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

LaChapelle, Andrée

VOLUME 31, NUMBERS 1,2 85
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ANDRÉE LACHAPELLE
16
Spring arrived
and pretty girls were in full bloom
making me consider all the possibilities
of my budding sexuality.
Andrée’s work deals with issues of sexuality, survival 
and social isolation. Her poetry, fiction and non-
fiction have appeared in numerous online and print 
publications including Dining Out; Scarborough 
Arts; Safeword Magazine; Broken Pencil; and 
Canadian Woman Studies. She works as a Yoga 
and Pilates teacher in the Greater Toronto Area and 
shares her life with a wonderfully supportive husband, 
an aging lady cat. and birds of many feathers.
LAURA SWEENEY
My Epitaph Will Read
I rose, to follow my dreams
beyond the Brewster Place Wall.
I broke loose to become a flaneuse,
rumbling the streets like George Sand,
crackling the sharp whip of a
savage mind, transcendent of
love-ownership or one-up-man-ship,
writing to Nefertiti
we are the eccentrics
who make herstory.
Laura Sweeney facilitates Writers for Life in central 
Iowa. She represented the Iowa Arts Council at the First 
International Teaching Artist’s Conference in Oslo, 
Norway. Her recent and forthcoming publications include 
poems in Evening Street Review, Negative Capability 
Press, Main Street Rag, Folia, Wordrunner eChapbook, 
Yellow Chair Review, Balloons Lit. Journal, East 
Jasmine Review, and Nuclear Impact Anthology: 
Broken Atoms in Our Hands.


Sweeney, Laura

English

My Epitaph Will Read

Ce texte explore les défis face aux différences dans les organisations transnationales féministes et souligne la marginalisation et l’invisibilité des femmes rurales, des paysannes et des autochtones. Elle cite l’exemple de la Marche mondiale des femmes qui a été un agent féministe qui a construit des solidarités féministes autour de la souveraineté de la nourriture et au-delà des différences. En mettant l’accent sur la justice environnementale qui met en cause la gérance transnationale de la nutrition, l’auteure espère que les féministes qui gèrent l’oppression sur plusieurs fronts, puissent exprimer leurs désappointements et les utiliser pour explorer des sites d’espoir

Attakora-Gyan, Dorothy

Finite Disappointments or Infinite Hope: Working Through Tensions within Transnational Feminist Movements

Weston, Joanna M.

VOLUME 30, NUMBERS 2,3 59
Haber. Lanham, md: Rowman & 
Littlefield, 1998. 3-25. Print.
Sachs, C. E., ed. Women Working in 
the Environment. London: Taylor 
& Francis, 1997. Print.
Sander-Staudt, M. “Care Ethics.” 
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 
2006. Accessed May 13, 2014.
Sturgeon, N. Ecofeminist Natures: 
Race, Gender, Feminist Theory 
and Political Action. New York: 
Routledge, 1997.
Tong, R. Feminist Thought: A More 
Comprehensive Introduction. 3rd 
edition, Boulder, CO: Westview 
Press, 2009. 
United Nations (un). “The Dublin 
Statement on Water and Sustainable 
Development, adopted January 31, 
1992 in Dublin, Ireland.” Web. 
Accessed June 5, 2014. 
United Nations Economic Com-
mission for Africa (uneca). African 
Water Development Report. 2006. 
Web. Accessed February 4, 2014.
United Nations Development Pro-
gram (undp). Human Development 
Report 2006. Beyond Scarcity: 
Power, Poverty and the Global Water 
Crisis. Web. May 9, 2014. 
United Nations Environment Pro-
gram (unep). Global Environment 
Outlook: Environment for Deve-
lopment. 2007. Web. May 9, 2014. 
United Nations (un) -Water. Coping 
with Water Scarcity: A Strategic Issue 
and Priority for System-wide Action. 
August 2006. Web. Accessed 
February 8, 2014.
United Nations (un)-Water. A 
Post-2015 Global Goal for Water: 
Synthesis of Key Findings and 
Recommendations from un-Water. 
2014. Web. Accessed Feb. 8, 2014.
White, C. (2012) “Understanding 
Water Scarcity: Definitions and 
Measurements.” Discussion Paper 
1217, Global Water Forum, 
Canberra, Australia, 2012. Web. 
Accessed May 12, 2014.
who/unicef.  “who/unicef 
Highlight Need to Further Reduce 
Gaps in Access to Improved 
Drinking Water and Sanitation.” 
Geneva, 8 May 2014. Web. 
Accessed May 9, 2014.
who/unicef. Progress on Sanitation 
and Drinking Water, 2013 Update. 
Joint Monitoring Programme for 
Water Supply and Sanitation, 
2013. Web. Accessed May 9, 2014.
who/unicef. Progress on Drinking 
Water and Sanitation, 2014 Update. 
Web. Accessed May 9, 2014. 
JOANNA M. WESTON
Fire Girl
birds whirl from your hand
free to seek the double moon
turn flight into a dream
where your face mirrors mine
and your fingertips transform
water droplets into feathers
that fly beside me
far from home or garden
Joanna M. Weston’s new poetry 
book, A Bedroom of Searchlights 
is forthcoming from Inanna in 2016.


Fire Girl

van Daalen-Smith, Cheryl

VOLUME 30,  NUMBERS 2,3 149
to explain who they provision for 
and the forms that such provisioning 
work takes, this research exposes the 
multidimensionality of women’s 
lives that is otherwise negated in a 
neoliberal policy context.
This approach also allows for a 
deeper exploration of the invisible 
work most often conducted by wom-
en, and is useful in going beyond the 
limits evident in much of the existing 
research on caring labour that focuses 
on the work associated with moth-
erhood. By structuring their study 
around provisioning, the authors 
successfully broaden the scope of un-
derstanding to reach “beyond caring 
labour” and household duties to a 
wider understanding of the realities 
of work performed by women.
Julie Singleton is a PhD student in 
Gender, Feminist and Women’s Studies 
at York University whose research is 
focused on gender and public policy, 
and the social relations of the non-profit 
sector. She previously worked in women’s 
employment programs.
Beverly Leipert knows of what she 
writes. Born and raised a Saskatch-
ewan farm girl, Leipert always knew 
that place mattered when it came 
to health and quality of life. With 
great interest, I’ve watched Leipert’s 
career and scholarship emerge over 
the years, and the culmination of 
her ground-breaking work exploring 
RURAL WOMEN’S 
HEALTH
Beverly Leipert, Belinda Leach, and 
Wilfreda Thurston, Eds.
Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 2012
reviewed by cheryl van 
daalen-smith
rurality and health can be found at 
least in part in her new edited text 
Rural Women’s Health. Together 
with colleagues Belinda Leach and 
Wilfreda Thurston, Dr. Leipert 
creates scholarly space for discourse 
surrounding, well, space. Geography, 
broadly defined, that is.
Leipert worked as a rural public 
health nurse in Saskatchewan for 
over a decade, and shared a similar 
awakening as did I. From that priv-
ileged perch afforded to Canada’s 
public health nurses, we both came to 
understand health and quality of life 
as being affected by things far beyond 
mere biology or so-called “healthy 
choices.” Her focus and thus the focus 
of the edited text is appropriately fixed 
on the social determinants of health. 
For as Canada’s leading proponent of 
a social determinants of health lens, 
Dennis Raphael argues, “the primary 
factors that shape the health of Cana-
dians are not medical treatments or 
lifestyle choices but rather the living 
conditions they experience.” (www.
thecanadianfacts.org) According 
to Raphael (2011) issues like edu-
cation, income distribution, (un)
employment/job security/working 
conditions, housing, social exclusion, 
social safety networks, health service 
access, aboriginal status, gender, race, 
and disability greatly impact health 
and quality of life. And the assembled 
scholars in Rural Women’s Health have 
ensured the discourse considers all of 
these issues and then some.
And ok, I’ll admit it. I just love that 
this is a primarily Canadian text, with 
discourse and debate representing the 
many different regions and living 
circumstances that make up rural 
Canada. Whether it be an exploration 
into the relationship of breast cancer 
and farm work in Ontario; exploring 
how assumptions affect Older Men-
nonite Women’s health in Ontario; 
weaving together three generations 
of women in Newfoundland and 
Labrador; giving voice to the quality 
of life of elder Ukraninan women in 
Saskatchewan; re-framing pregnancy 
and health issues in the North West 
Territories; re-naming ptsd with 
women living in remote Aboriginal 
communities; or legitimizing Nova 
Scotian African Canadian women’s 
definitions of health, this edited 
volume is as ruggedly honest as is 
Canada’s terrain. Established and 
budding scholars alike will find the 
twenty-two chapters thorough and 
enlightening, to say the least. Who, 
except Leipert and the emerging 
group of rural women’s health 
scholars she’s assembled, would think 
about food provisioning practices or 
food sustainability as impacting rural 
women’s health? In fact when read-
ing those chapters, I was reminded 
of Vandana Shiva’s work exposing 
women’s gender-entrenched role in 
global food security. She tells us that 
women plant, nurture, and harvest 
the food we all need to survive, and 
works tirelessly to empower women 
and to keep food security in their 
hands. In fact, only recently Shiva 
travelled to Nova Scotia and spoke at 
several universities regarding gender 
issues, as they relate to food security, 
food sovereignty, and seed saving.
Yes, place matters, especially how 
it intersects with gender-relations, 
race, class, identity, and power. And 
Rural Women’s Health goes there. That 
rural women’s health is deeply linked 
to women’s safety is sadly, perhaps, 
the most predictable commonality. 
So much so that in a text meant to 
illuminate how rural living spaces 
impact health, a chapter needed to 
be dedicated to the one issue experi-
enced by many women regardless of 
space: gender-based violence. And so 
there we have it. Violence emerges as 
central. Again.
But Leipert’s team didn’t stop there. 
Discussion regarding the experiences, 
struggles, and required resiliency 
of rural health care providers takes 
a prominent spot in the text. For 
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME150
the dearth of supports and the oft 
dangerous isolation experienced 
by care providers creates a further 
health inequality for rural and remote 
women living in Canada. We know 
that women as paid or unpaid care 
providers has long been an area of 
much needed advocacy and policy 
change, but now we can look at the 
specificities involved in rural care 
provision.
Rural Women’s Health represents 
an explosion in this much-neglected 
area of women’s health scholarship, 
and could well be used as a core text 
in a year-long course or as a stand 
alone in a rural-specific women’s 
health course. It’s no wonder that for 
several years, Leipert held the Ontario 
Women’s Health Council Chair in 
Rural Women’s Health Research at 
the University of Western Ontario. 
This was the first and only Chair 
in North America to be dedicated 
to rural women’s health research. 
Pretty cool. If you want to stay up 
to date on this exciting research and 
activism area check out Rural Women 
Making Change out of the University 
of Guelph. Well done Dr. Beverly 
Leipert. Keep up the amazing work. 
Giddyup!
Cheryl van Daalen-Smith, is an Asso-
ciate Professor at York University with 
appointments in the School of Gender, 
Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York 
University, the Children’s Studies Pro-
gram, and the School of Nursing. In her 
(spare) time, she cares for and about a 
menagerie of cast-away farm animals 
at her farm in Caledon, Ontario.
Works Cited
Mikkonen, J. and D. Raphael. 
Social Determinants of Health: The 
Canadian Facts. 2011. Web. 
Shiva, V. Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking 
of the Global Food Supply. New 
York: North End Press, 2000.
Exile, a mindset intertwined with the 
fate of displaced peoples, has been a 
central concern since the second half 
of the twentieth century post-imperi-
alist world, and has been given special 
attention and focus in scientific 
research along with Diaspora and 
Migration Studies. However, it is 
commonly known that women (and 
their children) constitute the great 
majority of the displaced1. The vol-
ume on Women and Exile(s) [Femmes 
et Exils], edited by Dominique Bour-
que and Nellie Hogikyan, focuses 
specifically on women’s experiences 
as they are expressed in literature, 
visual and fine arts, as well as in other 
creative genres such as performance 
narratives and autobiography. The 
book, written in French, presents 
poetic and re-inventive attempts in 
the field of cultural displacements and 
can be considered as an important 
contribution to Cultural Studies. The 
essays in this anthology re-examine 
the nature and the set of terms asso-
ciated with women’s mobility since 
the emergence of women’s writing 
and up-till present-day transnational 
migrations. For instance, as theorized 
by feminists, it has been widely es-
tablished that women’s transgression 
of national borders on one hand, and 
of the grounded categories of the 
social order on the other hand, has 
allowed them to experience flexible 
citizenship avant la lettre.
The anthology Femmes et exils of-
fers a theoretical account that reviews 
FEMMES ET EXILS: 
FORMS ET FIGURES
sous la direction de Dominique 
Bourque et Nellie Hogikyan ; préface 
de Gloria Escomel
Québec: Presses de l’Université 
Laval, 2010
reviewed by sima 
aprahamian
the system of terms of exile and the 
multiple displacements of women 
in an increasingly fluid world, with 
examples of de/-constructed subjec-
tivities in the writings of francophone 
migrant women across borders and 
generations.
The large-scope and innovative 
introduction situates socially (pa-
triarchy, colonialism, globalization, 
hetero-normativity) and esthetically 
(« écriture migrante », « écriture au 
féminin », etc.) the multiple displace-
ments of women. The introduction 
can be used as a rich and complex 
reference for the study of exile and 
diaspora for it offers a full theoretical 
frame that reviews the terminologies 
associated with exile and migration in 
general and proposes a new category, 
the post-exile, in order to account for 
the generational factor in the context 
of displacement.
It is important to note that the 
majority of the authors in this collec-
tion of essays are Canadian citizens 
and they discuss works produced 
by artists from various backgrounds 
and origins. This reflects Canada’s 
fundamental politics and reality of 
multi- and interculturalism. Other 
contributions on European, Japanese 
and Islamic cultures add to the inter-
national dimension of the anthology.
In addition to a preface by Quebec 
writer and lecturer Gloria Escomel, 
the volume consists of two main 
sections: Thematic Exiles and Poetic 
Exiles. Each section has three subsec-
tions with a concise and clearly stated 
introduction. Thus in the section 
on Thematic exiles, we find the fol-
lowing sub-themes: Inner/Exterior 
exile, Identity of exile, Generational 
exile. Hence, the authors capture the 
internalization of exile and examine 
how this is expressed in terms of 
language. The focus here is on being 
in exile from one’s own self; and the 
condition of exile is understood as a 
linguistic phenomenon, a process of 
metaphorizing this unique lived expe-


Rural Women's Health

Tierney, Ros

VOLUME 30, NUMBERS 2,3 89
ILONA MARTONFI
What was her name?
Blue plum tree blossom
where the Moosgraben flows
and the oh so quiet wordless world of a child
buried creek
bog willow, forsythia, grow in bomb craters
odour of spring
the odour of mortuary
two-story red brick house:
Halle 7 by the Rollbahn
old airport Neutraubling,
Barvarian Forest chalk hills ridge
tell her, she was not the only one
blue plum tree blossom
all around the yard
the odour of death
the odour of spring
yellow forsythia
maroon cotton dress
white ribbed knee socks 
pigtailed Magyar refugee of nine
teacher molesting her
what was her name?
Yellow sunshine
moor nunnery
blue plum tree.
Ilona Martonfi is the author of three poetry books, Blue 
Poppy (Coracle Press, 2009), Black Grass (Broken Rules 
Press, 2012) and, most recently, The Snow Kimono 
(Inanna, 2015). Ilona has published in Vallum, Accenti, 
The Fiddlhead, and Serai. She is the founder/producer 
of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Readings, 
and the co-founder of Lovers and Others. She is also the 
recipient of the qwf 2010 Community Award.
ROS TIERNEY
The Morning Swim
As I swim each morning
swim to regain my health
swim to regain my sanity
swim for the joy of it
the clear clean water caressing my body
soothing my soul
drowning my thoughts
I am buoyed and lifted by the sparkling water
feeling my muscles strengthen with each stroke
swimming to wellness.
My thoughts drift to my sisters in India
I feel guilty swimming in fresh clean water
knowing their hardship
carrying water, waiting days for the taps to run
conserving every drop
wasting none.
Squandering such a precious commodity?
Knowing my privilege
I say thank you
and swim on.
Rosalind Tierney is a feminist, witch and traveller, currently 
living in Crystal Beach.
Next issue: 
Women & Social and 
Environmental Justice
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www.cwscf.ca 


The Morning Swim

Mwanaka, Tendai R.

120 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
1This song was gifted by Doreen Day at the request of her 
grandson. English translation: “Water, we love you.  We 
thank you.  We respect you.”
2The journey of this Four Directions walk is documented 
in the film, Water Journey, 2011 directed by Jeff Bear and 
Marianne Jones.
3More information on Elder Josephine Mandamin can be 
found at <www.motherearthwaterwalk.com>.
4The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable 
Development also recognized the issue of First Nations’ 
financial capability to cover the 20 percent of operating 
costs not funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and 
Northern Development.
5“…It appears that while the Canada Labour Code (at a 
minimum) may apply to workers on reserves, there does 
not seem to be a program of regular inspection and en-
forcement” (Expert Panel on Safe Drinking Water).
5For additional information on jurisdictional issues see 
Tonina Simeone’s Federal-Provincial Jurisdiction and Ab-
original Peoples. Additional resource information can be 
found at <http://www.great-lakes.net/humanhealth/drink/
regulation.html>.
References
Barlow, Maude, and Tony Clarke. Water Privatization. 
Global Policy Forum. Jan 2004. Web. Accessed May 
2014.
Declaration of Rights of Mother Earth. Rights of Mother 
Earth. n.d. Web. Accessed May 2014.
Harden, Andrea, and Holly Levalliant. Boiling Point! Polaris 
Institute. 2008. pdf.
Health Canada. Drinking Water and Wastewater. n.d. Web. 
Accessed May 2014.
McMahon, Kevin. A Native Grandmother’s Epic Walk For 
The Water. Condensed by Native Village. Web. Accessed 
May 2015.
Report of the Expert Panel on Safe Drinking Water for First 
Nations. 2006. Web. April 3, 2010. Accessed May 2014.
Shiva, Vandana. “World Bank, wto, and Corporate Control 
Over Water.” International Socialist Review. Aug/Sep 
2001. Web. Accessed May 2014.
Simeone, Tonina. Federal-Provincial Jurisdiction and 
Aboriginal Peoples, tips-88E, Parliamentary Information 
and Research Service, Library of Parliament, Ottawa, 
1 February 2001.
Simeone, Tonina. Safe Drinking Water in First Nations 
Communities. Library of Parliament Research 
Publications. 28 May 2010. Web. Accessed May 2015.
TENDAI R. MWANAKA
Sad Manhood
for Edie … I know how you feel
I am not going to give it up
Not for anything
Not anything worthwhile
I have come a long way
Some say, half the way
Half the way to sad manhood
For the first twenty years
I was a seed in the soil
Waiting for the rains to spring up
From twenty onwards
I was a sapling stem
Feeding, flowing in greens
Now forty, onwards
I will learn from lives,
Loves I have crashed
To reach here, where
I am just coming to
Half the way to sad manhood.
Tendai R. Mwanaka was born in Zimbabwe. He is the 
author of several poetry books, including Voices from 
Exile (2010) and Playing to Love’s Gallery (2014). 
He is also the author of two novels, Keys in the River: 
Notes from a Modern Chimurenga (2012) and A Dark 
Energy (2014), and a collection of essays, Zimbabwe: 
The Blame Game (2013). His short fiction, essays, poems 
and visual art have published in magazines, journals, 
and anthologies around the world. 


Sad Manhood

Qureshi, Saereen

48 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
SAEREEN QURESHI
The Sun
My heart is like the night,
so dark that every thing is a 
surprise.
I am deeply scared,
because the stars can’t hear my 
cries.
And the moon seems to glow,
as I wait for you to rise.
Happy Birthday!
You came into this world,
as delicate as a flower.
You received two clouds,
with love to shower.
As you grow,
and blossom your own way,
the garden seems more beautiful,
when you arrived that day.
Happiness
A smile on the chin,
is all but a grin.
But the true laughter,
is what comes from within.
True Love
Love is a lot, 
like the wind.
It gets carried away,
with little things.
I thought of this song for the movie 
The Lion King:
The beat of the drums,
the beat of the heart.
When your in love,
you can’t tell them apart.
Saereen Qureshi is a fourth year student 
in Political Science at York University. 
She has published poems and articles in 
journals and newspapers.
PENN KEMP
Gender Bias Even Among the Elements
The hurricane was first named for the saint’s
day on which it surfaced, stark mnemonic.
The World War 2 meteorologists plotted
Pacific storms by women’s names. Ever
since 1980, hurricanes are called equally
after men and women. And so we learn—
“Much gender bias is more automatic,
ambiguous and ambivalent than people
typically assume.” The more masculine
the name, the more respect for a hurricane.
Sound familiar? Bring on mysteries inherent
in the mélange between culture and element.
Our system of belief has no limit but it does
have confused and complicated consequence.
“Researchers find that female-named hurricanes
kill about twice as many people as similar male-
named hurricanes because some people under-
estimate them. Americans expect male hurricanes
to be violent and deadly, but they mistake female
hurricanes as dainty or wimpish and don’t take
adequate precautions.” Such silly assumptions
neglecting the power of words end in salt tears.
Beware an errant hurricane named for women:
the female ever more dangerous than the male.
Activist poet/playwright Penn Kemp is London’s inaugural Poet Laureate, 
with twenty-six books of poetry/drama and ten cds. As Western’s Writer-
in-Residence, she produced Luminous Entrance: Sound Opera for 
Climate Change Action (dvd). She hosts Gathering Voices, Radio 
Western. Quattro Books published Jack Layton: Art in Action, which 
she edited.


The Sun

Kemp, Penn

VOLUME 30, NUMBERS 2,3 97
Torah Portions. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights 
Publishing, 2000. Print.
Goldzweig, Rena S., “The Prophetess of Redemption.” 
Kabbalah Online: Kosher Kabbalah from the Holy City 
of Safed, Israel. 2003. Chabad.org. Web. 18 June 2014. 
Greenbaum, Yaffa. Shalom Bayit Passover Haggadah. Jewish 
Family Services of Ottawa. Passover 2010. Print.
Haberman, Bonna Devora. Israeli Feminism Liberating 
Judaism: Blood and Ink. Lexington Press, 2012. Print.
Hammer, Rabbi Jill, with Shir Yaakov Feit. Omer Calendar 
of Biblical Women. 2012. Print.
Hebrew-English Bible According to the Masoretic Text and 
the jps. 1917 Ed. Mechon Mamre. html version 2005. 
Web. 18 June 2014. 
Horn, Laurie, “Births.” Schwartz 17.
Lonergan, Stephen C., and David B. Brooks, Watershed: 
the role of fresh water in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. 
Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 
1994. Print.
Meyers, Carol, gen. ed. Women in Scripture: A Dictionary 
of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, 
the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New 
Testament. Toni Craven and Ross S. Kraemer, assoc. 
eds. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans 
Publishing Company, 2000. Print.
Miriam. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 23 May 2014. 
Web. 18 June 2014.
Mirkin, Marsha Pravder, “The Birthing of Community: 
Social Responsibility and the Women of Early Exodus.” 
Schwartz, 264-78. 
Qu’ran. Surat Al-Qaşaş (The Stories). 28:4-14. Web. 18 
June 2014.
Ribner, Melinda, The Secret Legacy of Biblical Women: 
Revealing the Divine Feminine. New York: Melinda 
Ribner, 2012. Print.
Schwartz, Rebecca, ed. All the Women Followed Her: A 
Collection of Writings on Miriam the Prophet & the 
Women of Exodus. Mountain View, ca: Rikudei Miriam 
Press, 2001. Print.
Slayford, Lian. “The Rise, Decline and Disappearance of 
Hathor’s Priestesses.” Bukisa: Share your Knowledge. 6 
October 2009. Web. 18 June 2014.
Trible, Phyllis, Miriam 1. Meyers, 127-129. Print.
Ullman, Montague, M. D. and Nan Zimmerman, Working 
with Dreams. New York: Laurel/Eleanor Friede, 1979. 
Wasserfall, Rahel, ed. Women and Water: Menstruation in 
Jewish Life and Law. Waltham. ma: Brandeis University 
Press, 1999. Print.
Women of the Wall. Jerusalem, 2014. Web. 18 June 2014.
Yarber, Angela. “Painting Miriam.”Feminism and Religion. 
8 June 2013. Web. 18 June 2014.
PENN KEMP
Middle March and Beyond
Last day of winter and snow recedes slowly
as creatures emerge tentatively to feed. We
are all immersed, immured, enveloped in
this strange in-between time, ice melting
to air. Transition ritual: old kings must die.
So we are told. Be gone, cold. Welcome,
fluctuating circumstance. Holding our breath,
hanging as elements change their nature, we
women wait patiently, impatiently, accepting,
rejecting conditions that no longer serve us.
Hoping against hope, whatever that means
for a future few sure will be any longer
golden or even green, given climate change,
given stupidity on all levels of governance,
internal, external. We await the chance to
vote, elections upcoming, change essential
but arbitrary. We fear the tricks of power
determined to stay in place, in control no
matter how wild the swirl of oceans gone
beyond all known bounds predicated on
past possibility or predicted by those whose
voices are silenced by the powers that be:
that be sly, short-sighted, power-mad and
roiling to keep a lid on that boiling crock—
those melting glaciers, the rising sea levels.
Activist poet/playwright Penn Kemp is London’s 
inaugural Poet Laureate, with twenty-six books of poetry/
drama and ten cds. As Western’s Writer-in-Residence, 
she produced Luminous Entrance: Sound Opera for 
Climate Change Action (dvd). She hosts Gathering 
Voices, Radio Western. Quattro Books published Jack 
Layton: Art in Action, which she edited.


Middle March and Beyond

Aprahamian, Sima

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME150
the dearth of supports and the oft 
dangerous isolation experienced 
by care providers creates a further 
health inequality for rural and remote 
women living in Canada. We know 
that women as paid or unpaid care 
providers has long been an area of 
much needed advocacy and policy 
change, but now we can look at the 
specificities involved in rural care 
provision.
Rural Women’s Health represents 
an explosion in this much-neglected 
area of women’s health scholarship, 
and could well be used as a core text 
in a year-long course or as a stand 
alone in a rural-specific women’s 
health course. It’s no wonder that for 
several years, Leipert held the Ontario 
Women’s Health Council Chair in 
Rural Women’s Health Research at 
the University of Western Ontario. 
This was the first and only Chair 
in North America to be dedicated 
to rural women’s health research. 
Pretty cool. If you want to stay up 
to date on this exciting research and 
activism area check out Rural Women 
Making Change out of the University 
of Guelph. Well done Dr. Beverly 
Leipert. Keep up the amazing work. 
Giddyup!
Cheryl van Daalen-Smith, is an Asso-
ciate Professor at York University with 
appointments in the School of Gender, 
Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York 
University, the Children’s Studies Pro-
gram, and the School of Nursing. In her 
(spare) time, she cares for and about a 
menagerie of cast-away farm animals 
at her farm in Caledon, Ontario.
Works Cited
Mikkonen, J. and D. Raphael. 
Social Determinants of Health: The 
Canadian Facts. 2011. Web. 
Shiva, V. Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking 
of the Global Food Supply. New 
York: North End Press, 2000.
Exile, a mindset intertwined with the 
fate of displaced peoples, has been a 
central concern since the second half 
of the twentieth century post-imperi-
alist world, and has been given special 
attention and focus in scientific 
research along with Diaspora and 
Migration Studies. However, it is 
commonly known that women (and 
their children) constitute the great 
majority of the displaced1. The vol-
ume on Women and Exile(s) [Femmes 
et Exils], edited by Dominique Bour-
que and Nellie Hogikyan, focuses 
specifically on women’s experiences 
as they are expressed in literature, 
visual and fine arts, as well as in other 
creative genres such as performance 
narratives and autobiography. The 
book, written in French, presents 
poetic and re-inventive attempts in 
the field of cultural displacements and 
can be considered as an important 
contribution to Cultural Studies. The 
essays in this anthology re-examine 
the nature and the set of terms asso-
ciated with women’s mobility since 
the emergence of women’s writing 
and up-till present-day transnational 
migrations. For instance, as theorized 
by feminists, it has been widely es-
tablished that women’s transgression 
of national borders on one hand, and 
of the grounded categories of the 
social order on the other hand, has 
allowed them to experience flexible 
citizenship avant la lettre.
The anthology Femmes et exils of-
fers a theoretical account that reviews 
FEMMES ET EXILS: 
FORMS ET FIGURES
sous la direction de Dominique 
Bourque et Nellie Hogikyan ; préface 
de Gloria Escomel
Québec: Presses de l’Université 
Laval, 2010
reviewed by sima 
aprahamian
the system of terms of exile and the 
multiple displacements of women 
in an increasingly fluid world, with 
examples of de/-constructed subjec-
tivities in the writings of francophone 
migrant women across borders and 
generations.
The large-scope and innovative 
introduction situates socially (pa-
triarchy, colonialism, globalization, 
hetero-normativity) and esthetically 
(« écriture migrante », « écriture au 
féminin », etc.) the multiple displace-
ments of women. The introduction 
can be used as a rich and complex 
reference for the study of exile and 
diaspora for it offers a full theoretical 
frame that reviews the terminologies 
associated with exile and migration in 
general and proposes a new category, 
the post-exile, in order to account for 
the generational factor in the context 
of displacement.
It is important to note that the 
majority of the authors in this collec-
tion of essays are Canadian citizens 
and they discuss works produced 
by artists from various backgrounds 
and origins. This reflects Canada’s 
fundamental politics and reality of 
multi- and interculturalism. Other 
contributions on European, Japanese 
and Islamic cultures add to the inter-
national dimension of the anthology.
In addition to a preface by Quebec 
writer and lecturer Gloria Escomel, 
the volume consists of two main 
sections: Thematic Exiles and Poetic 
Exiles. Each section has three subsec-
tions with a concise and clearly stated 
introduction. Thus in the section 
on Thematic exiles, we find the fol-
lowing sub-themes: Inner/Exterior 
exile, Identity of exile, Generational 
exile. Hence, the authors capture the 
internalization of exile and examine 
how this is expressed in terms of 
language. The focus here is on being 
in exile from one’s own self; and the 
condition of exile is understood as a 
linguistic phenomenon, a process of 
metaphorizing this unique lived expe-
VOLUME 30,  NUMBERS 2,3 151
rience of rupture and rebirth. Special 
attention is given to family history 
and generational repercussions in 
the process of integration into new 
cultural landscapes.
Part II of the anthology Femmes 
et exils is on the poetics of exile and 
consists equally of three sections. We 
read about various voices on and in 
translation: the authors here speak of 
translation games as they deal with 
the themes of alienation and unheard 
voices. We come across the different 
interpretations of the Quran and the 
“Hebrewizing” of the German lan-
guage, as well as the introduction of 
textual “de-marking” and the use of 
Japanese narrative technique, all of 
which contribute to the pluralizing of 
local literatures and marginal voices.
The anthology closes with a won-
derful and substantial poem by Otta-
wa-based Angèle Bassolé-Ouédraogo, 
Les Porteuses exilées (The Exiled 
Carriers), which gives voice to the 
courageous women of Africa, voices 
that go beyond the continent’s out-
rageous devastations of colonialism. 
And finally, a post-script by Nellie 
Hogikyan beautifully articulates that 
“after exile, it is our roots that re-unite 
down-under”.
In conclusion, the crossing of 
borders between theory and creativity 
encountered in this collection gives 
Virginia Woolf ’s famous quote “As a 
woman I have no country. As a wom-
an I want no country. As a woman, 
my country is the whole world” its 
deepest meaning.
Sima Aprahamian is a Research 
Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir 
Institute, Concordia University where 
her research focuses on gender, ethnicity, 
and class. She holds a Ph.D. in anthro-
pology (1989, McGill University). At 
the Simone de Beauvoir Institute she 
has taught many courses including 
Introduction to Women’s Studies, 
Women’s Organizing and Resistance 
Across Cultures, Women, Science and 
Technology [through the Gendered 
Cyborg]. She has also developed and 
co-taught a seminar course with Dr. 
Karin Doerr entitled Feminist Perspec-
tives on Genocide. She has numerous 
publications and has organized several 
symposia and conference panels. She 
has also presented many papers in peer 
reviewed international conferences. She 
has conducted field research in Leba-
non, Armenia and Canada.
1In a paper from the United Nations 
High Commission for Refugees, Su-
san Harris Rimmer writes that most 
refugees and internally displaced 
peoples are women and children 
(Harris Rimmer 2010 http://www.
unhcr.org/4bbb2a589.pdf, p.3).
 
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