Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme (E-Journal, York University)

McLauchlan, Laura

deviante, differente, une difference
toujours peryue comme inferiorite. Dans
un premier temps, la critique feministe
decouvre des victimes, met a nu une op-
pression commune et cherche des
explications.
La seconde etape de cette critique peut
etre qualifiee de valorisation du
« feminin ». Chacune des disciplines se
voit scrutee a la loupe pour y chercher des
femmes. On decouvre alors que les
femmes « existent» bel et bien, qu'elles
ontagi,oeuvreetsesontsouventrevoltees.
Elles sont donc« actives », rebelles aussi.
Les femmes apparaissent enfm comme
des sujets historiques dignes de mention,
des actrices sociales. Certaines
chercheuses decouvriront l'existence
d'une« culture» feminine, et meme d'un
« pouvoir » feminin.
Et c'est dans un troisieme temps que
semblent surgir les debats a l'interieur
meme du feminisme, au sein d'une meme
discipline: quel estaujuste le statutdeces
actrices? Quel « pouvoir »oot-elles? Quel
« sujet » sont-elles en realite? Un sujet
« symetrique au dominant », selon
l'expression de Nicole-Claude Mathieu?
Avec un pouvoir comparable a celui du
dominant? Quelleoppression,en fait, nous
unit toutes? La vision feministe n'est-elle
pas d'abord ethnocentrique? « La »
differencedontcertainessesontreclarnees
n'a-t-elle pas gomme « les » differences
entre les femmes?
Les quinze disciplines etudiees dans le
volume Un savoiranotre image? mettent
bien en evidence le « decalage dans le
developpement de la critique feministe
des divers champs du savoir» (p. 284). La
majorite des disciplines recensees
couvriraient les deux premieres etapes
decrites ci-dessus, a savoir la critique de
l'androcentrisme particulier a chacune,
puis la mise en evidence des tentatives
feminines de creer un savoir « a tout le
moins non-sexiste » :
Dans la plupartdes disciplines, on en
est encore a l'etape de demander,
definir et produire un savoir non
sexiste, on en est a exiger le respect
des normes scientifiques
traditionnelles (...). On redecouvre
ainsi les femmes dans l'histoire des
arts, dans l'histoire des sciences et
dans l'histoire tout court. On les
introduit partout ou des theories
VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1
avaient ete baties a partir
d' echantillons exclusivement
masculins, comme en psychologie et
en developpementmoral. On redefmit
d'anciens concepts, parfois aussi
fondamentaux que le concept de tra-
vail en economie, et on ouvre de
nouveaux champs d'etude, tels la re-
lation pere-enfanten psychologie,les
attributs feminins de la divinite en
theologie ou les relations de pouvoir
entre les sexes en science politique et
en histoire, autant de projets
susceptibles de revolutionner les dis-
ciplines respectives. En droit (...) les
feministes en sontencorea demander
tout simplement...justice! (p.291).
Quant a determiner si le savoir « a tout
le moins non-sexiste » que les femmes
tentent d'introduire dans les disciplines
est feminin ou feministe ou, selon le cas,
s'il s'agit de creation ou de pratiques
feminines ou feministe (la troisieme
etape), seulement certaines disciplines
sembleraient enclines a lancer ce debat.
Ce serait le fait des domaines artistiques
(la creation et la critique litteraires,
l'architecture, la musique) et
professionnels la psychotherapie, la
biologie,le service social), davantage, en
tous cas, que celui des domaines
« purement scientifiques ».
Mais, tout compte fait, la « puissance
critico-creatrice » des feministes (selon
1'heureuse expression utilisee par la
theologienne Marie Gratton Boucherdans
son remarquable essai inclus dans
I'anthologie) rendparfoisoiseuxcedernier
debat. Critiquer le savoir en l'identifiant
commeandrocentrique, c'est un peu, deja,
renverser la perspective, c'est crier des
elements d'une nouvelle comprehension
et d'une nouvelle vision du monde, celle
des femmes.
Il faut lire ce livre, a peine effleure ici,
pour de multiples autres raisons, dont la
moindre n'est pas que, dans chaque disci-
pline, se trouvent mises en evidence, tout
a cote des contributions anglo-canado-
americaines, les contributionsquebecoises
ala critique feministe des disciplines, ce
qui est rarement le cas des anthologies en
langue anglaise. Cela fait partie des obli-
gations de la« Societe distincte ». Mais il
y a un prix a payer pour etre ainsi
« distinctes ». Par exemple, celui de ce
livre: 30 $ avant T.P.S.!
ESSAYS ON LIFE WRITING:
FROM GENRE TO
CRITICAL PRACTICE
Edited by Marlene Kadar. Toronto:
University of Toronto, 1992.
by Laura McLauchlan
"But life writing," a friend outside aca-
deme wants to know, "what is it?" I list:
letters, diaries, journals, autobiographies,
even a scrawled note, announcing a birth,
or left by a woman heading into a river,
her pockets weighted with stones. Editor
Marlene Kadar offers a working defini-
tion which emphasizes both the presence
of an author and a reader: "Life writing
comprises texts that are written by an
author who does not continuously write
about someone else, and who does not
pretend to be absent from the [black,
brown, or white] text himself/herself." In
addition, Kadar notes, life writing"antici-
pates the reader's determination of the
text, the reader's colour, class, and gen-
der, and pleasure... ." This is a scholarly
text but gone is the prohibition against
speaking of the author, the proper eti-
quette of "depersonalization and abstrac-
tion" which (as Kadar quotes Elizabeth
Fox-Genovese) is "often associated with
superior intellectual pursuits." One can
write "I," one can write "she," and mean
both times human beings who must strug-
gle with what Marilyn French, in a novel,
called "the shit and the string beans of
life."
ThroughoutEssays onLife Writing, the
Canadian scholars brought together by
Kadar provide fresh textual readings of
work written in the first person singular-
from hand written journals found only in
archives, and the writing of feminist an-
thropologists, to Atwood's Cat's Eye and
Cervantes' Don Quixote-as well as theo-
retical essays about the "unfixed term" as
new genre. The book is divided into four
parts: part one: "Literary Women Who
Write the Self: Autobiographical Docu-
ments by Literary Women"; part two:
"RecordingaLifeWriting-PersonalOral
Narratives, Life Histories, and Testimo-
nials"; part three: "Fictionand Autofiction
as Life Writing: Reading as Emancipat-
ing the Subject"; and part four: "Poetics
and Life Writing."
105
Though Essays onLife Writing is eclec-
tic, each of its parts has been ordered and
given prideofplace through the introduc-
tory notes with which Marlene Kadar
opens each section. In the introductory
essay, "Coming to Terms: Life Writing-
from Genre to Critical Practice," Kadar
identifies herself as a specific person
whosecritical interests lead her to explore
life writing as "the site of new grammar,
new language." As the book is concerned
with the writing and saying of "I," it
seems particularly fitting that the "I" ed-
iting the book should establish its own
subject position carefully, as Kadar does,
as "a particular kind of white reading
woman in the 'West'.
Although there are essays which are not
specifically about female subjectivity, and
one male critic contributes an essay pos-
tulating a "we" and an "our" (as in "Our
goal") which made me uneasy, the em-
phasis of this volume is feminist. Kadar
opens the book under the influence of a
reading presence constitutedas'She'; this
presence reminds her that the boundaries
of life writing are not set, that it is a term
" .. .in flux as it moves from considera-
tions ofgenre to considerations ofcritical
practice." In an essay later in the book,
Kadar wonders, " ...why bother with an-
other new genre, especially when femi-
nists are challenging the notion of genre
itself?" Kadar suggests thata "needy read-
ership, some would say a contemporary
readership, has willed life writing into
being because of its own generic and
genderic desires."
In part one, Alice Van Wart writes an
essay on Elizabeth Smart's early journals,
Christl Verduyn writes about Marion
Engel's unpublished "Cahiers and Note-
books," Helen Buss explores Anna
Jameson's Winter Studies and Swnmer
Rambles in Canada as "Epistolary
Dijournal," and Eleanor Ty develops a
challenging reading of Wollstonecraffs
Letters Written during a Short Residence
in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Both
Van Wart and Verduyn fmd that the "lit-
erary women" they study-Smart and
Engel-used their journals in the devel-
opment ofwork later published as fiction.
Van Wart has edited numerous volumes
of Smart's journals; in this essay, she
demonstrates how Smart used her early
journals both to construct an identity as a
writer and as the material for By Grand
Central Station! Sat Down and Wept. She
concludes that "(f)or Smart life and art
were one and the same thing. All her
writing was life writing."
Christl Verduyn covers new ground in
her essay on Marion Engel: she intro-
duces the reader to Engel' s unpublished
"cahiers" and "notebooks," studied at the
Division of Archives and Special Collec-
tions at McMaster University.
"Should?" wrote Engel in an article
Verduyn quotes, "Isn't that the great Ca-
nadian word, though? It's hassled me all
through my life.... Should, should, should,
until you think you're going to die of it"
The essay explores, among other things,
both the manner in which Engel's note-
books "pursued the matter of 'should'"
and themannerin which they take"should"
apart and work to articulate another real-
ity, which Engel's life writing articulates
"against the grain of (her) upbringing."
Verduyn's reading of Engel's notebooks
suggests that her life writing and novels
"blur the margins of 'reality' and 'fic-
tion, '" negotiatinga territory where "daily
reality and imaginary life" are inscribed
in the female.
Where Smart and Engel are recently
deceased writers who carried Canadian
passports, the next two literary women
favoured with essays were born in the
latter half of the eighteenth century in
Great Britain: Mary Wollstonecraft in
London in 1759, Anna Jameson in Dublin
in 1794, raised in England, sojourning in
Canada in 1836. In both Helen Buss's
essay on Jameson and Eleanor Ty's essay
on Wollstonecraft, the critical approaches
challenge the reader to return to these
books from a fresh critical approach.
Buss's excellent article pursues a reading
ofWinter Studies andSummerRambles in
Canada thatexplores the manner in which
the text "allows for multiple subject posi-
tions to be presented as coexisting rather
than'competing' and therefore eliminates
the need for resolution into unitary
selfhood...." Eleanor Ty's "Writing as
Daughter: Autobiography in
Wollstonecraft's Travelogue" makes ref-
erence to Jacques Lacan's "account of
language," Nancy Chodorow's revisions
ofFreud and Lacan, and nods in passing to
Althusser, Cixous, and Irigaray. Her cen-
tral premise is clear enough at the start:
Wollstonecraft's Letters (1796) are "ge-
nerically disguised" and this "disguise"
illustrates Wollstonecraft's position as
daughter rather than son of"the symbolic
world of the law of the Father." At some
points the argument seems to diminish
into the articulation of fixed polarities
between male and female in which the
"symbolic order" of "the Father" can not
be contravened. To explain Lacan's state-
ment that "Woman does not exist," Ty
states: "(b)ecause of the daughter's lack
of the phallus, the mark of sexual differ-
ence for Lacan, she is excluded from the
complex signifying system and laws that
make up Western culture." Her argument
challenges its readers to move with femi-
nist theory past Lacan's formulation of
the daughter's "lack," but she seems, in
the end, to turn back to the theoretical
exclusion Lacan postulates, privileging
the "ready-made grids" ofsymbolic order
in explaining regretfully to everyone why
it has been that Wollstonecraft's text "is
not read as art."
In part two, the emphasis is strictly
speaking"non-literary," as it includesfrag-
ments of court testimony and "oral his-
tory." Of the essays in this section I found
Sally Cole's "AnthropologicalLives: The
Reflexive Tradition in a Social Science"
particularly exciting. The essay situates
itself in the context of Essays on Life
Writing, echoing a phrase of editor
Kadar's, "Whose life is it anyway?" and
using it as a point of entry into discussion
of "the current interest in reflexivity in
anthropology." Cole notes that the an-
thropologist's traditional "effacement of
the speaking and experiencing subject" is
being challenged by "postmodern eth-
nography" and by feminist anthropolo-
gists. "Culture," writes Cole, " is both
experience and text and as such is an area
of contest and dispute. In this contest,
power and politics-context-affect the
way in which people (including both an-
thropologist and the 'Other') make sense
of their world and represent it to others."
From this perspective the "I" of the an-
thropologist can no longer be read as a
neutral "scientific" observer but must
record the separate "I" of another entity.
Cole's essay says much more than this but
for me its most significant point is that
culture is not a closed system: what has
value is open to debate and revision.
The final two sections ofEssays onLife
Writing are concerned with both "reading
as Emancipating the Subject" and with
106 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESjLES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
theorizing life writing. The essays in part
three range from Kadar's playful "Whose
Life Is ItAnyway? Outof the Bathtub and
into the Narrative" and Ellen M.
Anderson's "Dreaming a True Story" to
Janice Williamson's '''I Peel Myself Out
of My Own Skin': Reading Don't A
Woman's Word." Williamson's essay
begins with Rita Felski's statement that
"Writing should be grasped as a social
practice which creates meaningrather than
merelycommunicatingit"Theessay turns
around women's writing about incestu-
ous relations and is most concerned with
EUy Danica's Don't: A Woman's Word.
Writing about incest from academe, as
Williamson does, is not easy. Taking
women's writings on incest and analyzing
their work under the rubric of"literature"
demands both feminist theory and guts.
Williamson's essay is impressive as she
puts herself and her own experience on
the line-as part of life and part of litera-
ture.
The final section of Essays on Life
Writing is perhaps the most disappointing
and yet this is not because the two essays
it contains lack substance. Both Evelyn J.
Hinz and Shirley Neuman contribute very
valuable essays towards contextualizing
and rethinking the poetics of feminist
autobiography. My reservation is that
because of what went before in this vol-
ume, I was looking foward to a theoriza-
tion of "Life Writing." Instead Hinz and
Neurnan each contribute essays which
take the emphasis off "Life Writing" and
place it back on the more critically stable
ground of female autobiography. Kadar
notes "(t)his section relates to issues at
stake in life writing: generic, historical,
formal, social, theoretical, epistemologi-
cal, and political." It would have been
wonderful, though, were there a third es-
say-and surely Marlene Kadar not
"should" but"could" and still "can" write
it-theorizing the poetics of life writing:
head on.
VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1
L'HISTOIRE DES FEMMES
AU QUEBEC DEPUIS
QUATRE SIECLES
Le collectif Clio, edition entierement
revue et mise a jour. Montreal, Le jour,
editeur, 1992.
par Lucie Lequin
Relire dix ans apres la lecture initiale et de
nombreuses consultations L' histoire des
femmes au Quebec depuis quatre siecles
met en lumiere le cheminement des
groupes et des etudes feministes au cours
de la derniere decennie. Conscientes des
limites de lapremiereedition, lesauteures
ont fait entendre des preoccupations
jusque-Ia passees sous silence; puisant
dans les recherches recentes, eUes ont
davantage tenucomptedebiendes femmes
que les recherches anrerieures avaient
laisse dans 1'0mbre.
Le premier chapitre est eloquent a ce
sujet. Dans l' edition originelle, il
s'intitulait« Les hommes d'abord»; dans
la deuxieme, il s' ouvre sur un commence-
ment au feminin « Les femmes des
premieres nations ». C'est un plaisir a la
fois inteUectuel et emotif que de re-
decouvrir notre histoire a partir des
premieres femmes ayant vecu au Quebec
; c'est en effet la les vrais commence-
ments, avant l'arrivee des Blancs.
Consacree aux femmes amerindiennes,
cette partie revue et corrigee suscite la
curiosite et le desir d'aller plus loin dans
leur histoire particuliereet laisse entendre
l'importance de decanter ce pan de
I'histoire de femmes du Quebec encore
mal connu. Grace a l'index, egalement
remanie,1'histoiredes Amerindiennes que
1'0n peut suivre par bribes jusqu'a la
reforme de la loi sur les Indiens-loi C-
3l-s'entremele a ceUe des Blanches.
Aveejustesse,unepartiedu leetoratjugera
que c'est encore trop peu, mais avec
justesseaussi, il fautrappeler que trop peu
de recherches sontconsacreesaux femmes
autochtones et dans un ouvrage de
synthese, l'on s' inspire essentiellement
des reeherches terminees et publiees.
CeUes en cours permettront sfirement de
combler une partie de cette curiosite
eveillee.
Dans cettedeuxieme edition, la periode
sur laquelle porte l'analyse a ete
legerement modifiee afin de tenir compte
des annees quatre-vingt. C'est d'ailleurs
la sixieme et derniere partie titree
«L'eclatementetl'affirmation 1965-1990
» qui se trouve la plus considerablement
augment6e. Il est difficile de presenter
I'histoirerecente ; lemanquede reculpeut
entrainer des interpretations partielles et
parfois erronees, mais les auteures ont su
eviter les affirmations trop fortes en ce qui
a trait a la derniere decennie. Tout en
rappelant cette histoire immediate a
laqueUe le lectorat quebecois actuel a
participe, eUes indiquent plutf>t des pistes
de reflexion etd'analyse afin que chacune
ouchacun developpe des impressionsplus
justes et affinent son analyse.
Certes, ainsi que le collectif Clio le
souligne, les partis politiques, les
gouvernements, les eglises, les syndicats
etlesentreprises saventmaintenantqu'ils
doivent tenir compte des femmes dans
leurs decisions. Cependant, entre le
principeet larealite, un ecart se creuse: on
ne tient pas reellment compte des femmes
dans laprisede decision. La lutte feministe
a change apres les annees chaudes du
feminisme (1969-1980), mais sa
reorientation vers un feminisme plus
strategique, ainsi que vers l'affirmation
individuelle des femmes, ne signifie en
rien sa disparition. L 'importance accorde
au savoir feministe dans les universires du
Quebec tant anglophones que
francophones en temoigne. Les auteures
retracent egalement les changements qui
ont affecre la vie privee et publique des
femmes depuis 1965 (mariage, nombre
d'enfants, travail remunere, violence,
rapports prives avec I'homme-individu,
orientation sexuelle, etc.). Victoires et
echecs s'entremelent dans cette longue
histoire. Des etudes recentes viennent
diminuer l'importance de quelques
victoires. Ainsi,l'entree massive des filles
dans certaines facultes professionnelles
semblent moins un progres qu'une indi-
cation de conditions nouvelles ; les
etudiantes envahiraient des domaines
delaisses par les etudiants... L'inreret des
derniers chapitres reside dans cette
synthesedes gains des dernieres decennies
et des enjeux encore nombreux.
Dans les autres parties, les modifica-
tions sont la plupart du temps mineures :
corrections stylistiques, ajout d'une
phrase, d'un paragraphe, reorganisation
d'un chapitre. L'index et la bibliographie
107


Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice

Anstock, Clare

Gringo Gulch: Sex, Tourism, and Social Mobility. Megan Rivers-Moore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Toupin, Louise

struggle using Telangana as the base. In
Communist-dominatedvillages,land was
redistributed, forced labour and bonded
labourabolished. Mass support was enor-
mous. They came nowhere within sightof
achieving the ultimate goals, however,
and in 1951, the CPcalledoffthe struggle.
The editors state: "Ours is an attempt to
analyze and understand the ideological
framework in which women struggled,
the experiential dimensions of that strug-
gle, to present issues as they were per-
ceived by women." We have to listen to
the language of silence.
The women do speak of what brought
them into the movement-they are in-
spired by the nationalist woman leader
Sarojini Naidu, by the Russian revolu-
tion. They speak of the enthusiasm and
dedication with which they joined the
movement, convinced that a new world
was about to be born. They speak of the
work that they did for and in the armed
squads. Some of them wielded arms and
fought in the squads. Others performed
the highly responsible task of organizing
shelters for the underground members.
They organized meetings of village
women where they made speeches and
sang songs to inspire the women to sup-
port the movement. They campaigned on
women's issues, opposing child marriage,
supporting widow remarriage. With the
squads in the forests, they shared all the
hardships of the men, trekking long miles
carrying tiny children, fleeing a shelter at
night when word came of a raid. They
acquired medical skills, dressing wounds,
dispensing medicines, even performing
operations.
Some of the women insist that there
was complete equality in the movement,
no distinction between men's work and
women's work. But doubts and uneasi-
ness also come through. Swarajyam, one
ofthe eminent leadersofthe movement, is
the most articulate about these. Though
more useful as an organizer than her hus-
band, it is she who has to remain at home
with her infant son, not he. The male
members ofthe party supportwomen who
wish to break with their husbands or who
are ill-treated by them. But on other occa-
sions they dismiss such problems as a
diversion from the struggle. If they are
drastic in their punishment of men who
molest women, they can also be harshly
puritanical, expelling a most valued
woman comrade-the 'barefoot' doctor
Acchamamba-because she is accusedof
a liaison. Mixed messages come through,
for the men are ambivalent in their think-
ing. Hencemixedmessagescome through
from the women also.
To a non-historian, the book appears to
be a model of how oral history should be
researchedandpresented. Thebackground
is provided in the introduction and the
interpretation in the afterword. But for the
major portion of the book, the editors
have rightly decided to let the women's
voices speak.
UN SAVOIR
A NOTRE IMAGE'
Critiques feministes des disciplines
SoWl la d,",ellon de Roberta 111lra
UN SAVOIR ANOTRE
IMAGE? CRITIQUES
FEMINISTES DES
DISCIPLINES.
Roberta Mura (dir), Montreal, Les
editions Adage, 1991.
par Louise Toupin
Apres avoir change la vie, le feminisme a-
t-it, parallelement, change le monde
scientifique? Les nouvelles perspectives
ont-elles bouleverse celles des diverses
disciplines commel'histoire,la litterature,
la biologie, la psychologie, la theologie,
l'architecture, etc. au point que le
« monde » de chacune d'entre elles est
desormais compris autrement? La
nouvellevisionque lefeminisme introduit
dans les sciences peut-elle etre qualifiee
de « rupture episremologique », comme
certaines 1'0nt pretendu, ou encore de
«revolution» scientifique?
A l'oree du deuxieme millenaire, un
bon nombre d'essais ou d'anthologies de
textes portant sur la critique
epistemologique feministe ont traite de
ces questions, mais en americain
principalement.Eh bien,I'immense lacune
qui existait en cette matihe en langue
fran\(aise vient d'etre comblee. Nous
devons a Roberta Mura, professeure de
didactique a l'Universite Laval, cette
excellente initiative d'avoir regroupe en
un seul volume les diverses contributions
au seminaire « Critiques feministes du
savoir », organisea l'UniversiteLaval par
le Groupede recherche multidisciplinaire
feministe (GREMF).
D'abord publiees en trois cahiers
roneotyp€s dans la collection des Camers
de recherche du GREMF (no. 19,-20,21),
voici maintenantces contributions €dimes
en un seul volume, avec des ajouts de
disciplines. Resultat : 15 disciplines
academiques sont scrutees a la loupe
feministe par 19 chercheuses.
Ce qui frappe au premier abord est la
qualite generale des diverses contribu-
tions et, au premier chef, le travail
d'encadrementfaitparRobertaMura. Son
introduction et sa conclusion vont bien
au-deIa d'une recherche des lignes de
force des diverses contributions qui
composent le volume; elle reussit le tour
de force de situer, parce biais, 1'« etat» de
l'episremologie feministe dans l'univers
academique nord-americain.
Retra\(ons d'abord, pour memoire, les
etapes franchies par la critique feministe
dans a peu pres toutes les disciplines ces
vingtdemieres annees. Ceseranotre fa\(on
a nous d'apprehender l'ensemble des dis-
ciplines recensees, trop nombreuses pour
en faire voir en quelques lignes les
richesses singulieres.
Un premier temps peut etre caracterise
par la critique du « masculin ». Il s'agit
generalementde la premiere etape dans la
decouvertedeI'androcentrismechronique
de chaque discipline scientifique. On
s'aper\(oit que le « modele general» de
chacune d'entre elles n'est rien d'autre
que le modele « masculin ». Les femmes
n'y sont pratiquement nulle part et,
lorsqu'elles ysont,c'estatitredecaregorie
104 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
deviante, differente, une difference
toujours peryue comme inferiorite. Dans
un premier temps, la critique feministe
decouvre des victimes, met a nu une op-
pression commune et cherche des
explications.
La seconde etape de cette critique peut
etre qualifiee de valorisation du
« feminin ». Chacune des disciplines se
voit scrutee a la loupe pour y chercher des
femmes. On decouvre alors que les
femmes « existent» bel et bien, qu'elles
ontagi,oeuvreetsesontsouventrevoltees.
Elles sont donc« actives », rebelles aussi.
Les femmes apparaissent enfm comme
des sujets historiques dignes de mention,
des actrices sociales. Certaines
chercheuses decouvriront l'existence
d'une« culture» feminine, et meme d'un
« pouvoir » feminin.
Et c'est dans un troisieme temps que
semblent surgir les debats a l'interieur
meme du feminisme, au sein d'une meme
discipline: quel estaujuste le statutdeces
actrices? Quel « pouvoir »oot-elles? Quel
« sujet » sont-elles en realite? Un sujet
« symetrique au dominant », selon
l'expression de Nicole-Claude Mathieu?
Avec un pouvoir comparable a celui du
dominant? Quelleoppression,en fait, nous
unit toutes? La vision feministe n'est-elle
pas d'abord ethnocentrique? « La »
differencedontcertainessesontreclarnees
n'a-t-elle pas gomme « les » differences
entre les femmes?
Les quinze disciplines etudiees dans le
volume Un savoiranotre image? mettent
bien en evidence le « decalage dans le
developpement de la critique feministe
des divers champs du savoir» (p. 284). La
majorite des disciplines recensees
couvriraient les deux premieres etapes
decrites ci-dessus, a savoir la critique de
l'androcentrisme particulier a chacune,
puis la mise en evidence des tentatives
feminines de creer un savoir « a tout le
moins non-sexiste » :
Dans la plupartdes disciplines, on en
est encore a l'etape de demander,
definir et produire un savoir non
sexiste, on en est a exiger le respect
des normes scientifiques
traditionnelles (...). On redecouvre
ainsi les femmes dans l'histoire des
arts, dans l'histoire des sciences et
dans l'histoire tout court. On les
introduit partout ou des theories
VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1
avaient ete baties a partir
d' echantillons exclusivement
masculins, comme en psychologie et
en developpementmoral. On redefmit
d'anciens concepts, parfois aussi
fondamentaux que le concept de tra-
vail en economie, et on ouvre de
nouveaux champs d'etude, tels la re-
lation pere-enfanten psychologie,les
attributs feminins de la divinite en
theologie ou les relations de pouvoir
entre les sexes en science politique et
en histoire, autant de projets
susceptibles de revolutionner les dis-
ciplines respectives. En droit (...) les
feministes en sontencorea demander
tout simplement...justice! (p.291).
Quant a determiner si le savoir « a tout
le moins non-sexiste » que les femmes
tentent d'introduire dans les disciplines
est feminin ou feministe ou, selon le cas,
s'il s'agit de creation ou de pratiques
feminines ou feministe (la troisieme
etape), seulement certaines disciplines
sembleraient enclines a lancer ce debat.
Ce serait le fait des domaines artistiques
(la creation et la critique litteraires,
l'architecture, la musique) et
professionnels la psychotherapie, la
biologie,le service social), davantage, en
tous cas, que celui des domaines
« purement scientifiques ».
Mais, tout compte fait, la « puissance
critico-creatrice » des feministes (selon
1'heureuse expression utilisee par la
theologienne Marie Gratton Boucherdans
son remarquable essai inclus dans
I'anthologie) rendparfoisoiseuxcedernier
debat. Critiquer le savoir en l'identifiant
commeandrocentrique, c'est un peu, deja,
renverser la perspective, c'est crier des
elements d'une nouvelle comprehension
et d'une nouvelle vision du monde, celle
des femmes.
Il faut lire ce livre, a peine effleure ici,
pour de multiples autres raisons, dont la
moindre n'est pas que, dans chaque disci-
pline, se trouvent mises en evidence, tout
a cote des contributions anglo-canado-
americaines, les contributionsquebecoises
ala critique feministe des disciplines, ce
qui est rarement le cas des anthologies en
langue anglaise. Cela fait partie des obli-
gations de la« Societe distincte ». Mais il
y a un prix a payer pour etre ainsi
« distinctes ». Par exemple, celui de ce
livre: 30 $ avant T.P.S.!
ESSAYS ON LIFE WRITING:
FROM GENRE TO
CRITICAL PRACTICE
Edited by Marlene Kadar. Toronto:
University of Toronto, 1992.
by Laura McLauchlan
"But life writing," a friend outside aca-
deme wants to know, "what is it?" I list:
letters, diaries, journals, autobiographies,
even a scrawled note, announcing a birth,
or left by a woman heading into a river,
her pockets weighted with stones. Editor
Marlene Kadar offers a working defini-
tion which emphasizes both the presence
of an author and a reader: "Life writing
comprises texts that are written by an
author who does not continuously write
about someone else, and who does not
pretend to be absent from the [black,
brown, or white] text himself/herself." In
addition, Kadar notes, life writing"antici-
pates the reader's determination of the
text, the reader's colour, class, and gen-
der, and pleasure... ." This is a scholarly
text but gone is the prohibition against
speaking of the author, the proper eti-
quette of "depersonalization and abstrac-
tion" which (as Kadar quotes Elizabeth
Fox-Genovese) is "often associated with
superior intellectual pursuits." One can
write "I," one can write "she," and mean
both times human beings who must strug-
gle with what Marilyn French, in a novel,
called "the shit and the string beans of
life."
ThroughoutEssays onLife Writing, the
Canadian scholars brought together by
Kadar provide fresh textual readings of
work written in the first person singular-
from hand written journals found only in
archives, and the writing of feminist an-
thropologists, to Atwood's Cat's Eye and
Cervantes' Don Quixote-as well as theo-
retical essays about the "unfixed term" as
new genre. The book is divided into four
parts: part one: "Literary Women Who
Write the Self: Autobiographical Docu-
ments by Literary Women"; part two:
"RecordingaLifeWriting-PersonalOral
Narratives, Life Histories, and Testimo-
nials"; part three: "Fictionand Autofiction
as Life Writing: Reading as Emancipat-
ing the Subject"; and part four: "Poetics
and Life Writing."
105


Un savoir à notre image? Critiques féministes des disciplines.

Grae, Tanya

34 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
Fincher, Ruth and Lauren Costello. “Housing Ethnicity: 
Multicultural Negotiation and Housing the Transnational 
Student.” Approaching Transnationalisms: Studies on 
Transnational Societies, Multicultural Contacts, and 
Imaginings of Home. Ed. Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Michael 
W. Charney and Tong Chee Kiong. Boston: Kluwer 
Academic, 2003. 161-186. Print.
Forbes-Mewett, Helen and Jude McCulloch. “International 
Students and Gender-Based Violence.” Violence Against 
Women 22.3 (2016): 344–365. Print.
Francis, Margot, and Jennica Giesbrecht, in collaboration 
with Kattawe Henry and Jessica Turgeon. From the 
Margins to the Centre: Re-Thinking Sexual Violence 
Education and Support at Brock University. Unpublished 
report. October 2016. Print.
Geranios, Nicholas K. “Abduction and Rape of 2 Japanese 
Students Outrages Spokane.” Los Angeles Times 31 
December 2000. Web. 20 Nov. 2005. 
Hiebert, Daniel, and Min-Jung Kwak. Transnational 
Economies of Export Education. Vancouver: Vancouver 
Centre of Excellence: Research on Immigration and 
Integration in the Metropolis. 2004. Print.
Houshmand, Sara, Lisa B. Spanierman, and Romin 
W. Tafarodi. “Excluded and Avoided: Racial 
Microaggressions Targeting Asian International Students 
in Canada.” Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority 
Psychology 20.3 (2014): 377-388. Print.
Humes, Len. “Night Prowler Jeffrey Fraser, 43, Arrested 
in Toronto.” Oye! Times 9 June 2010. Web. 2 July 2010.
The Hunting Ground. Dir. Kirby Dick. Prod. Amy Ziering. 
Chain Camera Pictures, 2015. DVD.
Manuel, Inspector Paul. “CPS-D1 #2001-334 Sexual 
Assault Arrest.” City of Calgary Press Release. 28 October 
2001. Web. 3 April 2002. 
Noonan, Sheila. “Battered Woman Syndrome: Shifting the 
Parameters of Criminal Law Defences (or (Re)Inscribing 
the Familiar?).” Feminist Perspectives on the Foundational 
Subjects of Law. Ed. A. Bottomley. London: Cavendish, 
1996. 191-223. Print.
Ostaszewski, Valentine. Canada’s Hidden Gem: Asia Pacific 
International Students.  Asian Pacific Foundation of 
Canada. 12 Aug. 2016. Web. 1 May 2018.
Park, Hijin. “Interracial Violence, Western Racialized 
Masculinities and the Geopolitics of Violence Against 
Women,” Social and Legal Studies 21.4 (2012): 491-
509. Print.
Park, Hijin. “The Stranger that is Welcomed: Female 
Foreign Students from Asia, the English Language 
Industry, and the Ambivalence of “Asia-Rising” in 
British Columbia, Canada,” Gender, Place and Culture 
17.3 (2010): 337-355. Print.
Razack, Sherene H. Dying from Improvement. University 
of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2015. Print.
“School of Secrets.” Narr. Mark Kelley. The Fifth Estate. 
CBC News. 23 Nov. 2015. Web. 6 March 2017.
Thobani, Sunera. “Racial Violence and the Politics 
of National Belonging: The Wisconsin Shootings, 
Islamophobia and the War on Terrorized Bodies.” 
Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory 8.3 (2012): 
281-286. Print.
Ty, Eleanor. Asianfail: Narratives of Disenchantment and 
the Model Minority. Urbana Champaigne: University 
of Illinois Press 2017. Print.
Woan, Sunny. “White Sexual Imperialism: A Theory of 
Asian Feminist Jurisprudence.” Washington and Lee 
Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice Law 14 (2008): 
275-302. Print.
Wortley, Scott. “Hidden Intersections: Research on Race, 
Crime, and Criminal Justice in Canada.” Canadian 
Ethnic Studies 35.3 (2003): 99-117. Print.
TANYA GRAE
Third Wave, Shift
When my mother sat at our table
for late hours of statistics homework,
biting the corners of her lips, I saw 
prophecy swell, but took comfort 
in the closeness, instead of seeing 
my mother brawling for me:
head down, grinding each equation, 
my whole life set in her jaw.
Tanya Grae won the 2016 Tennessee Williams/New 
Orleans Literary Festival Poetry Prize, selected by 
Yusef Komunyakaa. She is the author of the forthcoming 
chapbook Little Wekiva River (Five Oaks Press), and 
her poems have appeared in agni, New Ohio Review, 
The Florida Review, New South, Fjords, The Los 
Angeles Review, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. 
She lives in Tallahassee and teaches at Florida State 
University while completing her doctorate. Find out 
more at: tanyagrae.com. 


English

Third Wave, Shift

La plupart des actions contre la violence examine inadéquatement le degré de violence locale et quotidienne au niveau national et global, qui est systémique et structurelle. Cet article situe la violence envers les étudiantes venues d’ailleurs et qui fréquentent une université nord-américaine et les des collèges dans le contexte du pionnier colonisateur et néolibéral

Park, Hijin

Violence Against International Students on North American University and College Campuses: An Intersectional, Structural and Global Analysis

Barile, Maria

Disabled Women: An Exploited Underclass

Srivastava, Sarita

Discovering India Without Columbus
Relearning and Reclaiming Herstory
by Sarita Srivastava
Le cours d' histoireal'ecolepeuventnepasfournir le contexte et
l' inspiration necessairespourles luttespolitiquesetpersonnelles,
mais representer plutot une source d' oppression. L' histoire de
l'oppression et de la resistance pew constituer une importante
inspiration pour la force personnelle et collective. Le fait de
savoir qu' une grand-mere a milite au sein du mouvement de
liberation de l'Inde peut constituer un exemple de ce processus
de reconquete.
24
I was born on "Columbus Day," in the D.S.A. The catchy
rhyme the teacher taught on my birthday remains in my
mind: "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." The
teacher said, Columbus was really trying to discover
India. That's why there were two kinds of Indians...or
three. I wasn't any of them-or was I?
For many years, I remembered the "discovery of the
new world" by repeating that comforting chant It feels
like betrayal now, remembering how fun it was to have
October 12th commemorated in my class. So now it is this
story of discovery that represents my anger at the white,
male, imperialist versions of history I was taught in
school. I am angry not only because I was taught this
history, but because I unquestioningly accepted it
Here, I want to recount a different discovery: the begin-
ning of my effort to reclaim another version ofmy history.
, My discovery is beginning with my grandmother, Shanti,
and her participation in India's freedom movement in the
30s and40s. It continues with my work in the environmen-
tal and social change movement in Canada. An important
part of the discovery has been exploring the connections
between our lives, the parallels and differences between
her activism and mine. And learning about her strength
has been a source of strength to me.
My anger does not end with Columbus Day; my empti-
ness begins. None of the history I was taught in school
feels like "my" history. It doesn't represent or acknowl-
edge my, or my ancestors', experiences-or the experi-
ences of women, or most cultures in the world.
And this ethnocentric, male-centred, and often "forget-
ful" history does not give me the inspiration I need for my
personal and political struggles. Even worse, this version
ofhistory becomes oppressive. It reflects negative images
ofme, my cultural background, my gender. Itdistances me
and other women from the strength of our mothers and
sisters of the past That lack of connection deprives
women ofimportant support, a feeling ofpride and solidarity,and
inspiration for change. We can gain that support, personally and
collectively, by discovering our own histories ofresistance. That
connection, that strength, is what I have been trying to reclaim.
Yet women's stories, and stories of resistance, are often never
recorded, or are lost And because I am the child of immigrants,
much ofmy family and cultural history has been lost to me, so the
rediscovery is especially difficult My grandmother tells me she
has written all about her experiences, her impressions of the
freedom movement-but I cannot read her pages ofHindi script.
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
We gain support,
personally and
collectively,
by discovering our own
histories ofresistance.
But then, I've learned that the gathering of stories is an
important part of my discovery. Sitting in the kitchen with my
grandmother during our few visits, listening, questioning, laugh-
ing, learning. Even arguing-across cultures and generations-
about racism, classism, patriarchy, tradition, but never in those
words. The passion and love I still hear in my grandmother's
voice is part ofwhat inspires me. Although we don't really share
a language-she speaks better English than I speak Hindi, I
understand Hindi better than she understands English-wesome-
how communicate well. Afterwards, I go to my mother for the
difficult translation of all those Hindi words I don't understand,
but have tried to record in English script-words that turn out to
mean "oppression," or "freedom." Caughtbetween two cultures,
at home nowhere, learning a small piece of my past gives me a
stronger connection to my family, my background, who I am.
Her Story
Just as I am inspired by my grandmother's stories ofactivism,
she says her own inspiration came from reading about the history
of British domination and Indian resistance:
In my heart there was a realization, when I read the stories
about the revolutionaries, about
Ghandi's movement, that the Brit-
ish are oppressing ourcountry, that
our people should remove them-
it's our country, it's our freedom.
She tells me she began wearing
khaddi, the homespun cotton that
Ghandi advocated in place of British
cloth, and decided she should work
for the freedom of her people.
In 1930, only 18 years old and
recently married, she travelled with
her sister-in-law to a conference of
the Congress party in Lahore, where a resolution was passed to
begin a campaign of non-cooperation. She decided to volunteer,
and began her involvement by leafleting, picketing, fundraising,
and speaking about British rule and the need to boycott textiles
from Manchester and Lancashire.
She went with other women from home to home in and around
Delhi and Ludhiana, fundraising or holding neighbourhood
women's meetings to explain why the boycott against British
textiles had been called. At each home, they began by singing
freedom songs, and finished by talking about British rule and the
need to end it.
She also spoke at large rallies, and tells me of the one or two
that she specially remembers. At one meeting, held after a
women's march was brutally broken up by the police, she spoke
for one hour. She says, "I wasn't educated, but I had one thing-
I spoke loudly, I had a strong voice." When she tells me about a
rally in Delhi which the police tried to break up with their lathis,
she talks about her fear-and strength-when she was ordered to
take the podium:
I was suddenly scared, and said "Sister, what can I do?", but
VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1
my leader said "Just come here." I don't know how it
occurred to me, but I got on at that podium, and I said
"Listen, no one is moving, and these lathis cannot harm us."
And the police weren't able to do much. And they couldn't
arrest me either.
Reflections and Connections
Like my grandmother, I am also fighting racism in a British
colony-but as a minority, in a place where my parents are
immigrants, not native. Where she worked side by side with other
Indian women, I was lucky to find one woman of colour in my
organization to identify with, to struggle with. Ironically, it is that
feeling of isolation, that experience as a non-white minority, that
has inspired my anti-racist work, and my desire to work for social
change.
As an activist in a white, male-dominated environmental
movement, I have the feeling that I don't belong. I often fmd
people are surprised that a brown woman would be an activist, or
an environmentalist. And I do feel almost alone. An activist in
another province described me as the only other non-white
environmentalist he had heard of. Outside my organization, I am
sometimes simply invisible as an activist (and as a person). My
experience is echoed by activist
friends of Asian descent who are
sometimes mistaken for computer
experts.
My grandmother's activism is
something I can draw on to counter
those feelings ofexclusion. Her story
helps me feel that I am not a peculiar
exception,but that in factI have strong
connections to activism. It has also
challenged my own views of Indian
women, and therefore my self-per-
ception. It helps me to feel pride, the
pride that overcomes the feelings of
denial or self-hatred that racism causes. And it has also helped me
to deal actively with the racism within my own organization. This
year a co-worker and I held our organization's fust anti-racist
workshop, began an anti-racist committee, and worked to get a
commitment to continuinganti-racist workshops and developing
a strong affmnative action hiring policy.
My grandmother's story has also helped me reflect on the
particular problems of being a female activist in a male-domi-
nated organization. Although I have been told that my grandfa-
ther was also a "freedom-fighter," I feel a special connection to
my grandmother as both woman and activist I wonder how
difficult it must have been for her as an activist in a male-
dominated movement and society, if she felt as patronized and
overshadowed by male activists as I do. She will only say that
men and women did the same work, and that some men treated
her well, others didn't. But she also says that one reason she cut
down on her involvement is that she didn't like the way some men
treated her, being too familiar, touching her.
Several years ago I visited relatives in Lucknow, where in
1857, Indian men working as soldiers for the British sparked a
rebellion. I had always heard it called the "Mutiny," and had read
25
in an M.M. Kaye novel about the cruelty
of the Indians, the terror and shock of the
British. So it was a strange revelation
when my aunt told me to visit the monu-
ment to the "freedom-fighters" of 1857.
It's the same feeling ofrediscovery, of
suddenly seeing the world differently,
that I find with my grandmother. Positive
words and images begin to displace my
anger and discomfort at what I learn else-
where.
My anger does not end with Columbus
Day-but my discovery begins.
Thanks to Andrealmadafor her thought-
ful comments and support.
Sarita Srivastava has been studying and
workingfor popular education and envi-
ronmental action. For the past year and a
half, she has been an activist and spokes-
personfor Greenpeace Canada. Thisfall
she is beginning work on a doctoral de-
greeat the Ontario Institutefor Studies in
Education.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
NUPURGOGIA
How to Achieve Silence From a Woman
of Colour
tongues tied
voices cut
throats slashed
blood drips
and
drips
slow leaking
slowly dying
silence achieved
a scream enters
Nupur Gogia is a brown activist who has been working with women of
colour.
GLENDON COLLEGE
Department of Political Science
COLLEGE GLENDON
Departement de science politique
26
Applications are invited for an entry-level, tenure-track
position in the area of International Relations.
Qualifications: PhD in Political Science. Ability to
teach and conduct research in both English and French.
Duties: Teaching at the undergraduate level and possibility
of graduate teaching, research, and service to the
University. Salary: In accordance with the collective
agreement and experience. Date ofappointment: July I,
1993. Application deadline: December 31, 1992.
Send applications, including curriculum vitae and the
names of three referees directly to Professor Terry
Heinrichs, Chair, Department of Political Science,
Glendon College, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto,
Ontario M4N 3M6.
York University is implementing a policy of
employment equity, including affirmative action for
women faculty. In accordance with Canadian immigration
requirements, this advertisement is directed to Canadian
citizens and permanent residents.
Mise en concours d'un poste de debut de carriere pouvant
conduire a la permanence dans le domaine des relations
internationales.
Conditions requises : Doctorat en science politique.
Capacite d'enseigner et de faire des recherches en anglais
et en frans;ais. Fonctions principales : Enseignement au
niveau du Ier cycle et eventuellement au niveau des 2e et
3e cycles, recherches, et service aI'Universite. Salaire :
Conforme ala convention collective et al'experience.
Date d' entree en fonction : I" juillet 1993. Date limite de
candidature: 31 decembre 1992.
Envoyer lettre de candidature, curriculum vitae et le
nom de trois repondants aM. Terry Heinrichs, Directeur,
Departement de science politique, College Glendon,
Universite York, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario
M4N 3M6.
L'Universite York applique une politique d'equite en
matiere d'emploi et encourage les candidatures de
professeures. Conformement aux exigences d'Immigration
Canada, cette annonce s'adresse aux citoyens canadiens et
residents permanents.
CANADIAN WOMAN STIJDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME


Discovering India Without Columbus: Relearning and Reclaiming Herstory

Cader, Fathima

VOLUME 32, NUMBERS 1,2 41
Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood and 
Academic Life. Ed. Elrena Evans, and Caroline 
Grant. Rutgers University Press, 2008. 213-221. Print.
The University of the West Indies, Mona Health and 
Wellness Policy. Web. 15 April 2015. 
Solorzano, Daniel G. “Critical Race Theory, Race and 
Gender Microaggressions, and The Experience of 
Chicana and Chicano Scholars.” International Journal 
Of Qualitative Studies in Education 11.1 (1998): 121-
136. Print.
Thompson, Tyrone. “Gender-Based Attacks Haunt uwi, 
Mona”. The Gleaner. February 1, 2015. Web. 1 April 
2015. 
Ward, Kelly, and Lisa Wolf-Wendel. “Academic 
Motherhood: Managing Complex Roles in Research 
Universities.” The Review of Higher Education 27.2 
(2004): 233-257. Print.
Ward, Kelly, and Lisa Wolf-Wendel. Academic Motherhood: 
How Faculty Manage Work and Family. New Brunswick, 
NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2012. Print.
Williams, Joan. “How the Tenure Track Discriminates 
Against Women.” Chronicle of Higher Education 27 
(2000): 173-203. Print.
William-White, Lisa. “Dare I Write About Oppression 
on Sacred Ground [Emphasis Mine].” Cultural 
Studies↔Critical Methodologies 11.3 (2011): 236-242. 
Print.
FATHIMA CADER 
What Maps Do
love is a city. it has streets, it has 
walls, it demands area codes. 
love is a city, and it keens 
with a city’s noontime hunger, 
sweat collecting in its sewers. 
love has coordinates, 
moving swift and cramped 
through the wires over streetcar tracks. 
and love pulses with a city’s breath, 
exhaling in basement apartments. 
love piles up in black bags along sidewalks, 
and 
collapses into a small mountain of bones on 
someone’s front porch. 
love hangs low here, fogs up windows, 
dampens collars and sleeves. 
so the city falls into itself, neon folding into 
neon. 
this place is unsure, 
is cloaked in watching silences. 
its eyelids are slow to lift, 
its fingers still, 
its lips melting into the shore. 
it curves its back over its alleys, 
protective, 
jealous of what maps do.
Fathima Cader’s poetry has appeared in Apogee Journal, 
and her other writing most recently in The Funambulist, 
Hazlitt, and Warscapes, among other publications. She 
is especially interested in the migrations of war and state 
violence. She is based in Toronto.
KAY R. EGINTON 
Ghostly Listener
Bartok’s music in the room  
The hearer ghostly, alone
 taking insubstantial identity
From a sound. 
There is no one near.  
A friend, however sits quietly reading.  
 Paper settles
And news strides in.    
There is nothing to be gleaned
 from the room
But a moment frozen. 
Wintry sound, cold, absence. 
Kay R. Eginton is the author of Poems (1981). Kay has 
also been a contributor to Lyrical Iowa, a publication 
of the Iowa Poetry Association. She lives in Iowa 
City, Iowa. 


What Maps Do

Berezowski, Nan

Progress Derailed: The Legal Status of Women in Pakistan

Fraser, Kim

Diana Thompson, Punishment #1. Steel, wire, belt, acrylic on plywood. 23.75" x 17"
From "Out of the Drawer," a Women's Art Resource Centre exhibition.
Trading Abuse for Poverty
By Kim Fraser
Le present article examine le phenomene de la discrimination fondee sur le sexe qui est aI'origine de la pauvrete chez
les femmes maltraitees. L 'article souligne les conditions de vie tres restrictives de la majorite des femmes qui decident
de se sortir des situations oil elles sont victimes de mauvais traitements.
Abused women who come to shelters are almost always economically disadvantaged. This is not to suggest that women
from other income groups are not abused; abuse in fact crosses all economic and cultural boundaries. However, abused
women who are economically independent and who have financial means do not generally use shelters. While it is true
that some of the women served by our shelter come from middle income homes, their income status is contingent on their
husband's earnings and in most cases they
have no access to his money. Many of the
women we see have limited job skills and
limited education. Among the women who
are employed we find that many hold low
skilled jobs where they earn wages far be-
low the average "unattached" Canadian
woman's annual salary of$19,854.1 (Statis-
tics Canada) A significant number of the
women have been working in their homes
without pay. Few have job skills that are
current, and many are economically de-
pendent on their partners. In addition to the
trauma of emotional and physical abuse,
most of these women are isolated socially.
Some are prohibited from working and so-
cializing with family and friends. They are
purposefully isolated from the community
so that their abusers can exert more control
over them. As well, we see a significant
number ofwomen whose abusers have cho-
sen (among other things) economic means
of abusing them. For example, their abusers
may refuse to provide them (and their chil-
dren) with money, food, medical treatment,
and clothing on a regular basis.
Our 1991 shelter statistics showed that the women we serve tend to be young: 79 per cent are between the ages of21
and 40, most (56 per cent) are accompanied by children who are typically (48 per cent) four years old or younger. We
are encouraged by the fact that the women are young with young children because it demonstrates that with supports such
as emergency shelters women are leaving abusive situations sooner. However, as a young population with young
children, these women are in particular need of social and economic supports. They have many years of childrearing and
work still ahead of them, and, potentially, many years ofpoverty too--ifeconomic and social conditions are against them.
Our 1991 statistics also showed that 59 per cent of the women remained separated at the time ofdischarge from the shelter.
Clearly, the majority ofwomen that we serve will go on to establish themselves and their children in the community. Once
there, however, too many of them will experience incredible hardship. Some will experience poverty for the first time;
others, already familiar with poverty, will see their economic situations worsen considerably.
This certain poverty need not be the case. With adequate supports such as fairly compensated employment, or, in the
absence of employment, adequate welfare benefits, assisted housing, child support, and daycare, abused women could
VOLUME 12, NUMBER 4 41
experience a better quality of life. Provid-
ing these economic supports is part of an
adequate community response to woman
abuse. ("The National") However, in-
stead of finding support when they leave
violent situations, abused women find
many obstacles. Among these is the lack
of adequate child support payments.
In theory, adequate child support pay-
ments made by ex-spouses could go a
long way to alleviate the financial burden
that women face caring for their children
alone. In practice, orders for child support
payments have been ineffective measure
because they are not adhered to. Statistics
from 1989 showed that only 26 per cent of
all support orders were being enforced,
and at that time it was estimated that
90,000 children in Ontario were affected
by non-payment ofcourt-ordered support
payments representing $230,000 million
in arrears. ("The National") Another ap-
palling statistic showed that while the
Attorney General's support enforcement
programme was only able to collect 26 per
cent of outstanding support payments, it
employed 220 people at a cost of 13.9
million per year. ("The National")
Because there are many barriers to
women's employment-among them poor
wages and a lack of daycare-and be-
cause support payments are not reliable,
many abused women must go on social
assistance when they leave the shelter. By
all accounts, social assistance benefits are
insufficient to meeting even the most ba-
sic needs, i.e. food and shelter. In our
experience, even women who live in rent-
geared-to-income housing cannot stretch
their benefits to cover food costs for an
entire month. These women and their chil-
dren would frequently go hungry if they
did not have access to food banks. How-
ever, food banks are not an adequate re-
sponse to poverty either. Despite the fact
that they provide much needed immediate
relief, food banks are part of a system that
has institutionalized poverty. Their very
existence allows our continued inaction
on welfare reform. Without food banks,
our communities would have to deal with
the fact that many people on social assist-
ance or in low paying jobs cannot ad-
equately feed themselves. In any event,
asking for hand-outs of food is a com-
pletely demoralizing experience for
womenforced to drag theirchildren around
with them to food banks.
Because there is such an enormous
stigma to using food banks and because
many of them limit their users to one visit
per month, shelters have started to operate
food banks for their ex-residents. Cer-
tainly, this function is not without its
administrative costs and headaches and it
is not one that emergency shelters were
meant to fulfilL But shelter-run food banks
make an enormous difference to women
living on marginal incomes and for that
reason we will continue to run them.
One economic support that does assist
abused women is subsidized housing. The
Metro Toronto Housing Authority (MTHA)
has targeted abused women for special
priority, which means that they are usu-
ally housed within three to four months of
their initial application. From an economic
standpoint, MTHA housing is beneficial to
abused women; from a social standpoint it
has less appeal. Because MTHA does not
have an income mix amongst its tenants,
the housing projects have become ghettos
for the poor, with all of the attendant
problems that go alongwith ghettos. There
is a stigma attached to living in MTHA and
many women are resistant to the idea of
raising their children there. From a finan-
cial standpoint, however, few women have
any viable alternatives. The other prob-
lem with MTHAhousing is that somewomen
do not qualify for it. Women without
status, i.e. women who are without citi-
zenship, landed immigrant or refugee sta-
tus do not qualify for MTHA, and must find
housing on the private market. These
women report that they experience dis-
crimination during their housing search
because they are poor, single, have chil-
dren, and, if they reveal that they are
abused, because they are perceived as
'problem' women. Other women experi-
ence outright racism. They report that
when they respond in person to an ad for
an apartment, they are told that it has been
rented. Further investigation reveals that
the apartment is still available.
The obstacles that abused women face
in their attempts to live free from violence
are appalling--even more so given that it
is our government's social policy to en-
courage women to leave when they are
being abused. Beyond short term emer-
gency assistance in the form of shelters
and counselling services, there are few
viable long term economic and social
supports for abused women. This lack of
support sends many abused women back
to violent partners (and keeps many more
from ever leaving in the first place). The
women view these 'reconciliations' as
personal failure. We view them as the
final outcome of a system that sets up
abused women for failure from the very
beginning. Barriers to women's full par-
ticipation in the community reinforce the
feeling that the community does not sup-
port their escape and in fact amount to a
form of collusion with abusers who are
confident their victims cannot leave them.
("The National")
Because abused women are poor, iso-
lated, and struggling to survive, it is diffi-
cult for them to organize as a political
entity to demand social justice. Even if
they were empowered, it seems that short
of a cultural revolution that would change
the economic and social conditions of all
women, abused women would have few
means to bring about such social change.
In the meantime, many will continue to
experience incredible hardship. In essence,
abuseq. women have traded their experi-
ences of abuse for poverty. Given the
obstacles that they face, it is remarkable
that so many women leave violent situa-
tions. This must be seen as a testmament
to both their desperation and their enor-
mous strength.
Kim Fraser has been an advocate for
abused women since 1984. With a par-
ticular interest in political action, Kim
has been a member ofthe Lobby Commit-
tee ofthe Ontario Association ofInterval
and TransitionHouses (OAlTH) since1987.
In that capacity, Kim has had many op-
portunities to lobby politicians and gov-
ernment policymakers on woman abuse
and shelter issues. She works at Emily
Stowe Shelter for Women in Toronto.
1 For married women working full time in
dual-earnerfamilies, the figure is $22,661.
Statistics Canada, Characteristics ofDual-
Earner Families, 1989 (Catalogue 13-
215).
References
Statistics Canada. Income Distributions
by Size in Canada, 1990 (Catalogue 13-
207).
Statistics from "The NationaL" eBe
Television, 1991.
42 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME


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