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

Bowen, Amy

Outsiders Still: Why Women Journalists Love - and Leave - Their Jobs. Vivian Smith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.

Popham, Rosemarie

Campaign 2000: Partnerships to End Child Poverty

Bouchard, Pierrette

Les jeunes femmes et la pauvreté

Corrigan, Matthew

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME134
ASPECTS OF NATURE
Rhoda Rabinowitz Green
Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2016
reviewed by matthew 
corrigan
Though born in Philadelphia, the 
author of this volume speaks with 
an international and multi-cultural 
voice. Stories in this collection take 
place in California, England, Florida, 
the Warsaw Ghetto, Buchenwald, 
and, of course, Canada, where the 
author has resided for over forty years. 
The themes are timeless, human ones: 
the aggravations and humiliations 
of old age, memory loss, familial 
discord, the joys and tribulations of 
marriage, and man’s inhuman treat-
ment of man. These stories show a 
rare and sympathetic nature at work. 
Each carves out its own world in 
language—the mordant humour 
omnipresent but never intrusive, the 
imagery memorable, the dialogue at 
times pitch perfect (a rare gift), the 
rhythms finely tuned and seductive. 
Many have a musical identity or 
musical theme at their centres, like 
the memoir of the renowned Polish 
pianist Maryan Filar, an immigrant 
to the United States after his incar-
ceration at Buchenwald during the 
war. The author, an accomplished 
classical pianist herself, studied with 
transcendent level. Consider this 
passage when the narrator recalls her 
decision to become a concert pianist: 
One evening, no longer a child 
but a young woman of sixteen, 
she’d climbed, breathless, to the 
uppermost heights of Philadel-
phia’s Academy of Music to hear 
the great Gieseking. Schumann, 
Arabesque … a sound, simple, 
hushed, serene, floated upward, 
reached with, oh, such effortless 
clarity and resonance her insides 
trembled. Debussy, Chopin … 
at the Steinway, he brushed the 
keys with fine, elongated fingers 
(spanning an octave), causing 
a spontaneous, unteachable 
thing to happen not simply to 
the notes, but between, some-
thing rhythmic and sonoric, 
moving forward and holding 
back, cheating and robbing, 
giving and adding, something 
called beauty and genius. All, 
liquid, each tone, phrase, shift 
in sentiment, flowed one from 
the other without jarring or 
angularity, the keyboard an 
orchestra. When he’d finished, 
gauzy tone-clusters lingered, co-
cooned in a profound silence no 
one was willing to break, dying 
their own death. She knew then 
what path she must take.
Stories are memorable for the 
insights, imaginative detail, beauty 
that they capture and convey in 
words—and for the memorability 
of their characters. These are hu-
man stories—the shadows of aging 
and the finality of death are never 
very far from any of the character’s 
thoughts—with perhaps memory, 
mutability, mortality, the most 
central of their preoccupations. At 
times the language simply leaves the 
page and soars heavenward, such as 
in this closing section from the Filar 
memoir, after the author has visited 
Writing at University of British Colum-
bia. Sonia is a member of the League of 
Canadian Poets and Canadian Women 
in the Literary Arts. Published works 
such as chapbooks, poetry, essays, book 
reviews, and interviews can be found 
in various journals. Her first book of 
poetry, Exaltation in Cadmium Red, 
was published in 2012. Her second 
full-length book of poetry is forthcoming 
in 2018. 
the maestro when he first arrived in 
America in the early fifties and tells 
his life story with poignancy and 
compassion. Filar, a child prodigy, 
had had his hand smashed by a cruel 
guard at Buchenwald, yet had gone 
on in the post war decades to become 
one of the world’s great pianists. 
Rhoda Rabinowitz Green captures 
poignantly the twenty-five year old 
pianist’s ordeal when, returning to 
his home in the Warsaw Ghetto 
after living underground with the 
partisans, he finds the rest of his 
family gone, disappeared, never to 
be heard from again:
“Only imagine the anguish Mary-
an felt when he returned home, 
January 1943, to finds his mother 
Ester, and Helen, his sister, vanished, 
like his father (two years before). 
Vanished: a faded space; a cupboard 
once cram-packed, now empty, a 
phantom presence, lingering odour 
of cigar, toilet water, shampoo. That 
day, the day that his mother and 
sister disappeared, he came home to 
the sound of hollow, all the human 
spiritual energy siphoned off from 
the home that had once vibrated with 
sounds from the piano, guitar, violin, 
singing and laughter, of family argu-
ments and chastisements and tears.” 
But a deeper music at times 
permeates the prose, raising it to a 
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.


Aspects of Nature. Rhoda Rabinowitz Green. Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2016.

Storey, Maura

failure to care for its most vulnerable
citizens.
The safety net fails in several ways.
Two-thirds of single parent households
are not in subsidized housing, although
half of these are on waiting lists. Many
have been waiting for more than two
years. Social assistance payments-
either general welfare or Family Ben-
efits-fail to provide for basic needs.
What do these women really want?
Popular wisdom has it they want to stay
home, have babies, and be supported. But
73 per cent of women surveyed said the
thing that would make the greatest differ-
ence in their lives was ajob. Seventy-five
per cent wanted cheaper housing. Sixty-
three per cent wanted more education or
job training. This is a picture of people
struggling to survive in a society where
they are given less opportunities.
Let us hope that when this recession
ends we will never again stand for the
erosion ofprogrammes designed to main-
tain people in health and dignity through
rough periods in their lives. In the mean-
time, during this recession, we need a
great public outcry against governments
that put deficit reduction before hungry
people, and blame those very people for
their hunger while balancing budgets on
their backs.
Susan Cox is Assistant Executive Direc-
tor of the Daily Bread Food Bank in
Toronto.
Three new booklets
on the subject of
CHILDHOOD
SEXUAL ABUSE
A Booklet for Adult Survivors
A Booklet for First Nations
Adult Survivors
A Booklet for Partners and Friends
•For information contact:
The Victoria Women's Sexual Assault Centre
306 - 620 View Street Victoria BC V8W IJ6
Tel: (604)383-5370 Fax: (604)383-6112
VOLUME 12, NUMBER 4
HEATHER PYRCZ
Talking
I am learning
to listen
to myself
and watch while I
say poverty for property
not missing a beat
I expose myself
like an Ihalmuit shaman
to howling winds and unfathomable
hunger
to gainsay
Heather Pyrcz is a writer who lives in Wolfuille, Nova Scotia.
Her work has been published in Fiddlehead, West Coast Line,
and Pottersfield Portfolio.
MAURA STOREY
Chasm
They get in through the walls
the cracks in the foundation
and floor the chasm under
the livingroom windows where
Summers a sow-thistle grows
blooms if tended toward
Fall inside my house mice
don't need much space even less
for going out again mornings I
find them cringing near my pillow
or in fractions
in miscellaneous, amputated bits
half-eaten twice now they've left
their precisely abandoned faces on
my carpet: whiskers taut, tiny
clenched teeth, eyes bulging alert
watching waiting for my house
to crumble.
Maura Storey lives on afarm north ofSaskatoon, Saskatchewan,
and works on contract as an educational consultant.
49


Chasm

Le concept contraire à celui de Jane Doe de « l ‘ultime victime de viol » aincité l’auteure à évoquer son expérience personnelle ainsi qu’une vidéo produite et auto-publiée par l’artiste Emma Sulkowitz pour parler de sa survivance comme une détestable impasse. Sur le site web: « Ceci n’est pas un viol. » (2015)

Barnett, Chelsea P.

Imaging the Faulty Rape Victim : An Autoethnographic Viewing of Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol

Mehta, Jaya

Agnes, a Bombay advocate and activist,
notedpredictable prejudiceson thepartof
male judges. Too often, when the girl's
age was difficult to establish-it could be
13, 14, 15, or 16---they quibbled over
"age of consent"; if the offender was a
"youth" of 18 or 20, they reduced the
sentence because it was "not in the inter-
est of justice to enhance the sentence of
five years" for raping a seven years old; if
the medical examination revealed no ex-
ternal injuries, it was often assumed that
the child had "consented"; if the defence
counsel couldpersuade the learnedjudges
that "enmity" between the families was
the reason for the charge, they could rea-
sonably acquit the accused for want of
"conclusive" evidence. In one case from
Orissa in 1985, a 16 year old rapist of an
11 year old girl was convictedof"kidnap-
ping, abducting and rape"; the sentence: a
[me of Rs.s,OOO and "imprisonment till
the rising of the court.,,!3
The legal domain is only the mostobvi-
ous domain in which change andredressal
are imperative. Of equal-indeed,
greater-importance is a close and care-
ful examination of the sociology and pa-
thology of such violence; of our criminal
andjudicialprocedures when dealing with
juvenileoffenders, and subsequently their
rehabilitation; and of the intersection of
patriarchy with the increasingly violent
ambience of our inner cities from where
most-although by no means all-such
cases are reported. Unless we unravel
these strands and question the impact of
such violence on children, we will be
unable to unmask the seemingly random
and violent conjunction of lives that the
rape of minors represents.
Ritu Menon is the publisher for Kali for
Women in New Delhi and she is active
in other women's organizations.
1All figures are taken from data compiled
by the Crime Records Office and the
Crimes Research Bureau Police Head-
quarters, Delhi.
2 As stated in personal interviews with
MeenaMenon, Bombay; Amitam Arehta,
Ahmedabad; and from police records in
Patna.
3 Flavia Agnes, unpublished manuscript.
VOLUME 13, NUMBER 1
JAYAMEHTA
The Museum
Step gently. Within me there is a museum.
Stand silently. So silently that you can
hear your own breath.
This is a museum. In it is the note
frozen in the throat of the koyal
stuffed with sawdust and the colourful
fluttering of the pallid wings of the
butterfly lying curled on its side.
Stand silently:
If you watch you will see the pigeon's
neck puffed up with its cooing and
the tremor in the red eyes of the
timid rabbit when it hears the lion's
roar. No, no, no, don't keep looking at it.
It may again palpitate with fear.
Look at that deer.. .it seems to be
springing -leaping -running, doesn't it?
But no, look properly, its fleeting hooves
are firmly buried in the ground.
And on this side...do you recognize
this face? Do the lips seem to be
quivering? No, no, don't touch it.
Have you forgotten? This is a museum.
Jaya Mehta was born in 1932 in a village in Saurashtra. Until h;r ret~reme.nt
in 1992, she taught in the Gujarati Department of SNUf Women S UniversIty.
This poem was translated into English by Dr. Shirin Kudchedkar.
29


English

The Museum

Lequin, Lucie

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
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Non thematique
remaniees et mises ajour completent cet
ouvrageessentiel consacreaI'histoiredes
femmes du Quebec.
Toutefois,je m'etonne que les auteures
n'aient pas reformule un passage relatif a
l'esclavage des Noires (p. 133) juge de
mauvais gout dans Canadian Women: A
History. Comme pour les femmes
amerindiennes, I'histoire des femmes
noires de souche, descendantes des
esclaves, est mal connue. C'est une
Histoire a decouvrir. Cependant, l'on
connait« TheColouredWomen's Clubof
Montreal» fonde en 1902 et dont les
objectifs s'approchaient des groupes
composesde femmes blanches. L 'histoire
de ce club n'a pas ete exploree, les ar-
chives sont a repertorier et a analyser,
mais la fondation du club bien connue
constitue un point de fierte pour les
Quebecoises noires. Il importe, je crois,
d' integreraI'histoiredes femmes blanches
du Quebec celle des femmes noires.
Jedeplore aussi quelques erreursqu'une
relecture plus serree auraient corrigees
(par exemple, l'Institut Simone de
Beauvoir a ete fonde en 1978 et le McGill
Center for Women's studies, en 1988).
Cela dit, it faut souhaiter que cette
deuxiemeedition deL' histoire desfemmes
au Quebec depuis quatre siecles confere
un second souffle a l'exploration du
quotidien des femmes au Quebec. Ainsi
quelesauteureslerappellentdansl'avant-
propos, l'experience particuliere des
femmes d'autres origines ethniques et
culturelles reste a explorer. Si cette
deuxieme edition entraine autant de re-
cherche que la premiere, en l'an 2002,
toutes les Quebecoises devraient se
retrouver dans cet ouvrage. Que cette
deuxieme edition devienne le creuset de
I'histoirede toutes femmes, queUes soient
blanches, noires ou amerindiennes.
ADRESSE - Recherches feministes, Gremf, 3· etage, Edifice Jean-Durand,
Universite Laval, Quebec, Canada G1 K 7P4
Telephone (418) 656-5418 Telecopieur (418) 656-3266
108 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAlllERS DE LA FEMME


French

L'histoire des femmes au Québec depuis quatre siècles

Van Daalen-Smith, Cheryl

VOLUME 32, NUMBERS 1,2 149
Media Commons, and the Journal for 
the Study of Radicalism and is forth-
coming from Mosaic. She can be found 
online at www.genericpronoun.com.
GIRLHOOD AND THE 
POLITICS OF PLACE 
Claudia Mitchell and Carrie 
Rentscheler, Ed.
New York: Berghahn Press, 2016
reviewed by cheryl van 
daalen-smith
The concept of place has garnered 
much scholarly interest both within 
and across many disciplines. Critical 
geographers view place as the inter-
relatedness of location plus meaning 
while understanding the fluidity of 
both. Mitchell and Rentschler, both 
known as strong girlhood scholars, 
have compiled a critical analysis of 
various aspects of the ways in which 
we might understand girlhood to 
intersect with the political aspects 
of space. Holding in tension the very 
definition of both girl and girlhood, 
the editors map out literally and 
figuratively a way to understand the 
politics of place, substantively filling 
an unacknowledged gap in the bur-
geoning field of Girlhood Studies. 
They affirm that indeed experience 
is at the very heart of what place 
means and does. “It is something that 
is practiced and enacted in girls’ daily 
lives, in their localities.” Just where 
are girls expected to be? Where are 
they permitted to be? What spaces 
are they not permitted to occupy? 
What places do girls themselves 
construct and are said places a space 
for authentic self-knowing or a space 
which replicates damaging gendered, 
raced, and classed social norms? In 
this critical addition to girlhood 
studies scholarship, place is viewed 
as a verb—and the intersectional 
ways that place impacts the lives, 
selves, and rights of girls and young 
women are unpacked through a 
myriad of innovative and thought 
provoking chapters. Astutely, the 
editors ensure that the various ways 
in which race, gender, sexuality, class, 
age, citizenship, and other social op-
pressions and privileges intersect with 
the concept of place are front and 
centre. The reader will appreciate the 
many stirring accounts, often rooted 
in girls’ own voices and reflections, 
which unapologetically itemize how 
denied power impacts the places girls 
are permitted to authentically occupy. 
Firmly grounded in gender and 
women’s studies’ core concepts and 
questions, students and scholars alike 
will find this to be an important con-
tribution to Girlhood Studies, with 
each chapter promising various ap-
plications perhaps not yet considered.
Cheryl van Daalen-Smith is an asso-
ciate professor with York University’s 
School of Nursing and the School of 
Gender and Women’s Studies. Her area 
of focus is girls and women’s health 
and quality of life. Prior to coming 
to academe, van Daalen-Smith was a 
Feminist Public Health Nurse learning 
about life, equity, and fairness through 
the eyes of others. 
INTO THE OPEN: 
POEMS NEW AND 
SELECTED
Susan McCaslin
Toronto: Inanna Publications, 2017
reviewed by j. s. porter
For the sake of a single poem, you 
must see many cities, many people 
and things. You must know the 
animals, you must feel how the 
birds fly …. You must be able to 
think back to streets in unknown 
neighborhoods, to unexpected 
encounters, and to partings…;  
to days of childhood whose mys-
tery is still unexplained …; …to 
mornings by the sea … to nights of 
travel … and it is still not enough.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, The 
Notebooks of Malte Laurids 
Brigge: A Novel
It’s not easy to be a poet of the calibre 
of Susan McCaslin.  You need to see 
an object, or a being, in its fullness, 
but also its surround, its intercon-
nections and interdependencies. 
You need to know words intimately, 
their textures and sounds; you need 
to know birds and trees and dogs; 
you need to be able to enter lives 
foreign to yours as if they were your 
own. This is one of McCaslin’s great 
talents: to enter another life, or life 
form, and re-animate it.  When she 
writes about William Blake, she 
becomes Blake or someone in his 
circle.  Likewise for Teresa of Avila, 
John Keats, and other luminaries, 
she becomes the other, ingests them, 
speaks from their centre. She is always 
open to the unexpected and the quiet 
unannounced miracles of the day.
In “Chickadee,” the speaker is driv-
ing along and a black-capped chick-
adee trills her into meditation, “lifts 
it/over the steering wheel and beyond 
the car.” The speaker closes the poem 
with an invocation to the bird: 
Dear bird,
return and draw again
that keening song,
that circling kaddish on loan to air.
A poem entitled simply “Dog” 
addresses the dog as “you, Nose of 
Creation, / rolling tumult in grass 
/ vocabulary unencompassed / by 
‘come,’ ‘sit,’ ‘stay.’” Of all the words 
I’ve read applied to dogs, none 
honours their being so simply and 
accurately as the phrase “Nose of 
Creation.”  And nothing I’ve read 
reprimands so gently our tendency 


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