229 10 13080 https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5/2798/090908-002a.jpg 1f9641c23bed62c8bc6e86b4127fbba1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource R.C.M.P group portrait Description An account of the resource Sepia-tone group portrait of RCMP officers Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H.J. Goetzman Studio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1900 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donated by Mrs. Cochran Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context A0014#136,Z/13, scan#090908-002 1900s Portrait https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5/2799/090908-001a.jpg 48875e6a753c8eae76076f6a2bacccde Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dawson dwellings Subject The topic of the resource Mining People Description An account of the resource Sepia-toned photograph of a wooden home in winter. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H.J. Goetzman Studio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1900 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donated by Mrs. Cochran Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Still imagr Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context A0014#136,Z/13 scan#090908-001 1900s winter wooden house https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5/2800/080908-006a.jpg ad99eeb7884dbcc28650c5569746d9ee Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Clifford Sifton in the ice Subject The topic of the resource Mining People Description An account of the resource Sepia-toned photograph of the steamer, Clifford Sifton in ice on the Yukon River. The steamer is filled with passengers posing for the photograph on the upper and lower decks. The steamer is in the ice. Caption on image: "In the ice below Dawson". "Goetzman Photo. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H.J. Goetzman Studio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1900s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donated by Mrs. Cochran Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Still imsage Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context A0014#136,Z/13 scan#080908-006 Clifford Sifton ice passengers steamers https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/16/2801/1987_Vol_11_No_1.pdf 6b80b6abebbd1557ffe94aee3e4fe79d PDF Text Text Northern Woman Journal December 1987 Vol. 11 No. Thunder Bay, Ont. 1 tf.,2_57 A- $1.50 (jet1 /.4e K PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �The Superior Art Collection Press Release You've heard of tailor-made suits, custom-made cars, personalized license plates and designer sheets... Now, some lucky person can get a valuable designer custom-made work of art in a novel fundraising effort announced by the Northern Women's Centre. It's called the Superior Art Collection and involves four local women artists. Three of the works were on display at the Meet-TheArtists Night in October. One was missing...because it hasn't been made yet. That's because fabric and tapestry artist SASHA MCINNES plans to go to the winner's home, inspect the room and its atmosphere, and then design a wall-hanging specifically for that room. McInnes started in the 60s studying weaving in a small village in Peru. Since then her work has been hung extensively in southern Ontario galleries and exhibits and even Premier David Peterson's office. Now a resident of Thunder Bay, she sits on the Ontario Arts Council and the advisory committee for the National Film Board of Canada. Over the years, she has donated over $25,000 worth of art to feminist organizations. However, this is only the second time the artist has donated a customdesigned piece. "I Aid this once before in London, Ontario and the idea really caught on," said McInnes. There will be three other winners in this raffle as well. Local visual artist LORI GILBERT, whose work focuses on portraits influenced by television and old movies, will be donating a portrait of Marlene Deitrich. Gilbert graduated from Lakehead University in 1985 with an honours bachelor of arts as a painting major and participated in many local exhibits including the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. Native artist REBECCA BELMORE studied at the Ontario College of Art and won the 1984 Special Juror's Award from the Thunder Bay Art Gallery. She integrates the modern world and the native experience with wit in her art, evident in titles like "I'm a High Tech Tepee Trauma Mama." Belmore will be donating a drawing. The fourth local artist LYNN SHARMAN is currently displaying her work at the Definitely Superior Art Gallery. She will be donating a colour collage. The draw date for the Superior Art Collection is May 24th, taking place at 8 p.m. at the Women's Centre 184 Camelot Street. There will be a total of four winners-one work of art -h.,711"4 Ct v)4. By SASHA McINNES PVp0 talk. Dear Northern Women' A great wk-end with Noreen has put me in the mood to embrace you, if not physically at a distance. It was wonderful to share with her growing network of women in this area who, without too much effort on my part use me as a resource for woman each. The winner need not be in att4 dance. Tickets are $2 each and are available at: the Northern Women's Bookstore or from any Northern Womei Centre volunteer. This is the first major fundra: sing event of the reorganized Women Centre in an effort to broaden theirevenue base beyond government fund: and "get more involvement from the community," said Joan Baril, projec coordinator. The Northern Women's Centre, e! tablished 1973, is a lobbying and support organization for area women For further information contac Joan Baril at 475-6368 or 344-6708, or call Carol Rusak at 475-6382. This has come about entirely as result of the poetry and of course that very prestigious award. I find myself in the position of being taken for granted that I am (1) political, (2) Radical Feminist, which I affirm, (3) Having Crone sight for the spiritual. With all of this I have an interesting journey before me. Many avenues of personal growth in the old religion to explore and the part Dominion Over has played in our oppression. I write letters to the Editor under the pen name Minerva. I can tell both church and state to get their sticky fingers out of our reproductive organs with out getting stoned which could very well happen in this province. My spare bedroom is well used by sisters from out of ONC? c, town just starving for feminist con versation, my bookshelf is current, Sonia Johnsons, Going out of Our Mi and Dalys Pure Lust. As well as Mo er Wit and Starhawks wisdom. The Unitarian Church is very open to the new age they use my poetry for some services and I have a little space in their monthly newsletter. The poetry group I belong to no longer write moon june and flowers they are into justice and dominatio great stuff. Was happy you lost your funding, life is boring when it is predictable. all my love to the Northern Womb that born me Gert Beadl NORTHERN WOMAN page 2 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �EQUALITY AT RISK? THE MEECH LAKE ACCORD The following article has been provided by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Constitution. WHAT WOMEN'S GROUPS ARE SAYING Women's groups across the country have welcomed the Meech Lake Accord for explicitly recognizing Quebec in the Constitution and for acknowledging that Quebec is a distinct society in Canada. But women are insisting that our government clarify the Accord's language and remove any potential risks to our rights. WHAT HAPPENED AT MEECH LAKE? Our governments agreed how to recognize Quebec in the Constitution. They agreed in clause 1 of the Accord that Canada's English and French speaking cultures are a "fundamental characteristic" of Canada, that Quebec is a "distinct society" within Canada, and that federal and provincial governments have roles in maintaining these characteristics. Then, in response to concerns raised by multicultural and native groups, they agreed in clause 16 of of the Accord that future interpretations of these provisions must not affect the rights of these groups. SO HOW IS IT THAT WOMEN'S RIGHTS MAY BE AT RISK? After the Accord was signed on June 3, 1987 and after it was ratified by Quebec on June 23, two things happened that our governments didn't anticipate. First, some Constitutional experts became convinced that the Accord's language puts at risk rights in the Constitutional Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Because some Charter rights (native and multicultural) are given special attention in Clause 16 and others aren't, normal legal practice would mean that other rights as guaranteed in the Charter would not have to be applied to clause 1 with equal care. In fact it is argued that these rights just might not be applied - because elsewhere in the Accord, if the Charter is intended to apply, the Accord says so! (Some governments' advisors have said the rights protected in clause 16 are collective, cultural, and give direction on interpreting law in a cultural and linguistic context. This, they argue, makes them different from women's rights and that's why women's rights aren't mentioned in clause 16. Some experts disagree and also point out that the Courts make no such definitive distinctions - so why should the Accord?) Second, on June 27th, in "the Ontario Bill 30 case", the majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada said that sections of the 1867 Constitution Act which are part of the "fundamental compromise" of Confederation are "immune from review", or unaffected, by the Charter of Rights. This may mean any time any government is operating within such sections, including any activities added by clause 1 of the Meech Lake Accord, it might be able to affect Charterbased equality rights. CONCLUSION Women believe that the Accord may risk our rights. We cannot conceive of any reason why Canada's governments should wish Canadian women to bear any risk to our rights, no matter how small some may think this to be. OUR GOVERNMENTS HAVE A DUTY TO FIX THE ACCORD BY CLARIFYING ITS LANGUAGE TO ENSURE OUR RIGHTS. Editor's Note. We understand that the Ontario government will hold Hearings on the Accord early in 1988. Women's groups should prepare now to make presentations to the Hearings. For more information contact the Ad Hoc Committee of Women on the Constitution, 118 Spruce St., Toronto, M5A 2J5, phone Pat Hacker or Linda Nye (416) 960-8417. .#....*******t*****.,,.******,.*****.*******.*********.***#*,*****..*****.*********+*#*#*.o.*****#***************** Most Important Books II I II III III by MARGARET PHILLIPS People who are "readers" love to know what other "readers" are reading. The casual question "What have you read this month?" or "What is your favourite novel?" can promote hours of animated conversation. With this in mind I decided to do a small survey for the Journal. I called a number of readers I know and suggested the following scenario: "Imagine that your entire personal library has disappeared. However, two friends are going to start re-building your library by giving you books for Christmas. What two books will you choose? Why?" Here are the responses. (I do apologize to my friends who became panic-stricken at the thought of losing their libraries.) Joan Baril: MAN MADE LANGUAGE by Dale Spender "because it unlocks the mystery of exactly how men have oppressed women through language". and NOT IN GOD'S IMAGE by Julia O'Faolian, which "is the best analysis I have read ... has an excellent grasp ... a historical sweep." Donna Phoenix: DREAMING THE DARK by Starhawk, "an empowering book .. .. made me feel I can do anything", MISTS OF AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley, "..took me away... and changed history." Lisa Bengtsson: FEMINIST THEORISTS, edited by Dale Spender. "History unfolded. I keep going back to it." SALT AND YEAST by Gert Beadle ".. is symbolic, the spirit of the times, and the connections I made with women all over Northwestern Ontario." Teresa Legowski: MISTS OF AVALON by Marion Zimmer Bradley. "I just loved it .. it's so well written, well researched. It's MAGIC. It has everything I like about a book. THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK by Doris Lessing "is so powerful... very deep in exploring the psyche... fascinating from all aspects. Josie Wallenius: HOW THE OTHER HALF DIES by Susan George. "George wanted to understand for herself what was wrong with development, so she closeted herself and read and read, and she felt compelled to write a book about it. Everyone should read this." I, RIGOBERTA MENCHU "is a personal testimony of a Guatemalan woman about her life and the Indian people's struggle. It was hard to read this book but I'm glad I did. There is a message... and I heard the message." Helen Halet: MOTHERPEACE by Vicki Noble and THE GUIDE TO THE I CHING by Carol Anthony "because these are the tools I use and need on my journey down the path of life." Donna Gilhooly: BURGER'S DAUGHTER by Nadine Gordimer .."really awakened me to the issue of apartheid. Gordimer is one of the best writers alive.': THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein, "gave me personal insight into the lives of writers and artists of a famous period ... and still has impact today in terms of painting I like and what I read." Prue Morton: THE STONE ANGEL by Margaret Laurence, "gives a wonderful picture - in relationship to their former lives - of the difficulty experienced by no longer being independent", and MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot "is a truly wonderful book." Karen Maki: A SPY IN THE HOUSE OF LOVE by Anais Nin, " ..it's like an intellectual conversation with herself ... I was fascinated because when I re-read this I found it completely different from the first time I read it. Finally my own choices: THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK by Doris Lessing, which caused me to begin to understand the universality of all women's lives, an analysis I keep trying to mature; and SURFACING by Margaret Atwood, for the same reason, and besides it is so wonderfully Canadian. NORTHERN WOMAN page 3 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Bill 7 :Real Protection for Lesbians? by Cindy Moriarty Reprinted from"breaking the silence" On December 18, 1986, after a year of discussion, debate, vicious attack and spirited support, the Human Rights Code of Ontario was amended to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. The new legislation guarantees homosexuals rights to housing, employment, services, contracts, and membership in vocational groups such as trade unions and professional associations. As a lesbian working in the office of the MPP who introduced the amendment Bill 7, to Ontario's Human Rights Code, I was privy to a unique view of the lobbying that occurred beforehand. Across Ontario, there were equal numbers of proponents and opponents. Since my boss, Evelyn Gigantes (NDP, Ottawa Centre) introduced Bill 7, her support was guaranteed. Those supporting the Bill wisely chose to direct their lobbying efforts elsewhere. The opponents, however, were another story. Our office was inundated with calls and mail voicing fear, hate, distortion and every once in a while, hostile civility. The lobby against the amendment was closely connected to the antifeminist movement. In the Ontario Legislature, Evelyn Gigantes said: "The sexual pecking order is intimately linked to the economic pecking order of our society. Any man who declares that he is not a fullblooded man of whatever macho notion is, simply, a traitor to the most important system. It is the ultimate act of treason to the system. The system is one which connects the notion of men's "ownership" rights and role in the family structure, with the rights and privileges of owners in the economy... women don't rate as traitors. They can be rebels against authority, but not traitors because it's not their system. ...There are 125 elected representatives in the Ontario Legislature; 10 are women. If the sexual numbers and the social powers were reversed, I believe the clauses of section 18 relating to sexual orientation might not even be necessary. ...It is the maleness of economic and social domination of our society that is threatened by this reform, not the womanness or the childness, but the maleness that so profits by its domination through being male."1 ...little thought to lesbians. Opponents saw homosexuality, at best, as unnatural; at worst, as the root of all evil, responsible for the destruction of society, and as the leading cause of child molestation. Among this homophobic insanity one thing was abundantly clear: people thought the bill concerned gays; they gave little thought to lesbians. Over the years I have learned, personally and politically, all about lesbian invisibility, but it has never been so clear to me as during the lobbying process. As a feminist, I've been speaking and educating and rabble-rousing for years. I've dealt with all sorts of confrontations and attacks for my beliefs, As my life has changed, I have gained the "privilege" of dealing with issues on a quasi-intellectual level. Reaction to the Bill eroded my intellectual armour and everything was brought down to gut-level emotions. I was exposed daily to raw hate and fear that bordered on panic. The ugliness and distortion often made it impossible to comprehend the limits of human tolerance. No knowledge, intellectual understanding or analysis hits home like knowledge of the heart. For me that knowledge came with identifying myself as a lesbian. Lesbians are women, and women have never been a big deal (except to other women). Men were the big deal. Gay Men. Depraved men assaulting young boys. Assaulting young girls and women has never been a big deal. closet, but'a lesbian has to be pretty much "out" to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.The woman whose personal security is threatened unless she keeps her lifestyle private, will not be able to walk into her office and ask that her lover be covered under the pension plan. Landlords and employers can always find other avenues of discrimination and other reasons for dismissal or eviction. The law does not protect us against exile and family outrage. Often, we will be on trial and we will still have to prove our "innocence." .. qualified optimism. EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) is a national lobbying group based in Ottawa that co-ordinated a tremendous campaign around Bill 7 and is continuing its efforts on the federal level. Debbie Hughes of EGALE expressed qualified optimism. She sees Bill 7 as helpful, but is not convinced it will change much without federal legislation. "You have to be out to use Bill 7 and in order to be out you have to be very vulnerable." Ironically, Hughes says homophobic hysteria might ultimately work in our favour. She explains that legislators who might not no have voted in favour of the Bill did so in reaction to the hatre and viciousness expressed by the opposition. The more hysterical and vindictive those lobbying against the Pill became, the more apparent it was to the fence sitters where logic lay. From R.EA.L. Women to religious and business coalitions, the opposition stormed Queen's Park, but like all storms their protest blew over and the skies cleared with the passing of the Bill. Does the new legislation mean protection for gays and lesbians under the Human Rights Code? I believe the legislation has provided us with a battle-ground and not necessarily a victory. The onus remains on us to complain against discrimination to the Human Rights Commission. While the Bill provides a signal to employers, service deliverers and legislators, it does not solve an age-old problem. Rather, it provides a starting point for discussion and reform. It brings the issue out of the And what impact will Bill 7 have on the Charter of Rights? Speculator wonder about past provincial cases and the implications of Bill 7 befor the federal courts. Federal government policy says that "sexual orientation is irrelevant to whether one can perform a job or use a service or facility." Further, "sexual orientation is not grounds for denial of security clearance, or basis for discrimination within federal jurisdiction"2 Discrimination continues in employment practices, particularly within the RCMP and armed services. Federal policy may not be law, but I would wager it's one of the few federal government policies that can be so blatantly ignored by its own ministries. continued on p15 NORTHERN WOMAN page 4 web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor PDF compression, OCR, �Swimming Up St r Keynote addka to the INTERWEAVE ConAekence had Octobek 1987, by Makiana Vatvekde The title of my talk tonight is Swimming Upstream: Women's Collectives and Class, Race and the State. I would like to begin by relating an anecdote, a common incident, and unpacking that to get at the larger problems of trying to organize women's collectives in a social system that encourages neither women nor collectives, much less the combination of both. A few years ago I went with a couple of other women from my group (the International Women's Day Committee in Toronto) to open a bank account. The clerk got out some forms for us to fill out. We were first asked if we were a business. "Not really" was the sheepish answer. "We're more like a non-profit organization, and we're not incorporated". She looked at us and said "Well, all right. Then I only need the signature of the president, vice-president and secretary." So we looked at each other, smiled, and quickly came to an artibrary decision about who would put her name to each of these alien categories. Thee clerk, needless to say, couldn't understand why we were amused. Two conclusions arise from this. First, the hank does not exist to serve customers like us. It is there to make profits by providing a service, primarily to other businesses and secondarily to individuals. With the remarkable flexibility of modern capitalism, it does allow for the existence of alternative forms among their customers, such as non-profit, nonincorporated groups; but it first has to symbolically destroy our collective structure and replace it by the hierarchial form which is the only valid one in its books. Secondly, the bank not only fails to recognize collectives, but, more importantly for the clerk, it is itself not a collective. One could go on to analyze our interaction with the bank to reveal other levels of anti-collective and anti-woman structures. For instance, we could find out how the government's agencies for financial institutions reinforce the bank's insistence on hierarchy through laws and regulations that define who the band can deal with and how. This would lead us into the terrain of "the state". Then, while standing around at the counter, we could note that not everyone at this bank does the same work or has the same authority - certain people sit at desks and have their own office and phone, while others stand all day and process papers according to what appear to be routine procedures rather than intelligent decisions. Having noticed the texture of class relations, we could go on to note the ethnicity and gender of the two main class groups in evidence, i.e. clerks vs managers, and begin to theorize the relationship between class on the one hand and ethnicity and gender on the other. In the incident I have described, gender was not the main dividing line. There were no men present (at this particular branch even the manager is a woman), and whether our group was mostly men or mostly women was not relevant - though of course it would be very relevant in other contexts. But the crucial contradiction here was not between women and patriarchy but rather between a highly sophisicated capitalist structure (the Canadian Imperialist Bank of Commerce, to be precise) and a small organization based on the rejection of both individualism and hierarchy, the twin organizing principles of capitalist social relations. It's important to realize that many of the problems we experience in trying to function according to "feminist" principles are not caused by our own failings as individuals or as groups, nor are they due to inadequacies in feminist theory. Rather, most of what we think of as "our" problems are inevitable results of the social structures of bourgeois society, which I would define as a society in which the economic and cultural values of the bourgeoisie appear to be everyone's values, universal values. Bourgeois society imposes serious limitations on our ability to organize. It does not do so (usually) by the use of brute force against groups like ours. (Although it must be noted that force is always there in the background - for instance, the leaders of CUPW recently faced going to jail for defying back-to-work legislation; and more relevant to my example of opening a bank account, the new legislation states that anyone defying it cannot hold union office for five years - a clear case of the government imposing a certain form of organization on a group.) But direct force is seldom used in our society; it doesn't have to be used. The structures of capitalist economic relations and bourgeois social relations are like the walls of the houses we live in, or like the design of streets and sidewalks - we are so used to them, and they are so cleverly disguised as aids to facilitate safety and order, that we forget that they confine us, that we forget to ask who put them there and for what purpose. It is by surrounding us with social structures that appear as natural and normal that the bourgeosie can continue to rule with the consent of the ruled - for who will rebel against what is natural and normal? This process of disguising what is good for business as what is good for everyone is what is known in Marxist theory as "hegemony" - the subtle process by which a ruling class generates consent rather than opposition Patriarchy too is most effective when it can rule through hegemony, rather than through the direct coercion of women. And in a capitalist patriarchal system as sophisticated as the one in which we live, it can take a great deal of effort to expose the mechanisms of hegemony - to give a small example, it took me a while to unpack the interaction that took place between the collective and the bank. There are some women, some feminists, who are not interested in challenging the mechanisms of hegemony. Many people would rather not question these allegedly neutral structures, which do indeed facilitate business transactions such as opening an account, and which even allow us to have a collective, as long as we don't question the structures of capital. Some feminists want to be allowed access to the system as it exists, to share the economic and social power now exercised primarily by men. But I, and I suspect most of us here, are more interested in changing both the SOURCES anti the STRUCTURES of power. And that will involve destroying the structures that have determined and limited our political work, and replacing them by truly democratic structures that empower people. Our goal is women's liberation (as opposed to women's access to the status quo, which is not liberation but merely participation). This goal necessarily involves not only modifying but revolutionizing the economic structure of our society. In our society human needs are only met if, and insofar as, meeting them happens to create a profit for corporations. The profit motive needs to be replaced by the only legitimate motive of economic life, i.e. meeting human needs. Once we determine our goal in economic policy, we can devise new structures that facilitate this goal. This does not mean that we all have to take Karl Marx for our Bible K or believe that the Soviet Union is paradise. Marx himself said that to be a socialist was "not to create recipes for the kitchens of the future" but rather to clearly oppose the inhuman aspects of capitalist society. Feminists may or may not be Marxists, may or may not think that so-called socialist societies have improved the condition of women: but any feminist who wants to change the structures of power as opposed to participating in them has to be anticapitalist. cont'd on pg. 13 NORTHERN WOMAN page 5 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �By Joni Mace The Ministry of Community and Social Services announced recently that a new set of provincial guidelines have been set up, and are in effect as of November 1, 1987. The new provincial guidelines create a change in the implementation of welfare workers responsibilities, which included inspecting the homes of recipients for signs of live-in companions. Pre-Guideline rules forbade recipients from sharing residence as the live-in companion was assumed to be contributing to the welfare recipient's income. Any recipient found to be living with someone, immedietely had their welfare income cut. The guidelines change this in that it now allows the recipient to have a line -in companion as long as they reside together less than three years. After three years the relationship is considered common law, and the couple is legally obliged to share support. Ontario s the first province to enact the policy which has particular significance to women- rierze guidelines prevent inspectors from using a woman's sex live to determine her eligibility for welfare. A single woman can now be denied welfare-only,if she lives with someone who is legally obliged to support her or her children or provide a significant economic contribution to the household. About'50% of municipalities who administer welfare oppose the policy complaining that it will cause increased workloads and encourage "cheating", as it is possible for one person to be employed full-time with another in the same household collecting public assistance. The changes are expected to ell.-tend eligibility for benefits to 99000 sole-support parents in Ontario by spring of 1989. A new national action group wants to help 95,000 Canadian women who missed filing a claim against the manufacturer of the Dalkon Shield. Dalkon Shield Action Canada was begun after an unsuccessful attempt to have the filing date of April 30, 1986 extended. The group is trying to reach the women who missed the date. The lawyer appealing the decision is optimistic, and is supported by a growing national membership in Dalkon Shield Action Canada. For further information write Dalkon Shield Action Canada c/o Vancouver Women's Health Collective 888 Burrard St. Vancouver, BC V62 1X9. Thunder Bay resident Susan Collins whose work has appeared many times in Northern Woman Journal, has had a short story accepted for publication recently. The Labour, a piece that appeared in the Journal a few years ago was accepted by Fitzhenry and Whiteside for their Canadian Anthology titled Celebrating_ Canadian Women. We congratulate Susan, and wish her luck with future work. The National Organization for Women in its 20th anniversary year has produces a video cassette commemorating two decades of progress for women's rights, as well as a look to the future. The NOW news release describes th-l.s video, based on the December 1, 1986 show featuring more than 100 actors and entertainers, as'a serious, yet humorous look at women's lives over the past 20 years. The film features celebritInies describing landmark events. terspersed with historical film clips, two major film essays narrated by Marlo Thomas (one on the Vermont state ERA campaign and one on Title IX), a monologue by Lily Tomlin and an inspirational speech by NOW President Eleanor Smeal. Also in the video are five musical numbers-- "Miss Celie's Blues" performed by Marlette Hartley, "I am Woman" performed by Helen Reddy, and "Sisters are Doing It For Themselves" performed by Mara Getz and Alaina Reed, "All Girl Band" performed by Edie Adams, Alaina Reed and Jackee Harry, and "Together We Can Make the Dream Come True", a song written especially for the show by Melissa Manchester and Carol Bayer Sager, and performed by Ms. Manchester -all accompanied by a 31-piece orchestra conducted by Peter Matz, The show was written specifically to include historical glimpses of the whole period and many issues. of the women's rights movement. The videocassette itself is a part of living history -- suitable for classrooms, public events and individual entertainment. Inquiries may be directed to: Peg Yorkin Productions 8105 West Third St. Suite i1 Los Angeles, CA 90048 Every two years, since 1984, women involved in feminist publishing meet at an International Feminist Book Fair. The first fair was held in London in 1984, the second in Oslo in 1986, and the third is being planned for June 14-21, 1988 in Montreal. Bringing together editors of books, magazines and newspapers with writers, translators, distributors and booksellers from around the world, the International Feminist Book Fair provides a unique forum for feminists to network and discover each other's work at the same time as making feminist authors known to a wider audience. The event permits an exchange across continents, languages and discip- The two official language will be French and English but we hope to hold some events in Spanish We are committed to facilitating fruitful and thought-provoking exchanges amongst feminists and lesbians through the conferences, readings, and panels that will be held during the week. We wish to provid a forum in which a diversity of voices can be heard, especially those which are so often censored elsewhere. In order to organize this even the fair organizers are urgently in need of funds Your contribution can help send out press releases, make the necessary international contacts and pay the Xerox and Government grants phone bills are pending, but private funds will be vital to the success of the Book Fair. Needless to say, the sooner Contributors' names the better! will be published in the official program of the Fair unless requested otherwise. (Send donations to: International Feminist Book Fair, 420 est, rue Rachel, Montreal Quebec, H2J 2G7, or call (514) 844America. . 3277). (Broadside, Oct. 1987) The Gallerie Annual is a new women's publication devoted to women's art and women artists. Gallerie will be published once a year, with the first issue appearir, in June 1988. The magazine will feature approximately 40 women artists. Most of the publication will be filled with photographs of their work, alongside their own descriptions of their art and their philosophy. Gallerie will also include articles addressing issued of lesbian cultur and history, women's cultural organ izations, our autonomous culture an women in popular culture, the avent garde, and mass media. Gallerie will also publish ann ouncements and advertisements from women's presses, women's galleries, women's music distributors, and oth cultural organizations that promote and encourage the work of women artists. Gallerie is now calling for en tries from all women artists regardless of medium. Information on how to submit can be obtained from Gallerie Publications 2901 Panorama Dr. North Vancouver, BC V7G 2A4 lines. The third Fair remains committed to the international character of the previous fairs, reflecting the plurality of woman's experience from various cultural and economic backgrounds. As this is the first time it will be held on the American continent, a special invitation is extended to women from Latin Healthsharing Cont'd on pg. NORTHERN WOMAN page 6 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Ontario Women's Directorate With this issue, the Ontario Women's Directorate commences its sponsorship of this page in the Journal. We intend to provide news items on issues of interest to women in the north - and hope to receive help. If you have any information to go on this page, (or even a title for it) please call us collect at 475-1481. HAPPY READING - Lynn Beak, Rae Anne Honey and Judy Decicco itiriOriOriggiFriPriP710KIOKIPIPIPAPI CONGRATULATIONS WOMEN'S PLACE KENORA After working for years for women in the north, Women's Place finally has a PLACE - it's large warm and wonderful. Thanks for asking us to be part of the official opening. Congratulations to all who have worked so hard for so long. May you continue in the spirit of women. OWD COMMUNITY GRANTS COMMUNITY GRANTS PROGRAM funds community-based activities which enrich the economic, legal and social equality of women. Priority issue projects such as employment, family violence, child care should target the needs of women - northern, native, low income, visible minority, immigrant, disabled and elderly women. This year funding has been provided to the following: Rural Women's Network - a conference attended by approximately 80 rural and urban women, was an information sharing and support system for a network of women in the Rainy River/Fort Francis district. Women's Centre Interweave conference of provincial women's centres focused on the future of RESOURCE CENTRE The Northern Office has an extensive collection of publications, articles, books and audiovisual materials. Items may be borrowed from the centre for a period of two weeks. The most recent publications are in boxes waiting for the move to our new space on Johnson Avenue. Some of the new additions are: Women and Mental Health in Canada: Strategies for Change. CMHA, April 1987. Proceedings of the National Consultation on Women and Drugs, Health and Welfare Canada, 1987. Economic Status of Native Women in Ontario Marriage as an Equal Partnership, A Guide to the Family Law Act, Ministry of the Attorney General, 1987 Support and Custody Enforcement Program, Ministry of the Attorney General, 1987. Where Do I Stand? A child's legal guide to separation and divorce, Ministry of the Attorney General, ................. 1987 UPCOMING EVENTS Women's Health Information Network2nd Annual Health Conference HEALTHY HERIZONS January 29, 30, 31, 1988 Ramada Inn Training seminar on PAY EQUITYco-sponsored by Ontario Women's Directorate, Lakehead University, City of Thunder Bay and the Industrial and Business Training Department of Confederation College January 22, 1988 Seminar Centre of Confederation College SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT UPDATE On November 30, 1987 women trying to locate spouses who have defaulted on alimony or child support will have access to federal government data banks to assist in locating the defaulter. The Support Enforcement office in Thunder Bay (1-800-465-6828) can obtain this information. Next year, women will be able to garnishee unemployment insurance payments, tax refunds, pension cheques and other federal benefits for unpaid support. NATIVE FAMILY VIOLENCE HELLO! WE NEED YOUR HELP. The Ontario Native Women's Association is currently conducting preliminary research into Native Family Violence. If you are aware of any research, material or conferences scheduled in the past, present, or for the future, please call us COLLECT at (807) 345-9821...Philip or Jessie. umm..amm..401...4111111110-4111111111414111. 1987 EMPLOYMENT EQUITY AWARDS The Directorate has been encouraging the planning, development and expansion of employment equity programs in Ontario's public and private sectors. The winners of the 1987 Employment Equity Awards have implemented employment equity programs that fit the needs of and benefit both employees and employer. They are: .WATERLOO COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION .CITY OF OTTAWA .GENERAL MOTORS OF CANADA LTD and THE CANADIAN AUTO WORKERS UNION .DUPONT CANADA INC. Northwestern Ontario Regional Day Care Forum 1988 February 5 and 6 Red Oak Inn centres. Les Elles du Nord-87 francophone women from Geraldton, Nakina and Longlac gathered to share information, experiences and provide encouragement in decisionmaking on women's issues. Sasha McInnes received funding to assist in the completion of her works to be on display at the London Regional Art Gallery and Ontario North. Northwestern Ontario Regional Day Care Committee Forum regional representatives met in Thunder Bay to strategize around the day care Family Law Workshop for Ethnic Women Saturday March 5 from 9:00-1:00 Shuniah Building, Confederation College Women in Unions: Participation, Power, Payoff District Conference March 11, 12 and 13 Valhalla Inn - Planned Spring conference of Northern Ontario Women - WATCH FOR TIME AND PLACE issue. Women and Disabilities conference held in April focused on identified concerns with workshop on assertiveness, communications and sexuality. The Cycle of Violence conference coordinated by the Interagency Education Organization was held in October to create greater awareness, understanding and sensitivity about the issue of family violence among the helping professions. Women's Health Information Network (WHIN) will be hosting Healthy Herizons in late January 1988. FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION The Directorate will again be awarding grants to community based groups to sponsor local events during FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION SUMMER EXPERIENCE 1988 The DireCtorate is hoping to have funding for Summer Experience student grants in 1988. In the past, we have funded a student who researched the needs of ex-residents for Faye Peterson House, a student who coordinated a conference for the Women's Health Information Network and three students who developed child care programs in the crisis centres for battered women in Atikokan, Dryden and Sioux'Lookout. If your organization is interested, contact our office for further information in March 1988. MONTH. Grants allow groups to continue to heighten awareness about wife assault and to mobilize support from the community in an effort to prevent this serious social problem. Last year funding was provided to projects ranging from panel discussions, advertisements in local media, production of brochures, to posters and videos. This page is sponsored by the Ontario Women's Directorate. The material contained on it may be photocopied and distributed without permission, but with credit to the original source or the Ontario Women's Directorate. NORTHERN WOMAN page 7 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �HOME VIDEO equation(s) un dying Caresses are revolutionary. If there were three sexes I would be...triactual. I slip through the ice to caress your foot (counting the bones in my hand I lose sight of your other words). The opening grows and I am at your knees reaching up slowly to draw a breath I put on you. my tongue on your (breath) and begin to pull, back and forth, to be shouldered on an even flight above the surface of the thinly frozen water we divide. You ask me if I fished as a child and I look behind your eyes. The pike streaming its way across your lake bottom glows and fans a trail of ack-ack torpedoes (milk drops). We are fish on manoeuvre. Above the water line the two people look for condoms knowing the Shakesperian "to die" "to die in your arms" means I could die you could die. Dying to know who killed us Narcissus moves into fourth gear on all terrain. Your flight into my fancy has all the grace of a tank muffling the noise of its warring advance with chamois treads a pair of never-ending skin mukluks that rotate and grind the earth without a sound. I am lying here in the earth smelling the wind until you decipher the true meaning of the word camouflage. NORTHERN WOMAN page 8 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �I hide behind a rock disguise myself with grey stone face/ lattice lichen hair I hover while you advance onyour true course.. glancing at the control panel, turning what you think are the right knobs to the East to the West, a book lying open in your palm lap. I am earth. I have begun my descent to the bottom-most layer of my mother's crust. I will rise again and with my spirit eye my fingers will push forth green sprout buddings & raw red bleeding flowers will heal the snow. If you blast them with fire, flame-thrower, I will reach around the damp underside of a rotting log and place clots of decomposing wood on your eyes until you heal. You throw your voice. The lines you quote in dense support of your open book theory are the same ones that suffocated your mother, now at work, unseen. I ask simply that you place your hands on the outer edge of. a northern swamp make a triangle with your index fingers and thumbs and (facing North) consider your source. sharman (lynne) 11/28/87 0,4 0,-;0 NORTHERN )OMAN page 9 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �DAY CARE NEWS By MARGARET PHILLIPS After four years in the making, the federal government, on December 3rd, 1987, finally unveiled its new child care "policy". Sadly, it is not a policy that will in any way solve the day care crisis that Canadians are experiencing. In fact, the implementation of this policy could be a serious set-back to the development of the comprehensive, quality, child care system we have long been advocating. $5.4 billion dollars to be spent over seven years. Sounds like a lot of money doesn't it? But when we also hear that $54 billion will be spent on submarines the perspective becomes clearer. Even the $5.4 billion figure is misleading because when you subtract (a) the $1 billion already in the system, and (b) the $2.3 billion allocated to tax breaks, it leaves only $2.1 billion to be spent on day care. We're told that over seven years this will create 200,000 new licensed day care spaces .. i.e. 28,570 spaces per year. Yet, at this moment, over 2,000,000 Canadian children require non-parental care for at least part of each week. Considering that only 50% of families might choose licensed day care it still means that 1,000,000 new day care spaces are needed right now. And we are expected to be grateful for 28,570 spaces? It is clear that the government chose not to listen to the recommendations made by day care parents and advocates. Having attended the Special Committee on Child Care hearings both in Dryden and Thunder Bay, I know what Northwestern Ontario parents said. Consistently, NWO representations advocated a comprehensive, high-quality, non-profit day care system. A system that provides a range of services to meet the needs of children of all ages and abilities. A system that is accessible to all families irrespective of their eco- nomic status, employment status or geographic residence. A system that is sensitive to the cultural and linguistic diversity of our society. A system that values the work of child care staff and rewards staff with adequate wages and benefits, A system that ensures parental involvement. In short, Northwestern Ontario parents want a COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM. Not one Northwestern Ontario representation recommended tax breaks. Yet more new $ are going to tax deductions and credits than will go to a day care system. While the child care tax deduction may be a politically popular move it must be understood that this deduction does not reimburse the child care fee, it simply reduces the amount of taxable income. Consequently this deduction is of most benefit to high income earners; low income people will receive little, if any, benefit. Further, tax deductions only serve families who are presently using receipted care (in the main those using licensed services, as baby-sitters rarely give receipts). Thus it primarily helps families using existing day care services... it will do nothing ase the availability of licensed, quality care. Then there is the matter of the tax credits .. available to low income families who don't use day care or use unregulated care. Let me state clearly that I am not against tax reform. Nor am I opposed to mothers who work only in the home being monetarily compensated for their valuable - and long unrecognized work. Although $100 a year is such sheer tokenism that it can scarcely be considered recognition. (In fact this $100 merely gives back the money that was taken away when family allowances were de-ind- What does this new child care policy mean for Northwestern Ontario It means that we must again scramble for whichever of these piece-meal me sures might provide us a little help The most positive initiative announced is the federal contribution to capital costs .. to be shared 75 %25% with the provinces. Hopefully some Northwestern Ontario communitie can benefit from this program. An initiative has also been pro mised for rural, native, special needs, and shift work programs. However the $ allocation is insufficien to address this priority need and will do little more than provide a few "pilot projects". The impact of the new policy is somewhat unclear in respect to commercial day care, with the issue being placed in the hands of the provinces. Some analysts suggest that the doors have been opened wide for commercial expansion. Clearly, this situation must be monitored closely and the Ontario government pressured to prevent the problem of commercial care developing in our region. Because of the federal government's piece-meal non-solution to the day care crisis, NWO day care ad vocates must continue to be vigilant in pressing for day care reform and new initiatives that will meet our needs. The new federal policy (along with provincial and municipal concerns) will be the subject of discussion at the Northwestern Ontario Regional Day Care Forum to be held in Thunder Bay in February. Readers interested in more information about the Forum should contact NWO R.D.C.0 Box 144, Thunder Bay, Ont. exed.) What I do object to is including tax breaks under the guise of day care initiatives. Tax reform is the jurisdiction of the Finance Minister. Child care is the jurisdiction of the Minister of Health and Welfare. They are separate concepts and must be viewed so. The result of lumping these concepts together is to pit at-home mothers against mothers in the labour force. Pitting women against women serves only the (male) politicians. It does not serve women. It certainly does not serve children. Listening to the public debate that is now flourishing about the federal policy I am struck by the focus of discussion on mothers/parents. How easily we ignore that what this is all about is children. a- e-rr NORTHERN WOMAN page 10 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �R eviews MUSIC Reviewed by JOAN BARIL. THE INTENTION, THE BLUE, by KIM ERICKSON Her voice is liquid crystal. The piano lines are as clear and spare as a northern winter night. Kim Erickson, in her first recording, uses that voice and piano to blend blues and New Age into something startling and unique. She mixes in nature sounds, African beats, and zen-like chimes into a minimalist accompaniment. Kim is one of the few Thunder Bay women musicians who have been independently produced. Previous to this disc which was originally recorded in Ottawa in 1982, Kim has worked with Sneezy Waters, Ian Tamblyn, Lois Garrity and Laurie Conger. Kim is a classically trained musician like her friend Laurie Conger, and she is a wearer of many hats singer, composer, performer, piano teacher, as well as wife and mother of daughter Reija, 21/2. At present she is studying with acclaimed voice teacher Annechien Menso in Holland, made possible by a Canada Council "Kim is more than a performer" says long-time friend Estella Howard. "Her music comes from the spirit, from a strong place within her. It's part of her study to go deeper to the centre. Her music comes from a strong centre but it's full of the spirit, full of heart." award. "The slow blues", Duke Ellington once said, "are the hardest thing of all." On the flip side of the disc, Kim sails through four traditional blues numbers with matchless phrasing and soul. The first side consists of her own compositions including the lovely instrumental, "The Intention". as well as her own arrangements of traditional tunes such as Corinna. The mixes of new and traditional beats, African and Zen, result in an almost mystical synthesis. BOOKS Reviewed by DIANA -MARIE KORBISSER STOLZ BEING PREGNANT CONVERSATIONS WITH WOMEN by Daphne Morrison I would not recommend this book to any pregnant woman. The idea, conversations with women on being pregnant, is good and the foreward by the author, Daphne Morrison, is warm and inviting. It is a moving account of fifteen women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth but the overall tone is too sharp with unresolved sadness, tragedy and despair. All of these aspects and more may be a part of any pregnancy. I have heard too many fairy tales and am a strong advocate of dispelling myths but, at such a tenuous and vulnerable time in a woman's life, I think it is essential that truths be told constructively. We need support to help us overcome the shock of discovering that we have been lied to. This crucial element is missing, making the book too harsh and depressing as prenatal reading. I do recommend it for reading as a frank case study of women and pregnancy representative ent ages, cultures, ethnic backgrounds and social strata. The verbatim accounts are personal and powerful glimpses of the lives and struggles of women who have conceived, deliberately or unintentionally. You will be moved and struck by their honesty and courage. You will be stunned and outraged by some of their circumstances. Read it - well before or after your pregnancy. KWATCOMPAlit ANSWERS to MATCHING QUIZ Volume 10 #4 Character Author Novel Minn Burge Evelyn Hall Naomi Nakane Rose Isobel Cleary Chiclet Gomez Marian McAlpine Pauline Archange Felicity April Raintree Anne Gray Stacey McAindra Marian Engel Jane Rule Joy Kogawa Alice Munro Audrey Thomas Dorothy O'Connell Margaret Atwood Marie-Claire Blais Janet Turner Hospital Beatrice Culleton Anne Cameron Margaret Laurence The Honeyman Festival Desert of the Heart Obasan Who Do You Think You Are Songs My Mother Taught Me Chicket Gomez The Edible Woman The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange Borderline In Search of April Raintree The Journey The Fire Dwellers For the millions who can't read Give the gift of literacy More than four million adult Canadians can't read well enough to fill out a job application or understand the directions on a medicine bottle. You can help. Give money, volunteer with a literacy group, write to your MP, and read to your children. For more information, contact: Canadian Give the Gift of literacy Foundation 34 Ross St., Suite 200, Toronto, Ont. M5T 1Z9 (416) 595-9967 1,4 The Canadian Give the Gift of Literacy Campaign is a project of the book and periodical industry of Canada, in partnership with Telephone Pioneers of America, Regions- Canada. NORTHERN WOMAN page 11 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �* UPDATE continued from p6 The task force on the implementation of midwifery in Ontario 7released a report recently that was enthusiastically received by feminists, midwives, parents and childbirth educators. Canada is currently the only industrialized western country that has no provisions for midwives. In early 1986, then health minister Murray Elston announced the government's intentions to establish midwifery as a recognized part of the provincial health care system. Thus, the task force was created to discover issues such as midwifery practice, means of education, guidelines for entrance, operating procedures, and midwife/doctor relationships. The resulting report outlines 70 recommentations and predicts the legalization of midwifery in the province by as early as 1990. The report has provided the government with an excellent tool with which to integrate midwives into the health care system with recommendations such as: direct-entry midwifery education, making midwifery a self-regulating profession, developing a system of thorough assesment, licensing and integration of currently practicing midwives, provisions for midwives to work in hospitals, birthing centres and in the community including home births. The association of Ontario mi wives is the current governing boc for all practising midwives. The recommendations will legitimize a association as well as set up a cc ege of midwives. The report sugge that midwifery education be at the university level, and that a cours be accessable to Northern Ontario residents by recognition of course credits obtained at other universi The legalization of the pract ice will make midwifery financiall feasible for everyone. Where the fees for midwife se/ 7Aces have bee as much as $1,200, the legalizatic will allow for coverage under O.H. Midwives will have more legitimate medical back-up both in hospital and home settings. THE WIFE WILL HAVE TO TAKE RETRAINING The Judgement See the petty gift. She says she is a dezented wiee. No one cooed possibty teave het. Theteeote, He must have had a good teason. See the pretty gitt. Anyone wowed want het. She cooed have had every guy in town, Theteeote, I ass4me she did. See the pnetty gint. She wants support eot hetsete, She wants suppott eot het chitd, She's bateey otd enough To be in the wotkeotce, And she want's to be pensioned oei! I wLU not gtant suppokt, Het husband hats deb-to to pay: He haZ td pay eotWU can He has to pay 04 his stereo He has to pay Sot his cotot T,V, Besides; It wowed onty come oee o4 her Weteate. Go home, Putty Gikt, your mat tiage was only a joke, And you eat eot it. Go home, Ptetty Gitt, So we can stop taughing Suzan Gait Cotti_m Whete ate you Odd Canadian Sisteks Now that I wowed settee eot good convetsation? Where ate you, whose vitgin sout has not been penetrated by men's phantasy? Whose kites oe passage were through the mine {feeds oe eeminism Ake you tost among the btue hair oe the ttaditionat gkandmeke Whose silence need nevet be bought. Ake you dying among the Savages who created ptanned obsotescence and the batbatic custom oe eunetat pkecessions? Have you gtound the essentiat YOU beneath the tubbish oe sociatization Has the acne in you spoken tebettion as the ptopet posture Sot Semates,, Shaft we ptan to meet in some meadow with etowets in out hair and wigs on out toes and tt1Ja about what we might have tad them -Le they had asked us? Gerd Beadle NORTHERN WOMAN page 12 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �SWIMMING UPSTREAM continued from p5 This is what I think 'the class were still written from a white question' in the women's movement is (Anglo) perspective. And I concluded fundamentally about. There has been that I too had been guilty of an unfortunate tendency to think of seeing women of colour as having particular class merely in personal terms; am experiences that could be narrated I middle-class? do I have privileges for "our" enlightenment. I because I live in a nice house? how learned that white experience is just as can I get along better with my workparticular, and should be analyzed as ing class sisters? etc. I am certainsuch: for instance, how did Adrienne's ly not denying that personal privilRich's whiteness affect her experiege is important -- for instance, if ence and therefore her analysis of women lawyers and academics are thoumotherhood? How did the whiteness of ght of as natural spokepersons, then Nellie McClung affect the Canadian class privilege is at work and must suffrage movement? These are the be challenged. However, much quesenergy tions I am now trying to can be wasted in excessive personalanswer. Women of colour have often been "includizing of issues such as class. When ed": but usually they have been we coined the slogan "the personal put in the role of inspiring "us", of is political" I don't think it was enlighteneing us about what it's like intended that the political should in far-off places. In general they be reduced to the personal. have been invited so as to add a Class is not a personal attritouch of colour. This kind of inclubute, even if it is linked to persion makes the brown and yellow sonal attributes; class is a strucand black women who make up the ture, a basic structure of our socivast majority of the world's women, into obety. It should furthermore be pointjects for the white feminist gaze. ed out that the obsessive personalizing of political issues is a particularly middle-class and North American pastime. An anti-capitalist women's movement is not one dedicated to the personal criticism of middleclass lifestyles, but rather one dedicated to building strong links with labour, with socialists, with antiimperialist groups here and in the Third World, with a view to creating a powerful coalition for the defeat of both capitalism and patriarchy. In this; - struggle women of colour are playing an increasingly key leadership role; E6M-ih Gaffada and elsewhere. This is a crucial difference between the movement of five years ago and that of today. As a movement, we have barely begun to inCIL tegrate an anti-racist perspective into our work, so I am going to speak more personally about what I have learned from listening to and working with people of colour. I first learned that racism cannot be reduced Some organizations are now, for to a side-effect of either capitalism the first time in the history of femor patriarchy: it has its own reality inism, consciously trying to change and its own dynamic, and the struggle this: women of colour are taking against it is not a subset of some their rightful place as subjects, not other struggle. Theoretically this objects, actively organizing the movecaused me problems: just as I was bement, defining the issues, and using ginning to glimpse how one might comtheir experience to draw some general bine a feminist analysis with a socconclusions about gender oppression. ialist one, I realized that there was And what some white feminists are a third term which could not be rebeginning to do is attempt to inteduced to the two I already had. It grate an anti-racist was at that point that I gave up my perspective not only into the more obvious issues pursuit of the perfect theory, and (e.g. the situation of Native women decided to undertake (in my scholarin Canada's North, women in South ly work) concrete analyses of the inAfrica) but into our work as a whole. terrelations between racism, sexism I personally have done some soul searand capitalism at particular points ching because I now realize that my in history. I want to see how they book on sexuality (published in 1985) actually interact in a specific condid not make a serious effort to text, rather than trying to freeze think through the relation between history in order to draw an abstract race and sexual identity. What I was map of the structural connections betprobably thinking when I wrote it was ween them. that the sexual experience and sexual In my political practice, I beconsciousness of women of colour is gan to see that the hitherto usual obviously intertwined with their expractice of "including" women of colperience of race and racism: but it our here and there was reinforcing did not dawn on me that whiteness is the ethnocentric and racist strucas much of a colour as brownness, and tures we were supposedly attacking. I that one's feelings about one's body I noticed women of colour being put -which underlie all sexual experiin the position of telling personal ence -- are to an important extent experiences, experiences which were determined by the social construction interpreted as the particular probof one's race. lems of women of colour - the general books on motherhood, sexuality, etc., In collective terms I am sure that many of you are currently going through turmoil around the question of whether white feminists and women of colour can or should work togethel and if so how -- so I certainly have no recipes, but as a historian of fen ininsm perhaps I can give you the con forting thought that what we are all trying to do, under the leadership of women of colour, is truly unique in the history of the women's movement. One thing that we have learned is that we cannot naively think that all women are potential members of all women's groups. Native women, black women, Asian women, disabled women, women in particular sectors of the economy will have certain interests in common and will want to use autonomous groups both to put forward their specific politic and to give their members a safe place to be, a circle of non-oppression. How these collectives or organizations will cooperate still remains largely a question mark: the mainstream women's organizations (egNAC) are certainly changing, but the heritage of racism and bourgeois hegemony weighs very heavily on our collective shoulders, and it will be years before we all think of 'the leadership of the oppressed' as the normal process to deal with class and race differences. The tokenistic approach is still the usual response, it is what somehow 'comes don't want to look bad, so we find visible -minority woman to speak white cast (which is assumed to be the normal outcome unless one specifically plans otherwise). We have to think hard about the organizational questions that are often dismissed as either boring or bureaucratic: an anti-capitalist perspective, an anti-racist perspective, will not flourish in the women's movement unless there are consciously designed structures to make it happen. We can't pretend that structures are neutral; otherwise we'll re-enact the interaction I had at the bank, by expecting all groups of women to fit into the apparently neutral forms of organization that were developed in the course of oppressing those very groups we now want to ally with. In trying to organize both small collectives and larger coalitions, we also have to be aware of how deeply the state structures our interactions. This does not happen only when direct funding is given for a particular project and the organizers 'naturally' make their work fit the categories of the funding proposal; it happens even before we ask for funding, even before we form a group. The state sets out the framework for social and political life. It divides society into competing "interest groups" all at the same level -- instead of oppressed and privileged groups. Labour is not seen as representing the claims of the working class as a whole against capital: it is seen as just another pressure group, on a par with R.E.A.L. women or with the National Citizens' Coalition. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Women too are not seen as the oppressed majority but as Iggrely an interest group, and not an especially powerful one at that. Women are further subdivided and set off against each other through a myriad of programs which claim to help us but, in the long run, divide us: mothers on family benefits are put in one department, Native women seeking Native rights are put under Indian Affairs, mothers needing day care are told to speak to this other ministry, and so on. It is as though the state fragmented us -- not just into different groups, but even fragmented the same person into bits -- and said, now, this piece of you needs to interact with this arm of the state, and so on. The state -- as I'm sure Carolyn Egan will tell you in her workshop -- is it not neutral: among other things disorganizes us right from the beginning, even while apparently giving us certain benefits. Let me now try to move toward what I hope will be an upbeat conclusion. The structures of racism, of patriarchy, and of bourgeois society make it extremely difficult to work non-competitively. If we spend eight hours a day in the imperialist bank, obeying orders or giving them, silently competing for scarce promotions and so on, we cannot leave all that at the door of our women's meeting. What we can do is recognize it and try to subvert it -- but a utopian, naive denial of the individualist and hierarchial structures within which we function during most of our , volcanic eruptions in our groups and in our psyches. It is true that there are some women who are as egocentric and obnoxious as the worst man; but in my experience, for every one such woman there are twenty who do not speak up when they should for fear of appearing to be egocentric. The ethic of politeness and self-sacrifice does not work in the long run: rather, it leads to burnout, which Is probably the most significant problem in the radical women's movement today. Let me end by giving a small practical suggestion to deal with these difficult questions of personal interactions in groups: I propose that we abolish "niceness" in the women's movement. Let me explain. When I moved to North America at the age of 12, my siblings and I were quite struck by the constant use of the term "nice" among North American adults, particularly ladies. We would mimic my mother's friends and neighbours, saying "isn't this niiiice?" whenever something unpleasant happened. We commented on the fact that the word nice did not seem to have any stable meaning, and it certainly could not be translated into Spanish. But after twenty years of life in North America I have finally figured out what "nice" means. It means: let us pretend we are all unselfish, while firmly supporting our husbands in their ruthless struggle to get our family ahead of the Joneses. flaa.-aiWibenalfdifmakt"0....04 __14:a;,ggAijjl.gresult in resentments, silent recriminations, feelings of disappointment and betrayal, and other problems which have plagued women's groups. We also need to face the difficulties we have, as women in a patriarchal society, in building solid relations of work and friendship -as Adrienne Rich has pointed out, men have had "a man's word", a man's honour, and gentlemen's agreements to help them bond with each other in business and in war; but women have been told that our only loyalties are based on our instincts as wives and mothers, instincts which supposedly create our bonds to men and children. We have not thus bonded with other women, we have not been used to making intelligent (as opposed to instinctual) commitments to work and to politics. The absence of traditions of female bonding, together with the lack of self-confidence in our work and our thought, can create an unreasonable desire to sweep all conflicts under the carpet; we fear that any expression of disagreement will lead to But I don't want you to go awe thinking I advocate nastiness as a replacement for niceness. My point that those two modes are not the of possibilities - in fact, niceness ruthless competition are the two s: of the same Anglosaxon bourgeois ci tural coin. I am suggesting that we look somewhere else for a new concept o how to interact. Where I personall: have found a very different, and t. ly useful, model of collective pol: tical and personal interaction is my visits to Nicaragua. The first I was there, I was struck by the c4 stant reference to "love". "affect. and "tenderness" (amor, carino, te nura). I was translating for a gro . of trade unionists, and I had to t them (in English, and in embarrass tones) that this important male tr union leader was actually saying t "solidarity is the tenderness of o people for another". The Canadian trade unionists, typically, did no make the slightest facial expressi But by the end of the trip, even t most hardened Anglo was giving imp mptu speeches ending in heartfelt shouts and even hugs and kisses. S idarity really had become the tend ness between peoples. This tendern this kindness, does not sweep conf under the rug as niceness does; bu it makes sure that the conflict is talked about with respect and love This process, this way of being an working with people, is absolutely essential in the struggle of the araguan people against an incredib It means: politeness is more important than truth or justice. It means: we don't care if false politeness makes for stilted interactions and destroys any possibility of working together, for after all, women don't really work together, we just chat. It means: let us never admit that we feel passionate about our politics, about our ideas, about our loves -- for passion is destructive and nasty; it's not nice. tenderness, for one another and fo oppressed people the world over, w ch keeps them joking even in the m st of death. It is this love and tenderness which helps them to sur vive the burn-out of eight years o constantly swimming upstream in th mighty river of imperialism. I hav learned a lot from Nicaraguans. I have learned how to work so that w are empowered in and by our strugg instead of being exhausted by it. so I am bringing you neither souve nor recipes: I am bringing these w -- love, tenderness, affection -hoping that you will be able to fe their meaning, and let it empower you in your struggle. ,77:4E SWIrnmEit" .***.*.***.*.*******.********** NORTHERN WOMAN page web 14 PDF compression, OCR, optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �40. Wrath WOMAN WORDS 21. Norse goddess of the 1. 6. 10. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 42. sea. ACROSS 22. 24. 26. 27. One who tips. Object of infatuation. Exclusive Bundle of wood used to burn witches in 15th & 16th century. convergence. 30. of Many Colours. 34. Dolly Parton tune 35. He caused the Trojan war by kidnapping Helen. 36. Arrangment (abr) 37. Maize 38. Fountains 39. Familiar northern fish. Women teachers: School Trendy Raced Expect Absent without leave. Lowest woman's voice. Belgian marble. A reigning Hindu woman. Gaze intently. "Extraordinary lie designed to make people unfree" (Angela Carter 1983) 43. rr 2. ,-. 7 .., ,4 is IT 19 10 3 lo ) H 11 15 1 fo 11 12 21 45. 46. food. 47. 48. 51. 52. And others. Central cores. Should be "ah-woman" The 27th U.S. constitutional Amendment. Pertaining to the mouth. To repair or patch. Cut into wedge-shaped pieces. One who is brutal & 55, 56. 58. 111 24 28 27 30 31 3f 34 48 ss, Lo III lull 39 42. 41 44 4-5" DOWN 2. 3. 4. 47 40> 52. 33 5I 41 II 540 ,1 ".F: F. 111111 BILL 7 65. Ceases activity. 1. 54 Woman teacher; see 1 accross At a distance. Declaim vehemently. Womyn's Music Festival. Saint (fem. abr.) 6, Proponent of choice. (acronym) 7. Monetary unit of South Korea. 5. 9. Centre of immature orgasm in women. 10. Poet of Lesbos. 11. To drop with a sound of something striking water. 12. To be. (Fr.) 13. One who does. 21. What Reagan talks. 23. A theory or doctrine. 25. Tiny round mark. 26. Group gathering for some common purpose. 27. External border. 28. Fruit of the oak. 29. Injured by bull. 30. Ends of the forearms. 31. Monetary unit of Nigeria. 32. One who irks. 33. Top of a wave, southern 35. Corn U.S. food. 38. Feast or holiday. 39. Rind 41. Past tense of wear. and the Cha42. Chris Williamnged: son album. 44. Moved on wheels. 45. Goddess personifying men's blind impulses, 47. Void 48. Zenith 49. Impel 50. Concern 51. Among 52. Son of Aphrodite, 53, The others. 54. Fruit drinks. 57. Woman's name. 59, Rock containing valuable substance. : Toothed leaf edge. Require "well adjusted" woman in a patriachal soci- 32. 3i0 39 a feared. Mine opening. 26 21 40 .61. 62. 63. 64. ety. 23 atom. : 60. I 8. Electrically charged Lill. Canadian playright "The Occupation of Heather Rose" Roman goddess of grain & harvest. Theme Bread for International Women's Day. Have Worthless scrap of 41. continued from p4 As the new legislation takes hold we can hope to gain true equality and a sense of freedom in the lives we lead. While the nature of the law will be muddy for some time, the passing of the Bill clearly signals an acknowledgement of and disagreement with homophobia, The phones in my office are still ringing. A woman calls, outraged, trying to instill some "sense" into my head and warning me of the dangers of homosexuality. "Would you want one of those people teaching your kids?" "Would you want one of those in your home?" "You bet!!!" CALL TO ACTION: To support EGALE, you can donate your time or money (or both). Write or phone your MP and encourage her/him to support an amendment to the constitution that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Call or write the Minister of Justice and the opposition critics to voice your support for the amendment. KEEP TRACK OF YOURSELF THIS YEAR WITH EVERYWOMEN'S ALMANAC For more information: EGALE P.O. Box 2891, Station D Ottawa, Ontario KIP 5W9 1Hansard, November 25, 1986 2Toward Equality Report, March4, 1986 Editors Note: This article appeared in 'breaking the silence' Summer 1987 prior to the Ontario election, when, unfortunately, Evelyn Gigantes was unsuccessful in her bid for re-election. Consequently some of the references are out of date, yet the message given is still very timely. Available at NORTHERN WOMAN BOOKSTORE 184 Camelot St. Thunder Bay 344-7979 NORTHERN WOMAN page 15 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �A NOTICE FROM THE NATIONAL ACTION COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN WHY FREE TRADE WILL HARM WOMEN: It is vital that women speak out against free trade because we'll be most affected and can least afford bearing the "cost" of free trade adjustments. It will mean: 0.1..osV The reason women will lose more from free trade is because working women are concentrated in industries which will be most adversely aftected. In ri :Inufacturing most women work in textiles, clothing, food proc- ignoring health and safety, and fighting legislative protection which ensures equal rights for women. They will do this because their major competition under the agreement will be located in U.S. states with no minimum wage, poor labour legislation and very low levels of unionization. essing, electrical and electronic products, and other consumer industries. Even government studies admit that the jobs in these industries are most at risk. POORER -ACCE.Sp'iTO SOCIALFIROGRAMS In the service sector, where the majority of working women are con- The Canadian tradition of providing services to people through publicly supported facilities is jeopardized. centrated, jobs are threatened because many restrictions on the provision of services from outside the country will be removed. For example, in the case of data processing, there are many laws which require that data be processed and stored in Canada. When these are removed, many clerical jobs for women will be lost. The agreement says that U.S. firms must be given equal treatment and implies that they must be given equal access to LOWE 1NAGESRAND POORER WORKINgcoNOITIONS public funding. The result will be a great drain on our tax dollars and an increased tendency for certain services, such as health care and child care to be shifted to the private sector. Even in those places where women don't lose their jobs, increasing competition will force firms to reduce costs through cutting wages, When services are delivered through private means, they tend to be less accessible and more expensive. WHAT WOMEN CAN DO: It is important that everyone understand what free trade is about. You can help in many ways. distribute or post this where youopposition work andtoinfree your community tell your local M.P. or flyer M.P.P. of your trade give your support to activities in your community against free trade help NAC fight free trade through a financial contribution FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT FREE TRADE AND WHAT TO DO CONTACT: The National Action Committee on the Status of Women 344 Bloor St. West, Suite 505, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1W9 (416) 922-3246 (Toronto) (613) 234-7062 (Ottawa) The Coalition Against Free Trade (416) 534-3523 Your District Labour Council or Chapter of the Council of Canadians La Coalition quebecoise d'opposition au libre-echange (514) 598-2273 The Pro-Canada Network (613) 233-1764 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Second Class *Ail Registration No. 5697 MAIL TO: INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Don't forget to renew your subscription! Here's my sub: p2 SUPERIOR ART COLLECTION p2 YOUR VOICE p3 EQUALITY AT RISK? p4 BILL 7 p5 SWIMMING UPSTREAM p6 UPDATE p7 ONTARIO WOMEN'S DIRECTORATE p8 POETRY p10 DAY CARE pll REVIEWS p15 WOMAN WORDS Name Address (postal code) individual $ 5 o institutional $ 10 Collectively produced MARGARET PHILLIPS - ROSEMARY PITTIS - CYNTHIA STOLZ MARY-ANN KLEYENDORST - JONI MACE RETURN TO: :*********************************** *IS THERE AN ASTERISK ON YOUR LABEL ? t PLEASE RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION * * ! : * * THE NORTHERN WOMAN 184 CAMELOT STREET THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7A 4A9 * * tt*********************************** Return Postage Guaranteed Northern Woman Journal 184 CAMELOT STREET THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7A 4A9 (FOUR-ISSUES) $5-.00 $10.00 Business or Institution PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal Description An account of the resource Northern Woman Journal Published in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Northern Woman Journal (originally called Northern Woman) started in 1973 following the first annual Northern Women’s Conference in order to keep the conference attendees connected. Initially serving as a newsletter of events, local issues, and women’s resources, the Northern Woman Journal quickly became a diverse publication reaching national and international readers. Not only did it serve as a newsletter to keep local women up to date on feminist issues in Northwestern Ontario, but also as a safe space to discuss women’s resources, law, politics, economics, health, racism, sexism, homophobia, feminist organizing and activism, transnational feminist issues, poetry, feminist reading, feminist art, and women’s diverse lived experiences.One of the longest-running feminist perodicals in North America, the Northern Woman Journal reached its end in 1995. Throughout its 22 years, the Northern Woman Journal was produced by its many collective members, with membership evolving year to year. For many years, the journal worked closely alongside and shared space with the Northern Women’s Centre and the Northern Women’s Bookstore. With the exception of a year-long government grant in the 1970s, the journal relied entirely on subscription fees and donations in order to maintain publishing, which presented challenges throughout its entire existence. As stated in an early version of the editorial policy, “only by a free and open exchange of views and opinions will we develop a basis for unity which can be used as a basis for action.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal, Vol 11 No 1 Description An account of the resource Vol. 11, No. 1 (December 1987) Title: Northern Woman Journal Topics include: Superior art collection Native artists Meech Lake Accord Feminist book list Bill 7 Human Rights Code of Ontario amendment Protection for lesbians INTERWEAVE Conference Women & class/race Welfare workers National Organization for Women Resources for Northern Women Women’s Place Kenora Native family violence Poetry Daycare access Music review Feminist book review Women against free trade Authors/Contributors: Margaret Phillips Cindy Moriarty Joni Mace Northern Women’s Directorate Sharman Lynne Joan Baril Diana-Marie Korbisser Susan Gail Collins Gert Beadle Rosemary Pittis Cynthia Stolz Mary-Ann Kleyendorst Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northern Woman Journal Collective Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1987-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Published on this site with permission. Language A language of the resource English https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/16/2802/1988_Vol_11_No_2.pdf 638edbe52ab92ef82d035633765201b9 PDF Text Text Northern Woman $1 5 0 ournal. May 1988 Volume 11 No. 2 Thunder Bay, Ont. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �U vv _r -147,x7crc.r.). :d7.,a may. 17' :4. - , 45- 6' .1!'bv? ON MARCH 15 A SHOT RANG OUT IN KENORA THAT ECHOED THROUGH THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE WOMEN OF ONTARIO, OUR DREAMS, OUR HOPES, AND THE CONFIDENCE THAT WE WERE SUCCEEDING, CRUMBLED. WE WEPT, WE RAGED, WE QUESTIONED. AGAINST THE TIDE OF MORE THAN A DECADE OF WORK BY WOMEN FOR THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN; A WOMAN DIED. THE VIOLENCE WHICH WE HAVE STOOD AGAINST, SHATTERED THE LIVES OF THE WOMEN OF KENORA AND TORE INTO THE BEING OF EVERY WOMAN COMMITTED TO THE SAFETY AND SUPPORT OF HER SISTERS. WOMEN WENT TO THE PLACE OF OUR INADEQUACIES AND WE STOOD NOT UNITED IN STRENGTH BUT STUNNED BY A PAIN THAT WE HAD ALWAYS KNOWN COULD COME. FACED WITH THE REALITY OF WHAT HAD HAPPENED, EACH OF US WAS SHAKEN BY THE SENSELESSNESS OF THE TRAGEDY. ELIZABETH WAS TO THE WOMEN OF KENORA, A FRIEND. TO OTHERS SHE WAS THE REASON FOR OUR WORK, OUR COMMITMENT, THE SHAPE OF OUR LIVES. MANY OF US DID NOT KNOW HER FACE BUT WE KNEW HER SOUL. OUR GRIEF HAD NO PATTERN TO FOLLOW. OUR HEARTS ACHED FOR HER CHILDREN AND THE FAMILY WHOM WE COULD NOT REACH. THE ISOLATION OF OUR DISTANCE OBSTRUCTED THE SUPPORT WE NEEDED TO GIVE THE RESIDENTS AND WORKERS OF THE FAMILY RESOURCE CENTRE. THE CIRCUMSTANCES BLOCKED OUR NEED TO KNOW AND TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HAD HAPPENED. HE REMAINED INVISIBLE, UNTOUCHED BY OUR ANGER. UNABLE TO KNOW, TO REACH, TO TOUCH, TO VENT OUR RAGE, WOMEN OF COLLECTIVE POWER WERE OVERWHELMED BY A POWERLESSNESS. WOMEN FELT FRIGHTENED. A FEAR THAT NEITHER LOCKED WINDOWS, SCREENED CALLS OR BARRED WINDOWS CAN EASE. IT IS A FEAR OF TRUST. A MOMENT OF TRUST HAD BETRAYED ELIZABETH. TRUST HAS BEEN AT TIMES BOTH OUR FRIEND AND OUR ENEMY. WE BECAME FEARFUL TO TRUST OTHERS, OURSELVES, OUR ACTIONS, OUR JUDGEMENTS. IT IS A FEAR WE NEED TO OVERCOME. TO FIND A BALANCE OF TRUST AND TO SEARCH FOR ANSWERS WE HAVE NOT FOUND BEFORE THE TRAGIC EXPERIENCE OF ELIZABETH WILL FORCE US ALL TO EXAMINE OUR EVERY MOVE, OUR PHILOSOPHIES AND PRACTICES. AND MUST DO THIS IN AN EXACTING AND CONSTRUCTIVE WAY FOR PROTECTION OF WOMEN. WEIGHING THE RIGHTS OF EACH WOMAN, THE RIGHTS OF ALL WOMEN. WE NEED TO FIND OUR STRENGTH AGAIN. IT IS THE VOICES OF WOMEN THAT WILL HELP US. The Voice oS Them Feat "I was realty aSnaid one night." "I was aSnaid he'd kilt me id it got any worse." "I used to 'may that my husband would hit me, on do whatever he waz going to do to me. I Siguned the pain coutdn't be wonse than tiving in constant dean." The Voice oS Theirs Pain "Hitting, pounding, kicking, these things hunt yours body and that leaves some scans I never had a chance to do but mostty yam body heats." "What hunts even /none anything with my tiSe." "Bruises and bones heat but .this ache never goes away." The Voice oS Theik ConSusion "I was dtatteked by his jealousy at din-at - I thought it meant that he toyed me." "But he neatly needs me. I guess that's why t keep going back." "He makes me Sea important." The Voice oS Theis. Needs "I just don't know what to do sometimes, especially when you don't have any money." "I think od others people din zt alt the time. I'm the most .important person, but I Songet that." "I neatty want to go back -to school." "Every time I Looked Son a pace and said I was on sociat sent/ices, they said it was taken." The Voice oiS Theirs Pride "There .is 40 many things I thought I could do." "I can be what I want to be." "I don't have to live Sot somebody ase. I'm my own person - I can do what I want." "WhenVoices you come, they're always so g.tad -to see you. it makes you Sea good." Than About the Houses "The treason I think tkauitLon houses arse 40 .important is that they can be many things Son diddenent women. Fon one woman they can be a way to physicatty sunvive, Sot another they pnovide shoulders to cry on. Fon anothe,t they intnoduce hen to things she can do to make it on hex own. You can't Lump battened women and .theirs needs .together. You need just about as many sotutLoms as .there cute battened women. No answet .is night Sot everyone." And Finatty "Ws tike they atma6t give you stnength to go on." STRENGTH, OF AND WE WILL BE STRONG AND WE WILL GO ON. EACH OF US ACCORDING TO OUR INDIVIDUAL SOURCES OF ENERGY, OF SPIRITUALITY AND BELIEFS, WILL DRAW UPON THE COURAGE NEEDED TO MOVE AGAINST THE VIOLENCE WE CANNOT ACCEPT. POLICIES TOGETHER WE WILL START FROM THE STARTING POINT OF THE VISION, A VISION THAT HAS BEEN BLURRED BY DOLLARS. BY HAVE TO DIE. THE ANSWER TO THIS HOW ELIZABETH DIED, IS WHY DID ELIZABETH AND BY PROGRAMS. A FAR BIGGER QUESTION THAN QUESTION LIES IN THE VISION. MADNESS THAT ALLOWS TOGETHER WE WILL FEEL THE POWER TO SPEAK AGAIN, TO MARCH AGAIN, TO HOLD SOCIETY ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE WOMEN TO BE BEATEN, DEGRADED, HUMILIATED AND MURDERED. Against our witt, despite out stnength Opposed to att we .tided to be Watts and iniendz could not pnotect Elizabeth's stkuggte don dignity Asking only to connect A time od viotence, marked by teanz To build a Sutune, share the dreams OS tide without the pain and dean With women and chitdnen we canny on Less one we've Lost to death We vow to change., pkotect and cake Now, in the name od Elizabeth submitted by: THE VIOLENCE SUBCOMMITTEE of the NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO WOMEN'S DECADE COUNCIL e4 NORTHERN WOMAN page 2 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �The Story of Esmerelda BY JOSIE WALLENIUS Esmerelda was a white woman who lived in white land. One day she woke from a long sleep, and found her mother dying. Esmerelda loved her mother. In fact, she could not live without her, so she started to find out from what her mother was dying. Not long after she began this investigation, she came across a small truth, and spoke it. To her great surprise and dismay, she was called black for telling this truth. Not having a clue what black was, except it was black, she looked it up in the dictionary and found it described as rather white. With great curiousity she then looked up white, and it seemed to her very black, blacker than black, because amongst other things Esmerelda had been brought up in church. However, Esmerelda forgot about this for a while, as when you have been brought up to believe black is black and white is white, its pretty difficult to unbelieve it. Some time later, Esmerelda went to a great gathering of women, and met some new sisters that were brown and also daughters of her mother, and found out another surprising thing. These women were from whitelands too, but were trying to go black and were being resisted by the white. In fact her sisters were suffering the most frightful misfortunes in their struggle to change colour, and Esmerelda felt badly. She felt so badly in fact that she fainted clear away when she heard their stories. When Esmerelda got back from this gathering, she forgot about all this as the air in white land was very white indeed, and she was used to what came over it, which kept on saying white was white, and nobody had a problem in breathing it. For a while, Esmerelda felt quite well, just as well as ever, except her mother was still dying, and everybody was getting more and more unhappy and not looking into each others eyes anymore like they used to in days gone by. Then one day Esmerelda read a book, called "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", and she found out that until very recently the white land she lived in had been owned and filled with Brown people, and it had been ancient black, and Esmerelda began to get breathless attacks as she read it because the story was dripping with red from the white, and what made her more breathless was she knew the white had not meant her to read it. However, Christmas was coming, and she began to feel better, as Esmerelda loved Christmas, and wanted to shop. So she went to a lovely shopping mall and began to get REALLY breathless as the air in the mall was white smog playing Silent Night in the white air, and she saw red running from earrings and skirts. In fact hard as she looked she could see nothing that wasn't red white. However, Esmerelda was no spring chicken, and put it all down to old age, and went her way, keeping out of malls and going down to the lake through the trees, where somehow or other, come rain or shine, the air seemed blac Of course it must be noted that Esmerelda was very privileged to be able to do this as she did not live in an urban squat. One day, as she was sitting on a bit of black, a rock, she got an idea to go to a country of brown people who had just gone black as she wanted to help. When she got there she did not get breathless at all, not even in a shop, and forgot all about her breathlessness till she came back, and landing at the airport began to choke. A kindly white man, who obviously at some time had breathed black air, helped her to a chair, where she recovered enough to get home in a taxi. However, after this experience Esmerelda did not seem able to recover and took to her bed, quite ill, gasping for air all the time. Ill as she was though, Esmerelda still worried terribly about her mother and went on listening to the white air waves, which made her nauseous as well as breathless, and one day heard over them that the dream of the country she had been to was quite deliberately being strangled by the white nightmare which had long experience in strangling dreams, and Esmerelda felt full of absolute DREAD. She took a gasp of breath and jumped out of her sickbed and ran through the trees where the air was blacker than black to the green blue black lake and sat on her raven rock. She looked up at the golden black sun, and waited for the silver black moon and stars to come out, and the only white thing she saw was a gull, and that was black white. So Esmerelda decided to go black too, as for her it was the only way to breathe any more, the only way to resist the white, the only way to be a sister to those women at the gathering, and the only way to heal her mother. The funny thing was, AND THIS IS seemed to change. She heard no drum roll and say no mountains topple, though she did just hear a flute begin to play. Nobody started ordering her around and nobody seemed to care. Esmerelda started to clear away some dead wood but the main thing was that she woke in the morning feeling better, and did not get so breathless in the STILL white air. Esmerelda knew now that the way the white nightmare kept people in white land white, was making them fear black, and that was the trouble. Yet Esmerelda believed in dreams and knew other people in the white did too. WRTWJJ qlpM4N ,Apage 3 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �MATCH greater benefit of women throughout by Cynthia King the world. MATCH has financed, with the sup MATCH is a Canadian-based women's port of committed Canadian women and organization, committed with our Third men, a wide variety of activities of World Sisters, to a feminist vision Third World women's groups each year of development. Such a vision requires income generation, health promotion, the eradication of all forms of injusagricultural production, occupational tice, particularly the exploitation training, awareness building and organd marginalization of women. anizational strengthening. In the This is the philosophy statement future, we will be expanding this fors of MATCH International Centre, the of support to include integrated first non-governmental organization programmes involving Third World and anywhere in the world, and the only Canadian women. MATCH programmes will one in,Canada, devoted exclusively to support a variety of activities such promoting the development efforts of as research, publication, training, women. exchanges and educational tours, and MATCH was established by two conferences/seminars. Canadian women, Norma Walmsley and Suzanne Johnson, following the United Each programme will be built Nations International Women's Year around a theme identified by the woconference in Mexico City in 1975. This men involved. The themes we are now conference provided a forum for Third considering for further development 6,coadiutti~LVonutv Ptt. I World women, especially from Latin are violence against women, women in America, to voice their concerns about the workforce, expecially domestic This is the challenge which faced the effects on women of the development workers and free trade zone workers, MATCH in the beginning and which conprogrammes being implemented by govthe sex trade, including prostitutio tinues to challenge the organization ernments and by non-governmental orgpornography and trade in women, woas it celebrates its Tenth Anniversary. anizations (NGOs). These efforts, men in agriculture and women in the During the past decade, it has which purported to raise the living media. We hope that this method of been very satisfying to see many other standards for communities as a whole, programme, development will increase non-governmental, governmental and were in fact bypassing women and their the impact of the work we support. international bodies allocating greaneeds. We want to approach proposed ter resources to programmes designed Women make up 50% of the world's programmes with a view to addressing to ensure that women participate in population and one third of the officwomen's strategic needs and not only and benefit from development progial labour force. Yet they do 2/3 of women's practical needs. Strategic rammes. The women's movement in Canthe world's work,'groy 1/2 of all foodneeds relate to the root causes of ada and overseas has changed during stuffs, darn only 1/10 Of the income this time as well, with the growing women's subordinate status in sociand own less than 1% of real property.realization that we all have much to ety - attitudes, laws and practices which discriminate against women. In the rural areas of the Third World gain by joining forces with our sisPractical needs result from this dis the picture is even more grim, 18 hourters in other countries-As MATCH'S crimination - poor health, illiterac work days are not uncommon. One result; environment changes, we too must poor working conditions, lack of pai almost 2/3 of the world's illiterates adapt and focus our resources for the employment. It is obviously importare women. ant to meet such practical needs. MATCH believes, however, that long term change for women can only be brought about if practical and strategic needs are linked in programmes NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO that will challenge the root causes STATUS OF WOMEN INITIATIVES of women's subordination. 1973-1987 MATCH has supported a number of "strategic" projects in the past. For example, in Nicaragua we assiste women in a trade union to identify their special needs. The women received training to prepare them to assume positions of responsibility within the union. In Peru and Mexic6 MATCH has supported domestic workers to organize to demand fair wages and working conditions. In Zambia, MATCH funds have helped a group of women to examine sex stereotyping in popular songs with a view to improving -the image of women. MATCH embarks upon its second decade knowing that there is still much to do. It is up to women to org anize themselves to bring about change - not to replace men and do as ORDER FORM they have done, but to achieve an NAME egalitarian society where all seek fairness and have an equal, recogniz ORGANIZATION role to play. POSTAL CODE $12.00 per copy plus $2.50 postage and handling where applicable AMOUNT NUMBER OF COPIES ENCLOSED $ REQUESTED Northwestern Ontario PLEASE MAKE CHEQUE OR MONEY ORDER PAYABLE TO: Women's Decade Council, 905 Tungsten Street, Thunder Bay, Ontario COST P7B 5Z3 PDF:40Rrtlti& compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor WOMAi �ROLE MODELING PROGRAMS 64.41.4 Ontario Women's Directorate UPCOMING EVENTS PAY EQUITY AND JOB EVALUATION One day workshop at Confederation College 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. May 27th To Register - Contact Patti Bain at 475-6494 NORTHERN ONTARIO WOMEN'S CONFERENCE Sault Ste Marie, Ontario Contacts-Elaine Switzman (705) 736-2324 -Gail Broad (705) 949-8912(evgs) Theme - Accepting One Another. A bilingual conference for Native and non-Native women to build a bridge between the three dominant cultures in Northern Ontario. NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AGAINST FREE TRADE June 12th 1988 FAMILY LAW SEMINAR Date to be announced Kenora, Ontario For moreinformation contact Lynn Beak (807) 345-6084 FAMILY LAW SEMINAR DateAto be announced Sault Ste Marie, Ontario For more information contact Lynn Beak (807) 345-6084 FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION MONTH November 1988 For the fourth year, grants will be awarded to community groups sponsoring local public education/awareness events. Application forms will be sent to groups next month. If you do not receive an application or would like more information contact Rae Anne Honey, 345-6084 SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION MONTH November 1988 SEXUAL ASSAULT PREVENTION MONTH June 1988 For the first time this year, funds have been set aside for organizations to provide public education/ awareness in their own community around this issue. Contact Rae Anne Honey at 345-6084 for more information. CONGRATULATIONS PATHMAKERS and OPEN DOORS are both innovative programs designed to counter sex role stereotyping and promote education equity. These programs work by example and provide information to interest high school girls in a wider range of career options. PATHMAKER role models are university and college women who are training in the sciences, trades or technology. OPEN DOORS roles are women already working in their chosen fields. For high school girls about to make crucial curriculum and career choices, role models offer important encouragement and can motivate female students to explore their options and make informed choices. Role models are available to speak to classes, at career events or participate on panel discussions. Thanks to a local working committee these programs are in both public and separate school systems. The Directorate has commissioned a video to encourage potential rote models and working committee members to participate in these programs. Next week the production company will be in Thunder Bay and the video should be available by -to Women's Health Information Network, Northwestern Ontario Regional Child Care Committee and Women's Committee and Thunder Bay District Labour Council. These organizations held conferences recently - all were filled with excellent information, enthusiastic participation and strategizing around the issues. -to RAE MERCIER and the first Career Counselling Course for Francophone Women graduating class at Confederation College. Thank you for the opportunity to attend the wonderful breakfast ceremony. summer. \'ei - \\5esCx ...°°.(0°Ztt 101e eZ .11". "amononuagoliouw9140"014o faNkCs:,44 OWD PUBLICATIONS 4~14,144,1447,44~N~14P CAREER SELECTORS are a L3k-LIZCE series of seven booklets listing career options with education requirements, probable salaries, etc. soon to be available in French JOB SEARCH is an excellent tool to work through an action plan for women who are planning to enter the workplace for the first time or return after an extended absence. (English and French) FREE TRADE AGREEMENT is the Directorate's publication stating the impact on the economic position of women in Ontario. FAMILY LAW INFORMATION KIT-This kit provides information on recent changes in family law. Available in Spanish, Portugese, Italian, Cantonese, Vietnamese, French and English WOMEN OF ACTION is OWD's new poster celebrating the significant contributions of some Ontario women over the past 140 years. (French and The Resourc for you! A desk research in this bright room. Mat rowed for a two w We spent an Northern Women's Margaret Phillip quired many books Family Violence, Abuse and Native the categories t editions. Other new ad Immigrant Women Perspective, CAC CENTRE Pension Facts fo Information Grou Spring 1987 Working Together Volumes) produce Help Network, Co Access to Trades Ontario, Abt Ass English) OWD COMMUNITY GRANTS This program continues for 1988/89. The Grants Review Committee meets April 27 to review the first group of applications received. If your organization has a special project in mind which will enrich the economic, legal and social equality of women in your community, please call Rae Anne Honey at 345-6084 for more information and/or an application. Beginning this year, grants of $5,000 or less will have a shortened review process which will allow funds to reach you sooner. CHANGE AGENT PROJECT REPORTS: Equity at Work Physical Testing Demands Women in Road Paving Union/Management Collaboration Employment Equity for Women; How Does Your Company Measure Up? Women into Construction: A Blueprint for Action Gender Equality Indicator. This page is spo Ontario Women's material contain photocopied and out permission, to the original Ontario Women's NO PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �SUICIDE You will not need to cut me. You think of yourself as a master Sculptor, chiselling a rough block of stone into the image of Perfect Woman. (Remember that the amateur cuts just as deeply, if not always as well.) I will not make you cut me. I will chisel away at my own personality, destroying that which fails to please you. When I bleed, you can think you are innocent. I will do anything to hold you, give up any part of myself, as long as there is enough left to go on breathing, to go through the motions. You will not achieve Perfection. You will achieve a miniature not in keeping with the stature of the stone, at best your own chosen image out of all possibilities, a reconstruction limiting the potential of the stone. Another hand might choose to polish and smooth, enhancing the stone's natural beauty. But you do not appreciate this form. Perfection is not found in nature. Perfection is Man-made. The rough stone is the vessel of my love. Each cut diminishes to size of the vessel, each cut threatens its strength, its very existence. As the pieces drop away, my love lies fragmented. Will you be angry then? It's not your fault. changes were mine. Your hands are empty. But remember as you walk away: The I did it all for you. Susan Collins EYE BALL TO EYE BALL TAPESTRY He knew her better than she knew herself was his standard weapon for control when her thought deviated from his norm. She could never convince him that stupidity in her was innate and her imagination so gross that she could have thoughts that offended his vision of her. You are good and kind he told her hopefully this is not a person I can love, this bitchy, selfish-malcontent is confused you have been talking to women again. Thus we conceal the person we are to fit the expectations of wishful thinking. Only the male has the legitimate right to be obnoxious within the frame of conversation, so the female can practice her role of forgiveness and understanding. He will have it no other way, the woman glaring at him is an aberration, a stranger to herself, she can't seriously mean to tell him to F... off. Gert Beadle . pap,web :6 NORTHERN WOMAN, PDF compression, OCR, optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �A Matter of Choice Abortion in Canada is legal. We intensely hope that by the time this Journal is in your hands this statement is still true: Two months have passed since the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, which declared Canada's abortion law unconstitutional because it contravened the Canadian Charter of Rights. We have long known that the abortion law, enacted in 1969, was unjust. Politicians have also long known that the abortion law was unjust. Pro-choice representatives, and even the government's own study (the Badgley Report 1977) demonstrated clearly the inequity and injustice of Section 251 of the Criminal Code. But governments could not be moved to repeal the law. Instead they used the smokescreen that the law was a "compromise" between pro-choice and anti-abortion positions. (It is the perspective of this writer that the 1969 law had much more to do with population policy than with accommodating antagonistic positions - but that is the subject of another article.) Reasoned approaches through the political process failed. Thus, the abortion issue became a legal fight --- a seemingly endless legal fight --- propelled by the extraordinary determination of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, whose committed struggle has culminated in the historic Supreme Court ruling.' What was the basis of the ruling? Section 7 of the Charter of Rights say "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with principles of fundamental justice." The Supreme Court found that the law violated Section 7 of the Charter ... "Section 251 (of the Criminal Code) clearly interferes with a woman's physical and bodily integrity. Forcing a vo,nan by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus an in,. fringement of security of the person." (Comments by Chief Justice Brian Dickson and Mr. Justice Antonio Lamer. These judges further stated "One of the basic tenets of our system of criminal justice is that, when Parliament creates a defence to a criminal charge, the defence should not be illusory or so difficult to attain as to be practically illusory. The procedures and restrictions stipulated in Section 251 for access to therapeutic abortions make the defence illusory resulting in a failure to comply with the principles of fundamental justice." It is instructive to note that only Madam Justice Bertha Wilson found that "The deprivation of the Section 7 right in this case offends freedom of conscience guaranteed in Section 2(a) of the Charter. The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision and in a free and democratic society the conscience of the individual must be paramount to that of the state." "section 251 (of the Criminal Code) clearly interferes with a woman's Physical and bodily integrity. Forcing a wurun by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria... is a Profound interference with a woman's body and thus an infringement of security of the person" Chief Justice Brian Dickson We must not be lulled by a false hope that the January 28th ruling enshrines that a woman has a constitutional right to determine her reproductive future. It is important to understand that the abortion law was struck down not because the Court believes that the state does not have a right to interfere with women's right to choose whether to carry a fetus to term, but rather that the state's intervention must be equitable (which it was not under Section 251). Thus the headlines glaring in every major newspaper - WOMEN GET FREE CHOICE; THE BIGGEST STEP SINCE WOMEN WON THE RIGHT TO VOTE; RULING PLACES ISSUE BETWEEN A PATIENT AND HER DOCTOR have changed. Now we see HNATSHYN PROMISE NEW LAW; MOVE TO CURB SOME ABORTIONS MULRONEY SAYS and ABORTION: TALK ABOUT FREE VOTE. The euphoric and celebratory response with which we greeted the Supreme Court decision has given way to hard realism. The patriarchy will not tolerate the possibility of women really having CHOICE. And so the struggle moves again from the courts to the political arena. There is much to suggest that the federal government will move quickly to enact new legislation restricting abortion. The rationale for quick action is to try to make the issue "go away" before the expected fall election. It is not in the best interests of the politicians, we are told, to have women's reproductive rights clutter the election campaign. The new legislation will seek to be a "compromise". It may be decided by polls or pollsters. (The fact that poll results depend significantly on the way a question is asked can only add to the chaos.) The compromise that is speculated is a pregnancy stage restriction. (You are not a criminal if you abort at 10 weeks, you are a criminal if you abort at 14 weeks?) ABORTION IS NOT A CRIMINAL ACT. Our position must be clear and unequivocal. NO LAW is the only acceptable stand. The issue of choice has not been won. We must again embark on the distasteful process of lobbying our politicians. We must make clear to all politicians that a new abortion law is unnecessary and unacceptable. We must also demand that equitable access to abortion services must be available to all women. We must also continue to press for community-controlled women's health centres that provide comprehensive services. Finally, we must focus on an integration of reproductive rights within a total economic and social agenda for women. Rape, violence, economic insecurity, day care, employment equity, pensions, reproductive rights, are not separate issues, and we must not let politicians treat them as separate issues ... and in doing so divide us. The following pages provide a retrospective of the pro-choice movement as we perceive it has evolved.. Suggestions are also given for what each of us can do to ensure that freedom of choice becomes a reality for Canadian women. Abortion is surely the most personal and private decision a woman_ will ever have to make. How far we are from affording women that privacy. The lawyers, the doctors, the journalists, the politicians, the priests, the pollsters, are certainly having their say and threaten to drown out women's voices. So we must take whatever individual or collective action we can, for until all women are free, none of us are free. "In th,bs countky, accezz to abottion nequitez a t'taveY agent - and money." June Cattwood (Gtobe'S Mait Dec.3/86) "The taw haz trLeated women az though they weke chadken who had to be protected 6tom the in own ikkezponzibte imputzez - and then zuddenty noticed that they wee att 2/town up. Now, the judicial doors haz been pitied open wide enough to £e-t the keatity o6 women'z tivez enten..." Anne Cottin4 (Macteanz Feb.8/88) NORTHERNPDFCompressor WOMAN': PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION ti �Historical Perspective excerpted from an article in BROADSIDE Volume 2 #4, 1981 In all societies throughout history abortion has been part of women's experience. Women have always attempted to control their reproductive capacities regardless of societal controls or sanctions. Several factors determine the status of abortion in a particular culture at a given time: the definition of the beginning of life, the perception of ideal population size, and the influence of the medical profession. Until the late 19th century no society punished abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. The Greek city states and ancient Rome made abortion the basis of a well-ordered population policy. Christianity infused the fetus with a soul but debated for eighteen centuries exactly when the fetus became animated by the soul, thereby making abortion a serious crime. Early Christain theologians defined the beginning of life as 40 days after conception for a male fetus, and 90 days after conception for a female fetus, although no methods of sex determination were specified. By the 13th century abortion was tolerated as a less serious sin up until the time of "quickening", usually the fifth month when a woman could feel the fetus move. It wasn't until the mid 19th century that the Roman Catholic Church tightened up its official stand against abortion. Pope Leo XIII at that time declared life to begin at conception and as a result abortion became defined as murder. This decision was rationalized in a number of ways. First, a mid 19th century wave of humanitarianism pressed for abortion laws to protect women from infection and death at the hands of male medical practioners. Until antiseptic techniques became prevalent, an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy was 10 to 15 times more dangerous than delivery at full term (today legal abortions are oneeighth as dangerous as childbirth at full term). Second, biologists began to understand conception, and women were therefore able to practice more effective birth control - a good motive for tightening of abortion laws. This had ramifications for all countries where large families were essential to farming communities. Third, and much more subtle, English puritanism flourished in the 19th century and espoused the idea, still current today It woutd be great to cttebtate this ti6ting o6 an ancient cuAse two thousand yeaAz and mote without tecoukse to taw on pukse It woad be nice to say "it's -oven" Sat the deed was tkuty done when justice met intettigence democtacy Sot us was won BUT Th,lz L not about abottion as much as powet and the pte-eminence o6 mole seed oven nine months oi Serrate gestation It iz about tetigious 6ascism in out time and two thousand yearn o6 chAistain misogyny tooted in itz inteApAetation as sexual pteasute as itticit and wit. untess Lt keptenished the earth. It's about Aace and the ketucatance o6 white women to reproduce on command Son the 6atheas It's about owner hip and Dominion ova that ctumbting dynasty o6 church and state and the sepakation o6 these two monotiths And it .us oimatity about those who choose not to know the keatity as out tivez That dakk night o6 the sout with the tkauma o6 decision and the challenge o6 peAsonat tesponsibitity as 6tee women It is about the sad out haAnassing the had outs and the concealed angek ofi the 40,ed that sex for pleasure was bad, that pregnancy was a punishment for pleasure, and that fear of pregnancy wou reinforce degenerating modern morals It was in 1873 that a US federal law banned from the mails all literatur( medicine or article to do with contraception or abortion. The 20th cei tury has seen a series of movements directed toward the repeal of the 19th century laws prohibiting abortion. Access to abortion in any culture is directly related to its economic needs and therefore to its pe/ ception of an ideal population size. Historically, nomadic peoples have always limited their population whatever means available,yet in preindustrial agricultural societies large families were an economic asset and abortion more difficult to obtain. A major influence on access to abortion was the emergence of the male medical profession. Until the development of scientific medicine in the late 18th and 19th centuries a wide range of healers performed medical tasks. The female "witch healer" and midwife played important roles in the community. As European medicine became firmly established as a secular science, it was increasingly threatened by women healers, and the profession played an active role in the witch trials which spanned more than four centuries. By the 18th century male practftioners had a so made inroads into the last preserve of female healing - midwifery. The invention of forceps enabled mall professionals to claim that a surgical instrument must be used by experts. The job of the midwife - who had been, for most women, the only source of information on childbearin; contraception and abortion - was narrowed in scope, downgraded and confined to the women of the poor. Matters of reproduction among the middle and upper classes was transformed into a lucrative business and remains so today. 60t a choice they resisted that tesotts them to a noisy demonsttat ion o6 supetion mokatity and 6inatty it's about moving in the ditection 06 each othet Sot noutishment and bonding as 6tee women in common. from KINESIS SO It wowed be nice to cetebtate the Aizing consciousness oti the Supreme count Paying Homage to the 6emate input. Those who have not paid theist dues to innocence will continue to harass the coutt and kiss the shoe o6 theit oppkessou We have bettek things to do with out tives than tetutn the harassment o6 .ignorance we choose to turn the othet cheek. "The only time you're sum_ what abort on is is when you're ptegnant.' Mation Powell, Say Centke Sot Bitth Conttot wokket. Gent Bead& page 8 NORTHERN WOMAN PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �ProChoice Thunder Bay ce n the he nsipriith serrth t the se inree eneConsoure speeness" h con- nal "400 ain se hostic' to al." chapition sumtoric ading) that inics. e writpro- ion r Bay. Abore contum aborrganemal the stern eventmitted ThunGroup had ... l base... primarily with pro-choice supporters, but including a small, vocal group of anti-choice women and their "brothers" who persistently disrupted the meeting's agenda. Apparently frustrated by the pro-choice speakers calmness and logic, the anti-abortionists broke up the meeting with a vitriolic display of verbal abuse... which spilled out into the streets where deflammatory accusations of a personal nature nearly caused a riot. Totally stunned by this amazing experience the Abortion Caravan continued on to Ottawa apparently blanking out this experience as the Thunder Bay stop is omitted from all of the Caravan's historical accounts. Women's Liberation meanwhile matured their political sophistication. The value of the Birth Control Clinic cannot be overstated. For more than three years it provided a supportive and necessary service. But key organizers moved on and the Clinic phased out. Impetus for pro-choice activism surged again following the 1973 Northern Women's Conference. An unstructured pro-choice group met regularly from 1974 on, and became an official CARAL chapter in 1979, and have been involved in public education, political activism, as well as providing support to individual women. The Northern Woman Journal has also played a significant role. Since its birth in 1973, the Journal has been an on-going vehicle for up-todate information about the pro-choice movement locally and nationally. The mid/late 70s saw the beginning of a structured anti-choice movement in Thunder Bay, with local Right to Life, Birthright, and (later) Campaign Life groups organizing. It is instructive to note that while the early anti-choice activities were developed by women, recent leadership is predominantly male. "As far as our The early work of the anti-choice group focussed heavily on speaking to school groups, and on lobbying federal politicians. This lobby has been intensified since the Supreme Court ruling. (Anti-choicers seem to love to demonstrate. CARAL was able to counteract one rather nasty picket, when CARAL presented Iona Camponola, then president of the Liberal Party, with a bouquet of roses, thus defusing the pickets' unpleasantness to Camponola, who supports choice.) It is instructive to note that the more recent anti-choice focus is oppostion to a variety of women's services. (See article on Women's Centre, NWJ Vol. 10 #1) Feminism is now the target. This "anti-woman" movement must be clearly understood. Access to abortion for Northwestern Ontario women has always been restricted, and heavily dependent on geography and economic status. Only Thunder Bay and Kenora hospitals had therapeutic abortion committees,,leaving women hundreds of miles from an abortion service. The problems encountered in accessing service here have made it necessary for many NWO women to travel to Minneapolis or Duluth. While these free standing abortion clinics have provided excellent and supportive services, the cost has been prohibitive for some women. The lack of access, the T.A.C. hassles, the delays, and, in some cases, insensitive treatment of abortion patients, has been all too evident in Northwestern Ontario. Consequently, support increases, not only for de-criminalizing abortion, but for the provision of community-controlled women's health centres, including abortion services. Only with such centres will there be the assurance of the sensitive and supportive environment that women undergoing an abortion need. For more information about local pro-choice activities, write CARAL, Box 3134, Thunder Bay. responsibilities are concerned we intend to provide the leadership that Is required on this Issue." FederalJusbroWUWRamon Wmtenr.Fth2,191W Globe and mail. "We must support legislators who protect us from complicity in the moral crime of abortion." Archbishop James Carney Feb 11, 1988, Vancouver Sun. "There are any number of MAWS for abortion but in broad terms selfishness has a lot to do with L" I have been made aware by many Albertans that they resent having their taxes used to pay for abortions when these are done with contraception Irresponsibly being conceived in the Joy of sex. "We mourn for the unborn children of Canada... We promise to continue the battle with all our might." Wiliam Vander Zake,8.C. Premier, Feb 12,1988, Vancouver Sun James Huges, Campaign Life, Jan. 28,1988, Globe and Mail. Dr Roy le Riche, Aberta College of Physicians and Surgeons Registrar, Feb 12, Canadian Press. is e ts KJNESIS 7 page 9 NORTHERN WOMAN PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �The Law That Was CHILDBIRTH BY CHOICE Chiedbinth by choice means Oteedom o6 choice in ptanning one's 6ami2 y. It meant a woman zhoutd not be ptezzuted to beat a chid againzt het witt. It meant a woman zhoutd not be ptezzuted to have an abontion against het wilt. CARAL betievez that women zhoutd have the ineedom to chooze whethen on not to continue an unptanned, undezited pregnancy. Outs pozition -ins the one taken in the Un- ited Natibnz Human Rightz Dectanation oi 1968 (zigned by Canada): "Eveny couple and eveny individuat hat the tight to decide 6neety and nezponzibty whethet on not to have chitdnen ass welt at to detenmine theit numbers and zpacing, and to have inOtmation, education and meant to do to." Morgentaler's Struggle The 1969 Canadian abortion law The following is the relevant portion of Section 251 of the Criminal Code that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada. 251(1) Everyone who, with intent to procure the miscarriage of a female person, whether or not she is pregnant, uses any means for the purpose of carrying out his intention is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for life. (2) Every female person who, being pregnant, with intent to procure her own miscarriage, uses any means or permits any means to be used for the purpose of carrying out her intention is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years. (3) in this section "means" in- The federal Justice Minister orders a new trial on the (first) abortion charges. For a third time Morgentaler is acquitted by a Quebec 1976 jury. the Supreme Court of Canada. This culminates nearly twenty years of legal battles by Dr. Henry Morgentaler The chronology of this struggle is: 1968 Morgentaler performs his first illegal abortion in Montreal. 1969 Parliament amends the Criminal Code (which previously prohibited all abortions). Abortion remains illegal unless approved by a therapeutic abortion committee for an accredited or approved hospital. 1970 Charges of performing an illegal abortion are laid against Morgentaler at his Montreal clinic. 1973 A Quebec jury acquits Morgentaler on the 1970 charges. 1974 The Quebec Appeal Court overturns Morgentaler's acquittal and substitutes a conviction. He is sentenced to 18 months in prison, and serves 10 months. 1975 In a split decision the Supreme Court of Canada denies Morgentaler's appeal. 1975 (While in prison) Morgentaler is tried on a second charge in Quebec and is again acquitted by a The Quebec govern1976 (Dec.) ment decides the abortion law is not enforcable and drops all outstanding charges against Morgentaler. 1983 Morgentaler opens a Clinic in Winnipeg in May, which is closed after police raid the Clinic. Morgentaler and eight others are charged with"conspiring to procure a miscarriage of females." 1983 The Harbord St. Clinic opened in Toronto in June. In July Dr. Mortentaler, Dr. Robert Scott and Dr. Leslie Smoling are arrested and The Quebec Court of Appeal upholds Morgentaler's acquittal and accepts his use of the defense of necessity as a justification for terminating a pregnancy. 1976 Parliament makes it illegal for appeal courts to (in future) substitute a conviction for a jury acquittal. (Appeal Courts can only order a retrial, not reverse a jury de1976 cision. cal practitioner to use in an acct., dited or approved hospital any mew described in paragraph (a) for the purpose of carrying out her intent: to procure her own miscarriage, if before the use of those means, the therapeutic abortion committee for that accredited or approved hospit( by a majority of the members of the committee and at a meeting of the committee at which the case of suci cludes: female person was reviewed, (a) the administation of a drug (c) has by certificate in wrior other noxious thing ting stated that in its opinion the (b) the use of an instrument, and continuation of the pregnancy of si (c) manipulation of any kind. female person would or would be lit Exceptions (4) Subsections (1) ly to endanger her life or health, and (2) do not apply to and (d) has caused a copy of such (a) a qualified medical praccertificate to be given to the qua] titioner, other than a member of a ified medical practitioner, therapeutic abortion committee for has been - declared unconstitutional by jury. any hospital who in good faith use in an accredited or approved hospi tal any means for the purpose of carrying out his intention to procure the miscarriage of a female person, or (b) a female person who, bein, pregnant, permits a qualified medi 1984 The Ontario Supreme Court rejects the doctors contention that Canada's abortion law violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 1984 (Nov.) An Ontario jury a quits the doctors. (The Ontario gov ernment later appeals.) 1985 The Ontario Court of Appe orders a new trail. Morgentaler and colleagues appeal the order to the Supreme Court of Canada. 1986 (Oct.) The Supreme Cow concludes its hearings. The Supren 1988 (January 28) Court rules in favour of Morgentale/ declaring the Canadian abortion law unconstitutional. charged. PREEDOM OP alma CANADIAN ABORTION RIGHTS ACTION LEAGUE (CABAL) ASSOCIATION CANAIIIIINIIS TOON la M01? A WAVOSTIINUINT owsks) ac/la The Purpose of CARAT is to ensure that no woman In Canada is denied acces to safe, legal abortion. Our aim is the repeal of all sections of the Crimini Codes dealing with abortion and the establishment of comprehensive cof traceptive and abortion services, Including appropriate counselling across th country. We regard the right to safe, legal abortion as a fundamental human right I support the statement of purpose of GARAI. and wish to become a rawest. Oki. Address: Postal Code: Ooeupetlen: Name of Federal Riding: Individuel Member United Income " Funny' Sustaining Donation 1110.00 13.00 SIS.00 $25.00 RETURN TO:. CARAL, Box 3134, Thunder Bay,Ont. P7B 5G6 NoRTOEM WMAk: fct. web t 10 optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor PDF compression, OCR, �The Case Against Criminal Sanctions obtaining an early termination: they set up phony clinics which delay a woman's search for abortion, they harass women at legitimate clinics, excetpt4 4tom a pozition papet pto&teed by the Canadian AboAtion Rights ALtion League, Manch 1988 and they de-insure the procedure under provincial medical schemes, thereby forcing women to search for money to pay for the abortion. Most importantly, however, a woman receives a late-term abortion because a pregnancy endangers her life or health or because severe fetal abnormality has been diagnosed. Conditions which are a threat to a woman's life include cancer, heart failure, hypertension, uncontrolled diabetes, suicidal depression, and AIDS. Amniocentesis, by which fetal abnormalities such as Down's Syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease and anencephaly are diagnosed, cannot be performed until the 16th week of pregnancy and it may take until the 19th week to make a diagnosis; then comes the search for access to the procedure, and more delay is introduced. The answer to later abortion is not further restrictions - the answer is access early on in the pregnancy. Sex education and birth control counselling reduce the need for abortion per se but also reduce the number of late abortions. Ready access to an abortion facility eliminates delay. And full insurance coverage means that women must not spend time looking for money to pay for the procedure. Thus, people who oppose these measures are, in fact, contributing to the incidence of later abortions. Finally, however, there will always be a need for later terminations if women's lives and health are to be protected and if a woman or a couple is to be allowed to choose whether or not to bear a handicapped child. And this is a decision that must be made by a woman in consultation with her doctor. Where a doctor is uncertain as to what constitutes the best medical practice under the circumstances, he or she will seek an opinion from another doctor - the usual practice for any medical procedure. There is no need to reinforce this practice with criminal sanc- ABORTION AND HEALTH The world over, modern thinking on abortion is moving away from focusing on criminality and towards focusing on the health of women and their families. Abortion is properly seen as a matter of health; no woman should face criminal charges for making a decision which furthers her physical or mental health.... Just as there is no legislation governing other medical procedures and the decision for medical care is based on good medical practice, the decision to have or not have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor .... We encourage people to take responsibility for their own health;' taking such initiative should not result in the laying of criminal charges. At all stages of pregnancy a woman's life or health must be protected above all else. Even under s.251 there was no gestational limits on the performing of abortions, and for good reason namely, that at all stages of pregnancy, a woman's life or health must be protected above all else. Nonetheless, some people. are under the impression that new legislation must be enacted in order to restrict abortions in the later stages of pregnancy. But, just as there were no limits under the old law, it is not necessary to have a new law prescribing limitations according to the length of the pregnancy. The huge percentage of abortions are performed within the first 12 weeks of gestation. Statistics Canada figures for 1985 indicate that only 0.2 percent of abortions are performed after 20 weeks. There is no reason to believe that these numbers would increase without a new criminal procedure. There are a number of reasons why abortions are sought after the first trimester. Lack of access to service may cost a woman valuable time; money may be a problem; young women do not know that they are pregnant. The anti-choice movement itself puts obstacles in the way of women tions. What You Can Do What can you do? You can write a letter, send a telegram, or telephone: Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney Prime Minister House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2 and Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn Minister of Justice Justice Building Kent & Wellington Sts. Ottawa, Ontario K1A OH8 and tell them that abortion is not a criminal act and that the government must not enact new criminal legislation on abortion. Make your views known now. Send a copy of your letter to your local MP. Remember that postage is not required on letters to the federal government. You can also join CABAL and work with them to ensure Canadian women do have freedom of choice. Send your membership to CABAL, Box 3134, Thunder Bay, P7B 5G6 ABORTION AND THE LAW Aftermath of the Supreme Court of Canada Decision It is not accurate to say that there is now no abortion law. The Criminal Code still retains s252, which prohibits the supplying of a drug, instrument, or other "noxious thing" to procure an abortion. This section can be used to prosecute back-alley abortionists. Provincial regulation also remains: all provinces have legislation which prohibits the practice of medicine by people who are not doctors and establishes good medical standards for doctors. (In Ontario this legislation is called the Health Disciplines Act.) There is no need for special legislative provisions governing abortion alone of all medical procedures, There is, therefore, no need for special legislative provisions governing abortion alone of all medical procedures. A doctor who is uncertain as to the proper practice in a given instance will consult another doctor for a second opinion. This is done routinely in medical practice; it is not necessary to mandate such consultation in the case of abortion. Finally, if section 251 were replaced, the provision would have all the same problems as s. 251 had: the standards would be vague and would vary from place to place; the system would inevitably cause delays; and juries may well again refuse to convict doctors who believe that this is a bad way to practice medicine. Moreover, the law would have to take account of exceptions - termination would still have to be allowed to protect the life or health of the woman. Such a law would, in the final analysis, only create delays for women and make abortions even later. Abortion and Health Care Insurance After the Supreme Court of Canada decision, some provinces used that decision as an excuse to limit coverage of abortion. ...The practice of deinsuring an important health care service must be stopped. Under the Canada Health Act, ehe federal government contributes money to the provincial health care insurance plans if these plans meet certain criteria, among them comprehensiveness, universality, and accessibility. Where a plan does not satisfy these criteria, Cabinet is empowered under the Act to withhold all or some of the contributions it makes into that plan. Clearly the federal government must use this power to withhold funds from provinces seeking to de-insure contaceptive and abortion services (as, indeed, they withheld funds from provinces which allowed doctors to extra-bill). Similarly, provincial politicians must be convinced that their mandate does not permit them to deny essential health care 05 its taxpayers. NORTHERN. WPMAN page ,11 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �New Women's Resources The National Film Board of Canada is offering a workshop titled Transforming Myths; Using Film To See Ourselves in New Ways. This workshop is for those interested in Women's changing image and changing women's image. It offers an opportunity to view the sexist myths which film has historically reinforced and to re-write the script. Clips from 42 years on National Film Board films along with appropriate group exercises enable partcipants to experience how to transform limiting myths into positive images through the medium of film. The workshop which features a 27 minute film titled Images of Women in National Film Board Films 1945-1987, has earned high praise from educators, film/ video makers, and community groups. How to book the workshop! In the West Marion Dodds #4-31 West 11th St. Vancouver, BC V5Y 1S6 In the East Rosemany: Sullivan 1965 St. Armand Rd. Pigeon Hill, Que. JOJ 1TO Aids and Female Genital Mutilation Campaign-Annual Review. Hanna Edemkpong, Nigeria, West Africa Dear Sisters: The campaign we launched against Aids and the practice of female genital mutilation in November 1986 has reached one year of age. The cam-, paign was launched because of the staggering figure of Aids carriers in Africa, moreso, the overwhelming majority of western victims are male homosexuals and intravenous drug users who share dirty hypodermic needles, but the reverse is true in Africa where the majority are women. Moreover, recent research findings have confirmed that the practice of female genital mutilation opens genital sores and as a result of these operations as well as other sexual Practices by men that may result in lacerations and the flow of blood in the genital area an easy gateway is provided for Human Immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted diseases to enter the bloodstream where they rapidly multiply among white cells, thus Aids has many opportunities to reach women in Africa. In addition, the campaign was prompted by our profound belief that while most or our African women are suffering under ignorance of traditional practices and dying of diseases is because of lack of practical information that could change their lives° Apart from raising the issues of female genital mutilation and Aids at Internation- al Conferences by some African women there has been very little of no local initiative to stop the practice and the widespread of Aids. As a self help, non-governmental women's organization with limited funds, our greatest problem has been lack of funds to run the campaign. Thus we had to make appeals to concerned women, feminist and women's bodies, groups and organizations to come to our urgent help. Although a majority or women who read our appeals failed to respond, few concerned women responded by way of donations. By this support, we were able to cover over 100,000 square kilometres of our countryside and had been able to meet with 5 million rural women whom we dissuaded to partake in the practice of femele genital mutilation and spread of Aids. All the women we met have shown penitence and willingness to refrain from the practice in order to safeguard themselves against Aids, We have also contacted 2 million women by radio and television and another 1 million by newspaper and litetatures. Arrangements have also been completed for the launching of the campaign in other African Countries in 1988 if we have enough financial support from our friends. I wish on behalf of myself and all our women to express our profound appreciation and gratefulness to all of you and all women who concerned themselves with out plight and contributed in cash and kind for the running ou our campaign through which we were able to make such tremendous progress. We have been very much encouraged by your support and solidarity in our uphill walk towards the emancipation of our women from ignorance and disease. We wish to appeal to all of you that our task is such that cannot be accomplished overnight therefore we hope that you will endeavour to give us more support in 1988 so that we may be able to cover our budgetory deficit of $25,000 in our 1988 budget proposals of our campaign programme. Once again, we thank all of you who contributed towards the success of our programme this past year in the interest of international feminism; for those who act to solve problems one small step will make the decade a success not those who spend their time planning and programming the sector. For sending of donations or inquiries write to: Hanna Edemikpong Women's Centre, Box 185, Eket, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, West Africa. In Sisterhood, Hanna Edemikpong National Women's Studies Association 1988 Annual Conference will be hosted by the University of Minnesota June 22-26, 1988, The NWSA con-, in Minneapolis. ference, "Leadership and Power: Women's Alliances for Social Change," will explore culturally diverse leadership models and empowerment among women, Over 1,500 women are expected to at- tend the 10th annual NWSA con ference and to celebrate the Association's 11th anniversar Three conferen ce plenary will highlight Amer ican Indian, in ternational an d lesbian issue "American Indian Women: Diverse Leader ship for Social Change," will feature America Indian women a uthors, a lawye and an activis t in Indian hea issues° "Alliances for Social Ch International Voices," will feature women from devel oping countries who will disc networks and issues common to many women in rural communiti "Lesbian Alliances: Com bating Heterosexism in the 80 will feature noted lesbian au thors, artists and activists who will discuss cultural, ec onomic, racial and sexual fac tors perpetuating heterosexis There will be 250 workshops and many cultural event scheduled for the conference including a book exhibit, intercultural exhibitions and entertainers. For further information conta ange: NWSA '88 Conference Office 237 Nolte Center 315 Pillsbury Drive S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455-0139 (612)625-8803 WOMEN AND DEVELOPMENT - Quebe City, April 21, 1988. From November 13, 1988, some 500 women from all over Canada, t United-States, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa as we will gather in Quebec City to discuss on the theme "Women a Development". This event, or ganized by the GREMF (Groupe de recherche multidisciplinai fjministe) of Laval Universit will be in fact the 12th Symp osium of the Canadian Institu for Research on Women. Participants will be off ered the opportunity to discu about their lives as women as well as the different develop ment means at their disposal: equal employment opportunity, community programs, etc. Anyone interested in sub jects related to woman activi ies and their concerns, is in ited to attend the symposium which will constitute an inte esting platform for the benef and personal development of w men on the Canadian scene and beyond. On the other hand, t event will allow participants to set up new solidarity networks, whereas a program of cultural activities will favo the meeting of participants o an informal basis. French and English simul taneous translation will be available as various services to handicapped people. For registration, please contact: Service des communi ations, Faculte- des sciences sociales, bureau 3446, pavill Charles-De Koninch, Universit Laval, t61: (418)656-2832. PDF compression, OCR, pa web e. 12 optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHEgH (''OMAN �International Feminist Book Fair The 3rd International Feminist Book Fair will be held in Montreal, June 14-19, 1988. This is the first time the Book Fair has been held in North Ameri^a. Two hundred of the world's finest writers will be gathering in Montreal this summer to read their work, debate the crucial feminist issues of the 1980's. A rare opportunity for the Canadian public to discover writers who are household names in their own country but largely unknown to North American readers the Third International Feminist Book Fair will feature: Miriam Tlali, South Africa's only published Black woman novelist, still living in Soweto; Angelica Gorodischer, prize-winning Argentinian author of fantasy and fiction; Nell McCafferty, a leading Irish journalist whose outspoken views have recently been muzzled under Ireland's state security laws. A biennial celebration of women's writing, the Feminist Book Fair was first held in London in 1984, then in Oslo two years later. The Montreal edition promises to repeat these two earlier outstanding successes with panels on: Writing as a dangerous profession; Eroticism; Feminism and Islam; Feminism in North American Native traditions; Pornography and Prostitution; Dreams, magic and symbolism in Latin American literature; Women confront the Medical Establishment; Mystery and Sci-Fi: Redefining Violence?; Censorship; Poetry is also a weapon; Writing in Exile. The Fair has also generated a series of parallel events including art exhibits, theatre, performance, music and other entertainment to add to the festivities. Combining commerce and culture, the Fair brings together publishers, writers, booksellers and related professionals with the aim of expanding the feminist book industry. For more information about the Fair contact the Northern Woman's Bookstore, 344-7979. Book Womb Travels to Fair Have books, will travel and Winnipeg's elusive wimmin's book service are both key phrases which describe THE BOOK. -WOMB. Since its con- ception in 1985 THE BOOK WOMB has grown and changed in ways that reflect the spirit of it's partners, Jahnet Hewsick and Shirley Walker. The values, interests and needs of the wimmin's community are reflected by our ever-increasing and diverse stock of feminist and lesbian writings. We also carry a selection of records, tapes, cards, buttons, postcards and crafts - all wommon-made. Mobility is a key asset and so is The Wombmobile. In June, THE BOOK WOMB will take to the open highway/ congested freeways as it travels to Montreal to be part of the 3rd International Feminist Book Fair. Jahnet will be taking her pretty silver mini-van (dubbed the Wombmobile) to seven eastern cities - Thunder Bay, London, Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa and Montreal. Each of these cities is home to a wimmin's bookstore which Jahnet will be visiting to promote the Book Fair. She will also be having a workshop at the Fair for those interested in the concept of going mobile with books. The BOOK WOMB herstory begins in 1984 with five wimmin meeting on a regular basis to talk about starting up a wimmin's bookstore in Winnipeg. The only other wimmin's bookstore in Winnipeg had been Brigid's Books. It had been housed in the Women's Building and when the Building closed its doors in 1983, feminist and lesbian literature became scarce again. The five of us were avid readers and book buyers. We liked to travel and to attend feminist conferences and when we went to such places as Toronto, Vancouver, Minneapolis and the Michigan Women's Music Festival we always "hit" the local wimmin's bookstore to stock up. For us and many other wimmin, the importance of feminist and lesbian literature that reflects and validates our lives, as well as challenging us to grow and change, is crucial to our lives. And we wanted to have access to this literature in Winnipeg. We didn't have much money but we were flush with ideas. So began the process of endless discussions around the issues of structure, philosophy, time and energy commitments... and of course how to get the financial resources to make this a reality. Because of other commitments three of the original five founding mothers withdrew from the BOOK WOMB. The first opportunity to display and sell books publicly came at the Canadian Women's Music and Cultural Festival in August of 1985. It was fun and exciting and the response by those who attended the Festival was very enthusiastic. Since then the BOOK WOMB has been present at many wimmin's conferences and special events. The original idea of having a store has more and more given way to the idea of a book service that travels around, making books available to wimmin who don't have regular access to a bookstore. THE BOOK WOMB has travelled to The Pas, Thompson, and Saskatoon. Travelling and meeting new and diverse wimmin are wonderful side benefits to the business of selling books. Sometime, somewhere, Jahnet envisages a permanent location. But for now, "the gypsy in my soul, gets to have her fun". Jahnet and THE BOOK WOMB will be visiting Thunder Bay in early June on their way to the International Feminist Book Fair. Contact the Northern Woman's Bookstore for more information,, Thr Women's Tress- Lesbian writers! Fiction Non-fiction Erotica Poetry Prose Experimental Work Women's Press is looking for manuscripts for a second anthology of writing by Lesbians about Lesbian experience Send to: Women's Press Lesbian Manuscript Group 229 College Street Toronto M5T 1R4 SUB LET An attnactive one-bed/Loom apaAtment available 4oA sub -tet Thom June 30 to mid August to a non-moking, cattoven. Contact Heten at 622-1212 page. 13 NORTHERN WOMAN PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �BOOK REVIEW: LIONHEART GAL by Sistren with Honor Ford Smith, The Women's Press (U.K.) wm-Sb with Honor reviewed by MARGARET PHILLIPS "We create our own material.. All me do is just look back in me life, focus on a lickle situation just paint di picture natural and pretty in words and movement. All life, me did haffi act in order tc survive. Di fantasies and ginnalsh were ways of coping wid di frustre tion. Now me can put dat pain on s and mek fun a di people who cause The book evolved from a plans documentation of the threatre coll tive to be introduced by testimoni from the Sistren. But the testimor "would not sit neatly into an intr ductory section. They refused to b come supporting evidence of predet mined factors... so we gave up try to silence them.." Consequently w have this book of remarkable stori As can be seen (from quotes al many of the women's stories are wr ten in Patwah, which initially mak difficult reading. It is worth the time it takes to study the glossar: become familiar with the terms. Al! you will soon find that the rhythm the writing helps you to transcend language difficulties. The importance of writing in Patwah is sensitively outlined by the editor. Ford-Smith explains that while Patwah is written for performance.."it is not written fo reflection ... yet we know ... tha reflection is part of the process of gaining control over one's own life." She goes on to say "... the language issue is a political issu because language is central to all power relations. It expresses the soul of a people. In our experienc the development of Patwah expresses the refusal of a people to imitate a coloniser, their insistence on creation, their movement from obed ence towards revolution." The stories flowed from each woman answering for herself three questions - "How did you first become aware of the fact that you we oppressed as a woman? How did that experience affect your life? How have you tried to change it? And we are given stories of childhood, of motherhood, of relation,thips, of families, of isolatic of migrating to the city for a 'bet ter' life, of disappointments, of perserverance, of learning, of grox, of strength. Although these stories are uni que, in a sense they are universal. For they are stories of women's cot riEn LIONHEART GAL "Without life, our lives must go on. Without hope, we're not hopeless. Without education, we shall be educated. Without food, we shall be fed. Without a home we shall be sheltered. Without a reality, we shall emerge from captivity. Without all we can stand tall, firm and strong in what we believe in." These few lines from a poem, 'Won't Go Without' by Barbara (p140) illustrate the spirit of LIONHEART GAL. The stories the Sistren tell are filled with courage, with strength, with wisdom, with dignity. I have been trying to review LIONHEART GAL for more than six months I opened the book and could not put it down. I start my review. I read.. .. I write .... I pause to reflect .. .. I re-read a story... I re-read the introductitin. I put my review aside ... come back to it again and again. I am so incredibly moved by this writing but I simply cannot find the words tit do it justice. LIONHEART GAL is compelling because we HEAR the voices of the women speaking. This is real. These are oral her-stories put to print, of fifteen Jamaican women sharing their experience --- their experience of exploitation, opression, isolation, poverty, -- of work, of health, of sexual initiation, of child bearing and rearing, of relationships, of violence. And of the evolving politicized collective awareness of these women. "(we) talk about woman and work and woman and politics. We discuss what is politics and how it affect woman. After we done talk ah get to feel dat di little day-to-day tings dat happen to we as women, is politics too. For instance, if yuh tek yuh pickney to hospital and it die in yuh hand - dat is politics.... If yuh man box yuh down, dat is politics. But plenty politicians don't tink dose tings have anything to do wid politics." (p253) from KINESIS In 1977 a group of workLig class women from an employment program came together and talked about doing a play ... "We want to do plays about how we suffer as women. We want to do plays about how men treat us bad"... So the Sistren collective was born, and has since gained international recognition for its use of theatre and popular education. While the introduction to the book describes the premise and process of the Sistren collective, the impact of Sistren comes clearest from the words of the women themselves. "When we form di group ah began to meet and talk wid odder women. Ah hear dem experience and ah hear dem view. We sit and talk we problem. We improvise and mek plays. After a time we start draw pictures too. After doing dese creative work, we always discuss. Dat is how ah come to find out how and why certain tings happen in me life, how ah can work on di problems and how ah can make it better." "We are planning to do a play... based on our experiences as women from the ghetto. We come together and talk our life story and put it in a lickle scene. The rehearsals make all of us think about our lives. Me did really pass through plenty. Dem should a have some process fi help girls to know what to expect when dem turn woman." ETWIFTWEET-'-e MAT'S NEW IN THE BOOKSTORE More and more wonderful women's literature pours off the presses, Here is just a small sampling. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: Aboriginal Women Speak Out as told to Janet Silman ... "I think what really kept us going is our determination to seek what is rightfully ours....We were fighting for our BIRTHRIGHT." A PASSION FOR FRIENDS: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection, by Janice G. Raymond... "A challenging new theory of female friendship as the basis for feminist purpose, passion and politics. It is a privilege to read this book. MAM DZWIL.7534:WOFsi MYTHS OF GENDER: Biological Theories About Women and Men, by Anne Fausto-Sterling ... "required reading for all who would understand the sexual politics of science". THE SECRET TRAUMA: Incest in the Lives of Girls and Women, by Diana E. Russell ... "will be invaluable in helping to combat the denial of incestuous abuse and remediate its effects". WOMEN AND SELF-ESTEEM: Understanding and Improving the Way We Think and Feel About Ourselves, by Linda Tschirhart Sanford and Mary Ellen Donovan, Lots of tiction for your leisurely summer reading as well. CHILD OF HER PEOPLE, by Anne Cameron. age. -____?)OrtaTTNY 11'41:0aR CROSSING THE MAINSTREAM: New tion by Women Writers, edited by 2 E. Laison and Carole A. Carr. THE MONARCHS ARE FLYING by Ma Foster (mystery). OF LQWE AND SHADOWS by Isabel Allende. SOMETIMES THEY SANG, by Helen Potrebenko. Everyone concerned about educ tion will be interested to read Fr Lynn Davies (South Gillies) analys SKIPPING SCHOOL IN EARNEST: Just C for Leaving a Mired System... "Mor than a book about education... val able for all who are concerned abo children and about the future.., a voice of sanity and common sense.. clear-sighted, refreshing, powerfu PDF compression, OCR, web VORTfIERN,WOMANpa0 14 optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �1,19RD SEARCH TNEMPOLEVEDCANGER E SNASAKRASSERTIVE TEIIUSEOLPSRMNOOM ANSNMCYTIUQEYAPDC RAIRIAAEDNUSTANTO B E L E Amazon anger Arka assertive aware TSORMZRHKIEAELDN EHESIEEESNTRPNPS CDIGLEFTRTAREPAC OXREDNEGECKWRNHI basis caper care celebrate Ceres child care choice chord class clew code consciousness CEEVOLRADDEEAEOAO SNNWGHHALCWHRWZEU E HENORCIANIDOOAHS L LAODEHEPSOMEPMRN deaf Decade demands development CMDRDCPLSEMSEMAFE AIAGEQUALITYREAAS RACISMLENAIBSELLS dove empower energize equality era O NIPSCPHRNMODEERF feminist flame freedom Gaia gender goddess hag heal Hekate Isis left lesbian love maze moon racism Re Rhea saner Sappho see sexism share sisterhood spa spin spunk squint star tao unite use valid Odin oracle Wendo wommin pain pay equity peace Pele play WOM A N WOR DS Answers from last issue. MARrIS SPED Awol- ALTO A idev T RANcE RANI PoRE MYTH RAN T1 PPER Dol- PO FAGGol" HARMON/ie. AC0A-r PAR1 S ARR C R N r N T S P kE RE W E N DJ CERES CH I S 1 O C H / () t AND-RosEs AhEART oP,TS E T'AL NUCLEI ArviEn1 ER_A ORAL V gl ri P GoRE oGRE A DiT CRDSE D NE ED LA DY R E. s -r- t*********************************** t f *IS THERE AN ASTERISK ON YOUR LABEL T PLEASE RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION f t * * te****************************irk***** s COMMUNITY INFORMATION Do you have a problem and don't know where you can find help solving it? The Community Information and Referral Centre can tell you where you can find that help, and we take care to ensure confidentiality. Do you need to contact an organization and can't find the number in the telephone directory or can't remember the exact name? The Community Information and Referral Centre has extensive files and tries to keep them up to date. We can usually give you the answer within seconds. Do you need information on senior citizens services? The Community Information and Referral Centre keeps extra information on those services so that seniors can get the help they need promptly and appropriately. Our services are free and our purpose is to provide information to everyone. We also publish a directory of community services (which costs $12) and an interagency newsletter, and we host interagency meetings. We keep statistics and report gaps and inadequacies in services to appropriate organizations and government departments. We are a program of the Lakehead Social Planning Council and are located at 221 Bay St. phone 345-4009. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN page 15 �FROM THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA NEW FILMS AND VIDEOS ABOUT CANADIAN WOMEN DAUGHTERS OF THE COUNTRY THE IMPOSSIBLE TAKES A LITTLE LONGER TO A SAFER PLACE From the historic encounter between Indian and European in the Canadian northwest emerged a mixed-blood na- 45 minutes C 0186 513 Women with a range of physical disabilities demonstrate how they have overcome obstacles in their careers An inspiring account of how oni tion, the Wis. Here, in a four-part and their personal lives, and what dramatic series that spans two centuries, is their proud story, told from the services are still needed by the handicapped. Captioned for the hearing point of view of courageous impaired. A French version is also available: Le Vent dans les voiles. Metis women. Winner of three 1987 Gemini Awards: Best Pay TV DraBest Actress in a Mini-series. Lillian Gish Award for best mini-series, Women in Film Festival, Los Angeles; Blue Ribbon for Original Drama, 29th American Film Festival, New York; Best film, 1987 International Women's Film Festival, Montreal. DAUGHTERS OF THE COUNTRY 1 (IKWE and MISTRESS MADELEINE) C 0186 138 114 minutes 58 minutes woman has overcome the trauma o being a victim of incest. Now in he thirties, Shirley discusses childhoo( memories of sexual abuse and fam ily violence with her mother, brother; and sister. A film that encourages in cest survivors to break their silence the Third Medikanale Internationale Festival, Honorable matic Program, Best Writing, and Mention C 0187 067 at Parma, Italy. FIREWORDS half-hour segments, each profiling a leading Quebec feminist Three writer. Part 1 focusses on Louky Ber- sianik and her satirical use of language; Part 2 introduces Jovette Marchessault, who works to unearth the ideas of women that history has erased from our collective memory; Part 3 reveals the work of avant-garde poet and post-modern feminist writer, Nicole Brossard. Available on one reel or videocas- sette: C 0186 072, 84 minutes; separately, Part 1: C 0186 073; Part 2: C 0186 074; Part 3: C 0186 075; or in French under the title Les A FILM ABOUT MENOPAUSE Terribles vivantes: C 0286 072. 38 minutes C 0186 043 One of the least understood of women's experiences is menopause. This DOCTOR, LAWYER, INDIAN CHIEF 29 minutes Five native women who have successfully forged non-traditional careers share their experiences and reveal how they drew on the strength C 0186 532 DAUGHTERS OF THE COUNTRY 2 (PLACES NOT OUR OWN and THE WAKE) C 0186 139 115 minutes IS IT HOT IN HERE? is an informative, sometimes humorous, look at social attitudes, symptoms and treatments. THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE: PORTRAITS OF WOMEN of native Indian culture. A French IN MID-LIFE version is also available: L'Avenir est entre nos mains. C 0185 102 58 minutes Ten women from a variety of backgrounds and lifestyles share their ex- PRAIRIE WOMEN ENTERPRISING WOMEN 45 minutes C 0187 009 The little-known story of the vibrant social and political organizations C 0187 063 27 minutes The stories of five female entrepreneurs relay the pitfalls and the founded in the 1920s and '30s by Prairie farm women. Best Documentary over 30 minutes, 40th Yorkton joys of running a business. The women profiled head companies involved in pasta, lumber, fish, silk-screening, Short Film and Video Festival, 1987. and a business academy. periences of menopause and mid-life, describing how this turning point affected their lives and freed them to explore exciting new directions. National Film Board of Canada RENTAL VHS VIDEO ONLY $2/DA These and other NFB pro ductions are available in 11 mm and VHS video. Reset vations can be made in pet son, by phone or by mail. Note: The NFB will sem videocassettes by mail ti viewers located outside Nn distribution centers. All NEI productions can also be put chased in 16 mm and al video formats. Office national du film du Canada NFB Offices in Canada Halifax: (902) 426-6001 - Sydney (902) 564-7770 - Saint John: (506) 648-4996 - Moncton: (506) 857-6101 - St. John's: (709) 772-5005 Corner Brook (709) 637-4499 - Charlottetown (902) 368-4641 - Montreal (514) 283-4823 - Chicoutimi: (418) 543-0711 - Quebec (418) 648-317 Rimouski: (418) 722-3086 - Rouyn (819) 762-6051 - Sherbrooke: (819) 565-5500 - Trois-Rivieres (819) 372-4630 - Toronto: (416) 973-9093 Ottawa: (613) 996-4861 - Hamilton (416) 572-2347 - Kingston: (613) 545-8056 - Kitchener: (519) 743-4661 - London: (519) 679-4120 North Bay: (705) 472-4740 - Thunder Bay: (807) 623-5224 - Winnipeg: (204) 983-4131 - Saskatoon: (306) 975-4246 - Calgary: (403) 292-5414 Edmonton (403) 420-3010 - Vancouver (604) 666-0716 - Victoria: (604) 388-3868 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Second Class Heil Registration No. 5697 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: p2 TRIBUTE p3 THE STORY OF ESMERELDA p4 MATCH p5 ONTARIO WOMEN'S DIRECTORATE p6 POETRY p7 THE ISSUE IS CHOICE p12 UPDATE p13 THE BOOK WOMB p14 BOOK REVIEW p15 WWII) SEARCH MAIL TO: Don't forget to renew your subscription! Here's my sub: Name Address (postal cede) o liggieldoat $ 0 .5 lastitutleaal $ 10 Collectively produced CAROLYN GREENWOOD - MARY-ANN KLEYNENDORST JONI MACE - MARGARET PHILLIPS - ROSE PITTIS - CYNTHIA STOLZ :*********************************** I t 1 *IS THERE AN ASTERISK ON YOUR LABEL ? t PLEASE RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION : RETURN TO: * * * t*********************************** THE NORTHERN WOMAN 184 CAMELOT STREET THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7A 4A9 Return Postage Guaranteed Northern Woman Journal 184 CAMELOT STREET THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7A 4A9 (FOUR.ISSUES) $5:00 $10.00 Business or Institution PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal Description An account of the resource Northern Woman Journal Published in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Northern Woman Journal (originally called Northern Woman) started in 1973 following the first annual Northern Women’s Conference in order to keep the conference attendees connected. Initially serving as a newsletter of events, local issues, and women’s resources, the Northern Woman Journal quickly became a diverse publication reaching national and international readers. Not only did it serve as a newsletter to keep local women up to date on feminist issues in Northwestern Ontario, but also as a safe space to discuss women’s resources, law, politics, economics, health, racism, sexism, homophobia, feminist organizing and activism, transnational feminist issues, poetry, feminist reading, feminist art, and women’s diverse lived experiences.One of the longest-running feminist perodicals in North America, the Northern Woman Journal reached its end in 1995. Throughout its 22 years, the Northern Woman Journal was produced by its many collective members, with membership evolving year to year. For many years, the journal worked closely alongside and shared space with the Northern Women’s Centre and the Northern Women’s Bookstore. With the exception of a year-long government grant in the 1970s, the journal relied entirely on subscription fees and donations in order to maintain publishing, which presented challenges throughout its entire existence. As stated in an early version of the editorial policy, “only by a free and open exchange of views and opinions will we develop a basis for unity which can be used as a basis for action.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal, Vol 11 No 2 Description An account of the resource Vol. 11, No. 2. (May 1988) Title: Northern Woman Journal Topics include: Violence against women Women & race MATCH women’s organization Transnational feminism Pay equity Resources for northern women Family violence prevention month Family law seminar Sexual assault prevention month Poetry Abortion access History of abortion Childbirth by choice Dr. Henry Morgentaler Abortion & health care insurance Female genital mutilation, Nigeria Women & development International feminist book fair Book review of Lionheart Gal by Sistren with Honor Ford Smith Feminist film list Authors/Contributors: Violence Subcommittee of the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Decade Council Josie Wallenius Cynthia King Ontario Women’s Directorate Susan Collins Gert Beadle Hanna Edemkpong Cynthia Stolz Carolyn Greenwood Mary-Ann Kleyendorst Joni Mace Rose Pittis Margaret Phillips Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northern Woman Journal Collective Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-05 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Published on this site with permission. Language A language of the resource English https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/16/2803/1988_Vol_11_No_3.pdf c064bc5d77f3f0fedf7ce78e4ccd7ba3 PDF Text Text Volume 11 No.3 Thunder Bay, Ontario Northern Woman September 1988, Journal $1 . 5 0 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �the Canada Council that will allow me to travel across the country for interviews and research. If anyone is interested I can be contacted at the address given, and I will explain my project in greater detail and make arrangements for an interview. All information will be strictly confidential and no names will be printed. Thank You Dear Editor: What were you doing during the Vietnam War years? I am collectingpersonal experiences of all facets of Canadian involvement in the war for a book to be published by Harbour in the fall of 1989. Because war is such a male dominated subject, I have to go out of my way to locate women with stories to tell. I found the address of your group through Fem/Direct and am writing with the hope that I may find some women who were involved. For example: relatives of those who fought, medical personnel serving in Vietnam, anti-war activists, women who left the United States in reaction to the war. Would it be possible to put my query in your publication? Even posting my letter on your bulletin board would be helpful. So far there has been no popular overview of how Canadians were affected by this war and I feel very strongly that this is a story that must be told. I have joist received a grant from Jean DuGal 4876 Saskatchewan Ave. Powell River, B.C. V8A 3G4 Our Voice Letter sent to the Northern Women's Centre from the Northern Woman Journal Collective. To Northern Women's Centre Collective: This letter is intended to outline to Women's Centre members our decision to leave the collective space previously enjoyed by Northern Women's Centre, Northern Woman Journal, and Northern Woman's Bookstore. In order to ensure that our feelings are deal ly understood by the Northern Women': Centre Collective we ask that this letter be read into the minutes of the August 2, 1988 business meeting, posted at the Centre, and be includec in the next Centre newsletter. As a collective we feel that oux Ifirst priority is to provide a feminist press alternative for all women. In order to do this the collective requires a space with positive feminist energy. We feel that the Norther Women's Centre is presently unable to offer us a space with this feeling an indication of this is that the rel ationship between Northern Women's Centre and the Northern Woman Journal has deteriorated to the point where we no longer share collective space but exist as landlord and tenant. We had originally arranged to meet with the Northern Women's Centre. Collective after the potluck on July 19, 1988 in order to communicate our intentions face to face in a feminist way. However, we have been forced to deal with this in a patriarchal mat because we were not invited to address all of the Collective members present at the potluck. We hope that this letter and our move will encourage dialogue within the Centre towards regaining the positive energy of which feminists are capable. We see this as a positive step that will allow us to recreate the energy needed to continue publishing the Journal. 1 1 Kim Erickson Seeks iViembers For New Women's Choir YOMEN MUSICIANS WOMEN MUSIC WOMEN ART Women's Music and Art Kim Erickson is back in Thunder Bay after an intensive year of vocal study and composition in Holland. She is now in the process of forming an acapella (unaccompanied) women's choir. Repertoire would include Ukrainian and Balkan music, Kim's own compositions, and African-influenced pieces improvized with the help of the group, and requiring both movement and"body" percussion (hand claps and foot stamps) from the singers. The aim is to begin to uncover what is Women's music today, by building on the lost and dying traditions of our past, Major requirements for potential members are a love of music, singing and moving, and an openness to exploration in this area. It is also helpful to have a good ear and a sense of rhythm, as well as some music-reading skills. Both amateurs and professionals are welcome. Members must be willing to commit an evening of their time every week. A first meeting is currently being organized. If you are interested or require more information, please call Kim at 768-0934. (Don't be shy!) Prehistoric Egyptian terra, cotta figurine fashioned from Nile mud, circa 4000 a C. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �FREE TRADE : By: IS IT A WOMEN 'S ISSUE ? Peggy Smith I recently returned to Thunder Bay, my home town, to take up studies at Lakehead University in the School of Forestry. I have been active since 1985 in the fight against free trade in Citizens Concerned About Free Trade, an organization which originated in Saskatoon. I was dismayed to find almost no organized opposition in Thunder Bay to free trade and was somewhat surprised because Ontario is supposed to be the heart of opposition to this deal in 4' and to isolate groups opposed to the pending talks.... For special interest groups, the documents propose that in many cases the best tactic will be to 'divide and neutralize' groups that oppose the free-trade option.... Canada. Recently there has been a spate of publications about women and free trade and the formation of a new group, Women Against Free Trade. Facing the imminent implementation of the free trade agreement in January 1989, the urgent need for a united opposition to defeat the deal before its implementation by forcing the Conservative government to hold a general election, and this focus on women and free trade has prompted consideration of the question, "Is free trade a women's issue?" Through an examination of the women and free trade publications, an interview with a founding member of Women Against Free Trade, attendance at a Thunder Bay lecture billed "Women and Free Trade," and a brief examination of the practice of Citizens Concerned About Free Trade, I hope to demonstrate that free trade is not a women's issue, but an issue about the survival of our country which should be addressed as such by every Canadiaecitizen--women and men. To ensure we have control over the future direction of Canada, we must stand united against this deal and be aware of how the deal effects our national direction, rather than simply our individual directions, whether as women, workers, consumers, farmers, Native people, or business people. This is not to deny the importance of fully understanding the implications of the free trade deal for each Canadian or particular groups of Canadians, but to narrow the scope of the examination of the deal, or to fail to put an examination of the deal in a larger context, and, worse, to limit that questioning to a particular group will lead to ineffective opposition at a time when a strong, united grass roots movement among Canadian people will be the only action that will stop the giveaway of our country. ..ineffective opposition Knowing the Conservative government's strategy to sell free trade to Canadians reinforces my concern about how best to oppose the deal. In 1985 a secret Conservative government document outlining the government's strategy was leaked to the Toronto Star (Sept. 20/85): The program calls for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to focus exclusively on the possible benefits of free trade, to avoid mentioning possible job losses, to discredit Liberal and New Democrat MPs who raise concerns about the free-trade negotiations 'Such an approach must take full account of the risks inherent in the issues while ensuring that a positive, confident tone is projected--a sense of real opportunity for Canadians in all regions to advance their own best interests.' the government has followed its strategy to the letter. The Tories have in place a wide-ranging publicity campaign to "sell" free trade, to the tune of millions of dollars of taxThis campaign payers' own money. includes the production of glossy pamphlets addressing particular groups, including one entitled "Canada's New Free Trade Agreement: How It Benefits Canadian Women." In it the government promises: Canadian women will share. in the growing economy that Free Trade will bring.... Free trade means: more and better job opportunities for women and men; lower consumer. prices and greater choice in goods and services; retention of our Canadian values,institutions, and social programs; higher family incomes; and wider economic opportunities for our children into the 21st century. Sleep comes no easier after reading more about the government's secret strategy: At the same time, a substantial majority of the public may be willing to leave the issue in the hands of the government and other interested groups if the government maintains communications control of the situation. Marjorie Cohen has made a tremendous contribution to the debate on free trade. An economist who has spoken publicly against free trade, written an essay "Women and Free Trade" in Duncan Cameron's The Free Trade Papers (James Lorimer, 1986), published her own book Free Trade and the Future of Women's Work (Garamend Press, 1987), made a submission to the Parliamentary Hearings on Free Trade on behalf of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women in 1987, she has pointed out how the free trade deal will affect women: It will increase women's unemployment; it will confine women's work to an even more narrow range of occupations than we already have; it will adversely affect women's ability to pursue better working conditions through unionization; it will accentuate the wage gap between males and females; and it will inhibit the effective use of social policies to correct labour market inequalities between males and females. Also, we think it will increase the privatization of social programs. She explains her interest in free trade and women thus: All problems should be of interest to women, particularly those related to the economy, because women more than men are liable to be Zong to the Zowincome group that has the most to lose through this initiative. (Address by the National Action Cttee to Parliamentary Hearings.on Free Trade, November 5, 1987) But it is just this narrowing of focus to how free trade will affect women that has led to shortcomings in her analysis and limited the audience she is able to reach. Her book Free Trade and the Future of Women's Work gives information about the Canadian economy that is general and should be read by all Canadians, but how many will pass it over because it deals with "women's work"? By narrowing the focus of the book to women's job losses in manufacturing and the service sectors, questions, distracts tne reaaer Irum drawing conclusions about overall job losses, national sovereignty, and the source of the free trade push: American multinationals with their Canadian subsidiaries and government supporters in both the U.S. and Canada. Describing the effects on the food processing industry, Cohen states: The Canadian Food Processors Association estimates that twenty plants will close and production will become more concentrated in a few large plants. This would mean an immediate loss of many product lines and about 3,000 full-time jobs. (p. 30) She gives one line to what I would consider the crux of the problem, Canada losing control over its food supply: In particular, Canada would cease to be self-sufficient in a number of fruit and vegetable commodities. Rather than examining the implications of Canada losing control over its food supply, a problem exacerbated by treaty terms covering many other food production areas, Cohen concludes: The loss of employment in the food processing sector would affect women in manufacturing across Canada because the industry is regionally dispersed with plants located in every province. After a thorough analysis of U.S. corporate interests in various service industries from health care to child care, and hinting at the potential of free -trade in services- If free trade in services is negotiated so that the right of national treatment and the right of establishment are guaranteed, we may well see more of our health care privatized and being carried out by American health groups. p 76)-con't on p13 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN adge:3 �FEMINIST BOOK FAIR By: Margaret Phillips There were more books than any feminist could read in a lifetime. Thousands and thousands and thousands of books. There were 275 publishers and 212 authors from 55 countries. And hundreds more women - booksellers, translators, editors, artists, actors all gathered at the 3rd International Feminist Book Fair in Montreal June 14-18, 1988. And we read and we talked and we listened and we struggled and we laughed and we cried, as we celebrated the vision, the courage, the strength, the creativity, the passion of feminist writers. "Feminist consciousness stimulattansgtessive, and Vihtes subvetzive, tualy otigina/ thought in us. We ate constantly called upon to innovate, to invent strategies and novel positions, and to petceive new, appeating sounds. Like an opera o- desite, that each one (16 uz can syntonize in evety language, these sounds modulate out voices and send them resonating out oven teatity." SISTER VISION PRESS is a teAtection o4 OUA tives as non-white women in this country. It teptesentz QUA ongoing smuggle sot survival and visibitity in a society that is tac-1st, aeassist, sexist and homophobic. We cute pubtishing in a countty that stite denies that &tacks once existed as staves o6 white people hete. A country that whispeA that people o4 colour have no histoty here. A countty whete the powets that be think it is a waste (,4 time {yon stu- dents to teatn about the histoty o4 the Native people, the Japenese people, the Chinese people and the many other Thitd Wottd peoples who tive in Canada." (SISTER VISION PRESS) ARNAWALE 1.414.f.61110TE DWAU 19 AdIV 1968 tvIONTREAL (Nicole Btossatd) 'ONLYWOMEN, Btitain's sore lesbian tishets) whethet ditectey thkough toss o4 otdets PLUM Local tibtaties and {funded bookshops, ot inditectey through a process o4 set4-censotshi) 4tom bodies which don't 6cLet undet the ptovision o6 the new taws. OWL publishing venture chattengez these teatities and out Aeminism is the bl 6tom which we work. We betieve we can and do speak to a growing nor bet o4 women and we'te determined t( shout SHEBA 4tom the too4tops." (SHEBA - FEMINIST PUBLISHERS) But there were yet more publis hers to discover. I only regret tha being unilingual I was unable to fu ly appreciate the extensive Quebeco feminist literature or the Latin Am erican and European publishing. But I welcomed the chance to learn abou Kali for Women (India); Tana Press (Nigeria); New Women's Press (New Zealand); the University of West In dies Press --- and to meet writers publishers from the Phillipines, Zii babwe, the Caribbean and Central Am ica. The Fair was an amaging event. Superbly organized with the leadership of Ariane Brunet and Diana Bronson and the help of hundreds of volunteers. As a bookseller/reader the Trade Show was sufficient joy in'itself. (I found at least lop books I want to make available to Northwestern Ontario readers. rrIrhaV-e-IQG-old tteg-e-titIes in stock by the end of September and another 100 by November - I promise you.) The first two days of the Fair were closed to the "trade" with workshops specific to publishers, editors, booksellers, etc., and organized and spontaneous meetings of bookstores and periodicals. (There will be a Canadian Feminist Periodicals Conference in 1989!) There was time as well to bookbrowse and to talk to the publishers to meet the women from the small presses that make a feminist bookstore possible. Our Canadian feminist presses: Sister Vision, Women's Press, Press Gang, Gynergy/Ragweed, Lilith the new Native press Write-On, and Theytus - who along with Pemmican give us the opportunity to obtain Native women's writing. From the. U.S. were Firebrand, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Spinsters/Aunt Lute, Cleis, Seal, Naiad, the Feminist Press, Chicory Blue. From the U.K. Women's Press, Virago, Onlywomen, Sheba, Feminist and Ireland's Attic Press. These are the presses that are the "heart" of women's bookstores. These are the presses that make women visible. "We (SISTER VISION PRESS) ate Canadian Aeminist pubtishets whose ptiotity iz pubtizhing books by Btack women, Asian women and Native women in Canada. We wanted to devetop a press that ... wowed date to take tusks, a press that wowed work with wtitetz in Canada, aftitets who _Ott they had nothing to say, but whose vow lives spoke volumes. We knew we didn't want to sepatate activism Atom wtiting Understanding that the "price one book equals one-tenth of one's monthly wage" (Donna, Stree lekha, India) makes you more aware of the challenge being met by Third World publishers. '60)t (14; eadit6.7o6 what u have done in the past {yew yeah, is contained not only in the books we have pubtished, but art in the acts vibes and debates we have patticipc ted in, the matetiaes we have devetc ed, and the links we have sttengthey ed with the movement. Thus 4ot us, the Autute o6 KALI does not only mec mote and mote books and subsequent-et, (hope6utey!) commetciat success ... it also means a steady, setiouz and growing potiticat commitment." (KALI FOR WOMEN, INDIA) We (SHEBA) want to be bad and put ounsetves on the intetnationat map, make mote connections actoss continents, get out books better known and say loud and cleat that 4eminist publishing can be both a successAut pa-Uticat and business project. SHEBA is at the centte 06 CUA working and potiticat lives and yet we ate ate 4otced to seek wotk etsewhete in otdet to survive. Such 416 the nature (16 smart publishing evetywhete Let us be cream: Btitain today suiAetz Ptom racism, otchesttated backlashes against lesbians and gays, and an incteased economic division between those who have money and powet and those who don't. Ctause 2g, which wowed ptevent Local authonities atom 'ptomoting homosexuatity', on suppotting 'ptetended Aamities', win aiAect pubtishing, (and especially Important and exciting as the trade days were the essence of an International Feminist Book Fair emploded in the final four "public" days, through workshops and panels on the themes of Memory, Power and Strategic of Feminist Consciousness. "Memoty is a theatte o4 the bod the Ainst stage in teptesentation. Whether we tike it on not, memory is always with us, just beneath the sot Aace (,4 the skin: prickly, embedded, tenacious as a sea etch in, OA Zustto tangoutouz supple as sick .... with the help o4 wotds and images, we jou ney .through the ptimotdiat landscape 06 memory: a (w)tite:o4 passage thto ugh ptivate and cottective tettitoty on which ate based QUA certitudes an out dreams. In memory we bind the se tet Aite that consumes out energy wh le simuttaneousty teptenishing its intensity." (Nicole Btossatd) con't on p12 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor ANT tin& 'Wahl page 4 �RESOURCE CENTRE Ontario Women's Directorate SUMMER EXPERIENCE 1988 Summer is slowly coming to an end and so are the community Summer Experience programs sponsored by Ontario Women's Directorate and Ministry of Skills Development. Thanks to Decade Council, Faye Peterson Transition House, Atikokan Crisis Centre and Chadwic House, Wawa for providing excellent projects with positive working and learning experiences for young women. Periodicals - Soon to be available - Resources fc,r Feminist Research - Healthsharing - Breaking the Silence New Audio-Visuals - Doing It Ourselves: 20 minute VHS about rural women in Huron County, their concerns and self help groups formed during the project. New Books Taking Sex into Account: Policy Consequences of Sexist Research, CRIAW Best' wishes to Delene Devisscher, Barbara Grace, Cheryl Kitzel, Margaret Campbell and Catherine Pappas (OWD) as they wrap up their work, pack up their belongings and begin another year in university. UPCOMING EVENTS Laval University research group on women's issues 12th Annual Conference of Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW) Date: November 11, 12 and 13, 1988 Theme is Women .1.1c1 Development: Women from Here and Elsewhere Telephone: 1-(418)-656-2832 Colloque 88,47 Conference in Longlac sponsored by Francophone Women of Geraldton, Nakina and Longlac. Date: September 16, 17 and 18 Employment Equity Workshop for employers - re: Women and Native people at Ramada Inn, Thunder Bay Sponsored by Ontario Women's Directorate Date: November 4,1988 Workshop for Parents, Teachers and other Professionals - TEENAGE DATING VIOLENCE Date: October 12, 1988, Valhalla Inn For further information call Charles Casselman, 623-2218 COVNUNITY CONSULTATIONS Women from Kapaskasing, Kenora and Thunder Bay met on August 10 to preview television ads produced by Ontario Women's Directorate to be aired during November 1988. These ads are part of the Directorate's campaign to encourage us all to realize that as a community we must take responsibility for the prevention of violence against women and that batterers must be held criminally accountable for their Women's Reality: An Emerging Female System in a White Male Society, A. Schaef Women and Poverty, University of Chicago Press Feminism in Canada from Pressure to Politics, Black Rose Books Ltd. NEW VIDEOS Here Today Where Tomorrow a 26 minute docudrama designed to assist young people, especially girls, with career preparation. The video is complemented by group discussions with teenagers commenting on school, relationships and the impor An excellent resource or guidance counsellors and teachers. A teacher guide is available. An Even Break - 22 minutes. This management training video speaks to the issues of disabled, visible minorities and non-traditional work for women in the workplace. A joint effort of the Directorate and the Oshawa Group, the video is aimed at private and public sector management levels where hiring decisions public. ,Thank you to the women who provided us with their special insight of this issue and their positive discussion and feedback. OWD received an overwhelming number of applications for grant funds from groups across Ontario to provide public education programs in their communities. Northern Ontario groups to receive funding are: Northwest Atikokan Crisis Centre Hoshizaki House, Dryden Rainy River District Committee on Family Violence, Fort Frances Geraldton Family Resource Centre Kenora Family Resource Centre Northshore Family Resource Centre, Marathon Women in Crisis, Sioux-Hudson North Beendigan, Thunder Bay Comite Contre La Violence Faites Aux Femmes, Thunder Bay Interagency Response to Wife Abuse/ Assault Group, Thunder Bay Decade Council/Faye Peterson Transition House Northeast Union Culturelle des FrancoOntariennes, Chapleau Elliot Lake Women's Crisis Centre Pavilion Family Resource Centre, Haileybury Habitat Interlude Family Resource Centre, Kapuskasing CMHA Family Resource Centre, Matheson Manitoulin Haven House Inc. Weechakewen Centre, Moosonee Nipissing Transition House/Family Life Centre, North Bay Esprit Place Resource Centre; Parry Sound Sturgeon Falls Family Resource C Violence, Sudbury Centre de Counselling Familial Timmins Inc La Federation des Femmes Canadiennes Francaises, Sudbury ' Good luck to all of you. Please call our office with any questions or concerns you might have and remember we have publications and a resource centre available,to you. are made. Women in Ontario - 12 minute video dealing with the expected life patterns of 100 teenage girls based on recent statistics regarding women in terms of marriage, child bearing, sole support parenting, the workforce, divorce, etc. h40-4.-6-49-9 NO T I CE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY March 8, 1989 The Ontario Women's Directorate, Northern Office has some funds available for International Women's Day activities in Northern Ontario. For further details contact 345-6084 actions. One ad is aimed at women; the other at men. Both will be available in French, and English. Brochures in Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Chinese (Cantonese) will also be produced and available to the FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION MONTH - NOVEMBER This page is sponsored by the Ontario Women's Directorate. The material contained on it may be photocopied and distributed without permission, but with credit to the original source or the Ontario Women's Directorate. NEW FUNDING PROGRAMS Federal Childcare Initiatives Health and Welfare Canada will fund childcare projects and programs which assist in the development of new services and enhance existing ones. The focus is on unique needs and underserviced areas. Eg. native children, special needs children, part-time and shift work services, rural and flexible services, etc. $100 million is available over 7 years. For information and application forms contact: Childcare Initiatives Fund Health and Welfare Canada Brooke Claxton Building 6th Floor Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 1B5 (613) 954-8255 Telephone (613) 957-0638 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy NORTHERN of CVISION WOMAN PDFCompressor )9w. �WOMYN'S MUSIC: By Jane Saunders and Keri Shephardson This year, Olivia Records celeThe brates its 15th Anniversary. incorporation of Olivia Records officially marked the start of the "Womyn's Music" recording industry. Prior to that time, in the late 1960's and early 170's, there was some activity in New York, led by Alix Dobkin, Kay Gardner and Maxine Feldman. Their pioneer efforts have long been recognized as important and it is only because of the early diligence of these and other women that music has become a significant component of the growing womyn's culture. Who are the people involved in womyn's music? After 20 years of womyn's music, we have 2 major rec ord labels (Redwood and Olivia), numerous smaller independant labels and many networks, large and small, throughout the United States and .Canada which help spread o'ir womyn's music and culture. There are many more people involved with womyn's music than just the artists themselves. There are producers and managers Evand promoters and distributors eryone involved in any capacity has helped the "womyn's music" industry grow to what it has become today. What are the elements which make womyn's music truly unique? (unique that is to say, a music not "popular", not supported by the public at large, not in the "mainstream ", not the dominant'style of music - an alternative form of music.) One need only turn on the radio or watch a music video to experience the derogation of women that is promoted by the popular music industry. The "good girl/ bad girl" dichotomy, the "metal queen" and the helpless lover/ victim are all negative stereotypes which are continuously reinforced in the mainstream. In contrast, womyn's music exposes the listener to real life, positive, healthy women of all ages, walks of life and character. I believe this to be the most appealing element of womyn's music. In addition to reinforcing positive role models, our inter-relations are celebrated, our struggles supported and our spirits set free to explore and expand. Our celebration of sisterhood is often the subject of song - "Every Woman", and Southern gospel-influenced Teresa Trull classic and Holly Near's "You Bet". Meg Christian's haunting "The Rock will Wear Away" explores our life cycles. Our caring and love for one another is expressed often and with great musical richness. Margie Adam's "Tender Lady", Holly Near's "Rock Me in Your Arms" and Cris Williamson's "Waiting" are only three of the gems from which to choose. Social concerns ranging from nuclear war to farming and prison to Vietnam highlight many women's songs as well. Works like "Fight Back" (Holly Near) and "Woman's Anger" (Heather Bishop) have become anthems in our struggle against daily oppression. Meg Christian's poignant "Rosalind" is a strong statement in interracial relations. Similarly, "Child" by Holly Near and "A Child's Voice" by Quebec native Lucie Blue Tremblay address the tragedy and horror of child abuse. While there has always been a mixing of styles from the past, a topic of more current interest (the last five years) is the influence of mainstream music, as seen in the albums "A Step Away" by Teresa Trull and "Don't Hold Back" by Holly Near° Although this potentially dangerous musical/political move may seem unfounded, the natural progression of certain artists to explore and accept the influences of more mainstream sounds is a healthy one. In order to grow, all artists must change and expand their musical horizons. In do soing, the resulting product of newer sounds within older styles is an exciting one. Musically, each singer/ songwriter has her own style. It is a joy for the avid listener of womyn's music to learn the distinguishing elements which make each artist unique. For example, Cris Williamson's earliest heartfelt albums. "Cris Williamson" and the classic "Changer and the Changed", present a musical style relying on emotion and'vocal power. Her progression from the mellow rock album "Blue Rider" to the present "Prairie Fire" and "Wolf Moon" albums clearly demonstrates her musical growth. While continually changing the sounds of her music, Cris williamson has retained the ability to 0 In many cases, womyn's music had become a vehicle for women to make known their political and social concerns for our world. Fundamentally, womyn's music has some musical ties to folk music. Like folk music, womyn's music grows as part of the tradition of a community or group. The reliance on aural transmission of the music, passing on "by word of mouth" so to speak, follows folk tradition as well. Musically, these two styles share a concern for melody, the expression of a story, feelings or characters through lyrics and comparatively simple music is an example of the similarities between womyn's music and folk music. However, each individual who has contributed to the development of womyn's music has brought her own style and musical influences. Musical elements from jazz, pop, rock, classical, gospel, country, blues, acoustic, Latic and ethnic styles are not only abundant but essential in any discussion of womyn's music. write songs in her original style, that of simple yet beautiful melody and innovative choral progressions. Meg Christian's melody writing truly magical. Her guitar accompani ments are sensitive and technically impressive. Most importantly, her musical observations of relationshi life and human nature, which she ex presses through song, are valuable ones. Meg's songs showcase her sens /f humour ("Ode to a Gym Teacher"), her sense of self recognition ("Tur ning it Over"), and her growing sense of spirituality PS heard in t ethereal"Darshan". Womyn's music fans anxiously await Meg Christian' return from her journey of selfdiscovery. While we wait, we have a wealth of songs to discover and fully appreciate. Holly Near - musician, poet, a tivist and dramatist - has done muc to bring womyn's music to the "outside" world. Her concerns for our world and our movement are reflecte with style and distinction in her a Musically, her choice of colourful chords, finely crafted melody lines and accompaniments and word paintin making the music sound like the wor musical onomatopeia so to speak. make her style ecclectic and progressive. From many of her earlier al. bums, Holly Near has given us some womyn's music classics. "Imagine My Surprise" and "Something About the Women", to name only two, are insightful poetic statements which gi, us strength and inspiration. One of the most powerful voice: in womyn's music today is our ox(/.4,,,, Heather Bishop of Woodmore, Matitob( With depth and insight, she sings of Canadian life and pride, as well as our environment, our land and our foremothers. Becauc2 The is influenced by many types of music, her style is a memorable and widely appealing one. Although these women are all vc successful, there is more to womyn's music than the individual success of each artist. The sense of community which evolves around the many artist serves as an inspiration to us all. On many of the early albums, artists combined their talents; Meg Christie "I Know You Know" and Holly Near's "Imagine My Surprise" are only two examples of the collective effort. This continues today as female producers, recording engineers, arrangers (Mary Watkins is one of the best and studio musicians combine their talents to produce the high quality recordings which we buy. Many women artists own and/or operate their owr recording lables: Heather Bishop (Mc they of Pearl Records), Alix Dobkin (Women's Wax Works), etc. The use of such alternatives to relying on the mainstream, heavily male-dominated recording industry ensures that womyn's music can be recorded and dist/ ibuted while maintaining its inherer integrity. The variety and, diversity of womyn's music is wonderful!! For those who have musical tastes which incluC any or all of jazz, rock, country, new-age, reggae, classical, gospel, traditional music, there are many female artists who perform in these styles. Jazz music fans will undoubt edly enjoy Rhiannon and Alive, who recently opened at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. con't PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NOFTH,ERN WOMAN pag e 6 �Women's Music (continued) o o763AYeko 0,samagx°_,Gvb_,A6v0.4"V 'k0 Deuce, a jazz-funk instrumental duo from New York, is one of my favourite acts at Michigan and on record. For those who enjoy the healing properties of music, Kay Gardner ushers in the New Age, as does Beth York. Cassleburry and Dupree is a fine reggae duo, mixing rhythm, social issues and politics in music. Of special mention is Canadian dub poet, Lillian Allen of Toronto, who is a vibrant performer and creator of musical/poetic art. Pianists/singers Margie Adam and Debbie Fier both blend jazz and acoustic styles into smooth, easy-going instrumental/vocal music. Sweet Honey in The Rock is an a capella group which combines the gospel style and social politics encased in lush harmonies. For easy listening, soft rock/pop vocalists, Lucie Blue Tremblay, Deidre McCalla, Hunter Davis and Jasmine are unbeatable! For those who prefer rock, Tret Fure and Sherry Shure (Cana dian) are both fine performers in this These are the lyrics to an original composition by Jane Saunders which was performed at the recent London Status of Women Action Group 10th Anniversary Celebration by the choir Womyn's Voice. OUR SISTER1100D FOA too Long, Out voice4 have been zitent, We were Living in the datk, We knew nothing oA out power, Then we iat the zpatk. area. Unfortunately, few written resources exist on the subject of womyn's music, Of those that do exist, many of the writings are contained in books which feature womyn's culture, including arts and literature. "Our Right to Love" is a genuine treasure chest of infor- The 6paniz butzt into Lame, The game grew into tight, And now we know That out voicez ate out tigh;('-.. ma tion. We witt We witt Fot out Fot out Possibly the best written resource is the "Lady slipper Catalogue and Resource Guide" - an annotated catalogue which lists musical and literary recordings by women. This publication profides advertising and an ordering service for mghy women-run alternative labels. Hot Wire, the Journal of Women's Music and Culture, is an excellent quarterly focusing on all aspects of womyn's Although only a few artists have been mentioned, countless women exist who are developing their own style of "womyn's music". Some of these women have recorded and distributed their music; some play in coffeehouses and at marches or rallies; some play only for themselves and friends. Wherever women are performing music - by, for and about women - womyn's music exists and will be passed on to entertain, inspire and enrich all who have the opportunity to experience it. zing out Loud, zing out proud, STRENGTH FREEDOM Fait out SISTERHOOD. NottThey 5peafz o6 Love, They zing of batttez we have And of 4ttuggtes yet to come, And they zing o6 ptide. OA ptide Sot what we ate, 0A ptide dot what we'LL be, Out 6eatz have kept us bound, Now out zpitit zetz uz 6tee. We witt. zing out Loud, Ne witt Fot out Fot out Fot out zing out proud, STRENGTH FREEDOM. SISTERHOOD. References: 1. Ladyslipper Catalogue, 1987 c. 1986 Ladyslipper Inc. 2. HotWire Volume 4 Number 3, July88 3, HotWire Volume 4 Number 2, March88 fATAO* Northern Woman'sBookstore CONGRATULATES Ruby Slipperjack ON THE PUBLICATION OF HER NOVEL HONOUR THE SUN PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN'. 'peccie.' �'Ike World needs the. love of a ree woman The world needs the Cove of a free woman not the love of a good woman there's already too much of that good woman's Cove waiting in the bantustans while her husband's soul is mined deep in South Africa. input* of the love of n. good. woman Jar in the dark my at a high small window Lying on a bed Ct131.419 in her steep not to disturb the others. The world needs the love of a free woman but early to the suburban gleam assisting the suds and cleansers at their chores to the woman whose dreams are dried and stacked on tininatufate shelves her mask now fixed for the trick the hoax the stench of tile's betrayat a curse without deftance. Poor bitch, gnawing at the bars of your penalty tour children know the love that cuts the heart of the holder tts dishevelled fogicat madness. The world has seen and seen dui one who keeps these things in her heart she kneels beholding the bleeding feet of her boy Messed ddrt Thou Among Women and never a nuisance. Me. world needs the love of a tree woman t4410 jOrtfltVeS nod. but. doesn't ask. him for an explanation for her brother's murder her daughter's rape her mother's unrepresented fife. She speaks loud naming ties she moves deartng the piercing forest of guns and crosses held aloft she works pfanttng the hopes mut jatilu.n9 fram. tha Ficarczan the thoughts of the free. women rising to mullions from this shantytown an Peacock Ciutstrhurch, batfiados PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN page 8 �What " you Were Both Too young' really tans 't was his cherished. doff, To dress up and show off 'lo all his frtetuts, fifteen at a sittuig-'lake some money.' he soul Buy a dress so 1. can take you to the bars." but 1. bought a dress for farriilii werldtruis And a matronly bathing suit That my mother's boyfruend nut& fun of. 't was his kitten An amusement for the bribil gunny and wild kitten aro-wing placid and fat. The kitten never knew its place And once '4 saved. its Itfe (from gun) When it took, one situ* bite from his barely-alive houseplants. 1. was the dancing chicken Scratching neat little ink treatises Ile couldn't read. 'it's good.' he'd say " but what does it mean?" fie was proud of me without Ever understanding he was afraid. of me, unable 'Jo rapture my thoughts. peturtratert nul soul, Thrusting fits sword Itn-tit 1. lay bleeding The depth of the wound It)as the measure of our love. Susan Gothns Life Ln the Valley 'The woman who rented my old apartment getttru3 married., she came there. a tsar a9o, haul.; with grief and tears. 't could tell by her dainty ttuncing walk and pampered skin it would not be long before some old soldier saw fits duty and gave her fragile helpless hands some mascuttrie support. A winter in her mobile home in Florida produced the reason for this giggling oldster who is now selling off every memory of her and. Papa, 1 bought her old eight tracks heavy with nostalgia. and Vera Lynn. fle is there beside her, Cooking good carrying out what she names the garbage. it's like. starting over she chirps and 1 can see that it is a new chapter in an old song, but the tune wilt be the. same. 'lakes me wonder what madness makes some of us see no virtue in fragile need when its so productive. aert Beadle PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN txtae 9 �Set Back For Day Care! By: Margaret Phillips On July 25, 1988, Bill C-144 (the Canada Child Care Act) was introduced in the House of Commons. At the time of writing this article (Sept. 5) tht Bill has passed second reading and is before Committee. It is expected to receive third (and final) reading in mid-September, and with the massive Conservative majority the Bill will undoubtedly pass. If this Bill is enacted it will set back the development of day care for decades. The hyperbole surrounding the introduction of this policy camoflagues the reality of its intent. This legislation will, in effect, restrict the expansion of day care. What it means is that this legislation is WORSE than no new legislation at all. While there are many aspects of this legislation that are flawed, the most serious problem for Northwestern Ontario day care is the restriction placed on the province concerning child care spending. The existing system, the Canada Assistance Plan, is an open-ended cost-sharing between the federal and provincial governments. Thus, the responsibility for day care expansion rested on the province. When the province expended day care services the federal government was required to contribute its 50% share. Under Bill C-144 ceilings are placed on what the provinces can spend. It is suggested that because of this restriction the modest expan sion plan of the Ontario government must be cut-back by 15%, and that Ontario's current planning presumes this restriction. The effects of this cut-back are already being felt. Limitations on subsidy-spaces have been imposed on many day care organizations including (for the first time in memory) the City of Thundey Bay. Across Northwestern Ontario existing day care services are experiencing extensive waiting lists. The demand for expanded services is obvious NOW ... a restriction on expansion will exacerbate the crisis. Bill C-144 has many other flaws. It fails to recognize or support the diversity of needs for high quality child care services across the country. Bill C-144 lacks national objecNational objectives and federal criteria for provincial participation in cost-sharing are essential features of other effective national social programs in Canada. Without the inclusion of strong guiding principles setting out a long-term vision for a national child care system, Bill144 will entrench the current fragtives. Decade Council The Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council will hold their Annual Meeting on Saturday, October 22, 1988 at the Airlane Hotel - Tiberio Room. Decade Council has undertaken a number of special projects. FREE TRADE AND PRIVITIZATION: A WORKSHOP FOR WOMEN will be available at the Decade office by the end of September. The package contains background information and discussion papers, a quiz, Fact Sheets, Quotes from politicians, publications, position papers and notable Canadians. The kits were developed through the summer with money made available from a SEED grant and Kirsty Barclay and Cathy Woodbeck were the principle authors. The project was undertaken to demystify the Free Trade agreement and to help women make an informed decision about this issue. The package/kits will be presented as a workshop at Decade's Annual meeting. MUNICIPAL/EDUCATION ELECTION BROCHURE "Ask Your Candidate": Through the summer Lynda Falvo worked on nreparing the issue sections of the election brochure for the upcoming municipal and board of education ele ctions. Background information and questions focus on: Economic Development, Women and Decision Making, Housing, Violence, Child Care and Employment Equity. The guide will assist women in assessing a candidate's position on women's issues and help her make an informed choice. This work Tins also made possible through a SEED grant. WOMEN IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND DECISION MAKING: a report was researched and prepared by Barbara Grace to understand how effective women in decision making positions feel they are. Approximately 100 questionnaires were distribute to women on various economic decision making bodies across Northwestern Ontario.'Ques tions focused on how women felt about their involvement and participation in decision making. The results of the questionnaire were written up in narrative form, to make up the bulk of the report. The Economic Development Committee plan to study the report in the fall and make recommendations prior to publicly releasing the document. Funds were made available for this project through the Ontario Women's Directorate. BOARD. DEVELOPMENT Throii-,h fundirw from northern Development and mented approach to child care in Cana A further problem is that this r legislation appears to leave low income families vulnerable. Under the Canada Assistance Plan low income families were assisted with child car costs. Bill-144 provides no guarant( that such assistance will continue. The provision of public funding to for-profit (commercial) day care operations is of immeasurable concert to day care advocates. All research demonstrates that, on average, the quality of care in commercial centre! is inferior to that provided by nonprofit services. (Child ratios, staff training, staff turnover, health and safety, wages and working conditions are all quality factors.) Bill C-144' support for commercial day care, coul led with possible free trade scenarios, can see the infusion of large All erican day care chains, which will create serious problems for years to come. Also lacking from Bill C-144 is any provision for enhanced maternity leave, parental leave, family responsibility leave. These aspects must be addressed in an adequate day care policy. For the past four years day care parents, workers and advocates from across Northwestern Ontario have taken every opportunity to put forward our vision of a comprehansive, highquality, non-profit day care system that will meet the diverse needs of Northwestern Ontario children and fan It is obvious that the federE ilies. Conservative government have ignored our recommendations. Bill C-144 is a serious set-back to all who desire social policy that will ensure our The children receive quality care. enactment of Bill C-144 will clearly be a disaster. It is the well-being of our children that is at stake. Mines a video is being produced to b trAed as a board training tool for bo ards of Transition Houses and Family Resource Centres. The package will cover a history of the battered women's movement in Northwestern Ontaril and the issues of violence against women. SOCIO ECONOMIC PROJECT: the Economic Development Committee is under taking a seven month research projec that will guide Decade Council and tl Committee to address and adequately represent the issues and concerns of Northern women as they pertain to so cio-economic development. It is anticipated that this information will a so provide local, provincial and federal governments with a clear pictur of the identity of women residing in Northwestern Ontario and thus enable them to formulate and implement more appropriate and relevant policies. Copies of RUN TO WIN, a how to manual for women running for municipal office are available at the Decade office. For anyone who has not already purchases a copy of NORTHWESTERN ONT ARIO STATUS OF WOMEN INITIATIVES the are still available. They make wonde ful gifts and Christmas is not far away. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTOERWOOMMI.Page:10 �Book Review Reviewed by Kit Minor MisEducation: Women and Canadian Universities, Anne Innis Dagg and Patricia Thompson, OISE Press, 1988. MisEducation: Women and Canadian Universities is a much needed testimony of the plight, and struggles, as well as the cruel and horrendous treatment, of some of the most gifted scholars and students in Canada, who are women and particularly feminists. As one who has weathered years of academia as a student, and now five years as a professor, there is no doubt in my mind that this text is a powerful, and long overdue analysis of what does go on in the patriarchy of university institutions. Quite honestly, I could not put the book down; it validated a great deal for me, as to my own struggles as a student, and at Laurentian where I taught for four years, and was constantly battered by patriarchy, and misogyny. I am convinced this book will play a major role in collective action, by women academics, and students, in English speaking countries, to struggle against the patriarchy imposed upon us, in these institutions of higher learning. The objectives of the text are explicit, and well developed. The authors provide concrete research findings from a number of respected sources, to document the extent, and tragedy, of patriarchy and misogyny prevalent within Canadian Universities at all levels. They review the sciences and engineering citing numerous examples of inequality towards women. In biology where 50% of the students are women, women faculty comprise 8%. In engineering I was startled and saddened at the initiation rites still practiced in Canada's supposedly major universities, by the male students. Rites which are blatant examples of hatred towards women. The use of case studies adds power,. and undeniable truth to these testimonies, and this strength of delivery is used throughout the text. The text is well documented, and sound. In discussing the systems of patriarchy within schools of,Law the authors refer to the Sheila McIntyre case at Queen's University. McIntyre was hired as a Law professor in 1985. In her courses, she included women's concerns and encouraged women to participate in classroom discuss-4 ion, Her efforts were met with anger, lack of co-operation and disruptions by several men. This led to a heated confrontation and attempts to discredit the professor. As presented in both the analysis of Dagg and Thompson, and the CAUT Bulletin (Jan.1987), this whole scheme was based upon anger Council for $5000, it was turned down. The authors documented several university centres which in recent years have had to close due to lack of funding. They also document centres which have suffered harassment and were broken into and trashed, for example Carleton. Dagg and Thompson add some enlightening concerns over Child care and the delivery of this service, where, and when it is available. This service is one that can benefit all, both women and men. There are many women and men at university who participate in child towards the Feminist inclusion which care: faculty, staff and students. ThMcIntyre proposed, and grounded ere needs to be increased funding, more in fear and a loss of power by the male available spaces and flexible hours students involved. As a professor due to the irregularity of course times who does teach from a Feminist Perspand variation in the duration of courses. ective I find it astonishing that The authors chose to present the students who have been taught a pathorrors of sexism, sexual harassment riarchal perspective most, or all of and violence on campus through a numtheir lives would not welcome a new ber of short case studies. These approach, some new insights. Are these are frightening and powerful, and a not the halls of academia, or are women' s rude awakening to the truths of what concerns, thoughts, and writings to women must suffer to be within these be be dismissed as trivial, nonexistent. halls. Has it really changed that My present experience, having left much since Virginia Wolf, or is it Laurentian for a more welcoming and just more subtle; or, and this is more enthused group of academics in Social frightening, have we learned to just Work at Lakehead, is that I now find accept it? co-operation and excitement that a Feminist perspective is included as a teaching style in a core course. Mind you, some students battle the notion, or "put up with it" and these students are not exclusively men, nor by any means is the majority of male students included in this small group. This past year I have been told by numerous women and men that the Feminist perspective has had a major impact upon their lives, a good healthy impact towards awareness of self and others. However, as I read through MisEducation, I know that this acceptance and support are rare. In every area of academia, women are scapegoated and abused. The authors cite several examples from each discipline. Dagg and Thompson view three critical factors as progressive for women, both students and faculty, within university structures. These are the creation of a women's study program, a women's centre and provision of adequate, and flexible day care. They are clear that a women's study program must begin with a Feminint perspective and the hiring of full-time track, or tenured, Feminists within that program. It will do little good to create such a program, as has been done in some universities, where the professors are women, but not necessarily Feminists There seems to be at several universities this irrational fear that feminists will take over and seek a gull monopoly upon knowledge. The fact is that Feminists have studied women, and are the best to teach in that area of Further Dagg and Thompson exp erti4e. expose the lack of funding towards both university women's centres and Day Care. The University of Toronto received in 1919, a donation of $125,000 for wothen's sport and meeting facilities In 1986, this finally materialized. However despite the fine work done through this centre, when the members approached the Student Administration MisEducation: Women and Canadian Universities is not only an original testimony but a very brave, and honourable text. Academic women and students need to know that we are not alone; as well, the patriarchal forces which pervade our university systems must be held accountable for their abuse of women academics and students. There is no doubt in my mind that this testimony will result in much dialogue, and hopefully collective action amongst women. To quote Sasha McInnes "This book is a must for every professor, university administrator, and politician. Any woman who has had contact with a Canadian University will read her own untold story here." The text is powerful, as is. I believe also it will be meaningful, as well as personal, to most women academics and students. I congratulate the authors on their ability to put the personal into the political with such a charging, and dynamic force. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN e.11 �CIRCLING TO THE LEFT By: Josie Wallenius I am making notes sitting on a plane going to Dallas, Texas, because some things have happened in the last 24 hours which connect up with what I learned from the native writer and poet, Lee Maracle when she was in Thunder Bay a few weeks ago. Margaret Phillips had first met Lee at the feminist book fair in Montreal and had arranged for her to visit Thunder Bay on her way back to Vancouver, to talk to women here. Lee had' said in Montreal that she was going to spend her time with native women from now on, as it seemed as though women of colour in North America were wasting their time speaking to white women about racism. She said its a white institutionalised problem, and we must look to our own empowerment to change things, and above all, stop writing for, and about, native women. That means even Anne Cameron, who Lee has been dialoguing with for four years and who now agrees with Lee. On the first night Lee was here, we went with her to the native expressions night, where we were made welcome, and'heard her poetry reading, which was wonderful. She spoke a poem, to and about her husband, Dennis, who was in the audience with her two sons. In front of strangers she made herself vulnerable, and I was moved to tears. The next day Lee visited with native women, and spoke to two classes of native women in the afternoon, encouraging tlibm to write, and advising them about publishers. White women reading this may well ask why I am writing about Lee, if she is now only working with native women, so I will explain why I wanted to talk with her after I had read her book, I Am Woman. To overcome patriarchial capitalism and give birth to matriarchial socialism, we are going to need every morsal of advise, knowledge, guidance, and global communal empathy. I knew in my gut Lee knew more than I, I knew it after reading her book, so I wanted to learn more. For the next five weeks I put it all on a back burner, which was fueled by friends. "Can't white women be spiritual then?" "I wouldi use it Josie, if Lee said we shoul, not be writing about native women, we should not use their drum." "Di n't be silly, its just deerskin ani wood." My overt thoughts, "I need a drum, I love the sound of this co I bought it, and I have already usl it." My covert thoughts, "Why do feel the need to explain why I am using it each time I drum a story, why do I feel troubled if I tell al angry story with it, why am I worr' ing?" On top of all this, I had two very important questions for her from me. 1) Did she believe in a cosmic something?, and 2) What did she think of me using an Ojibwe drum for my story telling? The answer to my first question was an elaboration of her belief system described in her book, and affirmed my belief that something or other is on our side. The answer to the second question brings me to the reason I could not write about Lee 'till six weeks later, on the plane to Dallas. When I had asked Lee about using the Ojibwe drum which I had bought, her eyes told me something. For a moment she seemed to withdraw into herself, then she came back, and smiled, saying, "Well, if you know what you are doing, but if you don't I had felt before meeting Lee that native people have a confidence in making decisions that white people sometimes lack because native people believe in things coming full circle, so I felt that Lee was saying it wasn't her burden to give me advice, it was mine, and nobody can help you make sixth sense decisions. So six weeks later I am with good friends in Minneapolis the nig before going to Dallas. I have my drum, cymbals, bells, and tambourin in my case. Sherry, my native frie told me with a laugh that native pE ople are now calling white people w try to copy them, "The Wannaby Trib SuSu, my wicca friend who is a sham drummer, heard my story about tracing my own Gaelic roots, and whiske me off to a music shop the next mor ing and lent me the money to buy a drum made of strong plastic and cow hide. I live in plastic land, and my Grandmother came from Hereford. I put ribbons hanging from it, whic look like Maypole ribbons. Well they do to me. The Ojibwe drum. I have just met an elder white woman, who is ex perimenting with sounds and resonance, and she is a real whitehaired elder, and wiser than me. She will use it softly, make no mistakes. Meanwhile, Dallas, here I come good and angry, and at ease. Thanks Lee you cautioned me as a friend. We are all moving in circles, sparking and touching each other, but always in circles, and to the left. FEMINIST BOOK FAIR (continued) In all there were 52 workshops/ panels stimulated by the wisdom and vision of hundreds of women writers. Writers that we know and love - Dorothy Livesay, Audre Lorde, Marie-Claire Blais, Olga Broumas, Anne Cameron, Dale Spender, Mary Daly, Frances Duncan, Judy Grahn, Makeda Silvera, Betsy Warland, Donna Smyth. And writers, unknown to many of us, whose words it is essential we hear: Merle Hodge, Lee Maracle, Alicia Portnoy, Daysi Zamora, Janet Campbell Hale, Kumari Jayawardina, Ellen Kuzwayo, Sheila Jeffries, Gloria Joseph, Miriam Tlali, Nell Mc Cafferty. (This list is by no means inclusive ... there are hundreds more women writers we must hear/read.) It was the workshops that demonstrated that this was a feminist fair. A time to renew our feminist analysis. A time to challenge ourselves to confront and address our racism, our classim. A time to feel. A time to dream. A time to remember. The Fair held many memorable moments for me. The thrill of conversing with Dorothy Livesay; the awe of meeting Ellen Kuzwayo; the challenge of hearing Audre Lorde; the joy of renewing friendships with Women Writers colleagues - stimulating my renewed urgency to write. But the highlight of the Fair was the Native poetry reading, most particularly Alanis Obasiwin's BUSH LADY. This came at the end of the day and week. I went to the reading physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. I left the reading - restored. Alanis' BUSH LADY poster hangs for my easy view in the Bookstore. It stimulates my memory and gives me energy and hope. (The quotations in this article are taken from the official program of the 3rd International Book Fair) PDF compression, OCR,page web12optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor WORTHE71 NOW! �Free Trade (continued) Cohen focusses on women's job losses in the service sector. After predicting that Canadians may lose control over health care and child care services, she concludes: Free trade in services will cause job loss and downward pressures on wages and working conditions in many areas which have traditionally been growth areas for women's employment: data processing, transportation, and public service occupations. (p. 79) In both manufacturing and services, rather than concluding that women will lose jobs, isn't the more important conclusion the fact that we, as Canadians, will no longer be able to decide the future direction of our social programs, and that we are giving control of our food supply to a foreign power? This focus simply on job loss prevents an examination of the larger question of national sovereignty. It is similar to some labour organiza tions' contention that Canadian workers will oppose free trade only if it can be shown that it will hit them in the pocketbook. In response to a question from a panel member at the Ontario government hearings into free trade in Thunder Bay in November 1987, about whether workers in the lunchroom expressed concern about culture and sovereignty, a local labour spokesman rctplied: "Canadian workers don't care about culture or sovereignty, they only care about jobs.' Is it this same attitude that has given rise to the "women and free trade" approach, that women will only act out of self interest? self interest? Another result of limiting the debate to free trade and women is that many people are excluded from learning about the issue. This was demonstrated at a lecture given by Maude Barlow of the Pro Canada Network at Lakehead University on March 7, 1988. Her lecture was titled "Women and Free Trade' but its contents were not limited to that subject. She covered a history of the recent free trade initiative, the forces pushing for free trade, Canadian demands for secure access and a binding dispute settling mechanism that were never met, and an overview of the actual terms of the agreement. Only peripherally did she cover how women might be adversely affected. It was a speech that should have been heard by a large audience. The common response of most people in Thunder Bay, as it is across Canada, when it comes to free trade is that they do not know enough about it. This is no accident. Again, it has been the government's policy to keep Canadians in the dark. The leaked Toronto Star document stated: It is likely that the higher the profile the issue attains, the lower the degree of public approval will be.... The strategy should rely less on educating the general public than on getting across the message that the trade initiative is a good idea. In other words, a selling job. In the face of deliberate government secrecy and lies about the contents of the free trade deal, it is the wrong time for the opposition to be limiting its audience by aidressing the concerns of particular =roups. Less than twenty people attended the Barlow lecture; only one man was in attendance. How many people, both men and women, didn't attend because the lecture was titled "Women and Free Trade"? Another group, Women Against Free Trade, was recently formed in Toronto, initiated by the Ontario Federal of Labour's (OFL) and. NDP Women's Committees. In an interview in Thunder Bay in March, Carol Anne Sceviour of the OFL explained the reasons for setting up a group to address women and free trade issues. Women are disproportionately affected by the deal, she said. Women are the ones who use social services the most and will be most affected by changes to them. Women are better at grass roots organizing. And, finally, many women are "sick and tired of going up against the boys" in those organizations where they are fighting free trade together. But do these arguments not simply further isolate women from mainstream politics and encourage our limited involvement in questions that affect the country? Should we not be striving for equal participation with men on this issue that affects us all as citizens, rather than retreating to groups where we limit our questioning of the effect this deal will have on us as woman? The group's pamphlet, "Women Against Free Trade Manifesto," like Maude Barlow's lecture, gives an analysis of free trade that is not restricted to "women's issues." This begs the question: Why another group, saying similar things as other groups, formed by people who are already involved in anti free-trade groups (the OFL Free Trade Committee, the Ontario Coalition Against Free Trade, the Council of Canadians, the Pro Canada Network) that involves a further expenditure of energy and money? Their manifesto states: Our great-grandthothers set the example. Told they didn't understand politics, they were denied the vote. They organized, apparently against all odds, and they won 'personhoOd' and the vote. We have won the right to participate equally in the political life of Canada, and this is the time to exercise that right, when we're facing the most important issue we've ever faced as a nation. The time for women to organize separately is when it's time to fight for those issues that are truly "women's" issues, such as reproductive rights, not on issues affecting the future political and economic direction of the country. .. the right to participate equally. The National. Actioa Committee has published a poster entitled "Women are Against Free Trade" outlining job loss, lower wages and poorer working conditions and poorer access to social programs as ways women will be affected by free trade, and a pamphlet "Free Trade: A Bad Deal for Women." They qualify their opposition to free trade under the heading "Free trade is not just a women's issue": Free trade dramatizes the very different interests dividing ordinary people from the rich and powerful.... Employers with the most to gain are large international corporations. Employers with the most to Zose are producers who can expect increased outside competition in the Canadian market. In both cases workers, ordinary men and women, lose. One important issue for people in Canada is unemployment. Free trade won't solve that or oter social and economic problems that we face as a country. NAC limits its examination of the impact of free trade to job loss, never naming the problem of Canadians giving up the right to control their economic and political future. And, further, when it comes to "What Women Can Do" NAC advocates that women "organize a women's coalition against free trade in your area" (emphasis mine). Living in an area in Ontario where there is next to nothing in the way of organized opposition to free trade, and where most people in the area know little about the deal, advocating a "women's" coalition against free trade is misguided, to say the least. It is interesting to note how the proponents of free trade address the issue of women and free trade. 'Katie Macmillan is an economist who wrote one of three papers on free trade commissioned by the Advisory Council on the Status of Women and who has worked with the Economic Council of Canada, the Canada West Foundation and the C.D. Howe Institute. In an essay in the pro-free trade collection, Free Trade: The Real Story '(Gage, 1988), she writes that free trade promises women a rosy future: Free trade offers Canadian women the potential to improve their economic standing, both relatively and absolutely.... While some job.losses would occur, women have demonstrated capac a to adjust to, and even profit from, changes in the workplace. Labor mobility and upgrading programs can help women to adjust to the better opportunities that free trade will generate. Women can be winners from free trade by using the changes that it brings to permanently improve their economic status. (p. 125) It is this appeal to self interest that forms the basis of the govern-lent's strategy to sell free trade. Those opposed to it need not buy into this strategy, but should widen their examination of the deal to how it will affect the country as a whole,. To this end, Citizens Concerned About Free Trade provides an example of a successful strategy to fight PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �free trade. The organization, formed in 1985, is non-partisan with no ties to any political party or organization. It is supported financially by donations from members and the public. Within the context of Canadian sovereignty and by examining Canada's history as a nation trying to maintain independence in the face of constant pressure to develop closer economic and political ties with the U.S., the group has been educating people in Saskatchewan and across the country about the implications of free trade. Beginning with a small meeting in Saskatoon in 1985, CCAFT has grown to the point where it draws large crowds throughout Saskatchewan. Last December 1500 people attended a debate between the group's spokesman, David Orchard, a grain farmer, and the provincial trade minister, Bob Andrew. It was the largest meeting on free trade anywhere west of Toronto Through its commitment to public education, the organization has built a strong following in Saskatchewan and now has brances in all Western provinces. The leadership Of the group is shared by women and men, who have worked tirelessly to make sure that Canadian people have a say in whether they want economic and political union with the United States. A recent membership leaflet from the group encourages individuals to do what they can to end this deal: We can and must take an active role in putting an end to the most undemocratic phase in Canada's history, during which our country has been systematically weakened by the Meech Lake accord and fundamentally changed into a mere colony of. the U.S.A. through the free trade deal. As individuals we can do the following *inform ourselves fully about the_ meaning of this treaty for Canada's survival as a nation. *speak publicly against free trade whenever we have a chance, such as in governmental 'information' meetings on free trade, in political meetings of all sorts, in meetings by groups and organizations we belong to. *call in on open Zine radio programmes, locally and nationally. We must speak from our hearts and guts, because 'free trade' is not just a matter of Yacts', but is a question of whether we want to have a country or not. The openings for speaking out in our society are few, and we should seize each one that comes along. Every voice counts. *keep up the pressure on the federal and provincial opposition parties to do more to oppose free trade than they have done up to now. They must not only make good speeches, but must educate and mobilize Canadians against free trade.... We need to also realize that if there is no election before Congratulations To I DIVERSITY The Lesbian Rag From NWJ the agreement comes into effect, there is no guarantee that the opposition party in power would be able (or even willing) to cancel the treaty after the 1989 election. ALL OUR ENERGIES MUST GO INTO FORCING AN ELECTION BEFORE THIS TREATY COMES INTO EFFECT. The group warns: The free trade treaty comes into full effect on Jan. 1, 1989, and it is the government's plan to have it fully operational before the next election. MUlroney's own utterances that he will call an election, mean nothing more than that he wiZZ call it sometime in 1989! We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into thinking that this government will VOLUNTARILY' call an election in 1988. Instead, We must ceaselessly pressure that the election take place this year and we must use aZZ the means at our disposal to make sure that some semblance of-democracy will be restored in Canada! In conclusion, I would encourage individual women who have not considered the implications of the free trade deal to educate themselves about the meaning of the treaty. As well as reading the text of the agreement, a good place to start is with McLelland & Stewart's 1987 book, If You Love This Country. For those women who are in leadership positions in the political arena, I would encourage you to think serious': about your strategy in opposing free trade and caution against narrowing your organizing efforts to so-called "women's" issues only. In this case, such a focus does a disservice to Canadian women-who are full citizens of Canada who deserve to be treated as such, and to men in this country who will be just as affected by job loss, changes in working conditions and poorer access to social programs. Citizens Concerned About Free Trade has a wide range of information on free trade from audio tapes to video tapes to leaflets. Membership and information can be obtained by writing to CCAFT, P.O. Box 8052, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan SY' ',77. Don't Forget to Renew I your Subscription 1 1 1 I The AIDS Committee of Thunder Bi (ACT-B) is launching another voluntet recruitment drive. Volunteers are needed to staff the ACT-B AIDS Information phoneline ACT-B is particularly interested in finding volunteers who can give time during regular business hours. Volunteers will receive training which will include information about AIDS, its transmission and treatment. as well as on social issues related to AIDS such as homophobia, fear of sexuality and discrimination toward persons with AIDS. Opportunities for service in other ACT-B projects and programs will be outlined. For more information call 345-1516. 40.......,.....,..m,._,.. oefte SEE- RIGHT a ivx 8A" ° co4ek -----------t (.4.1044i This lc --"e6741- 5 rm. PI A PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor ',NORTHERN WOMAN paye.14 �WHAT'S NEW in the BOOKSTORE More than 100 new titles have been acquired by the Bookstore in the past few months. Here are a few WOMEN CONDIDOTES of them. CHARTING THE JOURNEY: Writing by Black and Third World Women, Sheba WOMEN'S FICTION FROM LATIN AMERICA, edited by Evelyn Picon Garfield, Wayne State University Press THIRD WORLD, SECOND SEX 2, compiled by Miranda Davies, ZED Press YOU CAN'T DROWN THE FIRE: Latin American Women Writing in Exile, edited by Alicia Partnoy, Cleis FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES: Philosophical Essays on Methodaricr:MuraIs, edited by Lorraine Codo, Sheila Mullett, Christine Overall, U of T Press EVERYDAY WORLD AS PROBLEMATIC: A Feminist Sociology, by Dorothy E. Smith, University of Toronto Press REFLECTING MEN AT TWICE THEIR NATURAL SIZE: Why Women Work at Making Men Feel Good, by Sally Cline & Dale Spender, Collins COMPETITION: A Feminist Taboo? edited by Valerie Miner and Helen E. Longino, The Feminist Press WORK IN PROGRESS, Building Feminist Culture, edited by Rhea Tregebov, Women's Press THE NEW DAY RECALLED: Lives of Girls and Women in English Canada 1919-1939, by Veronica Strong-Boag, Penguin I NEVER CALLED IT RAPE: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape, by Robin Warshaw, THE COURAGE TO HEAL: A Guide for SurvivoT4s of Child Sexual Abuse, by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis, Harper & Row THE PERFECT MACHINE: TV in the Nuclear Age, by Joyce Nelson, Between the Lines MAKING IT: A'Woman's Guide to Sex in the Age of AIDS, by Cindy Patton & Janis Kelly, Firebrand 'HON TO WIN' All the information you need to successfully run for Municipal Council or Board of Education is contained in this practical, locally produced handbook. fluailable from: FIERCE ATTACHMENTS: A Memoir, by Vivian Gornick, Simon & Schuster THE BOX CLOSET, by Mary Meigs, Talon Books AND A VOICE TO SING WITH, by Joan Baez, New American Library A BURST OF LIGHT essays by Audre Lorde, Firebrand WIFE, bu Bharati Mukherjee, Penguin GONE TO SOLDIERS, by Marge Piercy, Fawcett SOMETHING SHADY by Sarah Dreher, Pandora BITTER MEDICINE, by Sara Paretsky, Ballantine The Bookstore would like to remind regional readers that we do have a mail order service. We no_longer publish a catalogue as it becomes outdated too quickly. Instead we regularly put out book lists by category. Current lists include Health, Violence Issues, A.C.O.A., and International. These lists may be obtained by writing us at _184 Camelot Street, Thunder Bay, P7A 4A9. Northwestern Ontario Women's Decade Council 905 Tungsten Street, Thunder Bay, Ontario. P7B 5Z3 Telepnne 18071 623-7556 Cost: $5.00 plus $2.50 for postage Citizens Concerned About Free Trade now has a Thunder Bay office. For information call 623-1120 or 344-6736. to ow').-solA146evomPgamtzoslowz-am*00 ,0: ,,t0A,,Nt.z,A3-k--totiott,w---)A.wowvonto 044,;;Npt A GUIDE TO FIGHTING WORKPLACE SEXUAL HARASSMENT/ASSAULT has been published by Bonnie Robichaud. This is a stepby-step guide on fighting a sexual harassment complaint, how to recognize the barriers to proceeding with a complaint and how to overcome those barriers. Fighting and winning a complaint of sexual harassment is still far from easy and this booklet is intended to give women the tools to to improve the odds. The GUIDE is available from the Northern Woman's Bookstore, or by sending $2.95 per copy plus $1.00 postage and handling costs to Bonnie Robichaud, Box 149, Osgoode, Ontario, KOA 2W0. L73 .T.,141ca- NoRM 5ATISS/Es hics Le-fr-1.2Ala PARisiiiONEIts By HIRING A taotiA4 1A/STEA0 OF 4 fr/colosexuAi... 01>t<eM v704 ,_rgyy, 0 tt'O 7,,zgaw;_yo: r<gsv W.% t-OA PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN page' 15 �ARTISTS Share your innovative and original expressions with al: of us --- same deal: hi -tech YES INDEED WE NEED TO KNOW YOU'RE OUT THRRE We haven't heard from some of you in a while. Many of our subscriptions have expired. Have you moved and we aren't reaching you? Do we no longer meet your needs? Complain and keep subscribing. If you already have a subscription - introduce the NORTHERN WOMAN to a friend. -WORDS WANTED REWARD For any unsolicited copy - original articles, stories - that we use you will be given a free one year subscription for yourself or a friend. HERE'S MY SUB: Our subscripticn lists are now on computer. We can be more accurate and up to date with our mailings. Please check your label to see if your address and expiration date is correct. THANKS. WE'VE MOPED Please send all articles, graphics and subscription requests to: NORTHERN P.O. THUNDER P7C WOMAN JOURNAL BOX 144 BAY, ONTARIO 4V5 The NORTHERN WOMAN JOURNAL i4 a vehicle to encourage a kminiist awaiteneim oi the 6ituation o6 women in ou/L 5oeiety and to pnovide an atte/Lnative to the patAiLotchaZ media. We -Speak to women bighting againt Aaciism, homophobia and heteuzexi4m. StAiving to be a communication tink between women in Notthweste/tn Ontario in addition to aAticte6 oA gtobat and nationat conca,tn. Lubso iseek mate/tiat o6 pa/tticutan itetevance to Notthweistetn Ontaitio women. ALE mate/Liat etected son inctuzion wite be chosen by the conen6u/s of the catective. AIJ miginat hubmiz4sion4 ate reviewed. It iz 04e/tab2e that the authors do any content editing kequi/Led, but the cottective Name xi,et edit with the authon' peAmiz6ion. Pnoduc -Lng a nempapeft by votunteen tabours and without f c.mding i4 an en04MOWS tas!z. Femini6t newoaputis thAoughout Canada arse conztantey 4t/Euggting to 6UhViVe. The NORTHERN WOMAN JOURNAL ha's 6u/Lvived Zonge/t than Address many and with your 5uppott we wiZt continue to grow. Throe ate many ways that you can azisit the JOUR- Individual $5 Institutional $10 NAL. 0/Liginue a/tticeez, rev iews, paphic6 and titena/Ly contnibution6 a/te atway's we- ecomed. News item6 about diztAict women' concenn6 and 6e/tvice6, not othotwize widety pubticized cute impontant. Locating dbstAibutton point/5 tH A.egiOnat COMMUnitte6, and encouAaging 6ubiscitiption puitcha6a would /Leatty hap. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Second Class Mail Registration No. 5697 MAIL TO: RETURN TO: THE NORTHERN WOMAN JOURNAL P.O. BOX 144 THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7C 4V5 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Return Postage Guaranteed Collectively produced CAROLYN GREENWOOD-MARY-ANN KLEYNENDORST p2 OUR VOICE/YOUR VOICE/WOMEN'S CHOIR. P3 FREE TRADE p4 FEMINIST BOOK FAIR ONTARIO WOMEN'S DIRECTORATE P65 WOMYN'S MUSIC A UEW NOTES p8 P('ETRY p10 SET BACK FOR DAY CARE/ DECADE COUNCIL NEWS Pll BOOK REVIEW p12 CIRCLING TO THE LEFT JONI MACE-KIT MINOR-LORETTA PAVAN- MARGARET PHILLIPS-ROSE PITTIS-CYNTHIA STOLZ : Northern Viroman Journal P.O. BOX 144 THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7C 4V5 (FOUR ISSUES) $50 $10.00 Business or Institution PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal Description An account of the resource Northern Woman Journal Published in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Northern Woman Journal (originally called Northern Woman) started in 1973 following the first annual Northern Women’s Conference in order to keep the conference attendees connected. Initially serving as a newsletter of events, local issues, and women’s resources, the Northern Woman Journal quickly became a diverse publication reaching national and international readers. Not only did it serve as a newsletter to keep local women up to date on feminist issues in Northwestern Ontario, but also as a safe space to discuss women’s resources, law, politics, economics, health, racism, sexism, homophobia, feminist organizing and activism, transnational feminist issues, poetry, feminist reading, feminist art, and women’s diverse lived experiences.One of the longest-running feminist perodicals in North America, the Northern Woman Journal reached its end in 1995. Throughout its 22 years, the Northern Woman Journal was produced by its many collective members, with membership evolving year to year. For many years, the journal worked closely alongside and shared space with the Northern Women’s Centre and the Northern Women’s Bookstore. With the exception of a year-long government grant in the 1970s, the journal relied entirely on subscription fees and donations in order to maintain publishing, which presented challenges throughout its entire existence. As stated in an early version of the editorial policy, “only by a free and open exchange of views and opinions will we develop a basis for unity which can be used as a basis for action.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal, Vol 11 No 3 Description An account of the resource Vol. 11, No. 3 (September 1988) Title: Northern Woman Journal Topics include: Women’s choir Thunder Bay Women against free trade Feminist book fair Resources for northern women Family violence prevention month Federal childcare initiatives Womyn’s music festival Poetry Daycare access Daycare legislation Women in economic development & decision making Book review of MisEducation: Women and Canadian Universities by Anne Innis Dagg & Patricia Thompson Native women Women & race Comics Call for submissions Authors/Contributors: Peggy Smith Margaret Phillips Ontario Women’s Directorate Jane Saunders Keri Shephardson Nan Peacock Susan Collins Gert Beadle Kit Minor Josie Wallenius Carolyn Greenwood Mary-Ann Kleyendorst Joni Mace Loretta Pavan Rose Pittis Cynthia Stolz Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northern Woman Journal Collective Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-09 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Published on this site with permission. Language A language of the resource English https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/16/2804/1988_Vol_11_No_4.pdf 2cf6cb855355c5e9f64f847954243e88 PDF Text Text Volume 11 Thunder Bay, Ontario ON No.4 ) MAR-NA NANC\II Oro Glob 0, 01-1 1`1A9.\/ K ER I JE,.)Nv 9694V $1.50 AND FIND Northern Woman Journal December 1988, ON PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �As we emerge from the despair evoked by the federal election result it is important to understand that the election success of the Conservatives will have consequences immeasurably beyond just the disasterous effects of the free trade agreement. It is hard to think beyond the-trade deal implications. When the sovereignty, the identity, of the country that you love is given away - to appease the greed of the business elite - you may wonder what else matters. But the Americanization of Canada will be subtle, gradual - - and we may be lulled by the misinformation that will continue. If we love this Auntry it is incumbent upon us to support the grass roots movement against the trade deal and foster awareness of the true implications of the Mulroney-Reagan deal. (It will be a citizen movement, not political parties, that we must depend on.) We must, however, also mature our awareness and analysis of the full Conservative agenda - social policy, tax reform, trade - and determine what is in store for us in the next four years. Behind the mask of free trade lies a neo-conservative agenda (which would not on its own be risked) that will devastate the vulnerable in our society, will erode the modest gains that women have made, and will set back the cause of social justice and equality for a decade. ' It is a frightening picture. We can anticipate an intense and sustained backlash against women. Our energies will be spent protecting what little we have, and mitigating the hurt that will be inflicted on the most vulnerable of us. What lies ahead SOCIAL PROGRAMS The threat to social programs was a significant focus of the election campaign. Unfortunately, the opposition politicians failed to make clear to many voters the true ramifications of the trade deal in respect to social policy. The Conservatives and their business allies spent millions of dollars reassuring us that medicare, old age security, and other social programs are unaffected by the trade deal. It is instructive to note that immediately after the election this same business lobby are calling on Finance Minister Wilson to decrease the deficit by cutting social programs. Both the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Business Council on National Issues advocate decreased social spending, while business reporter Peter Cook (Globe & Mail Nov. 23) states the government must "... r edUc e) willing to make unpopular cuts in programs that subsidize middle class Canadians." (emphasis added) There is no doubt that universal social programs are at risk. Not from the trade deal itself, perhaps, but from the mentality that says the market must prevail (and the people be damned). The Conservative ideology does not support the concept of universality. Universal social programs have not been implemented by a Conservative government, they were legislated by Liberal governments under pressure from the CCF/NDP. Medicare and pensions will not disappear overnight. Rather, they will be chipped away little by little. The business lobby has always opposed universality, has opposed any improvement of social benefits. The big business community (and their American owners/ counterparts) are the dominant influence on our present government, and will not be satisfied until social programs have been eroded beyor cognition. It is not as though our sc system was ideal. Many exising grams are inadequate. Other uni programs (eg dental care) are solute necessity. Remember the promise to implement pensions f homemakers? It seems to have ted. strugglE x-er..4.1,41,041a.t"4.4.4141, hope of improving social progrE comes a mere fantasy. PRIVATIZATION The flip side of the free coin is privatization. Privati2 is the transfer of ownership, c regulation, financing or decisi making from the government sect private hands. Privatization cz several different forms includi selling of crown corporations ernment agencies to the privatE tor; contracting out through bi agreements with employees beinE ced by contracted out work; de/ tion and removal of legal const franchising and commercial entE use of volunteers; and user feE mentation. continued or I swear it to you I swear it on my common woman's head The common woman is as common as a common loaf of bread and will rise) - PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN page 2 �The sotistice is the outermost limit of the sun's rays upon universe. And, in these winter months it provides us Luny nights and chilling air. The spirits bless us with this very special tytne to gather fuel and Eight; And criticaay to give warmth to others, the deep warmth of women in friendship. This is not a dark, mysterious tyrne; ut rather it is a baLance. A tytne of neither lii3ht nor dark, but a blending twitight, Kolding the powerojaLL that has been and can be. U is naturels demand that we recognize her batance; And that we bLend into the twilight. A simple thought: to take tyme to cleanse; to renew; and to thank the spirits and Goddesses who guide us. And perhaps, just maybe, to thank the special, friends who keep us in care. May Mother Earth and The Spirits "Mess us tvery One" And Likewise. (for 114) km i, 1 0 Tbe from Porthrrn Doman Iournat page. 3 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN �Josie Wallenius Josie Wallenius has developed a repertoire of "stories" that she performs in artist-run centres and community gathering places. These stories are acoustically punctuated as she strikes on a six-foot crosscut bush saw with a piece of rusted iron...or a rock...or a wooden spoon. Her sound stories talk of racism, sexism, poverty, struggle and Peace. They relate to everyday life and speak to and for the people who have trouble surviving each day -- the ones who will make the change. She came to Thunder Bay from London, England in 1978...later giwing up her full-time job as a registered nurse to become a full-time unpaid peace worker. Josie is a grassroots activist in her own community, and in: Acoustic Storyteller 1985: Worked with the Greenham Women investigating microwave radiation of Peace Women 1984: Participated in the ten-day action at the Greenham Common Peace Camp in England that coincided with NATO's 'Operation Lionheart" An article written by Josie for W.I.L. P.F. (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) in 1987 has now been translated into Italian, Danish, and German. December 1988: Frightened is it You Are Performed at Medicine Hat, Alberta, Peace and Justice Centre November 1988: Performed at Macalester University, St. Paul, Minnesota, Peace action Coalition Conference. October 1988: Performed'at Project Ploughshares Peace group, Salem, Ontario. August:-1988: Performed at the International Women's Peace Conference, Dallas, Texas June 1988: Performed at the Canadian Labour Congess School, Lakehead University. May 1988: Performed at the Women's Interfaith Network Spirituality Conference, Kitchener -Waterloo Opening performance at Project Ploughshares National Conference, Toronto Ontario Mother's Day Peace Demonstration, Wisconsin, Guest performance, "Speaking Out" ASpace/MAYWORKS, Toronto, Ontario Opening performance, "Souvinir from the Northern_Front, The Funnel, A-Space/MAYWORKS, Toronto, Ontario February 1988: Performance with Nipigon Nylons, Definitely Superior, Thunder Bay, Ontario 1987: Canadian delegate to the International Women's Conference, Moscow, USSR Canadian Delegate to the Libyan Peace Conference, Libya 1986: Worked at support camp at Big Mountain, Arizona during the Navaho Hopi struggle against re-location Worked with the Canadian Electrical Brigade in Nicaragua by Josie Wallenius Frightened is it you are with a bit of trouble with the police Frightened is it I am of Cruise Missiles Frightened is it you are of hurting someone's feelings Frightened is it I am of talking and saying nothing Frightened is it you are to say we are racist Frightened is it I am that Africa will no longer forgive us Frightened is it you are of communism Frightened is it I am that El Salvador will no longer forgive us Frightened is it you are of losing friends Frightened is it I am of burning children Frightened is it you are of a bit of trouble with the police Frightened is it I am of Cruise Missiles empowerment from marginalisation Josie Wallenius October 1988 Having experienced over the last year the power of storytelling and writing as a means of empowerment, both for myself and for other women, I will describe how I first experienced empowerment BECAUSE I was marginalized. I was, and still am, a global woman working for Peace. Three years ago I was asked to go with a male activist to a local meeting of citizens in our community to explain our position. I was a better speaker, and had more knowledge of the issues than the man. Imagine my surprise (I was very innocent) when I found out that there was only time for one of us to speak, and the man was chosen. I should not have been surprised or upset, because, of course, in a mixed audience especially, a man always has more credibility. The next week I spoke to a mixed group, and explained this phenomenon before I started. I asked the men to forget I was a woman, to see if they heard me more by forgetting this. This introduction worked. It turned out to be the most productive part of the debate afterwards. The tactic worked. I'm not interested in things that don't work anymore. I have a favorite picture ove . my desk-an old print by a Dutch ma, ter. It's a picture of two women s: tting at a table, leaning towards ch other, ENGROSSED in their talki] What they are talking about who kn4 ws. Perhaps their husbands or love an unwanted pregnancy, making ends meet to feed the children, what ca: go is coming in at Rotterdam, who ruling Holland. Who knows. All I ki ow they look a lot happier than woi en watching television. This is what I am doing with I storytelling and writing. Proving at our stories are more riveting tl an the soaps, our lives more import ant to the world than the lives of those that rule us, and our experi( nces as women the most likely to sz ve this earth from destruction, as long as we start telling them. I will do performances, but tt workshops will be participatory one empowering to the women who attend. The instruments (the drum, cymbals, tambourine, dulcimer, etc.) are the re for the people to use as they tell to the group, a story of their 1 : own. page 4web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN OCR, PDF compression, �UPCOMING EVENTS IMMIGRANT WOMEN'S CONFERENCE COUNTDOWN TO IMPLEMENrATION Conference employers, Ontario Women's Directorate for employees "MAKING CHANGES" and On December 25th & 26th, 1988 bargaining agents to learn more about the "had to" of pay equity the first Immigrant Women's Conference was held at Ramada Inn implementation. Valhalla Inn, Thunder Bay, Ontario February 9, 1989 Registration forms at Northern Hotel. Office BULLETIN opportunity of Ontario Women's Directorate THE GEORGE BROWN ASSAULTED WOMEN'S FROM WOMEN'S PLACE, KENORA AND CHILDREN'S ADVOCATE/COUNSELLOR PROGRAM AND REAL EYES: THE VISION RAPE CRISIS CENERE FUNDING CRISIS PRESENT Workshops with Sandra Butler Historically the SolicitorJanuary 17-23, 1989 General's office of Ontario has Tbronto, Ontario funded the operational costs of Rape Crisis Centres (R.C.C.'s). Although Healing the Healers - Jan. 17-18 they fund each centre differently, they will pay for rent, telephone Personal Disarmament - Jan. 19-20 lines, pagers and transportation. However they have refused to fund Wbmen, salaries or honoraria for RCC Sexual Terrorism and the State - Jan. 21 volunteers. In April 1988, the Ontario Search for the Mothers - The Coalition of RCC met with Our the Journey Home - Jan. 22-23 present Solicitor-General, Joan The theme of the conference was about the most important problems of immigrant women:- learning English and training and education programs to prepare women for entry into the workforce. The first workshop of the conference was the presentation and discussion of immigrant women's problems. At this time, many of the immigrant women presented their speeches prepared by themselves. They analysed causes and possible solutions. After this two interesting panels took place, one about E.S.L. programs. It was very important because in it was discussion about the possible deficiencies and problems of these programs. The other panel, about training and education programs for Smith requesting funds for staffing more information call costs, since many RCC's wereFor in (416) 654-2206 crisis operating without secure immigrants was the most important, because immigrant women questioned the policies of Canada Employment and Immigration regarding training staffing and with exhausted volunteers. Joan Smith established and FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION an Ad Hoc committee to meet with the MONTH - ACTIVITIES coalition and in June 1988 the coalition submitted a proposal for 5 Several activities produced by year funding for RCC's. The meetings groups in Northern. Ontario who also resulted in emergency funding received funding from the for several shelters (including Directorate took place: Women's Place - Kenora) to cover Public Forums (Beendigen, staffing costs. Family Resource Centre, After several extensions,Northshore it Sioux son -North Women in Crisis)has been announced by the SolicitorComite Contre la Violence Faitr, General's office that emergency aux femmes presented the play "Marc funding will continue until March et Julie" followed by a discussion 1989, and that they will not let any period. more centres close until year end, education the development of that society. The conference also gave great moments that the participants enjoyed. The...program...-includeal--cultural activity that presented folklore music and dance of Central America. Childcare was provided for all who needed this participants group produced a respond to the funding proposal Assault/Abuse this brochure which has been distributed year hospital emergency departments If you are in support to of and adequate funding for RCC's pleaseclinics in Thunder Bay. service. \*, to your local MPP and Warren's Place, Box 687, Kenora, Ontario P9N 3X6. for improvement of their situation so that they can integrate into Canadian society and contribute to The although they will not be able to Interagency Response to Wife send a letter to: The SolicitorGeneral the Honourable Joan Smith, Grosvenor St., 10th 25 Floor, Toronto, Ontario M7A 1Y6 with copies programs immigrants and they discussed their reasons for change. Then the women worked in small groups to make recourendations for After the November conference immigrant women will continue to work together to improve the situation of all immigrant women of Thunder Bay. If you are an immigrant woman and want to be involved call Maria Albizurez at 345-6084 for more information. Maria Isabel de Albizurez CONGRATULATIONS 901 Decade Council New Executive OF: Co-Chairpersons Gloria Harris Brenda Cryderman Secretary Roseann Perron Treasurer Jan Owen 10 CA 0 .1f..°'.1*.°' 000 40° 0116 (31. NOTICE This page is sponsored by the Ontario Women's Directorate. The material contained on it may be photocopied and distributed without y of Northern Women's ions will be ready for tion by the end of Thanks to those groups permission, but with credit to the original source or the Ontario the time to answer our naire. You will be Women's Directorate. your complimentary copy you know of anyone who interested in receiving a se call 345-6084 collect. This month's graphic courtesy of 2$T- :0 at' lazIT :Or 10 010:0 :Or Cbncetta PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN page 5 �Update itro.44a4arworogovairoirowsrewee Arizona Gay Rodeo Association News January 13,14, & 15, Release: 1989 are the dates for the 4th annual Arizona Rodeo. The Arizona and the New Mexico Gay Rodeo Assocs. are woeking together to produce the ROAD RUNNER REGIONAL RODEO. This year the name is new and the rodeo arena is newly enlarged just for A.G.R.A. Visit and stay awhile: Make plans now to be in Phoenix this January for the fun of your life. Call or write: Rodeo Hotline. P.O. Box 16363, Phx., 85011, (602)938-3932. Az. PV4z4oJzpke044:04.0443+04,01=0(404-g40404:0 LESBIAN WRITERS! Women's Press is looking for manuscripts for a second anthology of writing by Lesbians about Lesbian experience. They welcome fiction, non-fiction, poetry. experimental work, erotica etc. Deadline is mid-January 1989. Contact Women's Press, Lesbian Manuscript Group, 229 College St., Toronto M5T 1R4 The National Association of Women and the taw (NAWL) has just come out with a new Publications List describing their excellent research papers and briefs in areas of feminist legal concern such ,aa abortion rights, affirmative action, reproductive technology, child care, prostitution, divorce, child custody, pensions, pornography, sexual aggression against women and children, and unemployment insurance. Most recent publications are on the Constitutional Accord, survivor's benefits under the Canada Pension Plan, and benefits for part-time workers. The NAWL Publications List is available through the NAWL National Office at #400 - 1 Nicholas St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7B7, (613) 238-1544. t4c14,04e.oct.4o.treovsies4.044:>44:44:**A4:"-° A GUIDE TO FIGHTING SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE by Bonnie Robichaud is part of a major public education initiative by the Ontario Women's Directorate. Through her own successful case against the Department of National Defence, Robichaud has become a symbol to all who oppose discrimination in the workplace. Of benefit to victims and advocates, this informative booklet is available for $3.95 (postage included) from the Bonnie Robichaud Defence Committee, P.O. Box 149. Osgoode, Ontario, KOA 2W0; (613) Do contact the Bonnie 826-2150. Robichaud Defence Committee if you would like to receive their Newsletter or would like to make a donation to this precedent setting case. c:r4r3+434041:00.04.4,+oar4,40-Iteec*obecy4.040 New Video CREATING LESBIAN MEANING Excerpts: anglophone lesbians at The III International Feminist Book Fair. This video is available in a global four-hour version or a complete version of each specific theme: memory, power, feminist and lesbian political strategies. Among the women featured are Anne Cameron, Sheila Jeffreys, Sonia For more Johnson and Mary Daly. information contact Rgseau VideElle, 4013 des Erables, Montrgal, Qug., H2K 3V7. The Sports illustrated ` Swimsuit Issue may be changed to a "Women and Sport" issue if the members of Athletes for Equality have their The organization is working way. to obtain fair and equitable coverage for women in sports, according to President Beverly Smith. "We are concerned that there are many gifted and dedicated female athletes who are not getting the coverage they deserve", states Smith. "We are also concerned with the presentation of female athletes as sex objects, as we feel that this trivializes their accomplishments, and leads to many misconceptions about women in sports." These include the myths that women do not take athletics seriously, and that women are more concerned about their appearance than about their abilities, Athletes for Equexplained Smith. ality, which was founded by a group of female athletes at the University of Massachusetts, welcomes others with similar concerns. Athletes for Equality works as a clearinghouse for sexist sports articles. These are distributed to members, who are encouraged to write to the publishers and/or advertisers, One of Athletes for Equality's main targets is the magazine Sports Illustrated. From January to April 1987, this magazine allocated only 5% of its total sports coverage to In addition, for professwomen. ional tennis, collegiate basketball, track and field, swimming, golf, horse racing, and skating-sports with widespread female participation, only 13% of the magazine's coverage dealt with women. In addition, ex- plained Smith, when Sports Illustrated does publish a story on a f( male athlete, they often do so ofi ensively, either blatantly emphasizing her sex appeal, or trivializing her commitment to her sport. An obvious focus is the Swim: In 1987 it features 42 pz Issue. ges of models in provocative pose: and minimal-coverage swimsuits. "For serious female athletes who train long hours to excel at their sports to be upstaged in a sports magazine by models chosen for thei appearance (not their athletic ability) is an insult to women," stated Smith. "In addition, the context of the photographs in this issue may be considered pornograpl is in their depiction of power, with nearly naked women posed witt fully-dressed men." Smith also pointed out the captions accompanying the photos: "Kathy is the catch of the day" and "Kathy... makes the Dog course...look very inviting." "These give men the false message that women encourage and enjoy ogling and harrassment. These types of pictures in a sport magazine encourage men to look at female athletes as sex objects, by giving the impression that, for example, women who run marathons do so to be attractive and sexy." Sports Illustrated sold 5 mil] copies of its Swimsuit Issue last year, and flooded television with advertisements. As yet, the magazine has been unresponsiVe to requests to cancel the issue or char it to-a "Women's Sports" issue. Athletes for Equality is urging p( ple to write to Sports Illustrate( corporate sponsors, asking them t( stop supporting Sports Illustrate( Advertising provides approximatell 95% of Sports Illustrated's financial support. Some of the major dertisers include Ford, Chevrolet Nike, Wilson Sporting Goods, and Athletes for E Eastern Airlines. ality is also initiating a petiti drive directed at the magazine it Petitions and addresses ca self. be obtained from Beverly Smith, a 98 Spring St., Amherst MA 01002. icrt0+04040.040401.6.Cirtio4o C.C. A. F. T "We're not through yet" declal Peggy Smith, coordinator of Thunder Bay Citizens Concerned About Free de. The local group, along with the national organization headed by SaE atchewan farmer David Orchard, are commited to "building a grass rootE organization whose goal is Canadiar independence". The national organi2 tion plans to embark on a cross -cot- try tour to develop public awareneE of what the trade deal truly means, and to encourage the continuation c the fight to stop the deal. During the fall Smith has traN led in the Maritimes and eastern CE ada organizing Orchard's speaking t Smith, and other volunteers, left it jobs or studies and dedicated tt, months to spreading the message abc the trade deal. Her car has become continued on page PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTH :=RN WOMAN Tage.6 t �L. U. FIGHTS HARASSMENT by MYRNA HOLMAN On Tuesday October 25, 1988 Lakehead Unoversity was visited by Marilyn McKenzie, Sexual Harassment Investigator for the University of Manitoba. Ms. McKenzie was here to conduct two training sessions for employees who have been designated as contacts for people with complaints of harassment. A two hour information session for senior administrators was also completed. Ms. McKenzie dealt effectively with several myths surrounding the issue of harassment. She clearly indicated that releasing a policy and improving the profile of the policy will not result in a deluge of false People will however, complaints. be more comfortable coming forth with their concerns. She agreed with the Lakehead approach of instituting an informal process where people can talk about their experience without having to sign a complaint or "officially" deal with At the inthe alleged harasser. formal stage, the contact person dealing with complaint will be able to make suggestions, offer support and give direction. If the informal process does not produce a satisfactory result, the complainant will be encouraged to make the complaint formal. At this stage, an investigation into the complaint will be completed and the alleged harasser will be made aware that a complaint has been lodged. Ms. McKenzie's visit coincided with the release of a brochure outlining the Lakehead University Personal Harassment Policy which deals with all forms of harassment covered in the Ontario Human Rights Code. The Personal Harassment Brochure The bright orange is hard to miss. cover poses the question, "Who Can I Talk To?" Inside, there are examples of situations that might happen to staff, faculty or studThe brochure goes on to deents. fine harassment, outline suggestions for dealing with possible harassment scenarios, define the University stance on the issue and, identify three contact people who are trained to help. The contacts are, Myrna Holman, Human Resources Officer, Dave Parsons, Professor of English and, Joy Lawson, Director of Student Services. As well as releasing the brochure and providing training, several other initiatives are in the process of being implemented. A special project, funded by the Secretary of State has resulted in the hiring of project co-ordinator, Jane has recently Jane Livingston. designed a great poster which is prominently displayed throughout the campus indicating that harassment is offensive and unacceptable. She is also about to conduct a survey of staff, faculty and students to asses the incidence of harassment on campus. Jane will also be designing a career strategy project for female students. This project will start in January. Jane can be reached at 343-8022 and will welcome any suggestions or assistance you may have. Things are looking up at Lakeheadt C.C.A.F.T. cont'd. Stop The Deal Mobile, easily recognized with its bilingual signs of Save Canada - Stop Free Trade. "The response to our tour was incredible" Smith says. "All along the way new volunteers joined to help the tour. And we take credit for the dramatic drop in PC popularity in the OAITH Lobby by LENI UNTINEN On ,November- 28, .1988the,011tar440-- Association of Interval and Transition Houses carried out their annual lobby of members of the provincial government, on issues of concern to battered women and to shelters. Hopefully, political response to this action was more attentive than was the press. A prime concern of shelter boards and workers was the proposed funding formula for Transition Houses and Family Resource Centres. The inadequacy of the formula in terms of staff ratios, wages and definition of shelter services is a'major barrier to shelters being able to pro vide safe, accessible, quality services in keeping with the increasing demands. This, however, was not the only issue addressed. Press reports of the lobby could have better served battered women by covering other major issues such as the push by O.A.I.T.H. to force to parliamentary committee Bill 124 addressing access by non-custodial parents. Advocates for battered women have major concerns on the implication of this legislation for families where there is a history of violence. There must be an opportunity for public input and sending the bill to committee is the only avenue which allows this to take place. O.A.I.T.H. received commitment from opposition caucuses to such action. 'tatit Imes ." Sinittielfrettftt their (unfunded, volunteer) organization had had the time to travel the country the election results would have been quite different. She uses the election results in Saskatchewan as another example of the organization's effectiveness. CCAFT was founded in Saskatoon in 1983 and has been holding educational meetings and debates throughout the province in the last three years. The opposition vote in Saskatchewan was 62% and Ray Hynatyshyn, former Minister of Justice, and MP in Saskatoon, admitted his defeat was a result of the strength of the anti-free trade movement. CCAFT are extremely angry that the Liberals and the New Democratic Party appear to have given up the fi- Other issues addressed concerned services-for immigrant, Native and Francophone women; the threat to services for battered women by either free trade or for-profit privatization; inappropriate sentences afforded perpetrators of violence against women; and the demand for the release of a report compiled regarding the instances of police pressing charges in cases of wife/woman assault. The lobby organizers are to be ght against free trade. They point out commended for their efforts coordinthat 53% of voters chose the Liberals ating the focus of the 73 shelters and NDP, while only 43% voted Conseramd 6 organizations represented by vative; that over one million more O.A.I.T.H. as well as for their stroCanadians voted for the parties oppong demonstration of unmet needs, lack sed to free trade than for the trade of emergency beds and houses. Sheldeal Tories; that this election was ters were able to accommodate 8221 essentially a referendum on free trade women and their children in the past and the majority of Canadians clearly year, but unfortunately were forced voted against it. to turn away referBay elsewhere, The and Thunder group have alrea7594dy women, approximately one for met with MPs Lain Angus and Joe one. Comuzzi, The lobbyurging committee prepared the MPs to give leadhuge ership scrollsinwith the names of 7594 fighting against the trade womenagreement. and calledAsupon MPP's to ad- opposiwell as lobbying dresstion their responses to members these women. members, CCAFT are callWhile the earth did not be-them ing and writing Senators move to ask causetoof the lobby, the government did block the deal. not commitThunder to openBay either the public CCAFT will be meetminds purse, hearts their ing their regularly to or plan local activities the voices of advocates were heard, and cooperative action with the nationand the pain of women experiencing For more information al organization. violence at the hands of part- St. contact Peggy Smith, their 301 Cameron ners,Thunder was felt. Bay, P7C 2H1, phone 623-1120. 1, page NORTHERN WOMAN evaluation PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �8 WOMANPOWER (bon M/A) I toil along weighed down within my eatthey body, Tiled spitit searching sot the wett-wotn path and cti46 beyond. Some strength inside remains to push me even, upward Through the dense and hostile bush, Tit I can stop and test in that cleaning Mete Hope hangs warm and musky in the ait. (Az I climb, the Power grows gtaduatty sttongel) She us in the warmth oi the suntight that glides outside a cloud and tipples along my ctouching back. She is in the coot damp eatth that I gtasp beneath my sctambting hands. She titts het sweet siten sounds through the panting ofi my .labour, and {tom the ctiii above me. I zee het in the tich sag 6/towns oi Moth et Earth that suit/wand and encompass me. She ptay.6ut in the small-animat sounds that ctackte around me. (Az I teach the top, the Powet grows mote coniident, comes neaten) She inteteaus tightly with my ttembting .6ingetz. She is so6tty on my patted tips tike a gentle wind. She sweeps through my tired veins and gtowz strong and con4ident in the warm inside o6 me. Sift y, she cavort t6 on that ptateau and draws me taughing to the. na 4-tzP, (I beet the ptimat cart begin to gather deep within) I Anise my arms made strong high above me, Firm palms outzptead with welcome, To invite the body-seating joy to join and zttengthen me. Ftom deep inside and all around the primal Powet gatheAz iotth Hex drat buAzt. The hilts, the white-tight sq,the zpatkting emetatd Land gash with my enetgy my vatidity my competence my strength. sttong gowing, gather up my eaittht.Tpatp, down the path once mote. 1%4 Swe song upon my tips, sentry smite within' my thtOat, To goat above, and then to mesh with time Untit I need again the welt -warn path and eti44 beyond. Hea - ' . R.P. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �WORDS WE LIVED BY... The following is excerpted from the Ladies' Guide, a popular reference book of the 1890s. tal weakness and inactivity. Unnatural boldness in little girl. If she has previously been rea. The expression of the eyes. The dull, lusterless eye, surrounded by a dark ring, tells the tale of sin. EFFECTS OF SOLITARY VICE IN GIRLS served, this is just ground for the Palpitations of the heart, hys- suspicion of secret vice. teria, nervousness, St. -Vitus's The victim of this evil habit is cer- A forward or loose manner in company with little boys. Girls dance, epilog, and incontinence addicted to this habit are guilty of the most wanton conduct. Languor and lassitUde. In a girl who has possessed a marked de- bed. tain to suffer sooner or later the penalty which nature invariably inflicts upon those who transgress her laws. Every law of nature is enforced by an inexorable penalty. This is emphatically true respect- vvv and pains of which girls complain, dn....-. IN ....J..% HEALTH AND DISEASE, by no means easily ject slavery, the iron fetters of habit daily closing the prisoner more and more tightly in their grasp. The effect is to weaken the moral sense perhaps more rapidly than any other vice, until there is little left in the child's character to which an appeal can be made. load, iligdenhcol,- 1V1ifthood, which thousands of girls break down in health. The constitution, already weakened by a debilitating, debasing vice, is not prepared for the strain, and the poor victim drops into a premature grave. which when thoroughly estabterrible vice is held in the most ab- 4 LADIES' GUIDE worthlessness of girls originates in this cause alone. The period of puberty is one at The habit of self-pollution is one broken. The victim of this most us that a great many of the backaches, side-aches, and other aches are attributable to this injurious habit. Much of the nervousness, hysteria, neuralgia, and general HOW TO CURE VICIOUS HABITS lished, is ing the laws which relate to the sexual organs. Wide observation has convinced of urine, giving rise to wetting the kat eilac:i BY J. H KELLOGG M. D The mother should first carefully set before the child the .exceeding sinfulness of the habit, its loathsomeness and vileness, and the horrible consequences which gree of activity and energy, this should give rise to earnest solicitude on the part of the mother for the physical and moral condition follow in its wake. But in most cases, the evil is not so easily of her child. every moment of her waking alert to detect the first evidences of An unnatural appetite. Some- this vice in their daughters, since later nothing but almighty power times children will show an exces- hours. Care should he taken that the child dies not feign sleep for the purpose of gaining an opportunity to avoid observation. SIGNS OF SELF-ABUSE IN GIRLS Mothers should always be on the seems competent to loosen its grasp. The only positive evidence is detection of the child in the act. A suspected child should be watched under all circumstances with unceasing vigilance. [But ] aside from positive evidence, there are other signs which may lead to the discovery of positive evidence. A marked change in disposition. When a girl who has been truthful, happy, obliging, gentle, and confiding, becomes peevish, irritable. morose, and disobedient, she is under the influence of some foul blight. Loss of memory and loss of the love for study. The nervous forces -are weakened, giving place to men- sive fondness for mustard, pepper, vinegar, and spices. Little girls who are very fond of cloves are likely to be depraved in other respects. The presence of leukorrhoca. Self-abuse occasions a frequently recurring congestion of the parts, together with the mechanical irritation accompanying the habit. Ulceration about the roots of the nails. This especially affects one or both of the first two fingers of the hand, the irritation of the fingers being occasioned by the acrid vaginal discharge. mastered. The little girl should be kept under constant observation It is much more difficult to cure this soul-destroying vice in girls than in boys. They are seldom as ready to confess their guilt as are boys, and then are less easily influenced by a portrayal of its terrible consequences. Sleepless vigi- laqce must be coupled with the most persevering patience. In obstinate cases, severe means must be adopted. We were once obliged after every other measure had failed, to perform a surgiral operation [clitoridectomy] before Biting the fingernails. The irritation of the tigers, which gives rise to the habit of biting nails, grows out of the irritable condi- we were able to break the habit in tion ,of the nails mentioned above. degree. the case of a girl of eight or ten years who had become addicted to the vice to a most extraordinary szo PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISIONNORTHERN PDFCompressor WOMAN page 9 �continued from p2 The past four years of Tory rule has demonstrated an unprecedented move toward privatization, with the resulting loss of jobs in the public sector, and contracting out to nonunionized agents (where women workers earn barely the minimum wage). With the right of national treatment and the right of establishment provisions of the trade agreement, American pressure will reinforce the already odious privatization of the Tories. With increased privatization everyone suffers. We are not simply talking about selling Air Canada. We are talking about the privatization of services -- health care, social services, education, day care. Workers will suffer job loss, lower wages, decreased benefits, inadequate health and safety workplace conditions. Consumers will suffer because the quality of service will decrease. WORKING CONDITIONS Free trade is about "competition". To be competitive Canadian workers (women and men) will be under assault. Wages, working conditions, health and safety standards will all be eroded in the name of competition. On average, Canadian workers enjoy better employee benefits, more regulated health and safety standards, than do American workers. But as Ralph Nader said you never harmonize up, you only harmonize down. As with social programs, worker benefits and protection will be eroded. This erosion will affect non-unionized workers (the majority of women) first, but even organized workers will be pressured to give up hard-earned gains. EMPLOYMENT EQUITY/PAY EQUITY We will be lucky to retain the concept of 'equal pay for equal work' much less advance the concept of 'equal pay for work of equal value'. Pay/Employment Equity is not addressed in the trade agreement. It doesn't need to be. It will be the business lobby that will demand the government backtrack on its (inadequate) commitment to employment equity for the disabled and visible minorities, to pay equity for women. It will be too "expensive", just not "competivie" to ensure justice and dignity for disadvantaged Canadians. DAY CARE With a majority government the Tories doubtless will reintroduce TheearGAMTO'f Bill C-144, the JOBS Thousands of Canadian women will lose their jobs in services, manufacturing and agriculture because of the trade deal. The majority of women are employed in the service sector and their jobs will be threatened as restrictions on the provision of services from outside the country are removed. Just about every type of service can be traded internationally, including banking, data processing, telecommunications, computer servicesa and culture. In the manufacturing sector it is women's jobs that are most at risk eg textiles, clothing, food processing, electrical and electronic products, and other consumer goods. It is speculated that in Thunder Bay some 200 manufacturing jobs will quickly disappear -- jobs held primarily by immigrant women. disasterous Child Care Act, that died when the election was called. Two things should be kept in mind regarding this child care legislation. Firstly, the promotion of the Tory plan is a fine example of the newspeak the government is capable of, when declaring the proposed child care act "will encourage economic justice and development by giving many more mothers a chance to join the workforce" (CJ July/88). The legislation does no such thing. Rather this new bill will restrict the expansion of day care spaces. Remember that 1,000,000 new day care spaces are needed today to even approach the needs of Canadian families. Under the existing Canada Assistance Plan it is projected that 300,000 new spaces would be created in seven years, but under the new act a limit of 200,000 new spaces will be imposed. This is regressive legislation which will only worsen the day care crisis that already exists. The second thing to remember is the refusal of the government to consider the advice of child care experts (who unanimously condemn the plan). "Why should I listen.." Brian Mulroney arrogantly replied during the TV leaders debate. Since the Tories are not listening to the child care community, we must ask just who they are listening to. Consider the links to free trade. Bill C-144 would give unprecedented tax support to commercial day care operations. The doors will be open to American day care chains... with their history of exploitative wages and poor working conditions for staff, and lack of quality care for children (never mind the indoctrination of American culture on three year olds). Commercial day care has never been a problem in Northwestern Ontario... we must recognize that the influx of American day care chains could destroy the quality day care Northwestern Ontario communities now take pride in. ABORTION What will happen here is not so easy to read. There are, of course, significant numbers of anti-choice Tories and Liberals. The Conservative Cabinet yearns for a "compromise" solution, but given the abortion legislation exercise witnessed last summer, a simple compromise seems unlikely. One suspects that most Tory men would like strong anti-choice legislation, but their legal experts caution that such would not pass Supreme Court scrutiny. About the only safe presumptions are that (1) abortion legislation will not be introduced early in this government's term; (2) that anti-choice crusaders will increase their efforts to influence parliament, and (3) that the prochoice movement still has many years of hard work ahead. continued on p14 Comparable worth is just a disguised attack on our free enterprise system. It flies in the face of the values that made this country great? 1\( C.itrot4v.5imsev PDFNORTHERN compression, OCR, lo web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor WOMAN page �Book Review Reviewed by Kit Minor A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection. Janice Raymond. Beacon Press, Boston, 1986. I found this one of the most moving texts that I have read in many months. It definitely should be on every Feminist bookshelf. The New York Times states that Raymond provides "an unsentimental, playful yet sobering look at female friendship through the ages." She begins the book with an intriguing and informative look at the origins of female friendship and the roles which they have played through the centuries. She develops terms such as Gyn/ affection for those tremendous bonds that bring women together. She is clear and well documented in her analysis of the myths that have been perpetuated concerning women and our role in hetero-relations, i.e. the wide range of effective, social,political and economic relations that are ordained between men and women by men. Music Review Raymond particularly attends to two groups of women, nuns and the Chinese marriage resisters, to emphasize the characteristics of female friendship and also points out clearly the struggles which these two groups have had to endure to retain the friendship and the chosen lifestyles. Although these two groups offered to women a community, Raymond is careful to point out that this does not necessarily mean a Feminist community. She cautions, "feminists can learn that when a movement or women's community becomes hardened into rhetorical positions, when the language of thought and cliches begins to prevail, there is no genuine feminist movement." (pg. 111) The obstacles to female friend" ship which Raymond introduces are indeed thought provoking and ,indeed, she does challenge some of the "gi- vens" within a feminist perspective. One of these areas is the "personal is political". To this Raymond asks do we really want to publicize our personal lives. She supports the need for private space and time while living in the world as opposed to dissociation from reality. She points out that if we are not in reality we may well become ignorant of the real conditions. The part of A Passion for Friends which had the greatest affect upon myself was that of victimism. "Women's primary female or feminist identity seems to be grounded in women's shared state of having been victimized by men" (pg.181). We then take on the traits of the victim and begin to centre our friendships along common lines of that victimism. Our friendships result out of how we feel as victims. The result is that we fall into the tyranny of therapist, where feminists feel that we are not completely whole unless we search deep into our souls and spirits and pull out every dark shadow. The real_ty here is that after we have done this we very often end up in worse shape than when we started. Raymond also challenges the tyranny of tolerance where we as feminists put up with incompetence among other women because we tolerate the situation and silently DITYMITT.7177711701NMETTMITTITCM #x7 , a a a a 1111 I, W nfth help, Ar mm "m;#, sense oi betonging, an otganization az needed ptace of equatz where att were we come middte point equally distant 4tom att sides ptace where ate sides were allowed thein iocu4 L/ , C/ A) by JANE SAUNDERS The women's music industry which has been in existence for 15 or more years, has evolved into a major facet of women's culture. The number of artists and the quality of production has greatly increased. Two recent albums from a couple of women's music regulars are Deidre McCalla's WITH A LITTLE LUCK (Olivia Records 1987), and Heather Bishop's A TASTE OF THE BLUES seniousness and 6tivotity teach out and allow to be /Leached the embtacing o6 .idea, oi spiALts a sense oi betonging, potiticat the need waz thete a sense o6 ziztethood AegaAdtess of potiticz my 6ocuz het limo Nth iOCU4 no tonget a community, a meeting peace no tango equatty distant atom alt side's (Iceber:;g Records 1987). Deidre McCalla has been on the women's music scene for many years, touring, and playing small clubs with mixed audiences. In the last few years she has really come into the limelight with her debut album DON'T DOUBT IT (Olivia Records 1985), WITH A LITTLE LUCK is very similar to DON'T DOUBT IT with its' dancable, energetic style. Both are very professionally produced by long-time women's music singer and songwriter Teresa Trull. WITH A LITTLE LUCK has all of the qualities which make women's music great. It is womanly, loving and reflective with strong personal and mildly political views. Deidre's voice weaves through the ballads TOO GOOD, MAMA'S LITTLE BABY GIRL, AND WAIT UNTIL MORNING. Then there is the 'hot' Teresa Trull duet WOULD YOU LIKE TO DANCE, and the punchy, upbeat blues tune THE CAT SONG (for those who have lived with other peoples cats). Also, there is the upbeat dancable pop style ALL DAY AL- 1114 11 114111 1212ZIMIZZ The album has a well-rounded variety of rock, blues and country/folk. It is a successful follow-up to her smash first album. Deidre McCalla is a very popular women's music entertainer who is energetic, personable and very professional (and woman produced and managed). HI sjiglizati INS 41 Heather Bishop's TASTE OF THE BLUES is a continuation of the stylish trends apparent in her previous album I LOVE WOMEN WHO LAUGH, and blends with her older music as well. This album contains rock influences, discusses lesbian/feminist politics and portrays women as strong builders and healers. Those women's music connoisseurs who know Heather will not be disappointed (and for those less fortunate, there is no better place to start). My personal favourite on this album is the cute, stylish and humourous SEDUCED. The new upbeat sound of ON THE RUN AGAIN is typical of Heather's new style trend. IF YOU LOVE FREEDOM is destined to become a political anthem, and the blues tune TELL ME MORE AND MORE must be heard. Heather also pulls out and revamps some 'oldies' PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN ( +/OMAN page 11 �Book Review continued from p.11 ranny of therapist, where feminists feel that we are not completely whole unless we search deep into our souls and spirits and pull out every dark shadow. The reality here is that after we have done this we very often end up in worse shape than when we started. Raymond also challenges the tyranny of tolerance where we as feminists put up with incompetence among other women because we tolerate the situation and silently accept it. It has become unfeminist to speak out against a woman, particularly a feminist, even when the woman is incompetent, manipulating and may well damage the movement. "The tyranny of tolerance deprives not only the individuals but also a political movement of its capacity for discernment. It gaps a moral passion and purpose from feminist politics" (pg.171). These obstacles, to female friendship (and these are lust a few of the many which Raymond points out) keep us from the true power and caring which happens when women come together. The obstacles hasten us towards heafero-relationism and silence within the world. And yet, as Raymond points out Gyn/ affection "has given us an understanding that a life of mere survival is insufficient for the spirit" (pg.200). In a vision of a female friendship Raymond points out that there is no magical formula, nor should it be taken for granted that women have a natural possession of virtue. "Rather it is anchored in the historical, cultural and material bonds that women have created for ourselves in spite of the 'State of Atrocity "'(pg.218). She encourages the reader to vision and to develop "thoughtful theory one that restores the thoughtfulness to thinking. Or better still, thinking is the theory, thoughtfulness Word Search Women Authors J YKSNELFRASERSSWD IAREVLISNOSTAWHL CULLETONSGIEMITAA N NAERCUNXONOSYORN E AWESTGIOMHEMMOVO RMUNROHGFTMSROFO D U KFBBUTALALLCRRRE AITKENONNIEONAANC L NNOCRNAPGNOTNBWT MARLATTPNNSWRNEDE W ILSONEEEIOUYIAWR B SBARRBLLOBSNEDAW G RSOJRLLDLPZRDLRR AEAAECALLAWSNEELR U BCNNNIFGESYNADAA L KGADDSEICONWAYNC TBEILTOGBROSSARDA Music Review continued from p.11 1 such as Joan Armatrading's TAKING MY BABY UPTOWN and a sultry version of Leslie Gore's YOU DON'T OWN ME. On the heavier side is the song DAD DY'S LITTLE GIRL; similar to Lucy Blue Tremblay's VOIX d'ENFANT (A CHILD'S VOICE) it decries the horro of incest. Rounding off the album is Heather's classic SPIRIT HEALER. A TASTE OF THE BLUES captured the vocal power of Heather Bishop's singing exactly as I heard it on he This alspring of '87 album tour. bum is a must for Heather Bishop fans. the practice" (pg.218). She encourages us to include passion within our friendships but points out that time is a critical factor. Friendship takes time, thoughtful passionate friendship takes more time, thought and caring, and commitment from both. Friendship is a togetherness journey. I obviously enjoyed this book immensely. In fact I read it twice. It is one book that I know I will reflect back upon and will want to reread every so often. At times the book is painfully truthful, and then Raymond has a wonderful gift of being able to see through the pain to a vision of truthful friendship; however somehow through the writing the reader begins to form her own idea of friendship. Raymond asks some hard questions, which most feminists are just too polite or silent to ask, but she asks so gently that the reader gets a sense of having gone through the struggle, feeling good about that struggle, and thinking a lot more about thoughtful, passionate, caring friendship with women, and taking the time for those friendships to grow. Aitken (Johan Lyall) Allison (Gay) Alley (Jennifer) Anderson (Doris) Atwood (Margaret) Barfoot (Joan) Barr (Elinor) Beadle (Gert) Bersianik (Louky) Bertell (Rosalie) Blais (Marie Claire) Brand (Dionne) Brossard (Nicole) Burnard (Bonnie) Butala (Sharon) Carr (Emily) Conn (Jan) Conway (Shelagh) Crean (Susan) Culleton (Beatrice) Danys (Milda) Decter (Ann) Donald (Christine) Engel (Marian) Finn (Geraldine) Finnigan (Joan) Fox (Bonnie) Fraser (Sylvia) Gadd (Maxine) Gault (Connie) Gotlieb (Phyllis) These albums and more will soon be available in the Northern Women's Bookstore. Watch for advertisement. in the Journal or contact Margaret Phillips at the Bookstore. Harvor (Elizabeth) Jiles (Paulette) APOLOGY Laurence (Margaret) Lenskyj (Helen) Marlatt (Daphne Meigs (Mary) Moran (Mary) Munro (Alice) THE NORTHERN WOMAN JOURf APOLOGIZES ABJECTLY Naubert (Yvette) O'Connell (Dorothy) Oughton (Libby) TO Page (P.K.) Roy (Gabrielle) PHOTO ARTIST Sand (Cy-Thea) Silvera (Mikeda) Slipperjack (Ruby) Smyth (Donna) Swan (Susan) RUTHANN TUCKER OF TORONTO Thomas (Audrey) Wallace (Bronwen) Warland (Betsy) Warren (Dianne) Watson (Sheila) Weinzweig (Helen) West (Ann) Wilson (Ethel) Wiseman (Adele) Yanz (Lynda) FOR FAILING TO CREDIT HER WITH LAST ISSUE'S COVER PHOTO. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHEWJ WOMAN page 12 �From the National Film Board of Canada ALL ABOUT WO M EN WOMEN'S AND OTHER COMMUNITY GROUPS HOME VIDEO VIEWERS PROFESSIONALS (NURSES, TEACHERS, AND SOCIAL WORKERS) PUBLIC LIBRARIANS, COMMUNITY WORKERS MUNICIPAL, PROVINCIAL AND FEDERAL PROGRAMS AND SERVICES Choose from our collection of short and long documentary, fiction and animated films and videos that inform, entertain, and promote discussion on a wide range of subjects. WOMEN WHO LED THE WAY HEALTH, WELL BEING AND FITNESS in sports, the arts, religion, Family violence, rape, incest Pregnancy Abortion Menopause Aging Disabilities War, peace, disarmament Working mothers, childcare Single mothers, divorce, women PMS politics and the feminist movement in rural and native communities, unions, the armed forces, business and non-traditional jobs in poverty RENT A VIDEO OR FILM! VIDEO: $2 EACH DAY 16 mm: $4-$8 service charge, valid for five days (excluding time in transit) Available for pick-up or by mail from all NFB libraries in Canada. Buy a video for as little as $29.95; film prices start at $72.80. Members of the NFB's Women's Market Development Group are located in NFB offices across Canada. They can help you select films and videos for your group or event. See "National Film Board" listed under the "Government of Canada" section in the blue pages of your telephone directory. r 7 I'd like to know more about NFB films for women . Please add my name to your mailing list announcing new releases and send me a copy of your video rental catalogue. Please send me your new catalogue of films for women (available in early 1989). Please send me the new publication Women Breaking Through, a 28-page audiovisual guide for secondary schools. MAIL TO: National Film Board of Canada, Women's Market Development Group, D-5, P.O. Box 6100, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3H5 NAME INSTITUTION POSITION ADDRESS PROVINCE CITY POSTAL CODE National Film Board of Canada Office national du film du Canada L NORTHERN WOMAN page 13 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �continued from n.,10 CANADIAN CULTURE FEMINIST LITERATURE Over the past decade the growth With good reason, Canadian wriof feminist literature - the heart, ters, artists, musicians, have been amongst the most passionate opponents head and soul of the feminist moveof the trade deal. This article canment - has been phenomenal. Hundreds of new Canadian women writers are pubnot begin to address the issues surlished each year, women's presses have rounding our cultural industries, developed, and feminist bookstores except to note that - despite government rhetoric - Canadians, indeed, have sprung up across the country. The contribution of this surge of wrishould be fearful for the future of our cultural industries. ting - both creative and theoretical is immeasurable. But if the ConservaWe need also to make a distinctives have their way this continued tion between cultural industries and growth of feminist (and alternative) culture. We must understand the threpublications will be hampered, perhaps at to Canadian culture, as expressed by Martin F. Katz in the November iskilled outright. sue of Quill and Quire. Katz states High on the Tory agenda is the "Culture is that bedrock of shared implementation of tax reform which beliefs and understandings that alwould replace the federal sales tax lows Canadians to exchange ideas, with a new broad-based, multi-stage Feelings, and priorities about busitax which would apply to books. (At ness and poverty and the role of the present books are not taxed.) It is military and social justice and the projected that this new sales tax woenvironment and gun control and equuld add a tax of between 17% - 20% on ality, for example. This bedrock of all reading materials. (Your $9.95 understanding - of common or similar Almanac will become $12, your $22.95 goals and principles - constitutes Our Bodies, Ourselves will be $27.50, the foundation of our culture... To even the least expensive paperback the extent that the trade deal will will increase $1 or more.) import into the Canadian cultural bedThe end result will be that many rock some of the basic and fundamentsmall Canadian presses (which, in the al economic principles of American main, are the publishers of new women life, it will subvert or alter the writers) will go bankrupt. Most of development of this culture. Once we the independent bookstores in Canada accept, for example, as we have in will close. Most Canadian women writhe trade deal, that regional deveters won't get published. Our words lopment programs distort "free trade" will not be heard. while military installations that Periodicals will be likewise afbrings jobs and prosperity to the comfected. And the "unfair subsidy" ismunities in which they are establishsue of the trade deal may come into ed do not, the way we think about govplay. Most Canadian literary and speernment spending', among other things, cial interest magazines now receive changes. This kind of 'change in our government subsidies, and their futthinking means that our culture will be ure is in jeopardy. The demise of HERaffected by the trade deal." izons and Newsmagazine for Alberta Women is fair warning of what happens NORTH ERN WOMAN'S BOOKSTORE 184 Camelot St Calendars when subsidies are withdrawn. (As th Northern Woman Journal does not acce government funding we may survive th fate of subsidy-dependent magazines. But we, like every periodical in Can ada, enjoy a postal subsidy, which most likely will disappear, thus the Journal may have to pass resulting cost increases onto our readers.) If we want to continue to have a choice beyond Cosmopolitan or Hust ler, we must all join the DON'T TAX READING campaign presently being organized by Canadian publishers and booksellers. It is particularly ironic that the government proclaims to be suppc tive of programs that address the pr blem of illiteracy, at the same time it plans to impose a tax on reading. Misinformation Campaign The federal election is over. The Conservatives waged (at taxpayer expense) a misinformation campaign about free trade, a misinformation campaign about their child care strz tegy. We can expect a similar misinformation campaign about tax reform and other new policy initiatives. The Conservatives do not have a mandate for their agenda (57% voted against the Conservatives, 43% for). They do, however, have the power to impose their agenda as they have the majority of parliamentary seats. The have the power to destroy the modest reforms the feminist movement create The power to destroy our culture, ou identity, our country. We must not let this happen. Now more than ever, we must advance a feminist agenda of the futur We do not have the financial resourc of government - of big business. But we have our commitment. It is our fu ure that is at stake. CHILDREN OF THE WORLD AFRO-CARIBBEAN CALENDAR MOON CALENDAR CARRY IT ON .. PEACE CALENDAR LET NICARAGUA LIVE AT LOVERS AGAINST THE BOMB CRYSTAL CALENDARS LUNAR CALENDAR DATE BOOKS PICTURE A WOMAN EVERYWOMAN'S ALMANAC CONTEMPORARY WOMEN ARTISTS HERSTORY PEACE DATE BOOK WE'MOON ALMANAC 1 9 11 9 CALENDAR Thursday & Friday : 11.30 -600 WOMEN ARTISTS DATEBOOK WOMEN WRITERS Saturday :11.30 -4.31 PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN WOMAN page 14 �Ferron By Donna Koivisto "We love you Ferron:" a female voice cries out from a back row. There is some applause and a few whistles. Ferron puts her hands on her chest, lifts her eyebrows as if to say, "Who me?" Then she leans close to the mike and says softly, "I love you too." The intensity and poetic magic of Ferron's music has earned her It is in acclaim across the world. this spirit that Kamazon Productions is proud to present an evening with Ferron, tentatively scheduled for February 14, 1989. Originally from Vancouver, B.C., Ferron has progressed from coffee houses to sellout crowds in 2000 seat venues. Het two albums, Test imony and Shadows on a dime have sold more than 80,000 copies. However, despite success Ferron has maintained a low centre of gravity and an interview with her would more likely focus on the metaphysical, dreams or the mystery of songwriting than on tour schedules or record She is, in fact, an intimsales. idating figure to unenlightened "I'm a spirit who bereporters. came a person." She said in a recThis philosophy ent interview is not condusive to mainstream news reporting. Concert Planned But her substantial talent, wisdom and compassion have brought her above the need for media categorization, yielding fans who have remained unshakably loyal to the feminist/lesbian bard. Perhaps Ferron's hardest task was becoming the self-assured performer she is today. "When I was younger I was so afraid of the audience, because I needed their love so much," she says, "It took me a long time to realize they did love me." This bond of love between Ferron and her audience evolved because she is simply herself. Amid the stren strength of her poetic words the audience senses her vulnerability and honesty. "They honour me and I honour them." But I don't ionget about the iacto4y, I don't expect thi.z 'tide to aLway4 be, Can I give you what you want to zee? Can we do it one mate time? Tickets for Ferron will be available For more information phone soon. Kamazon Productions at 344-4811. Bookstore News Let's start with fiction this month. Heading the list of course is Margaret Atwood's new novel CAT'S EYE. (McClelland and Stewart) I've been saving it as my Christmas treat to myself, as I'm told once you start it you can't put it down. Of particular interest to Northwestern Ontario readers will be Ruby Slipperjack's HONOUR THE SUN (Pemmican), a first novel which gives us a glimpse of growing up in an isolated native community on the CNR line. From the eyes of a 10 year old girl we see the beauty, the pathos, the joy, the dispair of coming of age in an alienated community (so familiar to Northern Ontario). HONOUR THE SUN is not a gentle book, yet it is told in such a gentle voice, I'm left with a sense of awe. Several new titles from the small Saskatchewan publisher Coteau Books who in the past have given us such impressive books as Sharon Butula's QUEEN OF THE HEADACHES, and THE WEDNESDAY FLOWER MAN. This year they give us two short story collections that sound great: WOMEN OF INFLUENCE by Bonnie Burnard, and BEST KEPT SECRETS by Pat Krause. The most powerful indictment of violence against women I've ever read (and I've read many) comes from the novel WOMAN AT POINT ZERO (Zed Books) by Nawal el Saadawi, (translated from the Arabic by Dr. Sherif Hetata). el Saadawi is Egypt's foremost novelist. Her prose is magnificant but it is her passion that makes her books exceptional. We are very happy to find a number of great books back in print. Three of Margaret Laurance's early works - THE TOMORROW TAMER, THIS SIDE JORDAN, and THE PROPHET'S JMEL BELL. And finally I've had Lhe chance to read Marian Engel's THE GLASSY SEA - a very, very fine novel. Also PATIENCE AND SARAH by Isabel Miller, considered by many to be the best lesbian novel ever published. Turning to non-fiction, a title we mentioned last issue but one that bears greater description, THE COURAGE TO HEAL by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis (Harper and Row) is a guide book for women survivors of child sexual abuse. This is a practical and healing guide covering Recognizing, Coping, Breaking silence, Trusting Yourself, Grieving, Anger, Self-Esteem, Feelings and much more; as well as guides for supporters of THE COURAGE TO HEAL is survivors. proving to be a vital resource to survivors and counsellors. Two new books on date rape, both useful healing and prevention resources. I NEVER CALLED RAPE, the Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting, and Surviving Date and Acquaintence Rape by Robin Warshaw (Harper and Row), and WARNING: DATING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: by Claudette McShane (Mother Courage Press). _Following in the path of tne essential health book OUR BODIES, OURSELVES, comes an equally important resource for midlife and older women, OURSELVES, GROWING OLDER, by Paula Brown Doress and Diana Laskin Siegal and the Midlife and Older Woman Book Project (Simon and SchusThis is the only book I've ter). found that gave me useful information about a recent health concern, I'm sure this comprehensive book will be equally welcomed by other mature women. Another new health book is ALIVE AND WELL, a Lesbian Health ,Guide, by Cuca Hepburn, Ph.D. with Bonnie Gutierree, R.N., CPNA (Cross"...a well-informed, ing Press). loving guide to lesbian health, both mental and physical. Rather than to prescribe specific health care, the goal is to present a range of health care options for losbians to considet:" Finally, for last minute Christmas shoppers some gift ideas: Motherpeace Tarot Cards and/or Playbook; records/cassettes by Kim Erickson, Karen Howe, Cathy Miller, Heather Bishop; posters, or any of a wide variety of calendars and date books. Or, if your imagination falters, give a gift certificat to the Northern Woman's Bookstore. HAPPY ROPY ROLINYs' Mar Phillips PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor NORTHERN NOMAN oaae 15 �Share your innovative and original expressions with all of us -7- same deal! him-tech YES INDEED WE NEED TO KNOW YOU'RE OUT THRRE We can be Our subscripticn lists are now on computer. Please date with our mailings. more accurate and up to check your label to see if your address and expiration date is correct. We haven't heard from some of you in a while. Many of our subscriptions have expired. Have you moved and we aren't reaching you? Do we no longer meet your needs? Complain and keep subscribing. If you already have a subscription 7,introduce the NORTHERN WOMAN to a friend. THANKS. WE'VE MOPED WORDS WANTED Please send all articles, graphics and subscription requests to: REWARD NORTHERN P.O. THUNDER P7C For any unsolicited copy - original articles, stories - that we use you will be given a free one year subscription for yourself or a friend, WOMAN JOURNAL BOX 144 BAY, ONTARIO 4V5 I HERE'S MY SUB. The NORTHERN WOMAN JOURNAL 4.4 a vehicte to encoutage a 6eminizt awaune6s cr6 the zit-dation o6 women in out society and to ptovide an attetnative to the patA4.lachat media. We -peak to women 6ighting against 6eXi401, tacism, homophobia and hetetosexism. Sttiving-to be a cOmmunication tink between women in Notthvestm Ontatio. in addition to attictes oA gtobat and nattona -e concvm. 4e az°. 4eetz mate/tide o6 pa/Lticutak tetevance to Nonthwe6te4n Ontario women. AU matetiat setected son. inc tusion witt be cho6en by the consenmo of the cottective. AU otiginat submizsion6 ate teviewed. It is pte6etabte that the authors do any content editing tequited, but the cottective Name vitt editwith the author's peAmbmion. PtOducing a nempapen by votunteek tabout and without &inding 44 an enotmous ta4k. Feminizt newodpeu thtoughout Canada au con6tantty istitugUng to 6a4vive. Address Individual $5 Institutional $10 The NORTHERN WOMAN JOURNAL has isuAvived Pongee than many and with your 6uppott we wilt continue to gtow. There au many ways that you can aim-Lt the JOURNAL. Oniginat antictez, teviews, gtaphics and titetaty conttibutions au'atmay6 etcomed. News, items about disttict women's i66ue6, conceits/6 and 6e.kvice, not othetwise widety pubticzed ate impottant. Locating d44tti.button points to AegtonaZ communitt.e6, and encouAaging 61166ouption purchases wowed Aeatty hap. PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor �Second Class Mail Registration No. 5697 MAIL TO: RETURN TO: THE NORTHERN WOMAN JOURNAL 7.0. BOX 144 THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7C 4V5 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Return Postage Guaranteed p2 EDITORIAL - ELECTION RESULT p3 SOLSTICE THOUGHTS p4 JOSIE WALLENIUS: PERFORMANCE ARTIST p5 ONTARIO WOMEN'S DIRECTORATE p6 UPDATE p7 L.U. FIGHTS HARRASSMENT OAITH LOBBY JONI MACE-KIT MINOR-LORETTA PAVAN- p8 WOMANPOWER MARGARET PHILLIPS-ROSE PITTIS-CYNTHIA STOLZ p9 WORDS WE LIVED BY Collectively produced CAROLYN GREENWOOD-MARY-ANN KLEYNENDORST . . . pll BOOK AND MUSIC REVIEWS p12 WORD SEARCH Northern "%Vernon Journl P.O. BOX 144 THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO P7C 4V5 (POUVISSUES) WOO ULM Business or Institution PDF compression, OCR, web optimization using a watermarked evaluation copy of CVISION PDFCompressor � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal Description An account of the resource Northern Woman Journal Published in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Northern Woman Journal (originally called Northern Woman) started in 1973 following the first annual Northern Women’s Conference in order to keep the conference attendees connected. Initially serving as a newsletter of events, local issues, and women’s resources, the Northern Woman Journal quickly became a diverse publication reaching national and international readers. Not only did it serve as a newsletter to keep local women up to date on feminist issues in Northwestern Ontario, but also as a safe space to discuss women’s resources, law, politics, economics, health, racism, sexism, homophobia, feminist organizing and activism, transnational feminist issues, poetry, feminist reading, feminist art, and women’s diverse lived experiences.One of the longest-running feminist perodicals in North America, the Northern Woman Journal reached its end in 1995. Throughout its 22 years, the Northern Woman Journal was produced by its many collective members, with membership evolving year to year. For many years, the journal worked closely alongside and shared space with the Northern Women’s Centre and the Northern Women’s Bookstore. With the exception of a year-long government grant in the 1970s, the journal relied entirely on subscription fees and donations in order to maintain publishing, which presented challenges throughout its entire existence. As stated in an early version of the editorial policy, “only by a free and open exchange of views and opinions will we develop a basis for unity which can be used as a basis for action.” Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Woman Journal, Vol 11 No 4 Description An account of the resource Vol. 11, No. 4 (December 1988) Title: Northern Woman Journal Topics include: Newly elected conservative government Threat to social programs Privatization Winter solstice Spoken word The power of storytelling Rape Crisis Centre funding crisis Family violence prevention month Immigrant women’s conference National Association of Women and the Law Sexual harassment in the workplace Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue Call for lesbian stories for Women’s Press Thunder Bay Citizens Concerned About Free Trade Lakehead University harassment prevention workshops Transition house lobbying Poetry Job availability Working conditions Pay equity Employment equity Daycare acces Abortion access Feminist book review of A Passion for Friends: Toward a Philosophy of Female Affection by Janice Raymond Music review National Film Board of Canada films for women Feminist literature Ferron concert Northern Woman’s Bookstore news Authors/Contributors: Josie Wallenius Ontario Women’s Directorate Myrna Holman Leni Untinen Kit Minor Jane Saunders Donna Koivisto Carolyn Greenwood Mary-Ann Kleyendorst Jonie Mace Loretta Pavan Margaret Phillips Rose Pittis Cynthia Stolz Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Northern Woman Journal Collective Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1988-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Published on this site with permission. Language A language of the resource English https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5/2805/300708-001a.jpg 9002bfa97b1876b1da29d266c71c0bf4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Str. LaFrance steaming up the Pelly River Subject The topic of the resource Mining People Description An account of the resource Sepia-toned photography of the steamer LaFrance. Small steamers ventured up the Pelly River to the head of navigation at Ross River. Supplies for a trading post above that village were transferred to smaller boats that could be portaged around a dangerous rapid. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H.J. Goetzman Studio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1900s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donated by Mrs. Cochran Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context A0014#136,Z/13 scan#300708-001 LaFrance Pelly River steamers https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5/2806/300708-002a.jpg a7ad87b79610475f7eaab6e2f7db3ddf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Pelly River Subject The topic of the resource Mining People Description An account of the resource Sepia-toned photograph of the Pelly River.The river flows through south central Yukon. Caption on image: "Scene on the Pelly River", "Goetzman Photo Dawson". Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H.J. Goetzman Studio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1900s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donated by Mrs. Cochran Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context A0014#136,Z/13 scan#300708-002 1900s Pelly River Yukon https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/files/original/5/2807/300708-003a.jpg c660552d387d6ea921f7fcf2d25e544e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Archives Description An account of the resource Archival records that don't belong to another listed collection. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fishing on Mica Creek Subject The topic of the resource Mining People Description An account of the resource Sepia-toned photograph of fisherman in the water beside his boat on Mica Creek. The fisherman is showing his catch. Fishing net, dock and boat with oars is visible in the photograph. Caption on image: "Fishing on Mica Creek 75 miles up the Pelly", "Goetzman Photo. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource H.J. Goetzman Studio Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1900s Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donated by Mrs. Cochran Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Public domain Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Photograph Type The nature or genre of the resource Still image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context A0014#136,Z/13 scan#300708-003 1900s fish fisherman Mica Creek Yukon River