, or the kids, or
our bosses or the bully down the block. We get to ignore all
the taboos and explore our lives most fun mysteries: our sex-
ualities and our gender expressions.
Tranny is a hotly contested word that reflects a lot of trans peoples
struggles, and it is generously peppered throughout this book in a
seemingly intentional way. Why is language, especially the policing
of it, a common place where struggles of privilege get played out?
KATE BORNSTEIN: Im a bad one to answer this because
Ive written extensively (and crankily) on the subject. A whole
lot of people disagree with my using
the word tranny. And these folks are
even angrier about FTMs using the
word tranny. Even GLAAD [Gay
and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation] got involved to protect
the poor, helpless trans commu-
nity from those who would dare
use the word.
Horse pucky! Any objections to
the use of the word tranny are
based in classism and anti-sex sentimentality. And thats all
Ive got to say on the subject.
S. BEAR BERGMAN: This is a really hard one for me.
Im clear about the following things: One, tranny is a
complex and loaded word, and no one should ever call any-
one else a tranny without that persons agreement. Two, we
did not police peoples language in the book. If they wanted
to use that word, fine. If not, also fine. We likewise
respected every other decision people made about trans-
specific language. Some people felt super-keen about using
a space, for example, between trans and man/woman, to
make clear that trans was a modifier, not a whole separate
sex. We worked against standardizing.
Personally, Ive gone through so many iterations on this,
and every new argument I hear sways me again, because
theyre all so heartfelt and serious. I think there are some
good things about the word, to be honest. However, Ive all
but stopped using the word tranny myself, not because of the
political arguments, but because I see that it hurts people. I
dont want to prioritize being right over being kind. In some
respects, I wish I could rewrite parts of my intro with Kate
now, ever how many months later, but that ship has sailed.
The places of trans intersection with religion arent commonly
explored, yet Zev Al-Walid beautifully discusses how his transi-
tion affected his identity as a Muslim in the contribution
Pilgrimage. Was this a piece you specifically sought out?
S. BEAR BERGMAN: We tried to include a lot of intersec-
tions. Gender is so much about context that those
intersections have to be made explicit in order for work to be
taken seriously. And we were lucky to have several pieces that
talk about religion or spirituality. We loved Zevs piece
because it is so lyrical and also so hopeful.
KATE BORNSTEIN: Religions depend for their power upon
most everything binary because religion is most usually
expressed as a system of morals based in an ironclad concept of
good and evil. We are the evil. Lookone of the signs of the
Apocalypse is gonna be that the walls come tumbling down.
And the people who fuck with gender are tearing down the
walls. Were crossing the borders. Were the illegal aliens that
the Tea Party, the Christian right
and any fundamentalist religion
should be worrying about. And
whenever we fuck with gender in
any way, we break the binary visibly.
And thats sure to break the rules in
most every religion. We get
branded evil, and growing up with
that sort of belief in ourselves makes
it important to include introspec-
tion about the places where gender
and religion intersect.
As is the case with most social and cultural movements, the newest
incarnation of trans activism faces many of the same issues trans
and gender nonconforming folks have always faced. How do you
respond to people who see this as stagnation?
S. BEAR BERGMAN: Were ripshit pissed right now! We
have organizations to address our issues now and some legal
standing to sue the people who perpetrate crimes against us.
The battlegrounds may be the same, but increasingly were
showing up much better prepared than our opponents.
KATE BORNSTEIN: Shifts in subculture move in waves
through the meta-culture. It doesnt happen all at once.
The fact is, there are more and more colleges, houses of
worship and public buildings that do have clearly marked
gender-neutral bathrooms. There are more and more doc-
tors who are sensitive to trans peoples needs and care. Its
just moving slowly, thats all. And in places where basic
issues like bathrooms and health care are serious, there is
some serious trans activism facing that down. No, trans
activism is not stagnating.
Gender is so much about

context that those
intersections have to be
made explicit in order for
work to be taken seriously.
S. Bear Bergman
I
ts not the reaction I expected. Im in my Toronto living
room screening the 2008 documentary Who Does She
Think She Is? Director Pamela T. Boll profiles five
American women and presents a sobering portrait of the
contemporary artist-motherdismissed by a patriarchal art
world, financially strapped, dangerously overloaded and con-
flicted at home. Sculptor Janis Wunderlich appears saying, I
do feel a little bit like Im not quite an artist, Im not quite a
good parent. Since I am so many things, Im not quite really
good at anything.
The documentary spits out a depressing his-story. As
Maura Reilly, director of the Sackler Center for Feminist Art
at the Brooklyn Museum, intones, The statistics for solo
[female] exhibitions at some of the major museums are so
horrendous that I dont even know if we want to hear them.
The Guggenheim from 2000 to 2004, it was 11 percent. It
was much lower for Tate Modern around two percent. Los
Angeles County Museum of Art, its about two percent.
Wine has been flowing, candles flicker. As the credits roll,
Im on the edge of my seat, awaiting the reaction of an assem-
blage of thoughtful women. I dont see it coming, the buzz-kill,
but Toronto artist Jennifer Linton gets things started. Id like
to know where they got some of those numbers!
Terms like old-school feminism get tossed around. Linton
says even the featured art forms in the documentary (painting,
sculpture) are uniformly traditional where is the ground-
breaking work? Of the notion of the male-dominated art
world, she says, I dont know that I support that now.
Another attendee, 30-something, believes that today its about
competency, not gender. A sculptor in her 50s worries more
about our consumer cultures devaluing of artists.
Im confused. Are these women in denial about lingering
inequities? I do more research. Soon, Im getting Lintons
assertion that shes free to just kind of do what I do. The
challenges facing Canadas female visual artists havent evap-
orated. But theres been this groundswell of change.
Lets talk about the Venice Biennale, Linton says of the
pre-eminent contemporary art exhibition. At the first bien-
nale in 1895, 2.4 percent of the participating artists were
women. A hundred years later, it was nine percent. In 2005,
38 percent of artists in the curated group shows were women.
Noting that the biennale had two female curators in 2005,
Megan Williams wrote for the CBC that, For the first time
in its 110-year history, women are running the show If one
limit has been pushed at this years Biennale, its the histori-
cally immutable boundary that has kept many women out of
contemporary art.
Winnipeg artist KC Adams concurs. In Canada, theres
definitely a shift going on with the type of work being exhib-
ited. She credits vehicles like the Canada Council for the
Arts equity office and Aboriginal curatorial fund. A glance
at the Art Gallery of Ontario reveals a three-woman exhibit
in September 2010, a new female curator and a photo exhi-
bition by Girl Guides, no less.
ARE ARTIST MOTHERS STILL MARGINALIZED AND EXPECTED TO CHOOSE
BETWEEN CREATIVE SELF-EXPRESSION AND THEIR CHILDREN?
THE REACTION FROM THESE ARTISTS MAY SURPRISE YOU.
BY CONNIE JESKE CRANE
ARTIST
MOTHER
portrait of the
as a
And according to 2009 Statistics Canada figures, Canadian
female artists keep multiplying. Forty percent of artists in 1971
were female. By 2006, the proportion of female artists had
grown to 53 percent, according to Statistics Canada, and this
percentage is based on a much larger number of artists.
But what of Bolls contention that women still feel pres-
sured to choose between art and motherhood? I did have a
couple of people say to me Well, youve had a good run, like
my career was over, says Adams, recalling colleagues
responses following the birth of her son. As for letting female
experience creep into your work, U.S. feminist Courtney E.
Martin told Boll, Art about womens bodies, motherhood,
childbirth, these things are always ghettoized none of that
is seen as integral to mainstream art-world exhibition.
Yet in Canada, more artists are creating unique personal
work, accepting the professional risk and the chaotic personal
balancing act. Woodstock, Ontario artist Leslie Sorochan says,
It seems to me my life would have been a lot easier. I mean,
sometimes I think, if only I was just doing the one thing,
wouldnt that be peaceful? But third-wave feminism seems to
involve getting on with it and hopefully reducing that 34-per-
cent income gap. In 2006, Canadian male visual artists earned
on average $17,271, females $11,421.
For art lovers, its a feast. You are getting a plethora of dif-
ferent subject matters, says Adams. Youre getting the voice
of somebody whos new to Canada. Youre getting the voice
of a woman who does have children. Youre getting different
voices that we never would have heard of 20 years ago.
Curious about these voices, Herizons talked with three
Canadian artists undertaking groundbreaking personal
explorations. I asked them about their work, their support
system and whether they feel forced to choose.
Jennifer Linton
www.jenniferlinton.ca
Gravid continues my diaristic approach to image-making with
an exploration of pregnancy and motherhood. As my role as pri-
mary caregiver to my child develops and evolves, so too does the
content of my work to reflect the many corollary issues relating
to motherhood, including gender identity, sexuality and body
image. My aim is to present an honest and unsentimentalized
view of motherhood that challenges the clichd images often
found in the mainstream media. Jennifer Linton
Recently, there has been more honest talk about motherhood.
In 2002, Naomi Wolf discussed post-partum anxiety and
identity loss on Oprah. Writers from Judith Warner to French
feminist Elizabeth Badinter have ruthlessly examined issues
plaguing modern mothers (arguably, middle-class ones). Yet
the visual landscape keeps offering the same stereotypes
sylphlike celebrities, soccer moms battling stains, real
housewives. Why the dearth of more thoughtful imagery?
Judith Mintz, a masters student at Trent University in
Peterborough, Ontario who is researching Canadian female
B is for Bomb, from the series My Alphabet for Anxieties & Desires, 2006-10,
coloured pencil on illustration board, 9 x 12. Image courtesy the artist.
Nursing Ridley, by Jennifer Linton, 2006, coloured pencil, thread and ink on Mylar, 44" x 49".
artists, says, You can write a paragraph while your child is in
the bathtub, or call a friend. But to make work you need to
have time, usually away from your kids.
This sounds like Jennifer Lintons cue. In the absence of a
wealthy benefactor, Linton, 42, has cobbled together sup-
port her partner Richard Martin, a great daycare, teaching
jobs. Its a common juggling act. But since she focuses on
intimate subjects like pregnancy and motherhood, Linton
also worries about how to avoid cloying sentimentality. You
dont want to go the Anne Geddes route, she says, referring
to the photographers famed images of babies swaddled in
flower petals and peapods. I mean, this is the thing. You
want to be taken seriously.
I recently immersed myself in Lintons new book, My
Alphabet of Anxieties and Desires. Born of compromise
she nixed studio lithography for pencil drawings she could
do between feedings Lintons work reflects the hope and
fire of her life stage. Its precisely because shes a new
mother that she compels us to revisit contemporary
themes with works entitled G is for Gender, P is for Pol-
lution. Small details are the most startlingthe way her
subjects (Linton and her two young sons) gaze unwaver-
ingly, unsmiling. And, as Mintz says, One of the things
that I love about Jens work is that shes not afraid to make
the body look less perfect. Theres one piece she did
where the [mothers post-partum] belly is all stretched
out. The horror!
Having earned her masters of fine arts degree at Torontos
York University, Linton now teaches art at places like the
Ontario College of Art and Design and will hopefully keep
making work that critics call boundary-pushing, feminist,
witty. Shes all too aware of her unprecedented freedom and
support. I feel very privileged.
KC Adams
www.kcadams.net
Cyborg Hybrids is a photo series that attempts to challenge our
views towards mixed-race classifications by using humorous text
and imagery from two cultures. The Cyborg Hybrids are digital
prints of Euro-Aboriginal artists who are forward thinkers and
plugged in with technology. They follow the doctrine of Donna
Harroways A Cyborg Manifesto, which states that a cyborg is a
creature in a technological, post-gender world free of traditional
Western stereotypes. KC Adams
KC Adams is a face of the future. In a country where female
Aboriginal artists are paid least in a low-paying profession, at
39, this Mtis multi-disciplinary artist is a nonchalant suc-
cess. Adams work was exhibited at the 2010 Vancouver
Winter Olympics. Twenty pieces from her 2006 Cyborg
Hybrids series are in the National Gallery of Canadas per-
manent collection. When we talked, she was anticipating a
six-month residency in Australia, bringing along husband
Josh Gray and her two-year-old son.
Adams studied at Concordia University in Montreal (It
took seven years) and says she loved the rigours of academia:
If you couldnt defend your work, you were a cut-up fish in
a tank full of sharks. It was pretty brutal if you couldnt
defend yourself. So it was very exciting.
Of her success, she says, Ive never really felt barriers because
I think the work that Ive been creating has been stirring some
chords with people, especially dealing with identity.... My work
kind of fills a gap because Im dealing with people who are of
mixed descent and trying to recognize that Aboriginals are very
much part of the present and part of the future.
Adams experience also shows how a traditional structure
(the Aboriginal community) can nurture a contemporary
artist-mother. Unlike the mainstream insistence on bound-
aries between work and family, Adams route has been more
holistic. When Winnipegs Urban Shaman Gallery asked
her, then a new mother, to serve as director, she agreed, pro-
vided she could bring her baby to work. The Aboriginal
community is completely different, I have to say. Its much
more supportive and much more family-oriented. Her co-
Welfare Mom, Cyborg Hybrid Cynthia, by KC Adams, New York Series, 2009 digital print
workers helped out. I mean, I would be breast-feeding in
front of everybody, and everyone was great with it.
Adams says well soon see motherhood explored in her art.
Theres a video piece that Im going to start working on and
its called Lullabies of the 21
st
Century. Its sort of based on
mothers guilt. The work is a video of mothers holding their
children and rocking them to sleep but instead of singing
lullabies, theyre singing commercials, jingles.
Leslie Sorochan
lesliesorochan.com
My journey as artist, as is likely for most, has led me steadily
from the universal to the intensely personal. The growing reality
of time passing has developed into a psychological interpretation
of my role as parent in the Water series. These images depict the
concurrent experiences of buoyancy and drowning, freedom and
subservience, privilege and duty. This internal dialogue contin-
ues into my most recent series of drawings. Leslie Sorochan
Warm and full of laughter, Leslie Sorochan, 47, is another
explorer of intensely personal territory. Her work is accessi-
ble yet contains powerful, lingering emotional undercurrents.
As much as I try and get away from that as being an issue,
says Sorochan, my role as mother of a 22-year-old is still the
role of a mother, and it still comes through in the work all
the time. A lot of it goes way back when I first started.
One of the reasons that I started doing the work again was
that I lost a child. And because of that, I did a show that was
a cathartic experience that was about motherhood, even
though I had only mothered this child for three or four
months. And that was pivotal. Ive always thought, you
know, this stuff is too personal, nobodys going to get it. And
what Ive found is it isnt that personal. People experience
loss and they experience all of these different qualities, these
emotions. And it is universal.
Sorochan is a popular high school art teacher and a work-
ing artist with a string of solo exhibitions. Reflecting on
whats made it all possible, her husband tops the list. When
I first started out, I was the one with the full-time job and
hes the one who stayed home with the kids, she explains.
We were in a small, conservative town and I think he was
the only dad wearing the snuggly on the street.
While the Globe and Mail noted a rise in paternity leaves
in 2008, Sorochan and husband Chris Ruland were pioneers.
Sorochan also appreciates the support and critiques shes
received from fellow artists. Finally, craving quiet studio
time, shes been taking a semester off from teaching every
year-and-a-half.
Ive caught her at a crossroads. Thanks to a new school
board policy, Sorochan will lose her seniority if she takes
another leave. Pondering her next move, she asks, Can you
call yourself an artist if you dont do art? Her experience
illustrates the uncertainties of an artistic career. Yet
Sorochanwho always told her kids to do whatever theyre
most passionate about also gets to watch the cycle begin
anew. Her middle daughter has received a scholarship. Shes
going into art this year. Hopefully, this young woman
encounters an art world even more open to new voices and
explorations, the crazy quilt as Adams calls it, ever more
exciting and diverse.
Connie Jeske Crane is an enthusiastic lover of art. A Toronto-

based freelance writer, she frequently writes about health and
wellness, parenting and environmental issues.
Watermark, by Leslie Sorochan, charcoal, pastel,
metallic pigment on paper, 39 x 54, 2005,
private collection.
Breathe, by Leslie Sorochan, charcoal, pastel, conte and metallic pigment on paper, 33 x 47, 2007, private collection.
Susan Davis is a tough-minded
Vancouver reformist who believes
co-op brothels are safe and should
be permitted in Canada.
BY JOANNA CHIU
S
usan Davis, leader of the West Coast
Co-operative of Sex Industry Profes-
sionals (WCCSIP), smiles wistfully
when asked what will happen if her dream of a
co-operative brothel materializes.
It will be so good for morale for every-
bodyoh man, for the girls!
Davis has been an escort for 24 years and is
one of the best-known sex workers rights
activists in Canada. Her tough-minded and
cautiously optimistic attitude keeps her going,
despite laws that punish sex workers, and in
particular those who work indoors.
Davis first thought of forming a sex workers
co-operative after meeting members of Indias
thriving sex workers co-operative, the Durbar
Mahila Samanwaya Committee a feminist
conference in 2006.
They started a sex workers co-operative in
1995, and it now has 65,000 members. They
have used it to improve their quality of life on
so many different levels.
Davis found enthusiastic support for the
idea and since 2007 the WCCSIP has been
working to build community and promote
solutions that will minimize the potential risks
of sex work. Since outdoor sex workers face
disproportionate dangers, the WCCSIPs pro-
grams are particularly focused on working to
end violence against outdoor sex workers.
The groups most ambitious project is its
proposed co-operative brothel in Vancouvers
Downtown Eastside. The WCCSIP is offer-
ing the City of Vancouver detailed plans on
how it intends to create a place where sex
workers can bring their clients and rent
affordable rooms, starting at two dollars, for
the amount of time they need, rather than
paying for expensive hotel rooms. The co-op
brothel would offer safety features such as
CO-OP
BROTHELS
ANSWER?
THE
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o
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:

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emergency buttons in each room, 24-hour
security and front desk reception.
When Davis first moved to Vancouver from
Halifax 20 years ago, she worked on the streets
for three months, and she does not want to go
back. Once Davis established herself in the
city, she started to work out of her own
homea situation that provides her with
safety and peace of mind. However, she
believes brothel environments offer the most
safety for sex workers.
If something goes wrong, Im hoping that
my neighbours will hear me. But if youre
working in a brothel, then people are all
around you, Davis explains.
Davis spoke to Herizons on a sunny summer
afternoon in her apartment in downtown Van-
couver. She explains that she and her boyfriend
sleep in the living room area, while she reserves
the bedroom for work. She describes the bed-
room as what you would envision for a room
in a brothel, with black velvet drapes hanging
from the walls, a king-sized bed and plenty of
sex toys and lingerie.
Within my own apartment, says Davis, I
control the situation.... Whereas if I went on
outcalls, I would go into foreign territory. I
would not know if the client had a gun. When
you look at it from that perspective, its all
about control of space.
Katrina Pacey, a lawyer at PIVOT Legal
Society who has represented sex workers and
residents of Vancouvers Downtown Eastside,
echoes Daviss sentiment about the impor-
tance of sex workers having control over their
workplace.
Women and men who work indoors are
able to control the conditions of their work.
They could have all the harm-reduction
things, such as condoms, that they need to be
safe and healthy in the workplace. If youre
working on the street, you just dont have the
same level of control, Pacey says.
Although the majority of sex workers do
work indoors, the minority of sex workers who
work outdoors are unsurprisingly the most at
risk for violence and exploitation. The WCC-
SIPs proposed co-op brothel would offer all
sex workers the opportunity to take control of
their safety. The recent case of Robert Pick-
ton, convicted of killing women who lived or
worked on the streets of the Downtown East-
side, demonstrates the need for laws that allow
all sex workers affordable access to safer
indoor workplaces.
With the way the laws are now, Davis
laments, outdoor sex workers have to jump
into the car before they negotiate their terms
of employment. So they dont get to say that
theyre not willing to be tortured for five dol-
lars. When they get into the car, they have
to negotiate their way out, and thats just
not safe!
In addition to providing a safer alternative,
the profits from the co-op brothel would
improve other aspects of the lives of sex work-
ers. The WCCSIP would direct profits to
scholarships for sex workers, offer micro-loans
for sex workers to start their own businesses,
and provide alternative employment opportu-
nities for those who wish to exit sex work.
Interestingly, government and the courts
those with domain over Canadas prostitution
lawsappear to be heading in opposite direc-
tions. In September, Ontarios Superior Court
Justice Susan Himel struck down three com-
ponents of Canadas prostitution lawsthe
bawdy house law, the communication law and
the law that prohibits living off the avails of
prostitutionin a 131-page ruling that con-
cluded Canadas current prostitution laws
violate the Charter rights of sex workers. The
Within my own apartment, I control the
situation....Whereas if I went on outcalls, I would
go into foreign territory. Susan Davis
case is expected to make its way to the
Supreme Court.
This decision is in sharp contrast to the
Conservative federal governments views. In
August, Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson
announced harsher regulations for those
involved in sex work under the guise of
strengthening the ability of law enforcement
to fight organized crime.
The new regulations, passed without public
hearings, impose sentences of five or more
years for anyone involved in the operation of
brothels. This may include managers of broth-
els, as well as drivers, security guards or anyone
else the courts may deem to be living off the
avails of prostitution.
Prostitution is technically not a crime in
Canada, although many aspects of prostitution
remain criminalizedat least for now. It is
illegal to communicate for the purposes of
prostitution, to keep a bawdyhouse, and to live
off the proceeds of prostitution. Section 210 of
the Criminal Code defines a bawdy house as a
place that is kept or occupied, or resorted to by
one or more persons for the purpose of prosti-
tution or the practice of acts of indecency.
In sharp contrast, Ontarios ruling could be
a pivotal first step in redressing Canadian
laws that focus on prohibition rather than
harm reduction. In Vancouver, Katrina Pacey
is one of the lawyers leading the constitu-
tional challenge of Canadas prostitutions
laws in British Columbia.
The bawdy house law does not achieve
any valid objectives around sex workers
safety or protection, she says, and in fact,
does the exact opposite, which is to make sex
workers work in much more dangerous and
vulnerable circumstances.
Pacey also points out that Ottawas recent
toughening of the regulations relating to
bawdy houses has had the biggest impact on
the most vulnerable of sex workers. This is in
keeping with the findings of Simon Fraser
University criminology researcher John Low-
man, who has demonstrated how enforcement
patterns are related to violence patterns. As
enforcement increases, Lowman found sex
workers are displaced and pushed into even
more dangerous circumstances.
Pacey says its a shame sex workers have to
choose between their liberty and their safety.
She hopes that the Ontario ruling will set a
precedent for the decriminalization of bawdy
houses and lead to the adoption of other pro-
visions for sex workers safety in other
provinces. This is an exciting time, and Im
optimistic about our constitutional challenge
coming up next year in Vancouver.
Whether or not British Columbia courts
strike down Canadas prostitution laws, WCC-
SIP continues to gather public support for the
co-operative brothel idea and hopes to proceed
without having to break any laws.
Davis explains: Just like at the Pan Pacific
Hotel, prostitution may occur there, but that
doesnt make it a brothel because of the privacy
of their rooms. With our plans for the co-op
brothel, sex workers would rent private
roomstherefore avoiding breaking any laws.
We will apply for the same licenses that steam
baths and massage parlours have, so I dont
think we will need a federal exemption from
the Criminal Code.
There is potential for legislative change that
could make a real difference in sex workers lives,
but there is still a long way to go. Despite possi-
ble setbacks or struggles to acquire funding,
activists such as Davis and Pacey will continue to
fight for sex workers human rights.
We will keep pushing our plans for the co-
op brothel forward, says Davis. I think that
this project could really transform our commu-
nity and build momentum for all efforts to
improve sex workers rights.
For more information or to make donations to the

West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Profes-
sionals, go to www.wccsip.ca. For more information
on the decriminalization efforts underway in
Canada, see the decision from Ontario Superior
Court at http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/scj/en/.
And visit Out of the Shadows: Why Canada Must
Decriminalize Consensual, Adult Sex Work at
http://www.firstadvocates.org.
Demeter
Press New
I
n light of a new documentary celebrating Hugh Hefner as
the grandfather of the sexual revolution, feminists might
be wondering how mainstream heterosexual pornography
has evolved since Playboy was launched in 1953.
In the definitive new book Pornland: How Pornography Has
Hijacked Our Sexuality (Beacon Press), Dr. Gail Dines takes
readers on a journey from Playboys first issue to the porn cul-
ture we live in today.
Dines begins with Hefners efforts to liberate American
men from the emasculating domesticity of family life. Accord-
ing to Dines, Playboys literary articles legitimized soft-core
pornography with the middle class paving the way for more
explicit and hard-core magazines to emerge. Pornographic
images escalated from simple nudity to include depictions and
cartoons of sexual violence, torture and sado-masochism.
In the 1980s and 90s the home videocassette recorder
inspired the growth of a vast porn video market, and the
Internet provided consumers with porn that was even more
easily accessible, widely available and safely anonymous.
According to Dines, by 2006 the global porn industry was
worth about $96 billion US. Statistics from 2009 indicate
that on the Internet alone there were 420 million porn
pages, 4.2 million porn websites and 68 million search engine
requests for porn daily.
Dines describes the two porn streams consumers can now
choose from: features and gonzo. Features, although still
hard-core, have storylines and are not as rough as gonzo,
making them more attractive to men who want to view porn
with their female partners. Gonzo (also known as wall to
PORN
AGAIN WHY ITS TIME TO TAKE
ANOTHER LOOK AT A DIVISIVE ISSUE BY LISA TREMBLAY
wall because it depicts one sex scene after another) is body
punishing hard core porn and is, according to Dines, what
many users prefer.
Cheap to make and one of the biggest money-makers for
the industry, gonzo is known for inventing new sex acts like
multiple men penetrating all three female orifices at the same
time; double anal penetration; double vaginal penetration;
throat fucking that makes women gag and vomit; bukkake,
where many men ejaculate on a womans face or in her mouth;
and ATMwhich, in porn parlance, is ass to mouth.
According to Dines, these acts take a significant toll on
womens bodies. Women in porn have walked away with pro-
lapsed anuses, torn vaginas, STDs, chlamydia in their eyes
and bacterial infections, which are of par-
ticular concern in ATM because the penis
is withdrawn from a womans anus and
immediately shoved in her mouth.
Like many other porn researchers, Dines
describes the desensitization process that
leads porn consumers to habituate to sex
acts, crave increasingly more extreme images
to get off and become immune to the degra-
dation of women. Several industry strategies
are employed to facilitate this process. One
tactic is to call the female actors cumbuck-
ets, bitches and whores during
penetration and ejaculation while assuring
viewers that women like being degraded.
The result is that, as men ejaculate to porn, Dines believes they
are being groomed to rationalize and distance themselves from
the brutality.
The problem is that in the highly competitive porn mar-
ket, producers have to find ways to hook and keep customers.
And the solo stroking male consumer is not interested in
intimacyso brutality stands in its place.
In his book Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Mas-
culinity (South End Press), Robert Jensen, who has also
studied mainstream heterosexual pornography, points out
that the more pornography becomes normalized and main-
streamed, the more [it] has to search for that edge. And that
edge most commonly [employed] is cruelty, which emotion-
ally is the easiest place to go for men, given that the dynamic
of male domination and female submission is already in place
in patriarchy.
Dr. Jennifer Johnson, who reported results of her analysis of
the online porn industry at a Stop Porn Culture conference in
Boston last June, believes men who use porn do so to resolve
their loss of control over women in the economic sphere.
According to Johnson, womens movement gains result in a
masculinity gap. Its a gap, she says, thats mediated through
porn. Robert Jensen agrees. As women encroach on tradi-
tional all-male space, where do men push back for a sense of
power and authority? They do that in the intimate sphere.
The impact of porn that is degrading remains a hotly
debated topic. On one side are the pornography producers
who say that porn is fun and harmless fantasy. But for
researchers like Dines, the evidence says something else.
Increasingly, men who have used porn dis-
close troubling truths about how porn
affects their sexuality, relationships and
interactions with women. They feel inade-
quate because their heterosexual experiences
dont emulate the mind-blowing sex they see
in porn, and many are unable to reach
orgasm without conjuring up porn images.
Dines believes that porn is probably the
most visible, accessible and articulate teller
of sexual stories to men. She contends that
men who use it come away with a lot more
than just an ejaculation, because the stories
seep into the very core of their sexual iden-
tity strengthening and normalizing the
ideology that condones oppression.
To many feminists who have studied the effects of pornog-
raphy, the claim that porn is a gateway to better sex is a lie.
In her video release The Pornography of Everyday Life, Jane
Caputi argues that porn is not about sexual freedom but rather
about keeping women in their place. Jensen points out that it
keeps men in their place, too: Pornography claims to take us
into a garden of sexual delight. But it leads us into a
prison cell. It constrains [our imaginations], handing us a
sexual script that keeps us locked up and locked down.
In her entertaining memoir Indecent: How I Make It and
Fake It as a Girl for Hire (Seal Press), feminist Sarah Kather-
ine Lewis, who spent more than a decade in the sex industry,
including working in pornography, sums up her main prob-
lem with the industry: When we take part in it, we increase
our alienation from each other. We take something as
They feel inadequate because their heterosexual experiences dont
emulate the mind-blowing sex they see in porn. Gail Dines
In her new book: Pornland: How Pornogra-
phy Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, Dr. Gail
Dines takes readers on a journey from Play-
boys first issue to the porn culture we live in
today.
beautiful and communicative as sexual ecstasy and we com-
modify it, and in doing so we destroy everything that it
stands for. The more we become accustomed to buying
and selling sexual service, the less space we permit in our
lives for the real thing.
Dines argues that at this point in history porn is so deeply
embedded in our culture that it has become synonymous
with sex. All of us, regardless of our porn use, are bom-
barded with images (in magazines, fashion ads, TV, music
videos and box office movies) that would have, a decade ago,
been defined as soft-core porn.
The impact of this hyper-sexualized pornography culture is
particularly felt and expressed by young people. The common
practice of removing pubic hair is rooted in
the porn industry, which has no qualms
about sexualizing pre-pubescence. On the
other hand, more than 90 percent of 8- to
16-year-old boys have viewed pornography
online. While 30 years ago boys had to rifle
through their fathers closets to find a copy
of Playboy, today they can just open up their
laptops to access porn that isin quality
and quantityvastly different from what
was available to their fathers. Dines, who
speaks at colleges and universities across
North America, has heard innumerable sto-
ries from young women about the pressures
they experience from male sex partners to
have anal sex, accept ejaculate on their faces and use pornog-
raphy as a sex aid.
Given pornographys widespread acceptance, resistance is
a marginal exercise. Its not that feminists havent tried. In
the late 1970s, feminist anti-violence activists made the links
between violence against women and pornography. But
arguments about the value and impact of porn erupted.
Many women equated porn with empowerment, and they
called those who were against it anti-sex. According to
Dines, the nastiness of the feminist porn wars scared a lot of
women away from anti-porn activism.
The result? According to Jensen, who documents this his-
tory in his book, by the mid-1990s, the feminist critique of
pornography mostly had been pushed out of the public dis-
cussion and a new economic framework emerged. Journalists
began writing routinely about pornography as an ordinary
business that raised no particular moral or political con-
cerns. This, he says, is the normalization or mainstreaming
of pornography. He adds, The pornographers had won.
Dines acknowledges that without a robust feminist move-
ment its difficult to organize a campaign against pornography.
This time, she contends, feminists would need to partner with
parents, health professionals, men, schools and community
groups to mount a successful fight.
In the meantime, the porn industry will keep looking for that
new edge. Dines predicts children are it. Although mainstream
pornographersincluding Hefnerhave always incorpo-
rated images and cartoons making light of incest and child
sexual abuse, the number of Internet sites dedicated to teen
porn and searches for teen porn has exploded
in recent years. Because its still illegal to use
anyone under the age of 18 in the production
of pornography, producers dress 18- and 19-
year-olds in little-girl clothes and borrow
symbols, codes, conventions and narratives
that are found in actual child pornography
to make what is known as pseudo child porn
(PCP). Dines believes that when men get
bored of standard porn fare some will turn to
PCP, which may be the first step into the
world of child pornography. And that
means more children will be used in the pro-
duction of child pornography and more
children will be sexually assaulted by men
acting out their porn-fed fantasizes. As Dines reminds us, the
research on the relationship between consuming pornography
and actual contact sex with a child suggests that there are a per-
centage of men who will act out their desires on real children
after viewing child porn.
As survivors of child sexual abuse already know, children
have never been sexually off-limits to men. Whats taboo is
public acknowledgement of the extent of this abuse. At the
same time as the adult entertainment industry is youthifying
its adult women, popular culture is adultifying little girls.
Take a look at high heels for preschoolers, padded bras for
seven-year-olds and pole dancing classes for twelve-year-
olds. Are we promoting fun and harmless entertainment for
little girls or publicly advertising their sexual availability?
Whatever the case, we have pornographers to thank for
helping us get here.
According to Dines, the nastiness of the feminist porn wars

scared a lot of women away from anti-porn activism.
Author Robert Jensen believes that as
women encroach on traditional all-male
space men push back for a sense of
power and authority in the intimate sphere.
uebecs Bill 94, tabled in 2010, proposes to allow
provincial employees to refuse delivery of services
to people wearing facial coverings, citing reasons
of security, communication, and identification. All provin-
cial services would be covered by the proposed bill, including
schools, child care, hospitals and nursing homes.
The application of the law, currently in public consulta-
tions, would be decided by each department or institution.
The bill is meant to establish guidelines only. Theoretically,
however, niqab wearers could be turned away or denied serv-
ices in situations where communication is the only issue.
This was what happened to Naema Ahmed, an Egyptian-
born pharmacist and mother who was twice expelled from
publicly funded French courses in Montreal for refusing to
remove the veil covering her face.
The responsible school authorities and immigration offi-
cials cited pedagogical reasons for her expulsion, the idea
being that communication in French requires the audience to
see the speakers features. (This seems doubtful, since fran-
cophones manage to communicate by telephonenon?)
Quebec Immigration Minister Yolande James declared, If
she wants to attend the classes, we need to be able to see her
face. And yet, Ahmed attended the second course for 45
days without any complaint from her teachers. It was the
provinces immigration ministry that intervened, interrupt-
ing an exam to expel her.
An equivalent Belgian proposal, approved by the countrys
lower chamber and stalled before reaching the upper house
by the collapse of government and subsequent elections, is
set to criminalize clothing that covers all or most of the
WHY BANNING THE NIQAB IS NOT THE ANSWER
BY MARGARET SANKEY
Q
UP
COVER
France recently enacted a bill banning veils which cover the face. Similar moves in Quebec, Belgium, Hol-
land and some Spanish municipalities to penalize Muslim women who wear full body coverings such as
the niqab or burqa are based on inconsistent and illogical arguments, and they infringe on citizens rights,
argues the author in this essay.
face in any public space based on the belief that it is a threat
to security. The penalty would be a fine of up to 25 euros
($35 Cdn), or a week in prison for a second offense.
We cannot allow someone to claim the right to look at
others without being seen, said MP Daniel Bacquelaine,
who proposed the Belgian bill. This raises a few questions in
my mind. No more tinted windows on cars, then? No more
security cameras?
In August 2010, the government of France approved a bill
that will ban covered faces in public, with a penalty of 150
euros ($210 Cdn) and/or mandatory citizenship classes. As
in Quebec, a constitutional challenge is likely, although the
proposal is widely popular. The French bill, while couched in
the terminology of police effectiveness, is being championed
by politicians using entirely different language.
The burqa is not an expression of religion, but a sign of
subjection, according to French Prime Minister Nicholas
Sarkozy. Rather, he says the full veil is contrary to the dignity
of women. The response is to ban it. French Justice Minister
Michle Alliot-Marie agrees. The integral veil makes the
identity of a person vanish into that of a community, she says.
It contradicts the French model of integration, founded on
the acceptance of our societys values.
Such a law may run afoul of both the French constitution
and European human rights legislation, but nonetheless may
work well for gathering votes. Many seem willing to over-
look what it would really mean to criminalize everything that
could be considered contrary to the dignity of women so
long as a statement is made about the majoritys opinion of
fundamentalist Islam. The legislation is scheduled to come
into effect in the spring.
Dutch MP Geert Wilders, whose 2007 proposal would
have made wearing a burqa in the Netherlands a crime pun-
ishable by 12 days in prison, plays the integration card as
well. We dont want women to be ashamed to show who
they are, he explains. Even if you have decided yourself to
do that, you should not do it in Holland, because we want
you to be integrated, assimilated into Dutch society. If peo-
ple cannot see who you are, or see one inch of your body or
your face, I believe this is not the way to integrate into our
society. Wilders was unsuccessful at the national level (con-
stitutional troubles again), but the ban is in force at all Dutch
school grounds and universities, and public servants are for-
bidden to cover their faces.
Despite the small proportion of Muslims in each of these
nationsFrances is the highest, at about six percent, and
includes a large proportion of people from Muslim back-
grounds who are not observant there seems to be a lot of
concern over the Islamification of the West.
Often journalists and politicians exploit the fear of losing
ones culture as part of their argumentsas though a tidal
wave of Islamic strictures were imminent, and Nantes or
Montreal might soon become another Riyadh or Kabul.
Such critics treat the burqa as a gateway to radical Islami-
cism, and they may even feel that tolerating the display of a
symbol of oppressive Islam is akin to allowing Afghanistans
Taliban a foothold in their country. This, I suspect, is the true
reason for the burqa bans. If a ban is introduced in Quebec,
the only option for those who feel strongly about the full veil
may be to consider leaving the province. Indeed, the simple
fact that a niqab ban could discourage certain Muslims from
immigrating may even be responsible for some of its wide
popular support.
Most ridiculous of all is the argument that these bans are
somehow feminist in nature. Those who hold this view seem
to have forgotten that feminism is meant to be about
empowering women to make their own choices. Christine
St-Pierre, Quebecs minister responsible for the status of
women, has called niqabs ambulatory prisons and pro-
claimed that Quebec is a world leader when it comes to
gender equality. With Bill 94, she said, We prove it once
again. The fact that hospitals and universities are included
as agencies that may be allowed to refuse services to those
with covered faces makes one wonder: How on earth does
denying women access to higher education or health care
count as progress?
The statement published by the Non/No to Bill 94 Coali-
tion sums up the problem with this view: Instead of singling
out a minuscule percentage of the population, government
resources would be better spent implementing poverty
reduction and education programs to address real gender
inequality in meaningful ways. Barring any woman from
social services, employment, health, and education, as well as
creating a climate of shame and fear around her, is not an
effective means to her empowerment. Rescuing women is
paternalistic and insulting. Further marginalizing Muslim
women who wear the niqab and denying them access to
social services, economic opportunities and civic participa-
If a ban is introduced in Quebec, the only option for
those who feel strongly about the full veil may be to
consider leaving the province.
tion is unacceptable. Forcing a woman to reveal part of her
body is no different from forcing her to be covered.
As for the argument that veils are a symbol of the dom-
ination of women, I would argue that a better symbol of
the subjugation of women by hardline Islamists would be
the rocks thrown at women accused of adultery, the acid
splashed in the faces of schoolgirls or the victims of hon-
our killings.
The veil itself does not cause subjugation. In fact, it seems
likely that most women in Western countries who veil them-
selves do so by choice. Those who are being forced into it
certainly deserve protection from tyranny, and we must also
be aware that women who are being controlled by a spouse
or family member are not free to publicly state their true
feelings. A different French bill, which accompanied the
burqa ban through Parliament, gives a large fine and a year
in jail doubled when the niqab wearer is a minorto any-
one who forces the full veil on another person, and I find this
rather more justifiable than the ban itself. But in any case,
even if most women who wore the niqab did do so for fear
of being punished, why would banning it help things?
Strict interpretations of Islam forbid men and women to
mix in non-familial situations such as socializing, work and
public life. The niqab and burqa are attempts to reconcile
this with the need of women to appear in public, although
the garments themselves are not mandated by most interpre-
tations of the Koran. A Muslim man posting on the Internet
stated that hes against the niqab because the reason it is
worn is to pretend that a woman is not in fact interacting
with unrelated men; he believes that women should not
really ever be in a situation where they would have to wear
the niqab in the first place. They should just stay at home,
and attend mosque, separated from the men by a wall, of
course! For Muslim women who normally wear the full veil,
a ban could mean that they would simply avoid public life
altogether. This, of course, would result in a further erosion
of their ability to integrate into society, not to mention
impeding their freedom and independence. I do not agree
with those who place the responsibility for mens sexual
morals on womeneither in Islamic or non-Islamic com-
munitiesbut banning a garment is the wrong remedy for
views that have sexist origins.
Another facetious argument is that niqabs and burqas
dont belong because womens equality with men is a corner-
stone of Qubcois identity. This may be more accurate in
modern Quebec than in France, but still, where is this equal-
ity, please? Hours of unpaid work in the home, a lack of
representation in government and executives, wage gaps,
gender-based violence and povertyneed I go on? When
true equality between women and men happens, lets talk.
Until then, please dont pretend that Muslims are the only
oppressed women around.
It is a form of denial to try to act as though veils and the
social forms of modesty they represent are something com-
pletely foreign to Western culture. In 2002, lawyer Laura Joy
was kicked out of an Ontario court by Judge Micheline
Rawlins for wearing a suit with a V-neck top. Last year, a
symposium of American judges exchanged views about
courtroom attire. Some where critical of women lawyers who
wear blouses so short theres no way the judges wouldnt
look. Legal professionals debated the issue online, one argu-
ing that women shouldnt have to change their clothing
choices just because men cant control themselves, while
another complained of women using sexuality to get what
they want.
Each time a woman gets dressed, there is a calculation
that goes on, a weighing of how best to maximize her looks,
including the right balance of sex appeal. We know that
how we are treated depends on how we look and that a cer-
tain kind of power accrues to those who are perceived as
attractive. But to wear a top that is too tight is to risk los-
ing respect instead of gaining it. Consider that a 2005 U.K.
poll by Amnesty International found that 26 percent of
those asked thought a woman was partially or totally
responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or
revealing clothing. Non-Muslims have rules about modesty
and appropriate attire for women, too. In this context, a
niqab ban comes across as just one more thing women are
being told we cant do.
The most paternalistic argument against full veils is that
they interfere with womens movement and are therefore
unsafe for the wearer. Ban them for that reason? I guess a law
against high heels should be coming soon!
While there are circumstances in which it may be justified
to require an uncovered face, bans on the niqab go too far
and interfere with individual liberties. The erosion of per-
sonal freedom is too high a price to pay for irrational
measures that only serve to solidify anti-Muslim bigotry.
Each time a woman gets dressed, there is a calculation that

goes on, a weighing of how best to maximize her looks,
including the right balance of sex appeal.
KT TUNSTALL
TIGER SUIT
Virgin
REVIEW BY CINDY FILIPENKO
With her debut single Black Horse and
a Cherry Tree, KT Tunstall set herself
miles apart from her Top 40 contempo-
raries. The follow-up, Suddenly I See,
proved the Black Horse writer was no
one trick ponya trend that happily con-
tinues with the release of her third studio
album, Tiger Suit.
A gifted songwriter, the Scottish popster
uses the all the arrows she has in her
quiver to craft hooky songs with melodies
that creep into the subconscious humming
of even the most casual listener. The
secret? Choruses that are almost meaning-
less lyrically, but have a lovely cadence that
burns the notes into our reptilian brains. Its
a cool trick, and one that has been a main-
stay of Brit pop since The Beatles first
wanted to hold our hands.
What makes Tiger Suit much more inter-
esting than her last studio effort, Drastic
Fantastic, is that Tunstall has expanded her
musical scope and traded in her earnest-
ness for a sense of humour about herself.
Take the self-revelatory, folky (Still A)
Weirdo, in which she acknowledges that
shes still a weirdo, after all these years.
If not exactly weird, she is experimental.
Tunstall chose to record the eclectic Tiger
Suit at Berlins famous Hansa, the same stu-
dio that brought the world David Bowies
groundbreaking Heroes and U2s Achtung
Baby. (Listen to either of these albums
they do not sound 33 and nearly 20 years
old, respectively.)
One of the bigger ideas explored on
Tiger Suit is a sound Tunstall calls nature
techno, a mixing of organic instrumenta-
tion with electronic and dance textures, as
evidenced in Push That Knot Away,
Fade Like a Shadow, and Glamour
Puss, as well as the vaguely psychedelic
The Entertainer. This time out, Tunstall
may have more in common with Bj?rk than
with her U.K. contemporaries, but shell
still have you humming.
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS
TOGETHER
Last Gang Records
Revered alt-country artist Neko Case is
more than just one of the most dramatic
country solo acts to come out of the Pacific
Northwest since Loretta Lynn took the stage
at the Linden, Washington Fair when she
was just another 19-year-old mom with four
kids at home. (Yes, I know she was from the
Appalachians, but the coal miners daughter
launched her career out on the Left Coast.)
Tacoma-born and raised, Case got her start
in Vancouvers flourishing indie scene of the
90s, playing with a variety of hard-edge
bands, including Cub.
Now, when shes not collaborating with
folks like fellow Corn Sister Carolyn Mark,
sitting in with The Sadies, opening for Bob
Dylan, or drowning in accolades for 2009s
Middle Cyclone, shes a full-fledged mem-
ber of Vancouvers The New Pornographers
a supergroup of the super-hip, much in the
same vein as Broken Social Scene.
Cases vocals on TNPs new release
Together show the immense power behind
the cultivated and controlled country croon-
ing that has elevated her to cult status.
Check it out for If You Cant See My Mir-
rors, Silver Jenny Dollar and Crash
Years. Together allows for the re-emer-
gence of a side of Case thats been buried
under the weight of her solo career and
other countrified side projects. Cases vocal
promiscuity is the music worlds gain.
LAUREN BEST
STICKER COLLECTION
Independent
Sticker Collection is an impressive debut for
a singer-songwriter who is barely out of
high school. According to the press bumph,
high school is when the now 20-year-old
Lauren Best actually penned the 12 num-
bers that make up Sticker Collection.
Whats most surprising about Bests
songs is the style in which she writes them,
an auditory fiesta that could be described as
klezmer meets cabaret with flourishes of
pop and jazz. While this unusually musical
amalgamation is charming because it actu-
ally works, its her lyrics that make the songs
come off sounding fresh and fun. Shes not
Noel Coward yet, but she could be.
Check out the chorus from Biography of
a Good Girl: Being good was never good
enough for me/Being a good girl dont make
for much mystery/Self-loathing, self-help
and a little self-pleasuring/Is what gives a
young lady a best-selling biography. Not
sure? Read it out loud. Now imagine those
words sung in a smoky alto with a wry and
sophisticated cabaret delivery. Likewise
imagine the chorus of the deliciously down-
beat The Nihilism Song: My solution for
sensitivity/ Lies in my nihilistic tendencies/
If I dont believe in you/Then you cant
believe in me.
With its themes of alienation and identity,
in some ways Sticker Collection is exactly
what would be expected come from a
young artist. What makes this first-time
effort stand out is how its been executed.
Talented and unique, Lauren Best is defi-
nitely one to keep an ear out for.
arts culture
MUSIC
HILARY GRIST
IMAGININGS
Independent
Cabaret cool meets ethereal pop, then
gets completely subjugated by the wittiest
lyrics to recent memorywelcome to
Hilary Grist and her new CD, Imaginings.
Grist is best known as a CBC artist, as
national radio is one of the few places her
brand of eclectic pop fits.
A grad of the highly acclaimed Capilano
University Jazz Program, on her fourth
album shes finally working with a producer
who loves her, literally. Imaginings is pro-
duced by her new husband, Mike
Southworth. Playing drums, a plethora of
guitars and percussion, Southworth is also
the second half of what is effectively a duo.
Recorded in part in the apartment occupied
by the multi-talented, multi-instrumental
Grist-Southworths, Imaginings production
values are excellent.
The one flaw here may be the albums
musical diversity. By the middle of the
album, any listener will have it figured out:
Grist is a flexible, extremely talented and
intelligent artist whos impressed us with a
cornucopia of skills. The only problem is
were not sure what exactly it is that has
us impressed.
Grist clearly has talent but Imaginings
lacks a focus. Even the two tracks with the
best chance of being successful singles
have little in common. On About You,
Grist comes across like a more jaded Zoey
Deschanel of She & Himthe sound du
jour for hipster chicks with lovely alto
voices. Its the kind of pleasant acoustic
pop used to hawk back-to-school clothes
at Zellers.
Something Beautiful, with its haunting
piano, is a Norah Jones-style ballad for
contemporary adults (or whoever it is that
listens to adult contemporary) that sounds
like a Juno shoo-in. But its on tunes like
Back in Town, Better and Stick of
Dynamite that the spectrum of her unique
talents truly synthesizes.
NIKKI LYNETTE
THE STRONG SURVIVE
Independent
If youve got an ounce of funky diva in your
soul, DIY artist Nikki Lynettes first EP The
Strong Survive will have you looking for her
full-length debut. A self-proclaimed laptop
celebrity, Lynette first gained critical expo-
sure when she took part in MTVs reality
series The City. Now shes taking it to the
masses on her own terms through her web-
site and an army of fans known as Team
Bad Ass. In fact, the only place the EP, now
expanded to a typical debut length of 10
songs, is available is through her website
www.nikkilynette.com.
Lynettes got a killer voice and until now
has earned her bread and butter singing on
commercials. (She may be the only vegan to
ever sing on a national McDonalds com-
mercial.)This Chicago radio personality is
also a well-known MC, honing her produc-
tion chops by creating and distributing
mixed tapes.
Shes also an extremely talented and nim-
ble rapper as demonstrated on the otherwise
perfectly pop Love U Crazy, the more tradi-
tionally hip-hop Whatever I Want and the
title track. Those skills get lost on Model in
the Mirror (Fashion) which sounds a little
derivative. However, any of the other five
songs on The Strong Survive could be sin-
gles. In fact, if It Doesnt Matter, with its
plaintive refrain and soulful backbeat, was
on a Rhianna or Beyonce Knowles album,
wed all be tired of it by now.
HANNAH GEORGAS
THIS IS GOOD
Hidden Pony
Calling a CD This is Good is a ballsy move,
as it opens up an artist to all kinds of nasty
remarks that pass for wit when scrawled by
snide music reviewers. Hannah Georgas
need not fear that her full-length debuts
title will bite her in the ass, though, because
this is exactly the kind of disc thatll make
people hand it to friends, saying, This is
good.
From Bang, Bang Your Dead, a bouncy
little pop-rocker about friendship and
betrayal, to the sober, piano-centric aching
love ballad Shine, This is Good is a show-
case of excellent songwriting. Melding
catchy melodies with thoughtful lyrics,
Georgas is adept at evoking powerful emo-
tional imagery.
Take this line from Thick Skin: We can
all get along for the first five minutes/ from
there just hold your breath. Who hasnt
been at that party?
A transplanted Ontarian who now calls
Vancouver home, Georgas has been com-
pared to indie darlings Feist and Kate Nash.
Instead of looking to the majors to help
shape her career, she opted to sign with the
tiny West Coast label Hidden Pony.
Georgass style takes the best from roots,
folk and pop, a sound proving to be both
accessible and immensely popular. Despite
no major-label push, her music is every-
where, from Starbucks iTunes chits to
Wal-Mart commercials. Lets hope more of
it gets on radio wavesthis woman
deserves a massive audience.
arts culture
MUSIC
arts culture
WINTER READING
THE KNIFE SHARPENERS BELL
RHEA TREGEBOV
Coteau Books
REVIEW BY SHAWNA DEMPSEY
Tales of immigration to the New World are
often told but the return voyages, from New
World to Old, are less storied. Likewise,
those of us who grew up during the Cold
War devoured spy fiction that chronicled
daring escapes from the Soviet Union, but
there was no literary genre that docu-
mented the tale of those who willingly
immigrated to Russia to join the socialist
revolution. Yet it is precisely this odyssey,
one that runs against the stream of domi-
nant cultural narratives, that Rhea Tregebov
charts in The Knife Sharpeners Bell.
The novel explores the little-known history
of those who left their homes to participate in
building a newly minted Soviet Republic. Told
through the eyes of a Winnipeg girl, Annette
Gershon, the tale encompasses world events
as varied and far-flung as the Great Depres-
sion on the Canadian prairies, the massacre
of Odessa and the Stalinist Gulag system.
Through it all, a profound love for family pulls
against dogged and systemic anti-Semitism.
As a child, Annette asks, Winnipeg. Are
there really other places? In the middle of
winter, in Winnipeg, it doesnt seem there
are even other seasons. And yet the
impossible transpires. In 1936, the idealism
of her parents is strong enough to move her
halfway around the globe.
Her frustrations with the Cyrillic alphabet
are paralleled by her fathers dismay at
Soviet bureaucracy and identification papers
that state Jew as the family members
nationality. As committed socialists, the fam-
ily is entirely secular. However, like victims of
fascist regimes elsewhere in Europe, the
familys lack of religious practices and faith
are no protection from hatred.
This remarkable novel illuminates a
period of history long shielded by the Iron
Curtain, as well as the complex relationship
between immigration and homeland. It is
also beautifully written. The page-turning
epic begins in the 1920s in Winnipeg,
spends two decades in the Soviet Union,
then finds its way back to contemporary
Toronto. It is as much an exploration of
what is home as it is of history.
And, like all meaningful journeys, after
many cliffhanging twists and turns, it leads
Annette to herself: The eye squinting this
very moment in the late sun, the hand draw-
ing the facade, toes cramped in their worn
shoes. Something mutable and transient
but, nonetheless, finally, there.
AN UNEXPECTED BREAK
IN THE WEATHER
DEBORAH SCHNITZER
Turnstone Press
REVIEW BY KAREN DARRICADES
Deborah Schnitzers An Unexpected Break
in the Weather highlights the warmth and
winds of Winnipegs Corydon strip as
Schnitzer weaves a story of connection,
estrangement, change and endingsboth
the orchestrated and inevitable kinds. The
story centres around A Rose on Corydon, a
bridal shop that is the celebratory and heal-
ing headquarters of aging couple Mildred
and Gertrudes chosen family.
The shop begins its last walk down the
aisle when Mildreds sudden slip on the ice
forces the couple to face the reality of their
limited ability to maintain the energy the
shop demands. With no one to take over the
business, the shops place in their lives will
be a loss to them and to many others entan-
gled in this community corner.
When wedding-happy friend Perfume
decides to marry for the fourth time, Millie
and Gertrude agree it will be A Roses last
hurrah. Determined to control this ending by
orchestrating a smashing party deserving of
A Roses legacy, everyone attending the
wedding is invited to parade the bridal shops
wears at the extravagant ceremony, to be
hosted by the shop. That control is snatched
away when long-time friend Wordie fights
cancer and faces death, forcing them to say
their goodbyes to the places and people they
graciously took for granted, until an unex-
pected break in the weather hits.
An Unexpected Break in the Weather won
Schnitzer the Margaret Laurence Award for
Fiction. A talented wordsmith, Schnitzer has
been compared with Mordecai Richler,
Michael Ondaatje. I would add Anne
Michaels. Despite the accolades it received,
however, the books cast of characters was
too ornate and flowery for my liking. I found
myself lost at times, as the book conjured up
images rather than thoughts or feelings.
However, if you like plenty of descriptive
prose, this book might be for you.
HER MOTHERS ASHES 3
STORIES BY SOUTH ASIAN
WOMEN IN CANADA AND THE
UNITED STATES
EDITED BY NURJEHAN AZIZ
TSAR Publictaions
REVIEW BY ROZENA MAART
This new collection containing stories by
24 South Asian writers in North America
brings a quality of writing to the page that
makes the book a must-read for short
story enthusiasts.
Her Mothers Ashes 3 was preceded by
Her Mothers Ashes and Her Mothers Ashes
2 published in 1994 and 1998, respectively.
The contributors are diverse in terms of
origin and background. Many of them were
born on the South Asian subcontinent, then
lived in the United States or Canada and
subsequently moved back to Asia, though
not necessarily where they were born.
Thus, they brought their South Asian identi-
ties across the Atlantic and back to Asia.
Along the way, many of these writers
gained a clarity for detail in their surround-
ings, savouring not only tastes and smells,
but the way in which certain languages
twist tongues in ways that cannot be trans-
lated into English and are best said in
Gujerati, Hindi or Punjabi.
There is an element to the stories that
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Available September 2010 from
FERNWOOD PUBLISHING
critical books for critical thinkers www.fernwoodpublishing.com
ECHOES FROM THE OTHER LAND
AVA HOMA
These haunting stories beautifully
evoke the resistance of modern
women in Iran.
This is a voice that we all need to hear.
SUSAN HOLBROOK
Homa announces new beginningsless
irony, more hopeand from a breathtaking
multicultural and international perspective.
LOUIS CABRI
Jewels and Other Stories
DAWN PROMISLOW
The landscape of 1970s South Africa
lives and breathes in these stories,
populated by a wide and surprising
range of unforgettable characters.
Wonderful reading from an astonishingly
fresh and original writer. OLIVE SENIOR
[Promislow] writes of Africa and Africans
with unflinching, but loving, insight.
GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE
TSAR Publications www.tsarbooks.com
Toronto, Canada
New om UTP
Uxivrnsixv or Tonoxxo Pnrss
www.utppublishing.com
Quzzxtwc Barnxoomx
Gender, Sexuality, and the Hygienic Imagination
by Sheila L. Cavanagh
e public bathroom is one of the
last strictly gendered spaces, but
for some - queer and trans people
especially - gender identity isnt as
clear as the sign on a bathroom
door. In Queering Bathrooms,
Cavanagh explores how public
toilets demarcate the masculine
and feminine and condition
ideas of gender and sexuality.
Queering Bathrooms is a compelling work... Cavanaghs top-
notch scholarship addresses issues pertinent to gender studies,
trans studies, queer theory, and critical studies in sexuality.
Christopher Shelley, University of British Columbia
9781442610736 / $29.95
I I J?
A Classic Feminist Novel
by Minnie Smith
With an introduction by Jenny Roth and Lori Chambers
Smiths 1911 rst-wave feminist novel
tells the story of a woman whose lazy,
selsh husband loses their land in the
Okanagan Valley. Roth and Chambers
provide a critical introduction that puts
the work in historical perspective.
9781442611573 / $24.95
Awwzx Woxtn
A New Century of Anne of Green Gables
edited by Irene Gammel and Benjamin Lefebvre
As Anne begins her journey into the next
millennium, aer her rst 100 years,
Gammel and Lefebvre have proven that
there are startling new facets to uncover...
ese new approaches reveal that Anne is as
new today as ever.
Holly Blackford, editor of 100 Years of Anne with an e
9781442611061 / $29.95
arts culture
WINTER READING
can only be described as homelya tex-
ture that allows the reader to feel as though
they are a family member who has been
invited to come along to the dance, the pag-
eant or the wedding and taste the mango
juice, the flaming kebabs and the curries,
mouth dripping with sauce, turning one
page after another. There, the reader meets
the smell of flowers at a naming ceremony,
the sound of a violin as memories of a wed-
ding flash across the page, and savours the
anticipation of a golden sunset in India
while inhaling the flavours of chai as it
leaps out of the cup, onto the page, in the
story titled A love story.
The stories, beautifully composed, are
lively, vibrant, well-written and show an
intensity that gives the collection its
deserved place on the top shelf of every
bookcasenot only in Canada and the
United States, but around the world.
MATERNITY ROLLS:
PREGNANCY, CHILDBIRTH
AND DISABILITY
HEATHER KUTTAI
Fernwood Books
REVIEW BY CAROLINA PINEDA
Heather Kuttai masterfully brings the per-
sonal and the political together in her book
Maternity Rolls: Pregnancy, Childbirth and
Disability. This exploration of a life lived out-
side able-bodied norms combines critical
social theory with the intensive self-reflex-
ive methodologies of auto-ethnography to
explain the myriad ways socio-cultural
forces shape individual life trajectories and
biographies.
Kuttais discussion of gender and disabil-
ity is particularly poignant. Through vividly
recollected memories of her childhood and
adolescence, Kuttai shows that despite cre-
ative and sometimes humorous acts of
resistance, ablist assumptions amounting to
degrading representations of her as asexual
and unlovable deeply marked her own
sense of self, her relationship to others and
her visions of the future.
I made steps towards realizing my own
intrinsic worth as a sexual person, but in the
end I did not realize how much I had inter-
nalized the notion that to live with a disability
is to live without sexuality, until I became
pregnant for the first time. It was then that
my sexuality could no longer be denied by
anyone; not even me, she writes.
As readers follow Kuttai in an exploration
of her most intimate momentsfrom get-
ting her first bra to sharing a kiss with her
husband-to-be at a high school dance, to
giving birth to two childrenthey learn
about what it means to live in a social world
that has no tools for imagining persons with
disabilities as dynamic agents with hopes,
dreams and complex inner lives.
Maternity Rolls is offered as a corrective
to this imaginative gap. While I wrote,
explains Kuttai, I kept the hope that by
telling this story of disability I was putting a
face to disability issues, illuminating the
social oppression that exists for people with
disabilities, offering solutions to those prob-
lems and presenting another way of
thinking and acting, she explains.
On all accounts, she is successful. For this
reason, Maternity Rolls gets a high score in
my books. For Kuttai, a three-time Paralympic
medalist who is now championing the martial
art of critical disability studies and disability-
rights activism, I imagine no less will do.
GIRL UNWRAPPED
GABRIELLA GOLIGER
Arsenal Pulp Press
REVIEW BY DEBORAH YAFFE
Are you tired of flashy postmodern novels
that leave you admiring but unmoved? Are
you interested in Canadian social history, or
Jewish Canadians, or post-Holocaust fiction
or lesbian fiction that leaves you with some-
thing to think about?
Have I got a book for you. Award-winning
author Gabriella Goligers Girl Unwrapped fits
beautifully into the growing stack of literature
about Jewish lesbian daughters of Holocaust
survivors. Born in a working-class neighbour-
hood of Montreal in the 1950s, Toni Goldblatt
yearns to achieve the social acceptance
desired for her by her parents. Girl
Unwrapped combines the themes of coming
of age and coming out as Toni struggles
within and against the claims on her identity
as a daughter, a Jew, a Canadian whose par-
ents have funny accents, and a girl who
simultaneously admires and is repelled by the
feminine norms of the time.
Tonis struggles take on the form of a
heroic quest as she battles internal and
external demons in search of a life that is
both acceptable and expressive of her real
feelings. Her journey moves across social
classes and neighbourhoods, Jewish com-
munities in Montreal and in Israel, and
down the torturous paths of first loves.
Nothing comes easily to Toni. Her difficult
relationship with her parents, who are suffer-
ing the damaging effects of their traumatic
losses in the Holocaust, is echoed in the diffi-
culties she encounters at Loulous, the
old-fashioned lesbian bar caught between
repressive heterosexist laws and an emerg-
ing lesbian feminist movement.
One of the strengths of the novel is the
sure way Goliger incorporates social and
political issues of the times into Tonis life.
Phenomena as diverse as the Six-Day War
and tensions between bar dykes and les-
bian feminists form parts of the intense
discussions swirling around her.
Whether you are old enough to remem-
ber them or young enough to want to know
about them, youll find lots to engage your
interest. The book is written in language
poetic enough to be interesting, while never
distracting from the feel of a good read.
RELUCTANT BEDFELLOWS
MEREDITH RALSON AND EDNA KEEBLE
Kumarian Press
REVIEW BY KATIE PALMER
Can a pair of Western academics really make
a tangible difference in the lives of socio-
economically marginalized women in the
global South? And, equally important, should
they even attempt to do something in terms
of development work in a foreign country and
risk practising neo-colonialism? These are
the two guiding questions that Meredith Ral-
ston and Edna Keeble examine throughout
their engaging book Reluctant Bedfellows.
Reluctant Bedfellows follows the intel-
lectual and civic journeys of Ralston and
Keeble, two Canadian university professors
who extend their commitments to global
feminism and global citizenship far beyond
the confines of the ivory tower. In the
beginning chapters, they draw ample atten-
tion to the theoretical debate as to whether
Western feminists should attempt to under-
take development work in developing
countries. Drawing on the critiques of iden-
tity politics, post-structuralism and
post-colonialism, the authors take a very
strong position that social change is a polit-
ical responsibility of individuals, especially
those with access to networks, financial
capital and social resources, regardless of
their geographic location.
Ralston and Keebles theoretical commit-
ment to global feminism is the entry point to
their travels to the Philippines to embark on a
five-year development project. By developing
gender-sensitivity and social-context training
workshops, the authors discuss how they
reached their goal of producing contextual-
ized social change in relation to the attitudes
among locals towardsand the working
conditions ofprostitutes in Angeles City, a
thriving red-light district for sex tourists.
In addition, the authors provide living
proof of the validity of their thesis. That is,
by conducting qualitative interviews with
members from the organizations they
worked with in the Philippines, Rolston and
Keeble show how geographic location, cou-
pled with identity politics, must not prevent
us from doing something about human
rights abuses across the globe. The authors
argue that positive change can occur as a
result of development work.
Although there are a few righteous
undertones in the book, overall Reluctant
Bedfellows is theoretically rich and highly
practical fur those who want to participate
in overseas development work, yet are
afraid of reproducing ethnocentric and neo-
colonial values. It will also be useful to
those who teach on the subjects of gender,
development studies and human rights.
VICTIMS NO MORE:
WOMENS RESISTANCE TO
LAW, CULTURE AND POWER
EDITED BY ELLEN FAULKNER AND
GAYLE MACDONALD
Fernwood Publishing
REVIEW BY MAYA KHANKHOJE
The title of this book says it all. Victims No
More: Womens Resistance to Law, Culture
and Power is a much-awaited alternative to
a large body of feminist literature that treats
women as passive victims, rather than as
active agents of resistance against patriar-
chal forms of oppression.
Its two editors and 16 authorsmostly
academics, a few lawyers and a couple of
social workersmake the strong point that
the concept of woman-as-victim plays into
the neo-liberal agenda by encouraging pas-
sivity and hopelessness. The authors
propose, instead, a movement towards a
more encompassing framework of resist-
ance at an individual, collective, local,
arts culture
WINTER READING
by Colleen Murphy
The
December
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arts culture
WINTER READING
BONE DREAM
MOIRA MACDOUGALL
Tightrope Books
REVIEW BY MARIIANNE MAYS
It may sound like a strange criticism, but
my biggest complaint about Moira Mac-
Dougalls Bone Dream is that I wish its title
were Saltwater Bone. Bone Dream makes
the work sound dryer, more literal, and less
mysterious, lyrical and sensual than it in
fact is. Former dancer MacDougall brings a
synesthetic intelligence to the oceanic
inner worlds she presents, which range
from an embodied, droll every day that just
happens to be peopled with mythic charac-
ters (Oedipus, Cupid and Psyche, to name a
few) to the logic of the dream, quivering
between dread and hunger.
I feel admiration and a deep affinity for
the dark vision and gorgeous, rhythmic
sensibility that inform this book. Though
occasional lines, metaphors or poems
seem at times a little unfocused or slap-
dash, and at others slightly overcooked,
and sometimes the poets sensibility reverts
too easily to a predictable vocabulary of
her yogic practice, overall Bone Dream is
dense with surprising images and searing
insights. MacDougalls blend of memory,
reptilian mind and healing pose uncoils
vividly throughout this debut collection.
JOY IS SO EXHAUSTING
SUSAN HOLBROOK
Coach House
Susan Holbrooks second book Joy is so
exhausting is another bright gem, a
delightful, witty romp through language
and body language. Poems like Good Egg
Bad Seed will make you laugh aloud at
Holbrooks playful, tongue-in-cheek
dichotomies that cover everything from
tics to art preferences. Dividing people
neatly into mutually exclusive camps,
lines sing with slightly absurd divisions
such as There are people [] who clean
their mouse regularly and people who
think Somethings wrong with my mouse
over and over, and You think Modigliani
painted nipples too small or you think
Emily Carr painted trees too big, and
Smashing through the guardrail and
plummeting to your death you shout I
love you! or you shout Fuck!
Holbrook turns up the categorical silli-
ness with the long final poem of the
book, the curiously tender Nursery, in
which left and right breast distractedly
muse on motherhood and other subjects
while breast-feeding, without losing
political points.
FORAGE
RITA WONG
Nightwood Editions
Too often, an overeager didacticism creeps
into politically charged poetry and
squashes aesthetic considerations. Hap-
pily, this is not the case for forage by Rita
Wong, her second book. Wongs powerful,
impassioned perspective is always accom-
panied by careful attention to language and
her clear-eyed, moving observations.
Wong ably works between the problem-
atics of consumerism and eco-waste on
the one hand and the assimilation of eth-
nicity into mainstream culture on the other.
With an overview this brief, it should go
without saying that its not enough to be
fair to the work. But forage is so filled with
the urgency of heart and heartbreak and
the demand for justice that I want to quote
entire poems in full, in order to attest to the
miraculous way faith hides in little pock-
ets like the heart/ and the throat in this
collection, for the way Wong adjudicates
the shameful circumstance of a gay boy
who made the best damn bannock ive
ever tasted./ theres no justice for him to
die, for terrible efficiency of the grief and
anger in the dance of the dutiful daugh-
ter, for the way a walled mind becomes
a coffin, for how the poet hears trees
creak a careful warning. Wongs com-
manding voice commences a cry that
seems to incite the entire earth and its
peoples into a vital song of resistance.
poetry reviews
national and even international level.
The book is divided into five sections. Sec-
tion one invites readers to think critically
about the damaging effects that neo-liberal
policies have on violence against women and
children. It also makes a distinction between
equity feminism and what the editors refer to
as victim feminism.
Section two analyzes current legal prac-
tices and resistance strategies. It advocates
emancipatory laws for which it asks the gen-
eral publics active participation. Section
three traces collective resistance strategies
that go beyond the law. An example is the
Raging Grannies, who use humour and civil
disobedience to promote radical change.
Section four highlights the importance of
resilience in questions related to identity and
issues such as gender, culture, motherhood
and drug abuse.
Finally, section five provides dramatic
examples of how literary criticism has been
a historical form of womens resistance. The
tragic example of Sethe (the protagonist in
Toni Morrisons Beloved) who murders her
child in a bid to escape the continued
enslavement of her family is analyzed.
Victims No More reminds us that justice
for women is an integral part of social justice.
This book deserves to be read mindfully.

A piece of history
Dave Mullingtons
CHARLOTTE
The Last Suffragette
408 pages
$30 + HST
Charlotte Whitton was, in turns, a social
welfare leader, a nationally prominent consultant
and the first woman mayor of a Canadian city
(Ottawa). Famed for her acerbic tongue and her
volatile temper, the longtime feminist was named
Canadas Woman Newsmaker of the Year six
times during the 1950s and 60s.
Dave Mullingtons new biography is available from:
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Womens studies professors tell us that Herizons is an
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FILM
FISH TANK
Directed by Andrea Arnold
REVIEW BY MAUREEN MEDVED
Fish Tank, the second feature film by U.K.
writer/director Andrea Arnold, is a close study of
rage and its workings within female adolescence.
Mia, played by Katie Jarvis, is a young teen
living in a council flat with her neglectful mother
and younger sister. Mia is stuck and tough. But
within her, she protects a sliver of vulnerability.
The film reminds us repeatedly that she is a
teen heading for trouble and begins with Mia
head-butting and breaking another girls nose. In
another early scene, a group of boys attack Mia
until another boy steps in and releases a dog to
scare the attackers off. Mias mother seems to
be a permanent adolescent herself a single
mother who has never grown up and despises
and fears her daughters fledgling sexuality.
The brutality of Mias world causes her to
watch it all her physical environment, bad tel-
evision, her peers, her mothers negligence and
sexual exhibitionismsafely through a long lens
of adolescent detachment. Mia meets everything
either from this distance or with scorn. The only
sign of tenderness exhibited is when she sees a
sick horse chained to a post. That is, until Con-
nor, her mothers new boyfriend, played by
Michael Fassbender, appears.
With Connors appearance the film picks up
an unsettling tension. Connor is interested in
Mia, believes in her talents and treats her like a
peer. All this plus Connors brooding sexuality
disturb as much as they intrigue. The film suc-
cessfully walks this delicate line as we wonder
and worry about how the paradox between
Mias rage and vulnerability will fit through the
eye of tension provided by Connors arrival.
The world offers Mia very little in the way of
encouragement or inspiration. Mia wants to
dance hip-hop. It is the single staple in her life, a
tremulous, uncertain thing. In Arnolds deft hands,
the dance slips out of consciousness then resur-
faces. Will it save Mia from a hellish existence or
will it, like everything else, die or disappoint?
The viewer forgets that dance is part of the
film. More than part, it is the thematic essence.
The fish that Katie helps Connor catch during a
family outing. The dance. The horse. Love. Mias
very self. Everything on the verge of uncertainty.
Slipping, slipping away.
At the end of this world is hope. The sun
casts its rays through the murk. We sense that
as in life, sometimes, a chance, an escape.
Fish Tank, which won the Jury Prize at
Cannes, is a superb example of the new wave of
British realism. Andrea Arnold handles her sub-
ject with an unflinching lack of sentimentality,
close control of characterization and a keen
cinematic eye. At moments the film becomes
tightly wound, reaching heights of suspense
that Hitchcock would have applauded.
In Fish Tank, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, Andrea Arnold handles her sub-
ject with an unflinching lack of sentimentality.
Herizons is a consistently engaging and
provocative read, re-inventing itself as
time goes by. Judy Rebick, author
Transforming Power
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Bristol Palin says it was prayer that got her through Dancing
with the Stars. It is faith that got me through this and just
praying all the time and just relying on God and knowing that
He is on our side and well get through this, said Sarahs
daughter after the finals in which, thank God, she placed third.
I can relate. I too got through this 11th season of DWTS
thanks to prayer. Week after week, I prayed that Bristol
would be voted off the show, and finally my prayers were
answered.
Okay, so I watch Dancing with the Stars. Religiously. And
no wonder, considering that five Anglican priests in Britain
recently announced theyre defecting to the Catholic church
because their own church wont back off plans to permit
women and gays to become bishops. Theyll be welcomed
with open arms by Pope Benedict, who recently promised
disaffected Anglican bishops safe haven in The Church. This
occurrence is a good reason for keeping up my membership
in the Church of DWTS, rather than in one that purports to
do Gods work. Poor God.
Anyway, I like the entertainingly mindless Dancing With
the Stars. However, as a loyal Canadian, I am a trifle ashamed
of the fact that I like it more than Battle of the Blades. I has-
ten to point out that I have been watching BoB on Sundays,
but not the Monday eliminations when DWTS is on. And
while Im doing confession, I admit that Alexander Ovechkin
is my favourite hockey player. So beat me with a maple leaf.
However, my faith in DWTS was sorely tested over the past
14-week season, as Bristol the Pistol strutted her stuff. I has-
ten to point out that Bristol Palin seems like a nice young
woman. Her only sin, an unavoidable one, is that she picked
a regrettable mother. As for her becoming a teen mom, who
am I, considering some of my youthful indiscretions, to crit-
icize. Note that the Biblical let he who is without sin chuck
the first rock stuff has not deterred countless folk from rush-
ing to their computers to post sanctimonious judgments of
Bristol, which sadly often contain words like slut.
Then there were the many cruel jibes about her weight.
Fat and chubby were the kindest words used. Bristol is an
attractive young woman who is admittedly not thin. And why
should she be thin?especially since some of us dont lose
the extra pregnancy pounds until the kid is in Grade 12. So,
is Bristol supposed to be thin because thin is a virtue, because
many young models are one pound this side of anorexia? Or
because shes female?
Kyle Massey, 19, the adorable actor who deservedly came
in second after the winner Jennifer Grey is?well, chubby. I
searched the Internet and could not find any remarks about
his weight. But Bristol? She is evidently not just a slut, she is
a fat slut with fat legs and fat arms and a fat face. Some com-
ments were so vicious I considered shooting my computer.
However, unlike Steven Cowan in Wisconsin, who shot his
TV after watching Bristol dance, I do not have instant access
to a gun. So I said a prayer instead.
The only significant point here is that Bristol is, at best, a
mediocre dancer who should have been voted off in week
two. Note that I, and, I suspect many other DWTS parish-
ioners, know something about dancing badly. In fact, I am an
expert. I rather think if I were on DWTS Id be dumped
afteror perhaps duringthe first show.
Bristol stayed on beyond her expiry date because of the
popular vote which totally ignored the judges scores. Some,
including me, say its because shes Momma Grizzlys daugh-
ter, and because those dreadful Tea Party people phoned,
texted and tweeted in droves, gaggles and herds to vote for
Bristol as though the DWTS contest were the run-up to the
2012 U.S. presidential election.
All in all, this season of DWTS could tempt a person to
change churches again, and Im considering converting to
ABCs new show Skating With the Stars. Besides, it is
rumoured that Dancing with the Stars will soon allow same
sex couples to compete?and thats surely enough to make a
person dance in a different church.
POLITICS ON THIN ICE

on the edge
BY LYN COCKBURN
WI NTER 2010
M
S
.
M
A
G
A
Z
I
N
E
MENS HEALTH IS A
FEMINIST ISSUE
FATIGUE IS A VIRUS!
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A
LESBIAN
MAYOR
ABORTION &
THE BISHOPS:
PLAYING POLITICS WITH WOMENS LIVES
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if women mattered?
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Gender Outlaws

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Gender Outlaws

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WOMENS NEWS & FEMINIST VIEWS

Sharon McIvor has

Canada continues to discriminate against

When Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of

her-052 Winter 2011 v24n3.qxp 12/15/10 12:25 PM Page 14

PICK YOUR POISON

Gender is so much about

Connie Jeske Crane is an enthusiastic lover of art. A Toronto-

For more information or to make donations to the

According to Dines, the nastiness of the feminist porn wars

Each time a woman gets dressed, there is a calculation that

her-052 Winter 2011 v24n3.qxp 12/15/10 12:28 PM Page 43

POLITICS ON THIN ICE

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