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

Fretwell, Katerina

VOLUME 32, NUMBERS 1,2 127
Sexual Assault Victims.” Journal of Traumatic Stress 24.2 
(2011): 218-221. Print.
“Sexual Assault Statistics in Canada: A Numerical 
Representation of the Truth.” SexAssault.ca, n.d. Web. 
1 May 2018. 
Sigurvinsdottir, R., and S.E. Ullman. “Sexual Orientation, 
Race, and Trauma as Predictors of Sexual Assault 
Recovery.” Journal of Family Violence 31 (2016): 913-
921. Print.
Sinha, M. “Measuring Violence Against Women: Statistical 
Trends.” Statistics Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian 
Centre for Justice Statistics, 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 
May 2018.
Wittig, M. “One is Not Born a Woman.” Feminist Theory 
Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Ed. C. McCann 
and S.K. Kim. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1981. 246-
251. Print.
Zinzow, H., A.B. Amstadter, J.L. McCauley, K.J. Ruggerio, 
H.S. Resnick, and D.G. Kilpatrick. “Self-Rated Health 
in Relation to Rape and Mental Health Disorders in 
a National Sample of College Women.” Journal of 
American College Health 59.7 (2011): 588-594. Print.
KATERINA FRETWELL 
Terra Cotta
Womb and tomb of all     Earth    in mid-May
smells of growth.     My cat Cujo and I sniff
adders tongue and trillium flexing muscles–
petals and pistils zooming into bloom. 
I rehydrate    after my mate turned to ash. 
Winter is for grieving and for dormancy
under quilted soil – ditto my hibernating 
pheromones    diverted to my arts
and cat-cuddles.    Peepers trill winter–
requiems in their wetland chambers.    Sighs
yawn and stretch.    Joy taproots.    Air teases
the terra cotta earthiness in Cujo and me. 
Katerina Vaughan Fretwell’s eighth poetry book, which 
includes her art, Dancing on a Pin, was published by 
Inanna Publications in 2015. Her seventh book, Class 
Acts, also published by Inanna in 2013, was included 
in Kerry Clare’s Most Important Book of 2013: Poetry 
on the online 49th Shelf. Her ninth book, and art, We 
Are Malala, will be published by Inanna in 2019. She 
lives in Seguin, Ontario.
TANYA GRAE
Letter to My Embryo, Evolving
You could be anybody, kind & brilliant,
sitting next to me on a plane, headphones on,
dreaming about Thanksgiving. Your unwritten 
face wears the smile of old masters—
inside, you’re the sketchbook’s turned page. 
But, sometimes, I want to wake you 
to turn back & consciously object—
as if you enlisted at some karmic weigh station, 
with a recruiter giving the hard sell: 
Just think of the enlightenment! Your future 
glares at me in that wild, half-woken way.
It’s almost 4 AM, the dog is snoring, 
& you are softly kicking, but mostly, 
the world is quiet. Soon I will fall back to sleep 
& let hours keep these concerns. Forgive 
this burden & wrench, this life—
for the surprising specks of joy.
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. “Letter to 
My Embryo, Evolving” was published in the U.S. in the 
journal Louisiana Cultural Vistas. 


Terra Cotta

Edgley, Amanda

VOLUME 32, NUMBERS 1,2 135
MY LIFE ON THE ROAD
Gloria Steinem
New York: Random House, 2015
reviewed by amanda 
edgley
My Life on the Road is both an auto-
biography and a history of feminist 
activism within the United States. 
Beginning by talking about her own 
childhood Steinem sets up her femi-
nist roots. With a father always on the 
move and a mother suffering from the 
feminine mystique, Steinem started 
her life wanting to run away from the 
life both her parents led. Her literal 
life on the road, from birth, led her to 
travel across America and later India. 
At first, the work seems to be only an 
autobiography, spending much time 
on the backstory of Steinem’s child-
hood, and moving into her work in 
India, but she then moves from the 
personal to the political describing her 
work on campuses and campaigns. 
Her career as a journalist and desire 
to run away brought her to India. It 
was in India that she stopped dread-
ing the road she was forced onto as a 
child and began to understand that 
it could teach her many things she 
would miss otherwise. From talking 
to local women, to campaigning, to 
lecturing, to taxi drivers telling their 
stories, Steinem shows us that travel-
ling is a way to learn and to educate. 
Steinem’s book is an example of how 
the famous pianist for the very last 
time in 2009. (Filar lived to age 
95, having had his life’s memories 
and musical genius wiped clean by 
Alzheimer’s.) The passage aptly illus-
trates the writer’s ability to capture 
emotion in words. Reflecting on these 
losses to such a beautiful mind and 
heavenly talent, the narrator observes: 
But he’s [Filar’s] happy, spared 
the torment of some whose 
memories relive, with the same 
intensity of old, the unrelivable, 
their nights sleepless or riven 
with dreaming and redreaming 
the nightmare, their days trou-
bled by the approach of night. 
Maryan, my Professor Filar, 
hangs onto his crystal shards, se-
lective memories, his Gieseking 
glory, his Chopin arabesques and 
cadenzas.
So much of his life has dis-
appeared, vanished. Where? I 
want to think the lost but divine 
memories have flown up to that 
starry cosmos where the Kabbal-
ists believe scattered sparks of 
enlightenment will once again 
be united, where this fractured, 
suffering universe will be made 
whole. As for rediscovering those 
who were part of who he was 
and is, those calling his name, 
mystically channelling him 
through light-years, whispering 
“remember us,” and “remember 
when,” and “remember the 
time,” who, brushing his back 
with a gossamer touch light as 
a Mozart melody, stir in him a 
ghostly sense of their presence, 
well, as for them, he’ll find them 
in his book. [From Buchenwald 
to Carnegie Hall]
With the publication of this col-
lection, Canadian literature gains a 
fresh, new, multivalenced voice, a 
voice to be listened to and praised. 
travelling and interacting can create 
communities and build political 
support. Moving past her own life, 
Steinem shows the reader what it 
was like to be both a journalist and 
activist in the 1960s until the present 
day. She also lets us into the lives of 
the people she has worked with and 
met along the road, from Mrs Greene 
to Hilary Rodham Clinton. 
Steinem gives us a personal story 
that sheds light on the many broad 
and historical books already written 
on the women’s rights movement. 
It is her personal experiences that 
provide the details missing in other 
works. Rather than simply seeing the 
facts we get a worm’s eye view of what 
it was like to be a part of the move-
ment. The historic National Women’s 
Conference or the “two-year process 
[that] probably shortened all our 
lives,” is given a deeper understanding 
by looking at the little details. The 
organizing, the fights, and the fear 
are displayed in full view. Steinem’s 
own fears of public speaking and of 
failure are also on display. Each his-
torical moment teaches us something 
about America and Steinem. After 
the National Women’s Conference, 
we see a jump in confidence for both 
Steinem and the women’s move-
ment: “Before Houston, I had said 
that women could run huge public 
events at least as well as men. After 
Houston, I believed it.” We not only 
see the conference as a historical 
moment for women’s rights, but as 
a catalyst for change and confidence 
in individual women. It is this view, 
that Steinem brings to all the events 
covered in her work.
Steinem unearths many small mo-
ments within the women’s movement 
throughout her travels. Many works 
talk about the importance of talking 
circles and lectures, but Steinem 
shows us exactly how they work. 
How, with the help of her speaking 
partner Dorothy Pitman Hughes, 
they create trust and support within 
Bravo, as we resplendently sing out in 
response to that art of all arts. 
Matthew Corrigan is a Senior Scholar 
at York University (Toronto). He is the 
former Director of York’s Programme 
in Creative Writing and the author 
of the trilogy of novels, set in Nazi 
Germany, entitled The Reichskanzler’s 
Historian.
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME136
REVOLUTIONARY 
MOTHERING: LOVE ON 
THE FRONT LINES
Alexis Pauline Grumbs, China 
Martens, and Mai’a Williams, Eds. 
Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016
reviewed by melinda 
vandenbeld-giles
In the powerful and evocative Rev-
olutionary Mothering: Love on the 
Front Lines, co-editor China Martens 
strangers, and even change minds. 
She also shows us the racism her 
speaking partners and friends faced, 
and she provides details of the sexism 
she faced on the many campaigns she 
worked on. But the most important 
moments are the details we only get 
because she was travelling. If she 
wasn’t a traveler than Steinem never 
would have learned of the fight for 
stewardesses to have workers’ rights, 
or been told by taxi drivers about 
white supremacist groups she had 
thought were not around. Her trav-
elling and journalism led her to not 
only work on women’s rights, but all 
rights, from profiling James Baldwin 
to working with Wilma Mankiller.
As Steinem says, the road leads 
you “out of statistics and into stories” 
which is exactly what My Life on 
the Road has done for the women’s 
movement. Steinem has done what 
she promises with this work. She 
brings the personal into the political 
and provides not only a detailed story 
of her own life, but the stories of the 
women’s rights movement as a whole. 
Amanda Edgley has a Bachelor of Arts, 
Honours degree in Women’s Studies 
and English Literature from Trent 
University, and is currently complet-
ing a Public Texts (English literature) 
Master’s degree at Trent University. 
theme of love and the bridging of 
humanity, the book is divided into 
six sections in which the personal 
narratives of mothering voices are 
heard. Whether the discussion is 
intergenerational connection, ev-
eryday radical mothering practices 
and revolutionary home-making, 
the violence of poverty, the feminism 
of everyday life and the queering of 
mothering, the beautiful and fighting 
stories of birth, and the powerful 
potential of words, the multiple 
voices of these mothers—oppressed 
and marginalized by a homogenizing 
society—become centralized and in 
their starkness reveal the potential of 
the human spirit. 
In “The Creative Spirit,” June 
Jordan writes, “Love is life force... 
Love is opposed to the delimiting of 
possibilities of experience.” Such a 
powerful beginning to this collection 
creates a strong message of optimism 
while still acknowledging the every-
day structural violence marginalized 
mothers must face. Co-editor Mai’a 
Williams describes it well when she 
discusses the “bureaucracy of every 
day life.” All of these narratives reveal 
the revolutionary message of social 
change alongside the everyday and 
visceral realities of mothering, show-
ing how it is time we recognize the 
powerful political potential within 
those everyday acts of caregiving 
and love. 
Returning to the rage and pas-
sion of the radical and queer black 
feminists of the 1970s and 1980s, 
this edited collection shows how the 
power of words can be harnessed, 
and how we need to remember the 
politics of the home place as a site 
of love, resistance, and hope for the 
future. Framed primarily within an 
American context, we need to see 
more writing that comes from this 
powerful place of love, rage, and 
hope: writing that breaks free from 
standardized ideals and definitions 
and seeks to define itself. Taking this 
writes, “Actions and words, practical 
deeds and dreams, this is how we 
build tomorrow.” Indeed, Revolu-
tionary Mothering is a testament to 
life and love. It is a book filled with 
words that brim with hope and rage 
and love that can change the world. 
After spending days immersed within 
the words and images produced 
through this inspiring edited volume, 
I have run through the emotional 
rollercoaster and have come out the 
other side feeling my spirit renewed 
with expansive love, hope, and a lot 
of productive anger. 
The editors of this volume reveal 
the multiplicity of mothering voices 
often marginalized and not given pri-
ority in a deafening world of racism, 
sexism, classism, ageism, and ableism. 
These are the voices of strong moth-
ers of colour, queer mothers, young 
mothers, poor mothers, mothers who 
will not be pushed to the sidelines 
but who show us through their words 
and actions that they will not only 
persevere, but thrive, and fight for a 
more inclusive world—one in which 
we need not be afraid of our rage but 
can use our emotions to create social 
change. Productive rage and love 
co-exist and can and should provide 
the needed tools for revolution.
Bringing forward a powerful 


My Life on the Road. Gloria Steinem. New York: Random House, 2015.

Roccatoni, Laura

The National Film Board of Canada: No Time to Stop; The Power of Time

En février 2014, un scandale a ébranlé l’université d’Ottawa (Canada) quand des joueurs d’un club de hockey ont agressé une jeune femme durant une joute. On a dû annuler la saison 2014-15. Les quatre journaux locaux en ont beaucoup parlé donnant la parole aux joueurs de hockey eux-mêmes. Ce papier basé sur 55 articles sur le sujet décèle et analyse les trois cultures de la masculinité décrite par Michael Kimmel (2008) dans la dynamique du club:celle qui donne le droit, la culture du silence et la culture de protection. En creusant la compréhension des cultures masculines du jeu, ce papier met en évidence l’envahissante règle patriarcale des clubs universitaires présents sur les campus. La presse locale en leur donnant la parole a mis l’accent sur leurs droits et s’est rangée de leur côté au détriment de la survivante et de son expérience de l’assaut. Elle ajoute une discussion autour de l’implication du campus, des athlètes mâles et les médias

Côté, Isabelle

A Culture of Entitlement, Silence and Protection: The Case of the University of Ottawa’s Men’s Hockey Team

Boyd, Monica

Foreign Born, Female, Old and Poor

Philipose, Liz

UNEQUAL FUTURES: THE
LEGACIES OF CHILD
POVERTY IN CANADA
Brigitte Kitchen et al. Toronto: The
Child Poverty Action Group and the
Social Planning Council of Metropoli-
tan Toronto, 1991.
By N elly Tion
Unequal Futures examines the struc-
tural sources that engender, maintain, and
perpetuate child poverty in Canada-to
the extent that one in every six children
continues to be virtually condemned to
poverty as a birth right. The book's analy-
sis is based on the sources of the differ-
ences in access to social rewards and the
extent of market and government engen-
dered inequalities. The authors identify
and analyze the federal government's sup-
ply-side policies, which have resulted in
shifting the burden of taxation on to low
and middle income individuals and fami-
lies, in reducing social benefits, and in
eroding the minimum wage-all factors
contributing to the declining economic
circumstances of middle and low income
children and their families.
The effects of child poverty in pre-
determining health, social functioning,
educational and employment oppor-
tunities into adulthood are examined. An
analysis of the disparities in life chances
among Canadian children points out the
fallacy of the widely accepted myth that
equal opportunity can be promoted though
education. Often seen as offering all chil-
dren a chance to overcome the limitations
of the poverty they were born into, pub-
licly-funded education can actually serve
to reproduce the disadvantage of poor
children. Unequal Futures argues that
child and family poverty cannot be ad-
dressed through selective services and
benefits directed at the poor. Recommen-
dations include the entrenchment of an
explicit constitutional commitment to the
principle of financing a federal income
security system for families with chil-
dren, which would reflect a national com-
mitment to the reduction of disparities.
The analysis of the nature and sources
of child and family poverty includes an
examination of gender-based issues. The
authors note that the increase in the last
decade of the number of female-led lone
parent families has been widely associ-
ated with child poverty. Employment of
both parents has become a necessity to
maintain reasonable standards of living
for a family. Mothers are forced to expe-
rience the contradiction of meeting this
demand to maintain individual and family
self-sufficiency, while facing disadvan-
tages and inequities in the labour market.
At the same time they still bear the major
responsibility for child raising, a job not
renumerated by direct earnings. Segrega-
tion into lower paying jobs, inadequate
child care, non-payment or inadequate
amounts of support by non-custodial par-
ents, all contribute to making female-led
lone parent families one ofthe highest risk
groups for poverty. Statistics reveal that
the child poverty rate is 25 per cent for
families with mothers in full-time em-
ployment compared with a rate of 6.2 per
cent when the father is employed full-
time.
Unequal Futures is a detailed and well-
developed argument for a renewed col-
lective commitment to reducing child and
family poverty through constitutional en-
trenchment of the principle oftrue equali-
zation of opportunity for all children and
their families.
A disappointing feature of the authors'
analysis is the lack ofany examination, or
even substantive acknowledgment, of the
compounded risks and disadvantages
faced by children, women, and families
whose barriers to accessing equal oppor-
tunities are made even more formidable
because they are racial minorities, be-
cause of their immigration status, or be-
cause they are disabled. For example,
statistics from the disabled community
indicate that unemployment for women
with disabilities reaches as high as 80 per
cent. How disabled, racial minority, and
Aboriginal women and their families ex-
perience poverty should at least have been
part of the gender analysis of poverty.
Not addressing the'discriminatory bar-
riers faced by such minority groups gives
rise to serious questions about the ad-
equacy of the analysis underpinning Un-
equal Futures. Without a serious exami-
nation of the different faces and experi-
ences ofchild and family poverty, and the
sources of those different experiences, the
validity of the prescriptions for change is
also called into question.
THE POLITICS OF
BREASTFEEDING
Gabrielle Palmer. London: Pandora
Press Issues in Women's Health Series,
1988.
By Liz Philipose
The Politics ofBreastfeeding is a clear
and comprehensive account of the ways
in which women's "mammalian ability"
to produce and dispense breastmilk has
been replaced with the use of "prosthetic
100 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
instruments" (bottles) and "second-class
substitutes" (formula) for infant feeding.
Palmer argues that the replacement of
breastfeeding with bottle feeding has had
little to do with freeing women from a so-
called "time-wastingbiological tyranny,"
or improving the health ofmother orbaby.
Rather, she links the global decline of
breastfeeding to industry's quest for prof-
its and the medical management of child-
birth and infant care.
Palmer demonstrates that the "baby
milk" market was created in the interests
ofmanufactuers and doctors. The process
of medicalization has limited women's
control of infant feeding and destroyed
their confidence in their bodies' ability to
function. The "insufficient milk syn-
drome" is accepted by most health care
workers as a natural and widespread con-
dition, especially among undernourished
women. However, evidence shows that
very few women are biologically unable
to produce milk. Rather than investigat-
ing the absence of physical factors in
insufficient milk production, the bottle
feeding alternative is presented as an
equally satisfactory method. This myth
becomes part of the justification for baby
milk exports into poor countries.
The baby milk industry thrives in coun-
tries such as Malaysia, the Philippines,
Brazil, India, Pakistan, and Papua New
Guinea, in addition to the countries of
North America and Europe. The links
between health care and industry, as well
as advertising and aggressive marketing,
combine to replace women's confidence
in their bodies with confidence in baby
milk products.
According to Palmer, the ill-effects of
scientising infant feeding abound, and the
tragedies of breast milk substitutes con-
tinue to this day. The baby milk industry
follows the dictates of nutritional fashion
in its attempt to create products which
simulate breastmilk. Breastmilk is re-
placed by dairy industry waste, condensed
milk, pea flour and bicarbonate of potash
concoctions. Not surprisingly, untoldnum-
bers of babies die needlessly from malnu-
trition and diarrhea, and an unknown
number suffer from debilitating health
problems.
Perhaps the most infamous baby milk
producer is Nestle. Palmer devotes much
of her argument to the ways in which
Nestle has extended and secured its reach
VOLUME 12, NUMBER 4
into global markets. Even after the widely
documented Nestle boycott, the liaisons
between medicine, commerce and gov-
ernment maintain Nestle's profit-making
baby milk industry.
Palmer locates the devaluation of
breastfeeding in the scientific discourse
of manipulating nature. In this discourse,
infant feeding has been removed from the
realm of(female) nature to be managed by
the (male) "formula cult" of rigorous ex-
actitude, mathematics and chemistry. The
damage is staggering. Breastmilk is
wasted. Energy is wasted. Production of
baby milk (which sustains the dairy cow
industry) requires that cows eat grains,
the staple food for most of the world's
human population. The global population
THE POUTICS OF
BREASTFEEDING
-~\ ....
:-"" '.
~,~ :::
C"~ ..... ,l":;
I I'll , ~J: "1'1(
Sl1UIA
..:\Tl.lNCI..U
ImIm
explosion, can, in part, be attributed to the
displacement of lactational birth control.
The irony is that overpopulation and scar-
city are perceived to be Third World epi-
demics, yet it is in these countries that the
baby milk industry thrives.
Some readers may find Palmer's sug-
gestions for revaluing breastfeeding
through wages, her anthropological mate-
rial (breastfeeding through the ages), and
her indictment ofWestern imperialism, to
be less than compelling. As well, despite
her careful arguments to the contrary, her
reassertion of the 'man-science/woman-
nature' dichotomy could be selectively
appropriated by those who want to argue
that only women are naturally suited to
childrearing.
Much of the information Palmer
presents is available elsewhere, and there
are probably better resources for those
researching the practices ofparticularbaby
milk producers or the effects ofbaby milk
substitutes in specific countries. What is
useful about this book is its synthesis of
material in a comprehensive overview.
The appendices and bibliography are a
good basis for further research. More in-
teresting than Palmer's solutions are the
questions she raises, which have import in
a variety of fields, such as community
health and hospital planning, 'develop-
ment' policy and nutritional counselling.
For the general reader, this is a higWy
informative andgenerally persuasive femi-
nist argument. Palmer combines medical
and nutritional research with anecdotal
accounts, wit and scathing sarcasm to
present a sophisticated argument in an
entertaining manner. While raising suspi-
cions about industry in general, she effec-
tively demonstrates that breastfeeding is
in fact a political issue which has pro-
found social, economic, and cultural con-
sequences.
THE POLITICS OF
ABORTION
Janine Brodie, Shelley A. M. Gavigan,
and Jane Jenson. Toronto: Oxford
University Press, 1992.
By Lisa Schmidt
When it comes to abortion, the personal
is political.
Facing each other in the political arena
are two diametrically opposed parties,
each with an agenda based on deeply
rooted personal beliefs and each speaking
a language where the meanings of spe-
cific words are chosen to represent these
beliefs. For instance, where pro-choice
advocates say: woman, the fetus and
abortion, pro-life groups say: mother, the
unborn and murder.
Hence, in writing The Politics ofAbor-
tion, authors Janine Brodie, ShelleyA. M.
Gavigan and Jane Jenson have not only
surveyed dozens of legal documents,
books and newspaper clippings, they have
101


The Politics of Breastfeeding

Wershler, Laura

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME150
the Spirit.” She has drawn inspiration 
in particular from “the Galilean 
poet” whose gospel of mercy and 
forgiveness still resounds throughout 
the world.  She has come to know 
the importance of being generous, 
as “The rainbow doesn’t stint.” She 
has come to know this hard-won 
shattering truth:
Nothing divine charges a fee
Everything is charged with love
The poet Eva Tihanyi says if you 
only read one book of poetry this year, 
read Susan McCaslin’s Into the Open. 
J.S. Porter reads and writes in Hamil-
ton. His most recent book is Lightness 
and Soul: Musings on Eight Jewish 
Writers. His review first appeared in 
Dialogue Magazine, Winter, 2018.
to think ourselves masters over beings 
for whom our controlling-vocabulary 
is much more limited than we realize.
In a poem whose title “Dwelling in 
Possibility” McCaslin likely borrows 
from Emily Dickinson, the speaker 
draws near to aspects of nature for a 
moment with vivid and memorable 
language, then has the good sense 
to let go:
Cedars rise from duff
their green names
wide-open cadenzas
Concatenation of crows—
nothing is as it is
 for long
These two lines “nothing is as it 
is / for long” summarize the life’s 
work of First Nations artist Norval 
Morrisseau where human and animal 
forms morph in and out of each 
other at will.
Quite often in McCaslin language 
rubs up against that which has no 
language, or at least no language 
recognizable by human beings. In a 
longish poem “Wilderness/Poetry” 
she explores how poetry engages 
wilderness by attempting to call it 
into speech:
the abyss is a roiling cauldron
spewing up forms so lovely
they silence speech.
The speaker humbly recognizes that 
“There is a syllabus we cannot master 
/ and it has no name.” She is surer 
of language’s limitations than she is 
of language’s potential for control 
and mastery.
In his very fine Introduction to 
Into the Open, Russell Thornton 
takes note of how frequently mag-
nolia, flower and tree, have presence 
in McCaslin’s poetry. He writes: 
“Botanists believe that the magnolia 
has existed since the beginning of 
time, and may be the first flower.” 
In “Writing to Magnolia,” McCaslin 
speaks directly to her subject, “and 
you, Magnolia, / casting your fleshy 
dress / like snow at my feet.” Along 
with the whiteness of the flower 
and of snow, one pictures an Agnes 
Martin painting where a white grid 
seems to dissolve into invisibility. As 
in a Martin painting, there is more 
in a McCaslin poem than the eye is 
first able to discern.
White is the central colour in 
Into the Open—“white meditation,” 
“white flutter,” ”white dolphin,” 
“white lion,” ”white arms,” “muslin’s 
white,” “white stone,” “white door,” 
“beurres blanc,” “white shirt,” “white 
nun,” etc. If only a rich patron, in 
recognition of Susan McCaslin’s 
nearly score of books and chapbooks 
of poetry and her one-of-a-kind con-
tribution to Canadian letters, would 
fund the cost of lavish reproductions 
of Agnes Martin’s paintings to ac-
company the poems. Seldom does 
linkage between poet and painting 
seem so right.
If white is the key colour of the 
book, flow is the key word.  In 
“Omega Suite” the speaker suggests 
that one of the duties of the poet is 
“attending the flow.” In her poem to 
Wisdom, “Dear Sophia,” McCaslin 
writes, “one body / bowing / not as to 
a king / but to what flows.” The lines 
bring back to mind an earlier poem, 
“Mindfulness,” which concludes with 
these lines: “But be in your place / as 
the globed magnolia.”
You are not the first or the last
to change.
Flow, change, metamorphosis: 
these are the ways of nature, and of 
the world. How could it be otherwise 
within “wind-born” creation?
For a long time now, Susan Mc-
Caslin has been moving towards 
greater and greater openness, inclu-
siveness, wholeness. She has partaken 
in her work of the “big fruit salad of 
WRITING MENOPAUSE: 
AN ANTHOLOGY OF 
FICTION, POETRY, AND 
CREATIVE 
NON-FICTION
Jane Cawthorne and E.D. Morin, eds.
Toronto: Inanna Publications and 
Education, 2017
reviewed by laura 
wershler
If Chrissie Hynde becomes mentor 
and muse to a perimenopausal 
woman who wants a barber to shave 
her head; an artist takes a pair of 
much-younger brothers as lovers; a 
couple take their well-worn, no-lon-
ger needed pram to the dump; an 
aging mother struggling to breathe 
shares menopausal wisdom with her 
midlife daughters; a man with a vagi-
na talks about menopausal stigma; a 
women loses her womb and the fruit 
of her womb in short succession; a 
daughter becomes her mother; blood 
flows, sweat drenches, curves develop; 
VOLUME 32, NUMBERS 1,2 151
young boy about his mother (“Or 
I would find her in the kitchen 
mopping her face with the hem of 
her apron…”) or as title (“The Hot 
Women, Drenched”); whether as 
metaphor (“We unattended candles 
lie radiant as glowing ash.”) or call 
to action (“Maybe these night sweats 
are my body’s battle cry. Rise up, she 
calls.”), such references suggest that 
far from being clichéd, night sweats 
and hot flashes are noteworthy phe-
nomena with mysterious alchemical 
power.  
Writing Menopause is not the book 
you read to find medical explanations 
or treatment suggestions for night 
sweats. It’s the book you read when 
you want to know how menopause 
feels, how it is experienced by women 
like you and not like you. It’s the book 
men should read if they want to better 
understand the women in their lives. 
It’s the book health-care practitioners 
should read to help them see beyond 
the symptoms presented by women 
advancing towards or already in 
menopause. 
Menopause may be the destina-
tion but it is the scenic road trip all 
women take to get there that makes 
for the compelling writing in this 
anthology. Some voices are missing, 
as the editors themselves lament in 
“On Mountains and Menopause.” 
Where are the stories of women fac-
ing poverty or taking on challenging 
physical or creative pursuits? Some 
pieces are stronger than others, but 
collectively they offer something for 
every reader. I was struck particularly 
by the opening to “My Mother’s Skin” 
by Kate Austin:
I’m wearing my 
 mother’s skin
and since I’ve passed my 
best-before date, 
her hands fit as if they were
 made 
 for me. 
And in Jane Silcott’s “Threshold” 
I recognized the contradictions and 
confusions, the whirls of circuitous 
thinking, and the arguments we 
have with ourselves as we meander 
or crash our way into menopause. 
Sometimes we feel hapless, some-
times we feel fierce, and sometimes we 
are perfectly at peace with ourselves. 
Silcott writes: “No one cheers you 
on through menopause.” They do 
now. Writing Menopause is one big 
cheering section, led by Silcott’s last 
words on hot flashes: “People used to 
call hot flashes ‘blooms.’ How apt. We 
flushing, heated women blooming 
out everywhere.”
Laura Wershler is a veteran sexual 
and reproductive health advocate, 
writer and commentator whose work 
has appeared in various newspapers, 
journals, online venues, and the an-
thology Without Apology: Writings on 
Abortion in Canada. A longtime mem-
ber of the Society for Menstrual Cycle 
Research, she served as editor-in-chief 
of its blog, Menstruation Matters, from 
2015-2017.
and, beneath all, relationships drift, 
shift, and realign.
At the root of the poems and 
stories—both fiction and non—in 
Writing Menopause are the transi-
tioning relationships of women at 
various stages in the transition to 
menopause. Almost every piece can 
be deconstructed to reveal a rela-
tionship in flux. Characters—real, 
imagined, and metaphoric—are in 
the midst of renegotiating, reinvent-
ing, reimagining their relationships 
with partners, lovers, friends, chil-
dren, mothers, nature and, mostly, 
themselves. Family life, partnered 
life, friendship, and sexuality are 
boldly exposed. Points of view expand 
and shrink, reaching beyond these 
women’s everyday lives and deeply 
within their changing bodies and 
evolving psyches. It’s this exploration 
that editors Jane Cawthorne and E. 
D. Morin were seeking when they 
put out the call for submissions to 
Writing Menopause, wisely knowing 
“that there are different ways of seeing 
and reading experience.”
The anthology is arranged in three 
sections titled to represent the yes 
and no contradiction of each theme. 
Selections in UN/DONE explore 
menopause as both the end and the 
beginning of something. IN/FER-
TILE includes pieces that celebrate 
and mourn the end of reproductive 
function, and explore new forms of 
fertility that arise in women’s lives. 
In the last section, UN/KNOWN, 
characters are revising what “they 
thought they knew,” with most 
acquiring a new—bold and/or ten-
der—sense of self.
If there is one menopausal cliché 
readers can expect to find in this 
collection, it is “night sweats and 
hot flashes.” References to either or 
both are found in at least twenty-five 
of the anthology’s fifty-four poems 
and stories. Whether mentioned in 
passing or the focus of a paragraph 
or two; whether as observation by a 


Writing Menopause: An Anthology of Fiction, Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction. Jane Cawthorne and E.D. Morin, eds. Toronto: Inanna Publications and Education, 2017.

Mijares, Sharon G.

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME140
to be very fruitful so I’m going to be 
following up with her Rebirth of the 
Goddess and She Who Changes. Process 
theologies are panentheist and very 
relational, which is very much suited 
to Wicca and intuitively satisfies me.
Samuel Wagar is the Wiccan chaplain to 
the University of Alberta and a Doctor 
of Ministry student at St. Stephen’s 
College in Edmonton. 
ANCIENT SPIRIT 
RISING: RECLAIMING 
YOUR ROOTS & 
RESTORING EARTH 
COMMUNITY
Pegi Eyers
Kewadin, MI: Stone Circle Press, 
2016
reviewed by sharon g. 
mijares
Ancient Spirit Rising is the recipient 
of a 2017 Next Generation Indie 
Book Award in the Current Events/
Social Change category.
Ancient Spirit Rising: Reclaiming Your 
Roots & Restoring Earth Community is 
a very significant book for our time. 
It challenges current trends toward 
borrowing and using indigenous 
knowledge and related practices, and 
points out that this tendency further 
precipitates colonial thinking and in-
trusion upon the ways of indigenous 
people. Eyers lays out her case against 
these ongoing colonial-thinking 
practices, describing the many ways 
that white Europeans have intruded 
into indigenous societies, particularly 
those of North America. She chal-
lenges the booming trend “to bor-
row identities from other cultures.” 
Given the number of white women 
re-creating sweat lodges, presenting 
ceremonies (where permitted by 
indigenous peoples) and so forth, 
Eyers challenges these behaviors and 
asks why people are not, instead, 
cultivating their own indigenous 
roots. For example, why not learn 
more about the indigenous European 
Indigenous Knowledge traditions of 
Nordic and Celtic Paganism as well 
as a host of other EIK traditions from 
the UK, Baltic, Russian or Siberian 
lands? In short, Eyers discusses the 
current quest toward ancient ways of 
reverencing with ancestral practices 
and re-connecting to the earth and its 
spirits, but also asks readers to replace 
what she illustrates as an intrusive 
continuance of colonial thinking 
with practices related to one’s own 
genetic history. One excellent quote 
supporting this theme notes that,
Our post-modern culture finds 
itself in a desperate need for Ancestors 
right now. The greatest threat today 
is the unraveling of the Web, which 
connects us to one another. Tracing 
the stories of our ancestors allows us to 
reach beyond our cultural borders to 
worlds not our own. The future may 
try to monopolize our attention, but 
some of our most fruitful lessons may 
come from connecting to our past. 
May your journey to the Ancestors 
yield both wisdom & compassion, 
which are their truest gifts to us. 
Ancient Spirit Rising is filled with 
excellent, supportive quotes that 
add a lot to the author’s points. It is 
also filled with terms and acronyms, 
noting the differences between IK 
(Indigenous Knowledge) and EIK 
(European Indigenous Knowledge), 
settler re-indigeneity and indigenous 
mind, as well as the ravages of Em-
pire, patriarchy, hierarchy, ethnocide, 
capitalism, ecocide, racism, and white 
privilege, to name a few. Then each 
of the topics is addressed in depth 
with significant scholarly support, 
causing the readers to examine their 
practices and beliefs. Do we support 
true unity, or do we contribute to 
ongoing intrusion into indigenous 
people’s communities and lives?
This is a timely book in that 
humanity is in the midst of a mass 
migration, as well as the exposure to 
other cultures supported by modern 
technologies of the internet as well as 
travel. It is an unsettling time, and 
this has probably initiated the wide-
spread urge to connect with nature 
traditions using ritual practices more 
connected to spiritual ancestry. The 
world religions no longer have the 
appeal of the past. 
There are differing beliefs and 
responses within indigenous com-
munities to this movement. Some 
are capitalizing on it by earning an 
income, for example, an indigenous 
person teaching students how to build 
and conduct a sweat lodge as well as 
other native practices for a fee. There 
are those who prefer to protect their 
tribal ways and not allow further 
appropriation or intrusion by settlers 
who, without thoughtfulness, bring 
the crimes of the past into the present. 
Then there are also other tribal peo-
ples who go beyond ideas of further 
segregation and are, instead, joining 
with all races, nationalities, spiritual 
backgrounds, and so forth: increasing 
numbers of people are recognizing the 
important role of indigenous people 
in teaching us how to protect the 
well-being of all life and the future 
of the planet. Ancient Spirit Rising: 
Reclaiming Your Roots & Restoring 
Earth Community brings up many 
controversial and important issues, 
and stimulates significant thought. To 
what extent are we as human beings 
all connected?
The book also brings up the 
question of whether we are more 
influenced by our genes or the land 
to which we are born. Although this is 
discussed in her book, Eyers does not 
fully answer the question — primarily 
because it is an unknown factor. The 
author directs our intention to know-
ing our individual ancestral roots, and 
VOLUME 32, NUMBERS 1,2 141
Written with an acute awareness to 
the challenges facing ecofeminist 
theory and practice in relation to fem-
inism more broadly, Moore’s book 
makes the case for ecofeminism’s 
compatibility with contemporary 
intersectional feminisms.
This book is written from the 
perspective of someone who has 
witnessed ecofeminist activism in 
practice and believes in the relevance 
of these activist practices to feminist 
theory, including emergent modes 
of theory like feminist new mate-
rialisms. It is an auto-ethnographic 
account of Moore’s exploration of 
ecofeminism in Canada, a project 
which began when Moore was an 
undergraduate student in London 
(UK) in 1992. Turning to the spe-
cific situation of Clayoquot Sound 
in 1993, Moore contextualizes this 
moment for ecofeminism in light 
of the contemporaneous discourses 
around the death of feminism in the 
1990s. Moore describes the turn to a 
specific case study in terms of Donna 
Haraway’s “situated knowledges and 
partial perspectives,” and she draws 
on Haraway throughout. One of 
the reasons Moore chooses to focus 
on the Friends of Clayoquot Sound 
(FOCS) peace camps in 1993 is 
because it is an internationally 
recognized environmental activist 
movement that, Moore argues, was 
“based on feminist principles, which 
were sometimes explicitly identified 
as eco/feminist”: it is an example 
of (ecofeminist) theory in practice 
that, as Moore demonstrates, is also 
resonant with postmodern feminist 
concerns.
Moore contextualizes her project 
in response to the gap she perceived 
between third-wave feminist theory 
in the 1990s and the so-called “death 
of feminism,” on the one hand, and 
the “intense, vibrant, and lively 
experiences of eco/feminist politics 
in action” that she bore witness to 
at Clayoquot Sound on the other. 
Moore responds to this gap between 
theory and practice— a gap that 
is exacerbated by the marginal, or 
marginalized, place of ecofeminism 
in feminism more broadly— by 
turning to the accounts of activists 
who were involved in the Clayoquot 
Sound peace camps in the summer 
of 1993. With postmodern feminism 
and emergent modes of theory in 
her quiver, Moore directly addresses 
the various charges against ecofem-
inism: most notably, the charge of 
essentialism. Well aware of the ways 
in which ecofeminism has tended to 
be disregarded by feminist theorists 
for its “anachronistic” essentialism, 
Moore revisits terms like “essential-
ism,” “maternalism,” and “genealogy” 
in light of postmodern theory while 
emphasizing the importance of con-
sidering such (redeemable) terms in 
context.
Her citational practice of juxtapos-
ing postmodern (and post-postmod-
ern) feminist theory and queer theory 
with transnational eco/feminist activ-
ism contributes to her making the case 
of the compatibility of ecofeminism 
with both contemporary feminism 
and contemporary theorizing on and 
around the environment, nature, and 
matter. Moore draws on the work of 
Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, Karen 
Barad, Lee Edelman, Jack Halber-
stam, Donna Haraway, Gayatri 
Spivak, Isabelle Stengers, and Anna 
Tsing alongside work by Catriona 
THE CHANGING 
NATURE OF 
ECO/FEMINISM: 
TELLING STORIES 
FROM CLAYOQUOT 
SOUND
Niamh Moore.
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2015
reviewed by lauren 
fournier
asks that we quit appropriating those 
of indigenous peoples. In addition to 
formulating our own ethnoculture 
and eco-identity as connected to 
place, this appears to be the driving 
message of the book. 
In summary, after reviewing An-
cient Spirit Rising it is my opinion 
that it is an important, significant 
and timely read. I highly recommend 
reading it, and also recommend 
keeping it as a resource toward further 
exploration, thought, and referencing 
on problems of cultural identity, 
and solutions as found in practices 
of ecospirituality and the ancestral 
arts. Eyers has gone into great depths 
in presenting her thesis. It is well 
thought out, well written and ref-
erenced. Most importantly, Ancient 
Spirit Rising presents significant issues 
for the era in which we are living—a 
time in which all of humanity is 
confronted by tremendous change.
Sharon G. Mijares, Ph,D. is a global 
traveler and has led workshops to em-
power women in Costa Rica, Ecuador, 
Egypt, Mexico, Scotland, Uganda, 
Venezuela, and the United States. She 
is the primary editor of A Force Such 
As the World Has Never Known: 
Women Creating Change (Inanna, 
2013). Her workshops and writings 
are focused on empowering women 
for global transformation. For more, 
see www.psychospiritual.org
References
Anne Newkirk Niven, “Living the 
Dream: Letter from the Edi-
tor.” SageWoman: Celebrating the 
Goddess in Every Woman, Issue 43, 
“Ancestors.” Autumn 1998.


Ancient Spirits Rising: Reclaiming Your Roots and Restoring Earth Community. Pegi Eyers Kewadin. MI: Stone Circle Press, 2016.

Ghai, Nilambri

For a mother who lost her daughter*
Why do you hide behind your shadow?
Look, the world has no veil around it,
sometimes, it can be beautiful!
It's close to your body, it wants to touch you,
your isolation,
your widow nights,
your heavy smile,
your half-open lips,
your dry hands,
your words.
It wants to kiss them.
Why don't your eyes rise to look?
Are they unused
to this?
Is it like an insult
to be without a veil?
NILAMBRI GOAl
Waiting
Waiting to be born
I was removed before time
or after, who knows...
Waiting to hear the lungburst of a new born
my mother tried to hide in shame
for having not delivered completely...
Waiting to join others at play
I alone saw my father's back
bent over debt piles...
Waiting to tell my sister of my love,
my wedding was arranged...
Waiting to be held by one I'd never known
I lost my home...
Do you exist from day to day
in the hope that something will change,
that you'll be born again as a mother
in a home where there might be a shortage of girls?
Do you have only a veil to give to your daughter?
The same veil,
so bitter, and yet, so much like you, your own?
In the silence of the night,
when you crushed the little neck
with that veil,
did it seem simple to end it all?
Just like that, so simple,
with such little effort of your hands?
Did you feel numb once it was all over?
The tiny life? the silent cry?
How did you never let it reach your ears?
Did you wrap it, never to open it,
in your veil?
"My daughter," you said, "yes, it happened two years ago.
It was God's wilL.She died quietly.
It had to be done...
There were too many of us around... ".
*This poem was written for a woman from Belukkurichi (a
village in Tamil Nadu) who felt, like many others, that she
had to put her infant daughter "to sleep."
Nilambri Ghai is from India. She teaches functional
literacy to adults in Montreal and is active in community
women's groups and the theatre.
VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1
Waiting for an identity
I forgot how to raise my eyes or my voice ...
Waiting to build another home
I lost myself...
Waiting for ever to come
I stopped waiting,
and went in search of lost lives,
lost time, lost history...
67


Waiting

Weston, Joanna M.

82 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
Connie Guberman is an Associate 
Professor, Teaching Stream, and the 
Program Cooridnator Women’s & Gen-
der Studies at the University of Toronto 
Scarborough (UTSC). She has been an 
activist against gender-based violence, 
within the community and academy, 
for many years.
Reshma Dhrodia, MA, MSW, RSW is 
a social worker with expertise in equity, 
anti-oppressive practice, mental health, 
and gender-based violence. She current-
ly works as an Accessibility Advisor at 
the University of Toronto. 
Lynda Kosowan, MSW, RSW is the 
Executive Director of Scarborough 
Women’s Centre, a resource centre for 
women focused on promoting their 
economic and emotional independence 
and freedom from violence.”
References
“A Focus On Family Violence in 
Canada.” Public Health Agency of 
Canada. The Chief Public Health 
Officer’s Report on the State of 
Public Health in Canada. 2016. 
Web. 2 February 2018 
Burczycka, Marta. “Stalking in 
Canada, 2014.” Statistics Canada. 
17 Janury 2018. Web. 3 May 2018 
DeKeseredy, S. Walter. Violence 
Agaisnt Women: Myths, Facts, 
Controversies. Toronto: University 
of Toronto Press, 2011. Print.
Herman, L. Judith. Trauma and 
Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence- 
From Domestic Abuse to Political 
Terror. New York, NY: Basic Books, 
1997. Print.
Horsman, Jenny. Too Scared to Learn. 
Women, Violence, and Education. 
Toronto:McGilligan Books, 1999. 
Print.
“It’s Never Okay: An Action Plan 
to Stop Sexual Violence and 
Harassment.” Government of 
Ontario. March 2015. Web. 17 
May 2018 
Johnson, Holly. and Emily. Colpitts. 
Fact Sheet: Violence Agaisnt Women 
in Canada. Canadian Research 
Institute for the Advancement of 
Women, 17 September 2013. Web. 
7 April 2018 
Sinha, Maire. “Measuring Violence 
Agiasnt Women: Statistical 
Trends.” Statistics Canada. Jurstat. 
25 February 2013. Web. 13 March 
2017 
“Stronger Sexual Violence and 
Harassment Laws Come into 
Effect.” Government of Canada. 
Ministry of the Status of Women. 
7 September 2016. Web.  13 April 
2018
“The Violence Against Women 
Survey: Highlights.” Statistics 
Canada. 18 November 1993.. 
Web.13 April, 2018 
Turcotte, Martin. “Women and 
Education.” Women in Canada: 
A Gender-based Statistical Report. 
Statistics Canada. December 2011. 
Web. 5 March 2017
“Violence Against Women.” Amnesty 
International UK/ Issues. 25 October 
2013. Web. 4 April 2018.
White House Task Force to Protect 
Students From Sexual Assault. 
“Not Alone: The First Report to the 
White House Task Force to Protect 
Students from Sexual Assault.” The 
White House. April 2014. Web. 26 
February 2017
Wies, R. Jennifer. “Title IX and the 
State of Campus Sexual Violence 
in the United States: Power, 
Policy, and Local Bodies.” Human 
Organization 74. 3 (2015): 276-
286. Print.
JOANNA M. WESTON
The Pattern Marion Made 
she knitted her life
into a mosaic of socks
sweaters   teddy bears
sent them purled and plain
to children around
the whole comfortless
world where the stitches
were held by sticky fingers
she slipped one
ribbed yet another
into a cable of friendship
that increased the breadth
of who she was until
many lands knew
the pattern of her being
Joanna M. Weston is married with one cat, multiple spiders, a herd of deer, 
and two derelict hen houses. Her middle-reader, Frame and The McGuire, 
was published by Tradewind Books in 2015; and her poetry collection, A 
Bedroom of Searchlights, was published by Inanna Publications in 2016. 
Other books listed at her blog: http://www.1960willowtree.wordpress.com/.


Not a member yet