Canada

Herizons Magazine (Winter 2011)

beth — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

When I first moved to Canada, Herizons was virtually the only magazine I came across that dealt with feminism and issues concerning women. My understanding of the women’s movement before that point was primarily focused on within the U.S., and it’s not exactly the same. The laws are different in Canada. Thus, they affect women in a different way and Herizons helped me understand that.

There are several things that non-Canadian readers might discover in this issue. To name a few: there are over 500 cases of missing Aboriginal women within the nation; the Ontario Court of Appeal now allows Muslim women who file sexual assault complaints to wear the niqab, if they choose to; Ottawa will hold a global women’s conference this summer; and a Quebec bill proposes that Muslim women be prohibited from receiving or delivering public services while wearing a niqab. These are issues that are addressed articulately in this issue through the contributing writers of Herizons.

The only problem is that these facts aren’t necessarily recent news, not for people living in Canada at least. These are topics that any Canadian resident might know if they follow the national news. Such is the trouble with distributing a quarterly magazine. By the time it’s out on print, the topics feel very backdated. Issues such as Muslim women in Canada having certain rights while wearing the niqab have been out since last year and as someone who regularly follows women’s news in the country, I was already well-read on the various opinions and attitudes that come with it.

However, there were some parts of Herizons' winter issue that educated me. Did you know that a young woman in her twenties recently started the first women’s magazine in Afghanistan? I certainly didn’t. Not until now. It’s called Negah-e-Zan, meaning "A Vision of Women," and is committed to women’s empowerment. There’s also a great, lengthy Q & A piece with Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, and performance artist S. Bear Bergman. Bornstein and Bergman have put together an “anthology of new transgender voices” called Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation. In the interview by Mandy Van Deven, they discuss the obliteration of the gender binary and what feminism can learn from trans politics.

Herizons is undoubtedly packed with great content about feminist views. But I would say that this issue works better on the international scale. It would probably be more interesting to a non-Canadian who is interested in learning more about how the women’s movement is perceived and enacted in another country.

Written by: Fadi Gabir, April 24th 2011

You Don't Play With Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by David Austin

AK Press

This accessible and engaging collection presents eight never-before-published lectures by the celebrated Marxist cultural critic and anti-colonial scholar, C.L.R. James, who played an important part in the international socialist movement. James’ collection demonstrates his expertise in various fields, from Caribbean history and the Haitian Revolution, to Leninist political philosophy to Shakespeare. He has defined and popularized the autonomist Marxist tradition in the United States and Canada. You Don't Play With Revolution is a collection based on a series of lectures delivered by James during his stay in Montreal in 1967 and 1968 when he was invited to contribute to the practical work of people devoted to revolutionary change in Canada and the Caribbean. Thus, James’ work not only embodied his vision of the creative power of ordinary people who shape history, but the ways they do so and document their struggles. James strongly believed that without the involvement of the mass population politics is destined to fail.

This collection is significant because it provides essential, and previously lacking, information about James’ work with Canadian students and West Indian intellectuals in the late 1960s. It also includes a series of letters James exchanged with the West Indian university students who made these lectures possible, in addition to two seminal interviews with James during his stay in Canada. Those interested in social movements and, more specifically, James’ work, will find this collection to be a great contribution to existing scholarship.

James’ work is relevant to revolutionary politics today, while opening the window into the particular cultural moment in which James’ work took place. I recommend it to both the novice and the expert who wants to learn more about James and his stunning insights. As Austin summarily puts it, “James not only remind us that ‘another world is possible’ is real, but also help us to chart a course toward creating this new world in present.”

Written by: Olivera Simic, June 7th 2010

Briarpatch Magazine (Jan/Feb 2010)

admin — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Dave Mitchell

Turning through the pages of Briarpatch Magazine, I was offered a glimpse into Canada's progressive social movements. Reading the Responsibility to Protest issue, which is also available online, gave me a crash course in several progressive ideologies I wasn't familiar with, and I was able to explore some familiar issues that are close to my heart as well.

Briarpatch covers a lot of ground. The headline story, "Mass Protests & The Future of Convergence Activism" by Jane Kirby, gave me a crash course in what's happening on the streets of social activism while "From Invisibility to Stability: Transgender Organizing for the Masses" by Mandy Van Deven introduced me to the interplay between transgender issues and poverty. I work for a nonprofit that addresses the global water crisis, so "Water Fight: First Nations' Water Rights in the Thompson Okanagan" by Hannah Askew provided me with fresh insight into Canada's own water struggles.

Especially illuminating were the pages devoted to suggestions of how better to spend the $6.1 billion price tag of the recent Vancouver Olympic Games. "Boosters' Millions" by Dawn Paley and Isaac Oommen, offered solutions in education, transportation, and housing that could take British Columbia well beyond the entertainment value of the two-week games if the Canadian government would spend the public money on more sustainable initiatives. "Selling the Olympics in the Schools: Government & Anti-Olympics Groups Take Their Messages to the Classroom" by Jenn Hardy offered timely and relevant insight into another side of the Olympic Games. Needless to say, I got a lot out of this issue.

My favorite article, though, was about my favorite social issue: feminism. I could readily relate to "When We Were Feminists" because, as someone just entering her thirties, I often observe my own feminist ideas fading, changing, and even burning brighter as I move through different phases of my life. Author Penelope Hutchison looks back at her progression from a founding member of the Radical Obnoxious Fucking Feminists (ROFF) in her undergraduate days to a forty-something professional who recently reunited with ROFF's other members. Hutchison reveals that the once radical change-makers have mostly tucked their feminist ideologies away to pursue careers, relationships, and families.

The article made me question my belief that if I support the feminist issues I care about, and if I work hard to allow my feminism to be exemplified in my actions, then I will always be a feminist no matter what work I'm doing or what lifestyle I'm leading. It's difficult for me, at thirty-one years old, to imagine dampening my desire to improve the lives of women because I've recently gotten married or plan to have kids within the next couple of years. In ten years, I don't want to look back and wonder where my former feminist self has gone. I hope my role as a feminist activist can co-exist with my roles as nonprofit professional, wife, M.B.A., and mother.

_Briarpatch Magazine__ _did exactly what I was hoping it would. It gave me fresh perspective on issues I'm already familiar with, and it introduced me to new lines of thought and new ways to apply my social activism.

Written by: Meg Rayford, April 16th 2010

From Criminality to Equality: 40 Years of Lesbian and Gay Movement History in Canada

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Directed by Nancy Nicol

Intervention Video

I was around eight years old when I went to my first Pride parade with my mom and her girlfriend. I was fourteen when my mom went on national television for a campaign demanding the right to marry for lesbians and gays. And I was twenty-five when I married my long-term girlfriend within months of same-sex marriages becoming legal in my country. In many ways, the struggles for social equality and equal rights for LGBTQ people have been tied to key events in my life, and these days at Pride, as a thirty-two year old, I often feel like an old timer, like a living, breathing embodiment of history.

I know every detail of key steps in the lesbian and gay rights movement since the late 1970s because they have been a part of me. But when I say I know every detail, I mean every detail of the German lesbian and gay rights movement. When I moved to Canada a few years ago, I realized that I knew virtually nothing about how these struggles have played out in my new home.

Nancy Nicol’s film series From Criminality to Equality closed that gap in knowledge for me. On four DVDs with a total playing time of over six hours, Nicol chronicles the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in Canada. Starting with the struggles over anti-discrimination clauses in the Human Rights Act in the 1970s and '80s, to the fight over marriage equality in the late 1990s and early 2000s, wach DVD focuses on separate issues within a certain timeframe. When watching the entire series, the interconnectedness of these issues through time becomes very apparent. Key individuals of the lesbian and gay rights movement appear again and again, and the films show a clear progression of issues from the step out of criminality to societal and legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Each film is jam-packed with information, and while some segments are a bit lengthy, the series provides an enlightening summary of the past forty years of LGBTQ history in Canada.

The most moving of the four DVDs for me was Politics of the Heart, which portrays lesbian and gay families in Quebec as they fight for equal parenting rights. Not only did it remind me of my own history growing up with two mothers, it also presented a perspective the other three films lacked. It reminded the viewer that even in times when lesbian and gay people didn’t have the same rights as heterosexuals, we found unique and often very creative ways to live our lives and live them well. Politics of the Heart shows that queer families existed in spite of not being recognized by law or the broader society. As one friend put it: “I would have liked to have seen less about the fights and more about our alternative lives. We don’t just exist in opposition to heterosexuals.”

While it is certainly important to remember and highlight that the path to equality has been a bumpy one, as someone who has lived, breathed, and been defined by the struggles for LGBTQ equal rights, the film series missed an opportunity for showcasing one of the key features of that distinguishes the lesbian and gay rights movement from many other social movements: that we love who we love, not in opposition to something, but in embracing who we are and what makes us happy.

Written by: Annette Przygoda, March 24th 2010

Justice for Girls?: Stability and Change in the Youth Justice Systems of the United States and Canada

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:01:00 +0000

By Jane B. Sprott, Anthony N. Doob

University of Chicago Press

In Justice for Girls?, Canadian researchers Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob provide a comprehensive and concise overview on girls and juvenile delinquency in these two North American countries. Sprott and Doob address the misconception, fueled by media reports and newspaper articles circulating in the U.S. and Canada, that girls are committing more crimes, and more violent crimes. The book asserts that contrary to popular belief, “the violent girl crime wave that people have been waiting for since the early 1900s...has simply not happened.”

In uncovering the hype behind sensationalized reports on girls and violence, the authors view juvenile delinquency as a social construction. In researching the number of violent girl crimes throughout the twentieth century, they assert that girls are less likely to commit violent crimes than boys. However, they note that girls make up a large percentage of juvenile delinquents and custody cases due to status offenses, so-called crimes in which girls can be arrested and tried for non-criminal behavior, such as sexual immorality.

Connecting the courts' motivations behind status offenses to women’s political movements, the authors make a convincing argument that girls have often born the brunt of a sociopolitical backlash as a parallel when women's movements are afoot.At these pivotal moments in history, juvenile court systems have tightened their surveillance of girls’ behaviors and criminalized girls’ sexual expression. As a result, Sprott and Doob argue, girls have historically been punished, and continue to be punished, for behavior and actions considered normal and acceptable for boys.

The authors discuss the limitations of their research, acknowledging the absences in their data with regards to race and class. Another absence in the book is a discussion of queer girls as well as trans girls and boys. Since sexual immortality—one of the most common status offenses girls are cited for—is not discussed at length, it is unclear if any of the girls convicted of this offense were/are queer or trans, and how their sexuality and/or gender identity influenced a court’s decision. Moreover, besides examining one case study, the authors do not offer girls’ own voices or their stories. Instead, they allow statistical evidence to speak for the injustices girls face in juvenile justice systems.

As a feminist scholar interested in the intersection of girls’ studies and media studies, I would argue that Sprott's and Doob’s work could benefit any researcher addressing the current hype surrounding girls and violence in contemporary Western societies.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, March 20th 2010

Herizons Magazine (Fall 2009)

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Edited by Penni Mitchell

I had never heard of the Canadian feminist news magazine Herizons before receiving my copy of the Fall 2009 issue in the mail. In fact, I often avoid globally-oriented, North American feminist articles, because they too often read like a contemporary version of the white man’s burden (“Oh dear, look at the how the brown barbarians treat their women”). While Herizons didn’t completely escape this snare, on the whole it was a refreshing surprise.

The most striking feature of the publication is its emphasis on women’s power to create change in local struggles. The opening letter from the editor, introducing the issue’s theme, is entitled “The Unstoppable Women of Asia.” In glowing prose, editor Penni Mitchell describes the determination and savvy of the women behind each of the political struggles covered in the issue (including the Nepali fight for “substantive equality” to be written into the new constitution, as well as Afghan women’s protests against the patriarchal Shia Personal Status Law). This is a welcome departure from so many Western portrayals of developing countries—rather than emphasizing the repression of brown women by “uncivilized” brown men, and the oh-so-noble efforts (by Westerners, of course) to “save” those women, Herizons puts the focus on the women themselves, and in particular, their dynamic acts of resistance and their creative visions for change.

The one article that misses the mark in this regard is “Making a Statement: Gender Roles in India Slowly Changing,” which unfortunately takes the all-too-familiar stance that Westernization automatically improves the status of women. (Really, Kaj Hasselriis, does the fact that you saw a young girl in “an unusual outfit—jeans and a t-shirt” indicate that sexism in India is on its last legs?) However, thankfully, Herizons does acknowledge that sexism is also a continuing reality “at home”—in addition to the international coverage, the issue also places a focus on Canadian feminist issues, including the fight for Canadian custody laws that acknowledge the impact of domestic violence. Another “local” feature article profiles Canadian Aboriginal theater director and playwright Yvette Nolan.

On the whole, the magazine takes an optimistic, visionary tone. In fact, at times I felt that the magazine was almost too upbeat, and ran the risk of idealizing some of the activists profiled within its pages. However, the parting shot (a one-page piece by Lyn Cockburn entitled “Fall of Patriarchy Imminent”) restored the balance. In a cheery satirical tone, Cockburn reminds us that the struggle is far from over: “Given the wild success of both post-feminism and post-racism, it is no wonder that I...await post-patriarchy with barely restrained enthusiasm.” As those of us involved in activism know all too well, it’s often difficult to strike a balance between clearly naming oppression and celebrating our progress toward ending it. Herizons walks this line skillfully, emphasizing the dignity of struggle without sugarcoating the context.

While the overall quality of reportage is high, not every article makes the grade—such as Susan G. Cole’s poorly written, barely relevant column entitled “Michael Jackson’s Swan Song.” On the other hand, the feature article “Is Feminism Men’s Work, Too?” is a gem—a great short introduction to doing political work from a place of (relative) privilege. Finally, the issue closes with a multitude of engaging, well-written, and useful book and music reviews.

I’ll be picking up future Herizons issues to find out about women’s current political struggles and successes both in Canada and worldwide—and I’ll look forward to enjoying some quirky, heartening editorializing along the way.

Written by: Ri J. Turner, February 8th 2010

Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women’s Activities in Urban Communities

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Edited by Susan Applegate Krouse, Heather A. Howard

University of Nebraska Press

Keeping the Campfires Going: Native Women's Activism in Urban Communities is a collection of essays featuring the struggles and triumphs of Native women living in urban communities. Written about people living throughout North America from San Francisco to Chicago to Vancouver to Anchorage, the essays focus on the role that women have played in keeping their native people connected as a community. The range of women and communities presented gives a broad, yet still specific, view of the conflicts overcome and those still being addressed.

Traditionally (based on reading the book and not attempting to generalize) Native and Aboriginal communities were rural, at times isolated, and not urban. Increasingly the Native and Aboriginal population is growing in cities. The challenge to holding onto one’s past and identity in the face of pressure and a changing world is magnified. The struggle in finding a home, literally and metaphorically, as both a woman and a Native American or Aboriginal is illuminated and discussed. The women are negotiating finding and keeping a place within the native community as well as making a place for themselves within the larger, non-native community.

The women are standing up to be heard and to be seen, and to confront and to change the stereotypes and misconceptions about their place in the world. A quote from a flyer distributed in Vancouver sums up much of the book for me: “We are Aboriginal women, givers of life. We are mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties and grandmothers. Not just prostitutes and drug addicts. Not welfare cheats. We stand on our Mother Earth and we demand respect. We are not here to be beaten, abused, murdered, ignored.” They are embracing their past and their heritage, and they are claiming a place in today’s society.

The essays are well-researched and professional, and while there are personal stories and anecdotes given, the focus is on academia. Many of the contributors are anthropologists and professors. The challenge they face as women is made two-fold because of their Native or Aboriginal background, and I had not before been as truly aware of the depth of the challenge.

Written by: Kristin Conard, November 17th 2009

Briarpatch Magazine: The Gender & Sexuality Issue (March/April 2009)

admin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:41:00 +0000

Edited by Dave Mitchell

At first glance, Canada's Briarpatch Magazine reminded me of American feminist magazine Bitch; the content is similar, the overall message is similar, and, hell, even the font in the logo seems similar. What I love about Bitch is that although it’s an American magazine, it covers issues from all over the world, so I can keep up on feminist issues all over just by checking in one place. Briarpatch does not cover such a distance, as it seems to be primarily a Canadian-focused magazine; however, I still learned a lot about some of Canada’s different subcultures.

This issue was billed as “the gender and sexuality issue,” so the topics covered were about polyamory, sex working and transsexual issues. First, I learned about Canada’s health care system in relation to transsexuals undergoing or wanting to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Unlike the United States, Canada has a government-funded health care system. It is apparently extremely difficult to get coverage for something such as this type of surgery. This was an interesting, in depth look at one man’s personal journey through this ordeal. It was inspiring, yet also sad with the hoops he had to jump through in order to become the gender he felt comfortable with.

Briarpatch also educated me about sex workers in Canada through an interview with Kara Gillies, co-founder of both the Canadian Guild for Erotic Labour and the former Toronto Migrant Sex Workers Advocacy Group. Gillies also does work for Maggie’s, an organization run by sex workers. Maggie’s includes all aspects of sex work in their attempts to advocate for these workers’ rights, such as individuals involved in pornography, phone sex workers, and dominatrixes, to name a few. It is Gillies' work with Maggie’s that is the primary focus of the article.

The most interesting thing I learned from this was that in Canada, the act of prostitution itself is actually not illegal and never was. What is illegal is negotiating for services in a public place or even somewhere that’s open to public viewing such as parked or moving cars or bars. So it’s fine to go and do the deed elsewhere but not to discuss anything such as protection, payment, or even specific services beforehand if it’s in a public area. But you also can’t technically go anywhere because your work site, if used for this purpose, could be classified as a ‘bawdy house’ and under the bawdy house law, that’s illegal too. In addition, if you participate in someone else’s activities, it falls under the procurement law. This means that you can’t do such things as advertise someone else’s services or even offer to protect them personally. But, again, the actual act of prostitution is totally legal!

This, too, was an inspiring although frustrating piece because while some of the facts were new to me, unfortunately, the overall story and public perception seems to be the same all over. On the whole, I enjoyed getting an in-depth look on another country’s struggles with the same issues as are faced in the United States, and Briarpatch was a very enjoyable read.

Written by: Jen Klee, September 6th 2009

Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People's Enlightenment in Canada, 1890-1920

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:00:00 +0000

By Ian McKay

Between The Lines

Turn-of-the-century Canadian Leftists built the foundations for later thought and organizing, but their stories have largely gone untold. In his efforts to change that, Ian McKay writes not a great book, but a necessary and useful one in Reasoning Otherwise. Given that he describes his methods as reconnaissance, "several steps down the ladder of comprehensiveness from a polished final synthesis," he would likely see the compliment in that evaluation.

After an introduction in which McKay describes his method's theoretical grounding in such detail that most non-specialists will want to skim through it, the book proceeds through another eight chapters. Each forms a foray that begins with the retelling of an important incident in Canadian leftist history. McKay then uses a variety of discourses—historical, philosophical, sociological, and literary—to weave that anecdote into a consideration of broader issues and trends.

The first two incursions of Reasoning Otherwise should have been folded into one. "Socialism: The Revolutionary Science of Social Evolution" examines the use early Canadian socialists made of social evolution and the writings of Herbert Spencer. McKay's nuanced consideration creates the intellectual basis on which later chapters rely. "The Emergence of the First Formation in Canada, 1890-1902" provides a more practical base, beginning with a meeting in 1901 which "mark[ed] the first time in Canada that homegrown radical and socialist organizations got together to merge simple local clubs and units into a more complex interprovincial body." It then tells the stories of important Leftist figures who attended this meeting, followed by a consideration of the challenges attendees faced in and posed to the established liberal order. Divided from the first chapter's ideas, however, this part of the book lacks focus.

Each of the following four chapters revolves around a single issue. That "The Class Question" comes first reflects the notion (extant then and now) that socialism should center on socioeconomic issues. Here, McKay shrewdly uses conceptualizations of class as a golden thread to explore the complicated history of Leftist parties and organizations during the period.

"The Religion Question" focuses on Christianity though other spiritualities, such as Theosophy and Buddhism, make brief appearances. McKay considers divisions between Christian denominations and compares different versions of the social gospel. In so doing, he shows an appropriate level of respect for Christian socialists without ignoring criticisms made by their contemporaries.

The most problematic chapter, "The Woman Question," comes fifth. The title itself, while using the terminology of the day, marks it as different: woman is not equivalent to class or religion. It fails to describe the contents of the incursion accurately, as McKay includes both Leftist homophobia and the construction of socialist masculinity within the chapter. Discussing the former under the heading "The Woman Question" rather than "The Sex Question" inaccurately implies that socialist feminists bore the greatest responsibility for such discrimination.McKay more successfully addresses "The Race Question." He considers not only how white-dominated socialist movements made alliances with other racial groups, but also how fragile those alliances were. He does not ignore the role of racism and the construction of Whiteness within the Left.

After the questions, "War, Revolution, and General Strike" describes how Leftist takes on these issues, along with socialist parties and individuals, transformed during the era of World War I. A description of how The Great War led simultaneously to repression and a second flowering of the Canadian Left concludes with the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. This leads directly into the show trials which, in the final chapter, McKay uses to bring the book to a conclusion that does not pretend to be the last word on the subject. While not a perfect examination of Canada's turn-of-the-century Leftists, _Reasoning Otherwise _does achieve its author's end. McKay begins the process of filling a gap in the historical scholarship with careful thought and a style that is, for the most part, accessible to non-academic readers.

Cross-posted with Gender Across Borders

Written by: Elizabeth Kate Switaj, August 17th 2009

Gold Dust on His Shirt: The True Story of an Immigrant Mining Family

admin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:32:00 +0000

By Irene Howard

Between The Lines

When you think about migrant memoirs of North America, stories of moving north from Latin America often come to mind more than those detailing moves east and west. Flipping around that common assumption, Gold Dust on His Shirt tells the story of Irene Howard’s Swedish-Norwegian immigrant family’s tumultuous life in Canada at the turn of the twentieth century.

After the death of her first husband in Norway, Howard’s mother Ingeborg immigrated to Canada. She left her young daughter Inga behind with the child’s grandparents, promising to send for Inga as soon as she was settled. Instead, once she arrived in Prince Rupert (in current day British Colombia), she met and married a Swede, Nils Alfred in 1913. Only seven years after Norway had gained its independence from Sweden, the couple felt—and was—thousands of miles from the political controversies of their homeland. Six months later, Ingeborg gave birth to their first son, Swedish-Norwegian-Canadian Arthur Ingemar. Over the years, Ingeborg and Alfred had several more children—Verner Erik, Nels Edwin, Irene—and were uprooted from their home several times. Alfred’s job working on the railroad demanded that the family relocate as work became available. As Alfred became involved with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and began mobilizing other immigrant workers, his job prospects were often limited due to his radical organizing.

Reading about language barriers, death by tuberculosis or mine collapse, police raids, and workers’ struggles against mining companies is a sobering experience. Living a reverse tale of sorts—an American in Denmark, mostly unable to speak Danish—I have a lot of empathy for the characters in this story. I also suspect that my own Norwegian background and my adopted Danish family made this a more interesting tale for me. I didn’t mind reading about characters named Sigurd Ullstreng, Olav Trygvasson, and Elling Erikssen Aarvig. For me, it was a bit comforting and homey—or “hygge,” as we say in Danish.

Howard’s history is fascinating, though her presentation is a bit dry. At times, the book reads like a genealogy scrapbook instead of a memoir, listing people and events in a factual if uninspiring way. For history buffs, this is no doubt enjoyable. I will admit to struggling at times to wade through the details of a time and place with which I have no real familiarity. Yet Howard’s story is valuable and often untold, and her objective storytelling—in which she often removes herself entirely from the narrative, even though she lived through the same events—is a refreshing departure from the self-centered account most memoirs provide. I suspect I will revisit this book for years to come, perhaps as my roots deepen and spread among the Nordic states and North America.

Howard was born in 1922 amidst her father’s career change from mining to fishing. That she has survived the last eighty-seven years—three less than my own still-living Norwegian grandmother—with her story intact, now fully documented and published, is no small feat. In Norwegian, we say, “gratulerer”—congratulations.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, July 11th 2009

Stealing Nasreen

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:53:00 +0000

By Farzana Doctor

Inanna Publications

Stealing Nasreen is the excellent first novel written by Farzana Doctor. Not fitting into any typical genre, the work showcases a slice of desi life, and incorporates elements of mild satire and romance in telling the story of three demoralized souls, Nasreen, Shaffiq, and Salma.

Nasreen is a grieving psychologist in need of personal counseling support, having recently lost both her mother to cancer and her lover to infidelity. Shaffiq is an accountant and a recent immigrant to Canada. Having left India to escape employment discrimination, he is still underemployed and now working as a janitor in the same office building as Nasreen. Shaffiq attempts to cope with the tensions of adjustment to life in a new country by bravely keeping up a front of false optimism, having passed the honeymoon period of his early immigration to Canada with his children and his wife, Salma. In his coping, Shaffiq has also developed a new and slightly odd habit of scavenging the office garbage for clues about the bad habits and secrets of the office-dwellers, the details of which he shares with his wife.

Salma is a teacher, who is dissatisfied working in a dry-cleaning business and as a tutor providing Gujarati lessons in her home to supplement both the family income and her children’s university fund. Practical on the surface, she hides significant passion behind her motherly, scholarly demeanor. All three characters are low on spirits, but high on self expectations as they come to meet in this original story which combines familiar themes of lost loves, obligations, expectations, and opportunities in an original tale which hinges on a chance meeting, one which stirs up long-buried feelings in Salma.

Triangles form much of the structure of Stealing Nasreen. Three stories of love and loss provide much of the back story to the principal relationship in the novel, which focuses on both Salma and Shaffiq’s individual obsessions with Nasreen upon meeting her. Both Shaffiq and Salma find themselves drawn to Nasreen for very different reasons. To Shaffiq, Salma represents both attractive and unappealing elements of the North American dream. She is a member of his ethnic and religious community who has achieved career success in North America, but embodies characteristics he does not desire for his two young daughters. For Salma, Nasreen is a reminder of a former lover, with whom she had a brief closeted relationship. Both Salma and Shaffiq keep aspects of their encounters with Nasreen secret from one another, culminating in a confrontation which alters the trajectory of events for each character from the course laid out at the novel’s beginning.

Rather than opt for the clichés of a neatly happy ending, Doctor has written a sophisticated story where multiple possibilities abound for each of the characters. Though the novel as a whole is rich in details, wry observations, and sophisticated parallel themes, the style of third person omniscient story telling does not relay the depths of emotion felt by any characters in their experiences of everyday tragedies and triumphs. The author’s style of storytelling emphasizes telling over showing, placing some distance between the reader and the characters. A lot happens in the story and none of the characters or the details, either minor or major are neglected in the story. Depicting the character’s experiences of first love, heartbreak, loss and passion from afar takes away from the emotional depth of an extremely accomplished first novel, one which is quite impressive in its scope.

Written by: Ruth Cameron, July 4th 2009

Sheltered Life

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:04:00 +0000

Directed by Carl Laudan

Violator Films

Sheltered Life is a very confusing film to watch and to review. For the first hour or so, it’s brilliant. For the last ten or fifteen minutes, it’s absurd and rather disappointing. The acting ranges from the passable to the extraordinary as does the editing and cinematography. There isn’t much I can write without wanting to take it back a few sentences later, but be patient; I’ll try to find a point somewhere.

The film is set in a domestic violence shelter in Canada where a wealthy mother and daughter find themselves after the mother takes yet another beating from her husband. Immediately, the daughter takes refuge in a young woman and man, Kendra and Cal, who live there, and their fantasies of road trips spun in a broken down junker of a car in an open field. Their friendship, which seems more relief from boredom than true bonding at times, centers the film, and offers a running commentary on race, class, violence, injustice, and desperation.

The best parts of the film are extraordinary. Moments that would be graphic, loud, and filled with dramatic dialogue in most films of this ilk are silent, calm, and brilliantly understated. The visual disconnect of a rich, young, white girl with an SAT-worthy vocabulary and a prep school uniform wandering in the shelter’s dilapidated and barren surroundings provides a poignant challenge to the class-based stereotypes of domestic violence. The central characters’ awareness of their own small ironies and near obliviousness to their own horrors is very well done, both through decently written dialogue and some great acting, especially on the part of Jaren Brandt Bartlett and Eve Harlow (Cal and Kendra, respectively).

The worst parts are never truly horrific, just confusing, and a bit absurd. At times, the cinematography seems to jump styles from cinematic artistry to a plain, documentary-style harshness. This tendency doesn’t seem to have much of a point behind it—it's just there. While much of the film shows rather than tells the story of domestic violence and the complications of race and class, one scene delves into a rambling dialogue of after-school specialness that’s jarring to the senses. And finally, in what seems like a misguided and poorly composed attempt at a “feminist” ending, the film is ruined and many of the characteristics that made the first hour of the movie relatively engaging become completely inappropriate, stilted, and absurd.

I don’t think I’ve found a point yet to the film, or an overall recommendation, except perhaps this: if you watch the movie, cut it off after sixty or sixty-five minutes. You’ll have seen the best of it and can skip the worst. And if you get a chance, keep an eye out for Bartlett and Harlow. Those two would definitely be worth watching in a better vehicle than this one.

Written by: Melinda Barton, June 12th 2009

Forbidden Sun Dance

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:23:00 +0000

Directed by Lila Ghobady

banoufilm

My body belongs to me. I make the choice of whether or not I use contraception, dance like a silly garden gnome, use drugs like booze, and paint my toenails green or pink or leave them natural. Unfortunately, there are many powerful people in this world—including the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran—who believe they have a right to police other people’s bodies.

Lila Ghobady’s documentary Forbidden Sun Dance explores dance instructor Aram Bayat’s life—from teaching dance in Iran to her exile to Canada after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Before watching this film, I was clueless about Iran. Yes, I’d read about how 'angry men' destroyed the lives of women by throwing acid on their faces, but I’d not really taken the time to learn about the country's history. Although dance teachers were part of the education system, the post-Revolution powers that be fired the dance teachers and banned traditional dance. Forbidden Sun Dance intersperses scenes of dance instruction and performance with interview clips and protest footage from the Revolution. The dancing footage is beautiful and flows with emotion, highlighting the passion that Aram feels for the loss of dance in her homeland.

The story was so moving that I brought it up in a group discussion about feminism at a local action centre. One woman immediately barked back, “What has dance got to do with feminism?!?” I was blown away. Denial of the right to dance is the denial of the feminine, and of the self; it is the loss of individual power. In the film, dance is equated with freedom: if you can’t use your body in the way you want, oppression is successful.

Not only does Forbidden Sun Dance reveal the tragedy of an oppressed people, the dance ban is, as Aram notes, the suppression of human nature since, as babies we automatically make rhythmic movements and sounds of song, and banning folk dance is only the tip of the iceberg in the removal of human rights in present day Iran. Aram speaks of the violent atrocities that continue to be committed against Iranian women. Despite the dire state of women’s rights in her former home, Aram doesn’t give up on the dream that one day dance will return to Iran.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, June 3rd 2009

Slumdog Millionaire (or I Want to Sue the Indian Government: Memories of Gods, Lovers, and Slumdogs)

admin — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:29:00 +0000

Directed by Danny Boyle

Fox Searchlight Pictures

An old Native American curse goes like this, “May all your dreams come true!”

For many years, I had a dream; I wanted very badly to visit mysterious India. Last month my wish unexpectedly came true. Forbidden Sun Dance, my most recent documentary, was selected to compete in the Tri-Continental Human Rights Film Festival in India. This was a great opportunity to discover the land of my dreams.

While on tour with the festival, I was invited to watch Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire in a fancy movie theatre in the dazzling and enormous city of Mumbai by a lovely Bollywood moviemaking couple.

I had never seen such a theatre anywhere in North America! For double the ticket price, you get a seat in which you can actually lie down! Superbly comfortable, they were a bit like those huge massage chairs that I had seen in shopping malls in Canada.

I felt very strange sitting in that chair, munching on popcorn and watching not a fantasy-filled Bollywood movie, but a somewhat more realistic portrayal of life in India...

Bollywood – My Childhood Love

As a little girl growing up in Iran, and like millions of others living in Eastern countries, I loved Bollywood movies. They were all colour and glamour and rosy pictures of India, that heaven on earth; the country of love and flowers.

In my childish imagination, Bollywood’s India was the best place on the planet to live and be in love. For hours, my cousins and I would sit watching Bollywood movies and later try to imitate those gorgeous Indian actresses.

We would draw moles between our eyebrows and put on lots of makeup stolen from our mothers. We would wrap Granny’s colourful hijab around our bodies and pretend it was a sari while dancing along with the actresses and lip syncing all the songs that we knew by heart without understanding more than few words!

We all wanted to steal the heart of the main actor, Amitabh Bachchan. He was the most gorgeous man ever: tall, handsome, and an amazing dancer, he was our superbly passionate romantic hero who would do anything for love and justice—at the same time! A true prince charming. I would have done anything (and I mean anything) to get his attention if he ever showed up in my neighbourhood in Tehran!

In that way, I was just like little Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire.

The end of happiness

Our happy days didn’t last long. The new Islamic regime in Iran robbed us of our childhood joys and fantasies. For girls to sing and dance became a crime against humanity, akin to adultery. Being seen to be in love, like those pretty Bollywood actresses, was to risk being stoned to death in the name of their angry and misogynist god.

Although owning a video player was a crime with a harsh punishment, we continued to keep our player and watch Bollywood movies in our basements. But this couldn’t help us to forget the cruel realities taking place outside our doors. Thousands of young Iranian revolutionaries were massacred by the new Islamic regime, which conducted a never-ending war with neighbouring Iraq, using the war as a tool to quell internal political dissent.

My childhood became nothing more than blood and hopelessness. Even Bollywood movies were powerless to bring the colour back to the dark reality that Iran had become.

I wanted a way out, something to offer the hope and fantasy that a lost teenager like me craved. Again India came through, this time with books not movies, and with a rational for what we went through. Apparently, this was our karma. We should not complain; we should accept the life that we had and be thankful in order to come back in a better situation, for instance in Switzerland or even the India as we pictured it from Bollywood movies.

I envied Indians, with their hundreds of gods. But they were more than happy to offer them to the world even a hopeless Iranian teenage girl like me. I could actually choose to believe or worship whatever god I wanted. To my surprise, the Indian gods could not change my life; they only could help me to live it more happily by changing my thoughts! In the darkness that was Iran, I was looking for a god who was less furious and violent than the one imposed on us by force after the 1979 revolution, the god of lashing, killing, stoning, war and absolute control over all, especially the guiltiest—women!

I longed to discover a happier god, a less harmful god, a god with more forgiveness and compassion. Above all, I longed for the god who would let us sing and dance—so I chose Krishna. After all, a god who would steal butter as a child couldn’t be so hard on others, right? So I chanted for Krishna: hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare. Unfortunately our relationship didn’t last long; Krishna seemed simple to follow at first, but was too restrictive for women, even more restrict than the god at home to whom granny would pray three times a day.

As I flowered into a young woman, I found an Indian guru named Osho whose philosophies amazed me. The sexual liberty that he encouraged his followers to experience in the name of spirituality would attract any young woman living in a restricted Muslim country!

Then along came Buddha, a very popular figure with my generation. The Buddha’s philosophy was to meditate to find both internal and external peace, even while living in a violent society. My friends adored him, but I always had my reservations. Experiencing inner and outer peace in a country that hanged people in front of us on the way back from school simply wasn’t an option for me. Buddhism was too hard to understand or practice during the violent, horrifying times we were experiencing in Iran.

No, Buddha wouldn’t work for me. I couldn’t accept the misery that I had been living in for most of my life in exchange for the hope for a better life in my next body.

Losing Faith in All My Lovers

Sadly, I was losing my faith in the Indian gods. I felt like they were old lovers. I still liked to carry their pictures and had a wish to meet them in India one day, but I could not follow them anymore. We were too different, we had grown apart, and our paths were no longer the same.

I needed to get out, to have some space, to leave my childhood neighbourhood behind. The place that I had lived for so many years, the place where I had my dreams and thoughts about Amitabh Bachchan, Krishna, Osho, and Buddha for many nights, no longer felt like my home...

Finding Them in a New Home

I was surprised to find out how popular Eastern spirituality was among the middle- and upper classes in Western countries, including the country that I entered as a refugee: Canada. The lost generation found themselves in a modern, hectic world, and were critical of churches. This generation was looking towards the unknown for answers, looking for the devil they didn’t know to replace the one they knew. No doubt the countless Indian gods provided a rich buffet of choice for Westerners with wide-ranging appetites who loved to keep their "options open".

Most of my Canadian friends, and even some Iranian old leftists, would follow some new age spiritual path, god, guru or lama. They would always report a flawless image of their newfound system of old Eastern beliefs. Hundreds of dollars would be spent buying books, going to retreats and workshops, and attending the speeches of a guru or lama visiting from India who were willing to receive their offerings. Generous donations would be made for building a new ashram or temple under the names of their masters somewhere in their own city or back in the motherland. Of course, the structure had to be better and more glamorous than those consecrated to competing deities.

In all honesty, I have always been very impressed by Indians. Their brain really works in any area that they focus; perhaps it’s something in their tasty spicy food! What is clear is that they have succeeded well at selling their gods, gurus, and lamas to Westerners as they have been in selling Bollywood pictures to Easterners for generations. But I had my own confusions about India. Exposed for years to India through their successful movie marketing and convincing spirituality, I always thought that there must be more to the land of my dreams than that—a real India to discover with my own eyes.

Arriving in My Land of Dreams

Leaving the crowded Delhi airport, which had been placed on a high security alert after the terrorist attacks of a few days previously, the first thing which struck me was all the poverty that I saw. I couldn’t believe my eyes! Hundreds of people living on the streets of Delhi; babies crawling dusty roads, eating garbage alongside of dogs, cats, and cows, and ignored by ordinary people who would walk right by them pretending they didn’t exist.

No Escape from Reality

Delhi was nightmare become reality; there was no escape. Unlike many other countries where you would see poverty only in ghettos, the poor in India are everywhere. Slums full of people exist even within the wealthy neighbourhoods. There was not a moment I was able to pretend that the poor didn’t exist, except places like the unbelievably beautiful academic buildings built during British colonial era or the Western-style shopping malls and restaurants where the poor are not allowed to enter. Even there, it didn’t matter that I couldn’t see them. The poor were with me and I couldn’t ignore their presence even for a moment.

It’s not that I was completely naive before going to India. Deepa Mehta’s Elements trilogy Trilogy had introduced me to the terrible poverty, the inhumane discrimination against women, the injustice, the hypocrisy, and the corruption. But what I encountered in person was beyond what I had seen in my wildest imaginings.

A sad smile would attract many children, each begging with those beautiful eyes for some mercy. I have never felt more hopeless, and in those moments I began to understand why tourists are advised to totally ignore the people on the street. But the warnings always said it was about safety—tourists needed to be ‘safe.’

Safe? These homeless children were the safest people I have ever known. They just seemed so dehumanised and hopeless, exactly like me standing before them. They were kind, harmless, and polite. They would see my camera and were more than happy to pose for a few meagre rupees without me even asking. Their lives seemed so totally integrated with Bollywood that their reality became shaped by it.

Feeding the Temple, Forgetting the Kids

I went to a small village in Rajasthan where they were building more than seven new ashrams a short distance from each other. I couldn’t imagine how much money would be spent on those gardens and buildings and on the enormous statutes of Buddha, Shiva, or any of the other Indian gods that would stand in the front of the buildings.

I asked, and received some answers. These temples were mostly being built and paid for by Indian spiritual leaders living in Western countries using donations from their follower’s pockets.

I visited Iskan, the Hare Krishna temple to see just a few aged Western devotees chanting. Apparently the Hare Krishnas are not as popular now as during their heyday in the '60s and '70s when The Beatles had turned to them. Buddha is all the rage now in the West. Krishna has become an old fashioned, hippie god.

Many poor Indians chanted—hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare—outside the temple, hoping to attract some rich tourist’s sympathy—and perhaps a few spare rupees. It was hurtful and shameful to read the thoughts so clearly reflected in their eyes: “Yes, you are here on a pilgrimage to find your Indian god, but I also exist in India. Please make a donation here in my bowl, and I will promise to pray on behalf of you to any of my gods that you ask. Hare Krishna!”

I couldn’t understand why, in a country where thousands of temples already exist in all different sizes, shapes, and forms, there is need for Westerners to build more temples? Could these spiritual fanatics not see all this poverty? Did they believe that they could worship these new gods from within a safe Western bubble while ignoring the people on the streets who also believe in and worship the same god? What about building schools for the millions of street kids? Or how about providing shelters for the people who are born and die in the dirt of your newfound holy land?

I always knew there was poverty in India, but I naively thought that with the huge amount of money pouring in from all over the world through the spiritual tourist market and from Bollywood into a booming and wealthy city like Mumbai (which apparently has the most millionaires on the planet) more would have been done for the poor.

Ghandi vs. Mao?

I met an Indian businessman who had traveled all over the world, but was based in China. He strangely thought that Ghandi’s democracy had done more wrong that good for India.

I fought back. I think what Ghandi had done for this country no guru, lama, or contemporary communist dictator could do—so maybe India needs another Ghandi rather than a Chinese dictator. The businessman continued to compare his country to China and decided that the Chinese had dealt with poverty better than India ever had. He used the 2008 Olympics (China had put all the poor behind a wall), as an example.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! He was suggesting that the poor should be kept behind walls to protect tourists from exposure to the reality of misery. In a country with eighty percent its population in poverty, the government would have a hell of a job building enough walls to contain them all. Of course, this would have the benefit of leaving lots of space for the minority of privileged Indians, Bollywood stars, the wealthiest of the Zoroastrian Parsis, and of course, foreigners on spiritual pilgrimages or working for NGOs while living in five-star hotels.

I thought the only thing that India might learn from the Chinese would be to change their strict adoption laws so that the thousands of childless Westerners who are in line to receive a baby from China could adopt children from the streets of Delhi instead, and give them the love that they deserve.

I Want to Sue the Indian Government

Visiting the real India, not the one you see in tourist ads at your travel agency’s office, shattered my fantasies of the mysterious country I had always dreamed of one day visiting.

Who is responsible for the injustice that is India? Is it Bollywood, for producing distorted fantasy images for the world? India’s spiritual leaders who deceive millions of ingenuous westerners? Tourist agencies with their mind blowing exotic ads?

No, it is more likely the fault of the Indian government that tolerates savage injustice and disparity of wealth. Would it be possible, I fantasize, to sue the government of India on behalf of the millions of Indian street children who receive nothing from all the fame and wealth that India receives and enjoys? Could I seek a remedy before some court requiring those who control of the amazing, sacred land of India and who exploit it for their personal interest must share the wealth by actually contributing to India’s infrastructure and the health of its people? Surely, a country of such wealth and international fame can do something to address the abysmal poverty that surely has shocked more than one visitor into a helpless, suicidal funk.

India: the Beauty Within

I saw many beautiful things in India. I experienced real multiculturalism. Millions of different cultures and religions live and work together, while most countries in the region persecute minorities and permit no freedom of religion.

I witnessed democracy and freedom of speech at work when I saw a disabled person make a claim against the film festival in which I was participating for selecting a wheelchair unfriendly building in which to show the films. His claims caused the cancelation of the festival in the city of Goa, one of the five cities to which the festival would have traveled. It was somewhat ironic that in a country populated by millions of disabled poor living on the streets, one privileged and high-caste man could stop a highly organized human rights event.

I met some of the most amazing, generous, and peaceful people that I had ever met anywhere. I met hardworking, critical, but hopeful women activists and artists with a passion for justice that I rarely see. I met village women who would work hard on farms or in brick factories, while also making beautiful handicrafts in the hope that tourists would buy them.

There were the young, promising, intelligent Indian college students who harboured great dreams for their country and rest of the world. Some talked to me about their concerns about hostility with neighbouring Pakistan. They were worried about the possibility of war between people who one day could belong to the same land; they were disappointed with a corrupt government that is more concerned with building a war machine than with fighting poverty.

Seeing Forgotten Slum Children, But Not a Slumdog Millionaire

After a few days in India, I was sad to conclude that Slumdog Millionaire portrays an India much closer to the real thing than my childhood Bollywood movies represented. Even the theatre in which I watched Danny Boyle’s film seemed to exist in a surreal and glamorous Bollywood neighbourhood that was completely outside of the orbit of India’s reality. For me, although *Slumdog Millionaire's images were closer to reality, the rags-to-riches storyline was wildly improbable for any of the millions of India’s slum-dwelling girls and boys.

In a society of caste hierarchies that have deadly effect on the 'untouchables’—the absolute lowest caste who mostly live on the street—making a superstar out of a street urchin and providing him with a happy ending was copied from the Hollywood-Bollywood models, a fantasy provided by the same image-making machine that has always fed like a parasite on human hope for love, equality, and fairness. Yet I am still pleased with the film since it actually happened in a real Indian city and not in some surreal Bollywood set that most would think to be India.

Not-Happy-Ending to My Love Story

My best friend from Canada, who was visiting her parents in Mumbai, kindly took me around her childhood neighbourhood: the Juhu Beach areas of glamour and fame. We passed by Amitabh Bachchan’s house, the childhood favourite I shared with Slumdog Millionaire's main character. It was Republic Day and a big crowd waited anxiously for the moment when the big star would show up and give autographs to his fans.

I had no desire to meet him in person anymore, feeling I had been fooled enough by his movies as a child. Worse, huge images of him on commercial billboards all over India showed him using his fame to hawk everything from designer suits to Basmati rice, the luxuries that many of his poor fans could never hope to afford, in this life at least.

We have both changed. He is much older now—still handsome, but looking very conservative. There is no sign of the passionate man as I remember him from the old days, the man who would do anything for love and justice. I have also changed. I no longer believe in Prince Charming or the sweet fantasy of India that I used to know through his films.

Written by: Lila Ghobady, March 31st 2009

Gwethalyn Graham: A Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:23:00 +0000

By Barbara Meadowcroft

Canadian Scholars' Press Inc.

Barbara Meadowcroft promises in her introduction to Gwethalyn Graham: A Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age that this book is no definitive biography. How refreshing! Can there really be such a thing anyway? She argues that no one is ever truly known “even, or especially, to those closest to them,” and I would agree. It’s in this vein that she invites her “readers to view [the book] as they would a sketch in which the gaps in the pattern must be filled by their own imagination.” Meadowcroft does a wonderful job piecing together bits and pieces of her research to give us some insight into who this complicated and conflicted woman was—not just publicly, but privately.

Gwethalyn Graham is credited with almost singlehandedly putting Canada on the literary map. Until the wildly successful publication of Earth and High Heaven in 1944, Canada stood in the literary and cultural shadow of the United States and Europe. Graham’s book—a powerful novel about the love affair between a Christian woman and a Jewish man—was revolutionary at the time as it was the first book to openly confront the anti-Semitism of wartime Canada. It was the first Canadian book to make it to the number one spot on the New York Times' Bestseller List, where it stayed for thirty-seven weeks. Graham won two Governor-General’s Literary Awards for her work. She was a social activist who wrote and campaigned tirelessly to expose injustices in her beloved Canada. And yet, she remains largely unknown, having slipped into relative obscurity after her second marriage, then tragically dying of brain cancer at fifty-two years old.

In Gwethalyn’s time, she was a renegade. She was outspoken about her beliefs on anti-Semitism, racism, and the revolution tranquille. She traveled widely. She had affairs. She had sex. She (allegedly) had abortions. And, she was a single mother, supporting herself and her son by writing openly about all of these things—practically unheard of at the time.

Meadowcroft’s portrait of Graham isn’t all triumph and independence. Graham was a brilliant artist who experienced some public success, but never quite found happiness personally. She spent much of her life battling poor self-confidence and a negative body image. She always longed for a healthy, happy, lasting, romantic relationship, but she had a habit of choosing adulterous, verbally abusive mates. She was an arguably neglectful mother, leaving her son with friends and nannies for long stretches of time while she went off to work on her writing or to travel through Europe.

Meadowcroft makes no bones about it, Graham made some poor personal choices, but she also cautions against judging Graham. As creative, working women, we still struggle with these issues today, but at least we have role models who came before us. Gwethalyn had none. She was carving out a path. A messy path, but a path nonetheless. As women writers, we all owe Gwethalyn Graham a thank you note.

Written by: Margaux Laskey, February 28th 2009