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

Polzer, Jessica

Caring for the Self, Caring for Others: The Politics and Ethics of Generic Risk for Breast Cancer

Malchy, Leslie

VOLUME 28, NUMBERS 2,3 153
L’auteure raconte son expérience face à un naevus retiré de son 
cou et de son bras. Elle a été attérée.quand la biopsie.a révélé 
la présence d’un mélanome, (cancer de la peau).
One of the last memories I have about being at work is 
the scissors.
I was sitting at my desk. 
Staring blankly at my bulletin board.
The divider that separates my cubicle from the one 
before me.
I heard a sound.
Snip, snip.
I settle back into my body, my mind instantly alert.
Snip, snip.
Someone is cutting something, with scissors.
Snip, snip.
Probably making labels for organizing some data files.
Snip, snip.
The sound of scissors, 
Cutting open my skin.
Snip, snip.
It takes me there instantly.
My heart rises in my throat, tears threatening.
Snip, snip.
My arm throbs.
***
I live here in Vancouver. It rains a lot here.
But I don’t believe in umbrellas.
I haven’t owned one in years.
In fact, I am scared of them a little.
Walking down the street
It often seems that the streets are filled with them.
The eye-poking potential is maximum in this city.
Umbrellas have become my existence. Now.
Umbrellas in the middle of summer.
The awkwardness of it. 
It is the middle of summer.
It is bloody hot.
And I don’t go anywhere without my new umbrella.
I have to protect myself from the sun these days.
***
Today I rolled 10$ and 50¢ in pennies. A good day. 
Only intermittently blankly staring up at the ceiling 
from my rocking chair.
A couple of weeks before everything happened I rented 
a movie called My Life Without ’Me. 
It starred Sarah Polley and was about a woman with 
two kids who found out that she had cancer.
She had a very short time to live and wrote out a list of 
all of the things she would do before she died. 
I don’t exactly regret watching the movie now. 
But it was probably not the greatest timing.
Sometimes I sit in my rocking chair and stare at the wall.
Look out the window.
Time passes and I ’hadn’t noticed.
Sometimes people are talking and I don’t hear them.
Sometimes now, when things happen, I don’t hear 
anything.
Life gets really loud all around me and the thoughts in 
my head are deafening but I can’t identify clearly what 
they are.
I know they are there though, because there is no room 
for anything else.
***
I convinced myself to go to a party last week. A staggette 
for an old friend. 
People are making Small Talk. 
Mole
leslie malchy
154 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
I remember vaguely that I work at ubc and I study 
counseling. Oh, and I play in a band. 
“What do you do?” a woman asks me.
“ I have skin cancer” I want to say. 
***
It’s not like I am thinking about it all the time or any-
thing. 
It’s just that I can’t think about anything else.
***
Riding home on my bike a few weeks ago, when it first 
happened, 
July still.
Lifting my sore arm from the handlebars when I passed 
over a bumpy lane.
Gotta let it heal properly, I had thought. 
Blankly whipping along 10th avenue, looking down at 
the brown and black tar spots on the road. 
Malignant melanomas, all of them. 
Abnormal borders, 
discoloration. 
***
I remember the first time I went there. The bc Cancer 
Agency.
I walked up to the counter. 
The receptionist gave me some information and a 
pamphlet:
“Your first patient visit!” booklet
As if it is Disneyland. 
I understand why they do that, I really do. 
But I don’t really want this to be a recurring episode, 
an ongoing experience. 
What I now know is that truly it is very upsetting, even 
to walk into the bc Cancer Agency. 
As a patient. 
What is true is that it is traumatic to hear the word 
Cancer and have it relate to you.
It is a harsh word, both literally and symbolic. 
It is a diagnosis.
They are good people here. 
The volunteer who walks me the five steps from the 
reception desk to the waiting room, to fill out my medical 
history. She also walks me to the elevator. “Oh, yeah, it 
always takes this long for the elevator. I’ve been volunteer-
ing here a long time.” 
Comfort talk. 
I glance over at her, short curly graying hair, sensible 
beige walking shorts and runners. A blue volunteer smock 
over her red t-shirt. I notice her uneven chest, a dent 
where a breast looks like it used to be. I swallow deeply 
and look away. 
***
Early summer, riding home on my bike,
For the last time, exposed.
That day my life came to a screeching halt.
I remember riding home that day, from ubc to com-
mercial drive, my heart beating. Almost knowing. 
Rushing home to meet my dad, I tried to time myself 
perfectly. 
I’m meeting him at 5:35 p.m., at the medical clinic. 
It’s a hot day. I’m glad because I’m wearing shorts 
today. 
Bronze skin gleaming out from under my white tank 
top.
My mom had said, “Dad is going to meet you there.” 
He doesn’t need to come, I had protested, it will be just 
fine. “He wants to come with you. Just let him come.” 
She had insisted.
Heart pounding, I raced down and around the Granville 
Island seawall, gazing over at the countless bodies, sunning 
themselves on the beach. Bodies placed just so. Facing 
the latest direction of the sun. Sucking out the last of the 
high uv index rays. Optimal tanning exposure. Getting a 
base tan, as the woman lying next to me last Saturday had 
mentioned to her friend. I’m just getting a base tan. 
She had been lying on a blanket next to me at Kit’s beach 
that day. The Saturday that I got the phone call from the 
clinic where they told me that I needed to come in for 
my results but refused to tell me what they were over the 
phone. I remember that moment. I was lying in the sun. I 
quickly moved into the shade to make the call. “You can’t 
tell me anything until next Wednesday?” 
Upset, I remember riding home, along the seawall. 
Breathing deeply. 
Just try not to cry. 
Wait till you get home. 
Suddenly, the seawall is flooded with people. All of 
them. In various states of undress. Some of them in plain 
briefs. Others in elaborate costumes. Breasts oozing out 
over fantastic bustiers. Mirth bubbling out from around 
these big groups of friends, brothers, moms, coworkers, 
neighbors. Handwritten signs on square pieces of paper 
pinned to their chests.
“I’m running for my wife.” 
The Underwear Affair. 
Of course. 
VOLUME 28, NUMBERS 2,3 155
I remembered reading about it. 
Seeing the sign up pamphlets all over town. 
The Walk/Run for Cancers under the waist. The forgot-
ten Cancers, the ones that don’t get funding like breast 
cancer. The less common ones. I had cycled past, held my 
breath with effort. 
“I’m walking for Bob.” 
God, I thought, when did they ever decide to have one 
of these Cancer walks at nighttime? And on the seawall no 
less. When does that ever happen? I had cycled upstream. 
They were all walking in the opposite direction as me, 
moving towards the beach, towards the water. 
“I’m walking for Judy, she is still with us, five years 
later.” 
It was just me, pedaling my little legs as fast as I could, 
trying not to burst, scream.
“I’m sorry but we don’t give out results over the 
phone.” 
Breathe, breathe, you are going to be okay. 
I had ridden past the last of the parading folk, a few 
stragglers with boxer shorts and beer cans over their geni-
tals. I spied a gazebo up ahead, music playing. I’m going 
to be okay, I remember thinking. I’m going to be okay. 
You can cry as soon as you get home. You can go have a good 
cry. I had slowed down as I headed up to science world, 
people milling about, time to catch my breath.
I did make it home that day. I even had a conversation 
that made me feel better about my situation. “It’s really 
common,” said the guy from the seawall. “I’ve had tons 
of moles removed. I get checked once a year at the clinic. 
I’m sure you are going to be fine.”
***
I made it home that day and forgot all about the phone 
call. 
Until now, right in this moment when I spy my dad at 
the clinic, sitting in the waiting room, reading a magazine. 
I park my bike. I’m a little late and he is a little early. We 
sit and talk for a few seconds, maybe minutes, I can’t 
remember now. And then all of the sudden we are in the 
little room, waiting for the doctor. I am filling up the 
space with small talk, telling my dad about the mundane 
details of my day so far. I’m engaging. Witty.
Dr. Irving comes into the room. Not really looking up. 
“What are you here for today?” 
My voice has a clear confident tone. “You removed a 
mole from my arm and my neck and I’m here so that you 
can remove my stitches on my arm and give me the test 
results from the biopsy.” I’m matter of fact, giving him 
all of the info. I know he is busy and sees a lot of differ-
ent people in a lot of different clinics. You have to help 
jog his memory. 
He looks up, sees me, remembers me. “Of course, how 
are you?” 
“I brought my dad here with me today” I tell him. I am 
standing up, by the examining table. 
“Hello Dr. Malchy.” 
“Hello,” says my dad. I think they exchange a few 
words. I’m not sure. 
I’m standing over by the counter now. Leaning up against 
it. Absentmindedly fiddling with the prescription pads, 
noticing the rubber gloves. Dr. Irving is standing near 
me to the right. My dad is sitting down in the left-hand 
corner chair, near the door, leaning forward. He asks in Dr. 
language about the results of the test. I’m paying attention 
now. I’m curious too. In an off-hand kind of way.
“Well the test results came back, it was a malignant 
melanoma.” I look over at my father and he looks up at 
me and blinks. 
***
I am crying now, not aware of the pain, like the last 
times. I was so worried about the pain. Last time I was so 
focused on the pain and on letting go of the pain of the 
surgery. Sinking into the feeling of the pain and letting 
go. Wait and you will notice that the pain is just another 
sensation, I had thought.
There is no letting go of this. There is no pain. No pain. 
I barely notice the grief of my arm being cut open for the 
second time. I am looking at the wall. I am crying. Faintly 
aware, as I was last time of the time speckle of blood on 
the wall, right near my head.
***
Malignant melanoma. What is that? I don’t know. All I 
know is that my dad is not smiling. He is not breathing a 
sigh of relief. No, he is asking more questions. “Will you 
send a report to the bc Cancer agency?” he is saying. 
Cancer.
I start to cry. 
Leaning harder now against the counter. 
I am crying.
It is sinking in.
Malignant melanoma
Cancer.
 “I need to excise a wider section to try to get all of 
the edges.”
“You could make an appointment with the plastic 
surgeon” 
156 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
“How long will that take?”
“You know as well as I do the wait lists for some of 
these places.”
“Or we could do it now”.
 I hear a voice saying, “Do it now.” 
I’m not sure if it is my voice or my dad’s voice or 
both. 
“Do it now.” 
My dad picks up whatever he is carrying in his lap and 
stands up. A magazine. An umbrella. His jacket. I’m not 
sure. No I think he is wearing his jacket. I think he never 
took it off. He didn’t make himself comfortable. He is 
going to wait outside now, until it is over. 
I’m looking at the wall. 
He is putting on his gloves now. Cancer. He is preparing 
the tray. This is familiar now. Third time this month. bc 
Cancer Agency? What does that have to do with me? He is 
filling up the needle and sticking it into my arm. Cancer. I 
am crying. This is no time to be brave. I hear the clicking 
of the knives, the scalpel. Cancer. He is cutting my arm 
open, again. Thoughts going through my mind. Danielle 
needs to quit smoking, I think. Snip, snip, snip. Why do 
people get tattoos? I think. Cut, snip. He is cutting me 
open. I will never get a tattoo, I think, never purposefully 
mutilate my body. Scrape, scrape, he is carving me up 
now, saving my life. 
This is saving my life. 
I cry harder.
Outside, I see my dad. He is closing up his cell phone 
and turning towards me. I am sniffing, somewhere in a 
remote area of my brain I register that he is talking to my 
mom and I feel sad for her. I feel badly that she has to go 
through this. I know this is worse for her than it is for me. 
Dad asks, “Do you want to come over?” I nod sniffing. “I 
will just go collect my bike. Meet you there.” 
I marvel now, what a wonder it is that I didn’t get hit 
by a car that day. Unwittingly walk into traffic. 
I made it home. Barely. 
Dodging the cigarette smoke of all of the people on 
the street.
All of the people smoking on Commercial drive.
Carcinogen. 
I hear the word for the first time. 
It is the first time I get its meaning. 
The sun. 
Beating down still. Yes, it has not been that long since 
we went inside.
The sun, beating down.
It is the first time I feel the panic of the sun. 
Why is it so bright?
I try to walk under cover, in the shade, under the 
awnings.
Holding my bike up. 
Trying to cover my bandage.
The hole in my arm.
Time has completely slowed down now. 
Lost all of its meaning.
There is no shade…
I never want to go outside again, I think.
Cancer, he says. 
The sun is beating down on my forearms. 
Where is the goddamn shade? 
Panic rising.
I feel the suns rays burning into my skin like poison. 
Skin Cancer. 
My heart beating hard now from the fear 
Feel the tears rising, just there under the surface
Must find cover, must find shade.
The sun is poison
The sun is beating down onto my skin 
Cancer
How far away is it until I am home?
It is only a few blocks. 
The longest walk home.
The hardest walk of my life.
I never want to go outside again.
Leslie Malchy has an M.Sc in Psychiatry from McGill 
University and is currently finishing an m.a. in Counseling 
Psychology with a specialization in Marriage and Family 
Therapy from Antioch University. Her writing has previ-
ously been published in academic journals such as Art and 
Health and the Canadian Journal of Public Health.This 
is her first publication of creative literature, an excerpt from 
her upcoming novel: Mole.
NEW FROM 
INANNA 
fall 2010 
essential 
resources for 
the feminist reader
www.yorku.ca/inanna


Mole

Patterson, Pam

(Dis)Regarding Pain? Resituating a Feminist "Cybord" Praxis

Newman, Zoë

VOLUME 28,  NUMBERS 2,3 183
with a number of essays from other 
collections, as well as a selection of 
new Canadian-focused pieces. For a 
relatively slim volume, this collection 
is packed. Subdividing her writing 
into five series or sections, Waring 
starts with several pieces that set the 
grounds for the lens, with snapshots 
of her roots in a small New Zealand 
village, her awakening as a feminist 
and an activist in the 1970s, her 
experiences as an often lone female 
Member of the New Zealand Parlia-
ment, and a glimpse at the turbulent 
politics of the South Pacific region in 
which she lives. She moves on from 
these formative beginnings to pres-
ent three brief but stirring profiles of 
feminist politicians who she sees as 
women of influence, women whose 
thinking and activism also become 
part of her own feminist education. 
In the third section, which gives the 
book its title, Waring travels—to con-
ferences, for information-gathering 
and for advocacy work—observing 
with a clear eye and sketching with 
immediacy the often harrowing lives 
of women in each country she visits. 
The fourth series deals with two 
issues: New Zealand’s strained rela-
tions with the United States after the 
former adopted its nuclear free policy, 
and New Zealand’s move to a mixed 
member proportional parliamentary 
electoral system from a first past the 
post system. On the heels of all this 
intensity, Waring dedicates the sub-
sequent section to her non-political 
life, writing with self-deprecating 
humour about her daily life on the 
goat farm she bought towards the 
end of her years in Parliament. The 
very last section focuses the lens on 
Canadian themes, people and events, 
sometimes directly, sometimes more 
peripherally in pieces written for or 
during visits to Canada. This is where 
Waring includes a discussion on the 
economic and social impact of work 
that is unpaid and uncounted (in 
census data or in measures of eco-
nomic activity), as well as the rights 
of unpaid workers, primarily women, 
who do the bulk of household man-
agement, care giving, family food 
production and other life-sustaining 
work around the world, touching on 
the issues discussed at more length 
in Counting for Nothing: What Men 
Value and What Women are Worth 
(1999). This section also concludes 
with a fascinating comparison of the 
widely disparate processes and results 
of Canada’s and New Zealand’s at-
tempts to legislate same-sex unions, 
the former which resulted in a equal 
marriage for same-sex couples, the 
latter an arguably discriminatory 
“separate but equal” civil union leg-
islation.
Both the breadth and depth of 
Waring’s writing are remarkable. 
The collected pieces are focused less 
on theory than on journalistic ob-
servation, on-the-ground political 
commentary, and astute and astrin-
gent critique of issues, events, and 
political actors. Everywhere Waring 
goes, she has an eye and nose out 
for corruption, for hypocrisy, and 
for basic bureaucratic incompe-
tence and indifference; it all makes 
for great reading. Waring’s voice is 
lucid, direct, and often surprisingly 
humorous, even in the midst of the 
sharpest political commentary. Her 
journeys through places and issues 
return to the same pressing themes: 
gender equality, human rights, well-
being vs. economic growth, subsis-
tence vs. poverty, community sus-
tainability and self-sufficiency, and 
the crucial importance of “being 
counted”; but since the genesis and 
subject of the pieces in the collec-
tion are so broad and so immediate-
ly inspired by current events, each 
throws the reader into the midst of 
new and richly detailed contexts. In 
this sense, it’s a collection that re-
quires (or required for me at least) 
occasional pauses to re-orient, to 
breathe, and to digest. Yet never for 
long—Waring’s humane voice and 
unwavering intelligence kept me 
motivated to continue the journey 
with her, even when, as in the more 
sustained analyses of New Zealand 
politics, I felt a bit out of my depth. 
Ultimately, while Waring forces us 
to confront the ugliness, injustice, 
and just plain foolishness of much 
of what is done in the name of poli-
tics and economics, she also allows 
us to see the possibility of another, 
more just and sustainable, world.
Malgosia Halliop holds a M.Ed. in 
Adult Education and Community 
Development from oise/ut. She has 
recently become engaged with issues 
around sustainable food systems at 
the local level, yet she currently spends 
much of her time in childcare, food 
production, household management 
and other unpaid work.
STRANGERS IN OUR MIDST: 
SEXUAL DEvIANCy IN 
POSTWAR ONTARIO 
Elise Chenier
Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 2008
reviewed by zoë newman
In the 1950s, the Canadian govern-
ment got busy promoting the im-
portance of mental health. Whether 
pressuring the cbc to change sensa-
tionalistic coverage of ‘insanity’ into 
sympathetic stories about mental 
illness, or committing money to 
research and training, the govern-
ment was part of disseminating the 
message that mental health problems 
are a concern to all, seeking help is 
not shameful, and psychiatrists are 
respectable. Although politicians 
apparently took their lead from con-
cerned citizens’ groups, in postwar 
Ontario the government contributed 
to the growth and influence of mental 
health as an industry. More specifi-
cally, the 1940s and 1950s marked 
a new intertwining of law, medicine, 
and incarceration, with psychiatry 
becoming an indispensable feature 
of the legal system in Canada and a 
means for the state to cast itself in a 
scientific, progressive light. Sexuality 
was the vehicle for both psychiatry’s 
rise to respectability and the ascen-
dancy of the state rather than the 
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME184
church as a regulatory body.
Strangers in Our Midst: Sexual De-
viancy in Postwar Ontario is Elise Che-
nier’s detailed study of the postwar 
legal and medical invention of sexual 
psychopathy. In a skillful account 
of paradoxes that are both remark-
able and all-too familiar to scholars 
of Canadian institutions, Chenier 
demonstrates how psychiatry gained 
authority even in the absence of dem-
onstrated treatments, and traces the 
convoluted trajectory of movements 
for inclusion and compassion that 
often resulted in segregation and in-
vasive procedures. Along the way, she 
challenges conventions of Canadian 
historiography—about the conserva-
tism of parents’ organizations, and 
the passivity of white middle-class 
women in 1950s Canada. Though 
limited in its analysis of whiteness 
and nationalism, the work presents 
compelling evidence of the necessity 
to revisit received-truths, and look 
critically at the heteronormative, sex-
ist construction of the sex offender. 
Chenier asks how a marginalized 
area like sexual deviance garnered 
enormous cultural currency. The 
short answer is that sexual deviance 
captured the public imagination, 
whose interests were aligned and 
served by sexology. Sexology largely 
idealized the middle-class, hetero-
sexual family, and stigmatized anyone 
not part of such a unit, equating 
normative sexual desire with hetero-
sexual masculinity. Sexology assumed 
that men would naturally dominate 
women, and normalized coercion 
and violence between sexual partners 
of the opposite sex. Chenier makes 
such important arguments through 
her weaving of multiple themes and 
extensive data collection.
The history that Chenier traces 
is part and parcel with a dominant 
system of sexual classification, medi-
calization, and positivist criminology. 
Both psychiatry and the penal system 
sought to make claims to scientific 
objectivity; forensic treatment pro-
grams for sex offenders were their 
intersection. Postwar medico-legal 
discourses had negative effects for a 
range of people classified as departing 
from sex and gender norms, tending 
as they did to conflate homosexuality 
with violent sex crimes. In media cov-
erage, prisons, treatment programs, 
and policing, there was a slip from 
attention to assault of young girls, to 
regulation of consensual sex between 
adult men. For example, rounding 
up of ‘sexual deviates’ was the po-
lice response to crimes marked by 
sexual violence, but what it actually 
amounted to was targeting men who 
frequented ‘homosexual’ locales. It is 
a bitter irony that sexual assaults of 
young girls and women, which first 
mobilized public attention and de-
mand for solutions, were ultimately 
sidelined by forensic sexologists, who 
tended to assume that the victim came 
from a pathological family and was 
likely a willing participant. 
Chenier’s research has some re-
semblance to that of Mary Louise 
Adams and Gary Kinsman, all having 
examined sexual regulation in post-
war Canada. But Chenier elaborates 
on Adams and Kinsman, particularly 
with regards to academic construc-
tions of the 1950s in Canada as a 
period of sexual conservatism and 
hysteria. Chenier complicates the 
picture of moral panics by looking 
closely at the community groups 
often cited as promulgators of con-
formity, such as PTAs, demonstrat-
ing that parents proposed relatively 
progressive solutions to sex crimes. 
Parents’ groups articulated their con-
cerns through a new discourse of citi-
zenship that had shifted from earlier 
turn-of-the-century warnings about 
‘strangers at our gates’ who needed 
to be excluded, to assimilationist 
notions of ‘strangers in our midst’ 
who could be rehabilitated.
Chenier further advances an in-
teresting corrective to the notion of 
middle-class women as passive, do-
mestic-bound receptors of child-rear-
ing advice. Even as they reproduced 
a patriarchal version of the family 
that blamed mothers for a myriad 
of social ills, and often subscribed 
to a version of femininity centred 
around motherhood, middle-class 
women were carving out a place for 
themselves in the growing welfare 
state, as advocates of child safety. 
Yet in turning the spotlight on the 
newly defined sexual psychopath, 
stereotyped as the stranger lurking 
in the bushes, familial violence was 
insulated from legal and public 
scrutiny.
Chenier’s greatest contribution is 
perhaps to demonstrate how liberal-
ism operates through a casting out, 
even as it claims an inclusionary 
politic. As a result of community and 
then government initiative, sexual 
psychopaths and sexual deviants were 
defined in law as inherently needing 
treatment and cure. New sexological 
therapies could however amount to 
longer or indeterminate sentences, 
while ‘cures’ (often untried and 
experimental) were attempted. 
Indeterminate sentencing of sex of-
fenders until deemed cured by mental 
health professionals resulted from 
sexual psychopath legislation passed 
in 1948, yet treatment programs 
were not instituted until the mid 
1970s. Treatment programs for sex 
offenders were supposed to be geared 
towards their integration into the 
mainstream, but today have resulted 
in near total segregation of sex offend-
ers in prisons, and their spatial and 
social immobilization once released. 
Meanwhile, causes of sexual offense 
and solutions are no clearer now than 
they were 60 years ago. 
While this book offers many valu-
able insights, with the exception of 
occasional references to eugenics 
Chenier pays very little attention 
to race. For example, she discusses 
mental health professionals in 
the 1950s abandoning biological 
theories in response to the Nazis, 
but doesn’t address how new forms 
of racialist views might have taken 
in the project of sexual normativ-
ity. As Chenier acknowledges, there 
are many links between sexual and 
racial discourses, with studies of ‘sex 
variants’ occurring in the context 
of national anxiety about declining 
birth rates among Anglos and rising 
immigration among ‘others.’ Chenier 
VOLUME 28,  NUMBERS 2,3 185
demonstrates great skill at analyzing 
gendered constructs in the context 
of all male prisons. We would have 
benefitted from her keen insights 
on the relationship between white 
dominance and sexual deviance.
Zoë Newman has taught Women’s 
Studies and Sociology at the Univer-
sity of Toronto and York University, 
with a focus on transnational femi-
nism, critical sexualities and urban 
spatial regulation. Her current re-
search looks at public celebrations of 
difference—particularly queer pride 
and Caribana/Carnival—and their 
mobilization by mainstream coverage 
to tell stories of Canadian tolerance, 
or dangerous alterity.
TRANSFORMING LABOUR: 
WOMEN AND WORk IN 
POST-WAR CANADA
Joan Sangster
Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 2010
reviewed by dominique 
clément
Joan Sangster couples statistics and 
broad theoretical insights with pro-
foundly personal depictions of the 
lives of working women in post-war 
Canada. Her study offers a fresh per-
spective on several topics, including 
fordism, French-English relations, 
the intersection of race-class-gender, 
state regulation, the labour move-
ment, workplace conflict, the Cold 
War, the sexual division of labour, 
and the Royal Commission on the 
Status of Women.
Transforming Labour: Women and 
Work in Post-war Canada documents 
how women transformed the work-
place and the resistance they faced 
from employers and the state. The 
book opens with detailed statistics 
on labour force participation rates to 
demonstrate the impact of women on 
the workplace. The next few chapters 
explore women’s experiences as work-
ers, including their role in strikes 
among the Dionne textile workers 
and the Dupuis Frères department 
store, as well as obstacles to union-
ization (including opposition within 
the labour movement’s leadership 
or rank and file). Her chapter on 
Aboriginal women tells us a great 
deal about women’s work in rural 
Canada and their conflicting roles 
in the family and workplace. The 
two most original contributions in 
the book include a chapter on how 
women took advantage of grievance 
mechanisms secured under the rubric 
of the post-war fordist accord, and 
another chapter on letters to the 
Royal Commission on the Status 
of Women.
Perhaps the most important con-
tribution of this book is Sangster’s 
commentary on fordism. Except 
for Gordon Hak’s recent book on 
the forestry industry in British Co-
lumbia, there is no recent sustained 
study on fordism in Canada. Sangster 
argues that the fordist accord was a 
limited, gender and race-biased agree-
ment, which nonetheless facilitated 
unionization and helped women fight 
for equal pay, job security and career 
advancement. Her analysis is more 
nuanced than simply denouncing 
fordism outright, which is a com-
mon theme in the literature on the 
labour movement. Sangster takes 
into account how women operated 
within the framework of the fordist 
accord to challenge restrictions and 
regulation of working class and white-
collar women.
It is to Sangster’s credit that she 
has gone to great lengths to provide 
a genuinely pan-Canadian history 
of post-war women and work. Far 
too many anglophone historians of 
Canada today provide flimsy excuses 
for excluding French Canadians in 
purportedly “national” studies, or 
fail to draw on French sources and 
literature. Her chapter on women at 
the Dupuis Frères department store is 
an engaging account of paternalism, 
labour relations, women’s resistance, 
Québécois nationalism, and dis-
courses surrounding women’s bodies. 
The author should also be lauded 
for drawing on French Canadian 
historiography, including studies by 
Denyse Baillergeon, Martin Pâquet, 
and Jacques Rouillard. It is tempt-
ing to suggest that a national study 
of women and labour is impossible 
given the scope of such an ambitious 
undertaking. The book, for instance, 
tells us little about women in regions 
such as Newfoundland or the north 
(Linda Cullum’s 2008 article on 
women berry pickers in Newfound-
land, which is not cited in Sangster’s 
long bibliography, is an excellent ex-
ample of unique regional differences). 
Still, this in no way detracts from the 
substance of Sangster’s arguments 
on, for instance, women in the retail 
sector or unionization. In fact, the 
author endeavours to link the his-
tory of Dupuis Frères with women’s 
experiences in other regions.
One of the odd points raised 
sporadically throughout the book is 
Sangster’s criticism of the term “sec-
ond-wave feminism.” She makes a 
case for the need to recognize women’s 
activism as part of a longer historical 
continuum. In truth, Canadian histo-
rians have long abandoned the myth 
of a quiescent inter-war period and of 
a conservative post-war era. In addi-
tion, Sangster offers a spirited defence 
of Marxism. Her arguments regard-
ing the sexual division of labour, and 
the intersection of class and gender 
in structuring workplace relations, 
are clearly valid. But the author is 
cognizant of the fact that, compared 
to the literature produced in Canada 
twenty years ago, Canadian histori-
ans (especially the growing number 
of new scholars) rarely apply this 
theoretical framework. Transform-
ing Labour may be one of the last 
genuinely Marxist studies of women 
and labour for a generation.
Dominique Clément is an Assistant 
Professor in the Department of So-
ciology at the University of Alberta 
and the author of Canada’s Rights 
Revolution: Social Movements and 
Social Change, 1937-1982.


English

Strangers in Our Midst: Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario

Clément, Dominique

VOLUME 28,  NUMBERS 2,3 185
demonstrates great skill at analyzing 
gendered constructs in the context 
of all male prisons. We would have 
benefitted from her keen insights 
on the relationship between white 
dominance and sexual deviance.
Zoë Newman has taught Women’s 
Studies and Sociology at the Univer-
sity of Toronto and York University, 
with a focus on transnational femi-
nism, critical sexualities and urban 
spatial regulation. Her current re-
search looks at public celebrations of 
difference—particularly queer pride 
and Caribana/Carnival—and their 
mobilization by mainstream coverage 
to tell stories of Canadian tolerance, 
or dangerous alterity.
TRANSFORMING LABOUR: 
WOMEN AND WORk IN 
POST-WAR CANADA
Joan Sangster
Toronto: University of Toronto 
Press, 2010
reviewed by dominique 
clément
Joan Sangster couples statistics and 
broad theoretical insights with pro-
foundly personal depictions of the 
lives of working women in post-war 
Canada. Her study offers a fresh per-
spective on several topics, including 
fordism, French-English relations, 
the intersection of race-class-gender, 
state regulation, the labour move-
ment, workplace conflict, the Cold 
War, the sexual division of labour, 
and the Royal Commission on the 
Status of Women.
Transforming Labour: Women and 
Work in Post-war Canada documents 
how women transformed the work-
place and the resistance they faced 
from employers and the state. The 
book opens with detailed statistics 
on labour force participation rates to 
demonstrate the impact of women on 
the workplace. The next few chapters 
explore women’s experiences as work-
ers, including their role in strikes 
among the Dionne textile workers 
and the Dupuis Frères department 
store, as well as obstacles to union-
ization (including opposition within 
the labour movement’s leadership 
or rank and file). Her chapter on 
Aboriginal women tells us a great 
deal about women’s work in rural 
Canada and their conflicting roles 
in the family and workplace. The 
two most original contributions in 
the book include a chapter on how 
women took advantage of grievance 
mechanisms secured under the rubric 
of the post-war fordist accord, and 
another chapter on letters to the 
Royal Commission on the Status 
of Women.
Perhaps the most important con-
tribution of this book is Sangster’s 
commentary on fordism. Except 
for Gordon Hak’s recent book on 
the forestry industry in British Co-
lumbia, there is no recent sustained 
study on fordism in Canada. Sangster 
argues that the fordist accord was a 
limited, gender and race-biased agree-
ment, which nonetheless facilitated 
unionization and helped women fight 
for equal pay, job security and career 
advancement. Her analysis is more 
nuanced than simply denouncing 
fordism outright, which is a com-
mon theme in the literature on the 
labour movement. Sangster takes 
into account how women operated 
within the framework of the fordist 
accord to challenge restrictions and 
regulation of working class and white-
collar women.
It is to Sangster’s credit that she 
has gone to great lengths to provide 
a genuinely pan-Canadian history 
of post-war women and work. Far 
too many anglophone historians of 
Canada today provide flimsy excuses 
for excluding French Canadians in 
purportedly “national” studies, or 
fail to draw on French sources and 
literature. Her chapter on women at 
the Dupuis Frères department store is 
an engaging account of paternalism, 
labour relations, women’s resistance, 
Québécois nationalism, and dis-
courses surrounding women’s bodies. 
The author should also be lauded 
for drawing on French Canadian 
historiography, including studies by 
Denyse Baillergeon, Martin Pâquet, 
and Jacques Rouillard. It is tempt-
ing to suggest that a national study 
of women and labour is impossible 
given the scope of such an ambitious 
undertaking. The book, for instance, 
tells us little about women in regions 
such as Newfoundland or the north 
(Linda Cullum’s 2008 article on 
women berry pickers in Newfound-
land, which is not cited in Sangster’s 
long bibliography, is an excellent ex-
ample of unique regional differences). 
Still, this in no way detracts from the 
substance of Sangster’s arguments 
on, for instance, women in the retail 
sector or unionization. In fact, the 
author endeavours to link the his-
tory of Dupuis Frères with women’s 
experiences in other regions.
One of the odd points raised 
sporadically throughout the book is 
Sangster’s criticism of the term “sec-
ond-wave feminism.” She makes a 
case for the need to recognize women’s 
activism as part of a longer historical 
continuum. In truth, Canadian histo-
rians have long abandoned the myth 
of a quiescent inter-war period and of 
a conservative post-war era. In addi-
tion, Sangster offers a spirited defence 
of Marxism. Her arguments regard-
ing the sexual division of labour, and 
the intersection of class and gender 
in structuring workplace relations, 
are clearly valid. But the author is 
cognizant of the fact that, compared 
to the literature produced in Canada 
twenty years ago, Canadian histori-
ans (especially the growing number 
of new scholars) rarely apply this 
theoretical framework. Transform-
ing Labour may be one of the last 
genuinely Marxist studies of women 
and labour for a generation.
Dominique Clément is an Assistant 
Professor in the Department of So-
ciology at the University of Alberta 
and the author of Canada’s Rights 
Revolution: Social Movements and 
Social Change, 1937-1982.


Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Post-War Canada

Townsend, Leeann

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME156
politicized agendas and contributed 
enormously to constitutional reforms 
and legislative changes. Three key 
factors led to the rise of new women’s 
movements: 1) influence of interna-
tional norms and ideas pertaining to 
women’s rights; 2) political liberaliza-
tion and democratization; and 3) 
access to alternative funding sources 
such as international donors. 
The authors assert that a thriving 
and politicized women’s movement 
is insufficient for the successful 
entrenchment of women’s rights. 
Rather, countries that pass legisla-
tions safeguarding women’s rights ex-
hibit the following patterns: 1) active 
autonomous women’s movements; 2) 
openness to changing international 
norms regarding women’s rights and 
representation; 3) availability and 
deployment of resources to advance 
women; and 4) the opening of new 
opportunities as a result of a major 
upheaval, such as the end of conflict. 
For example, Cameroon, Mali, and 
Kenya have encountered challenges 
in the legislative process in com-
parison to post-conflict Uganda and 
Mozambique that have implemented 
constitutional changes. 
Even in countries that have been 
open to change, not all proposed 
legislative changes by women’s or-
ganizations are embraced. Proposals 
that have received the most resistance 
often challenge traditional customs, 
family relations, and gender relations. 
The recent August 2009 mass protests 
in Mali against a new family code 
promoting women’s marriage and 
inheritance rights comes to mind as 
a perfect case in point. 
 The authors provide an illumi-
nating discussion on the challenges 
that women’s movements face such 
as government attempts to restrain 
autonomy and voice as well as ex-
pectations that demand for equality 
and rights will be limited to particular 
aspects of societies rather than cross-
cutting issues. Another challenge 
that the authors discuss is public 
misperception about acquisition 
of assets as a result of donor funds 
instead of utilizing the money to 
address the issues of the community 
and less privileged. I believe they 
have glossed over this issue by offer-
ing the explanation: “Because of the 
general deprivation of society, this 
(mis)perception is more strongly 
felt in Africa than in other parts of 
the world.” I think that they should 
have addressed the possibilities of this 
being true and the cases in which it 
has happened rather than brush off 
critics’ often legitimate perceptions 
as “(mis)perceptions”. They should 
have further broached an honest 
discussion on how to minimize this 
“(mis)perception” and create more 
transparency and accountability to 
the community. 
African women’s movements were 
optimistically characterized as orga-
nized across ethnic, clan, religious, 
and rural-urban divides while the 
authors failed to question possible 
class and power relations that may 
pervade women’s organizations. Also, 
there is a disproportionate focus on 
women politicians and rights activists 
whereas other women’s organizations 
that are more informal and/or with 
less opportunities to influence policy 
and legislation were submerged. 
More disconcertingly, the authors, 
whether intentionally or uninten-
tionally, essentialize African women 
and fail to sufficiently demonstrate 
that there may be conflicting interests 
and definitions of women’s rights 
among women. To exemplify, I recall 
that while many women’s rights activ-
ists promoted the proposed family 
code reform in Mali, there were some 
women’s organizations that were 
concomitantly protesting it. 
Despite the above criticisms, Af-
rican Women’s Movements presents 
an unparalleled and much needed 
comparative analysis of politics, 
gender, and women’s movements in 
sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, I 
like that the authors note that African 
women’s movements are not only 
influenced by international norms, 
but also contribute to the creation of 
international norms. This book ad-
dresses any misconstrued notion that 
African women have limited agency 
and that African women’s movements 
are a byproduct of feminist move-
ments in the North. 
Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin is a Ph.D. 
candidate in Women’s Studies at York 
University. Her research interests are in 
the areas of: gender and development 
planning, women’s reproductive health 
and policies in Nigeria, women’s politi-
cal movements in Africa, and African 
feminisms.
gloBalization, 
pRostitution and 
sex-tRafficKing: 
coRpoReal 
politics
Elina Penttinen
London: Routledge, 2008
reviewed by leeann 
townsend
I was quite intrigued by the project 
that Elina Penttinen endeavoured 
to carry out in her book. Through 
an examination of sexual commerce 
in Finland and Russia, the author 
proposed to do the following: to 
question what sorts of subjectivities 
and agency are produced by global-
ization; to ascertain how globaliza-
tion is embodied and enacted in 
everyday life; to write feminist ir, 
an alternative to traditional main-
stream/male-stream academic ir; and 
decentre positivist research methods 
by conducting an ethnography of sex 
bars and foregrounding the narratives 
of the women who work in them. 
This all sounded rather promising 
and potentially useful for studies of 
international relations, globalization, 
and sex work and having practical 
implications for feminist praxis and 
methodology. After reading through 
the text, however, I am not convinced 
that the author fulfills these goals.
In the first three chapters, Penttin-
en draws on theorists such as Judith 
VOLUME 28,  NUMBER 1 157
Butler, Luce Irigaray, and predomi-
nantly on Michael Foucault and his 
notion of governmentality to make 
her arguments. She contends that 
globalization is a form of bio-power 
in which women adjust to the chang-
ing demands for particular bodies. 
Penttinen maintains that globaliza-
tion produces sex work as a means to 
cope with globalization. New forms 
of agency and subjectivities are cre-
ated by global neo-liberal processes 
of marketization and commercial-
ization. The resultant agent and 
subject positions are both gendered 
and ethnicized. The ethnicized other 
woman, such as the construction of 
the “Eastern girl” that Penttinen dis-
cusses, has been produced as a subject 
position, when she takes advantage 
of the demand for an erotic other or 
becomes an abject consumable body. 
The position of the ethnicized other 
women engaged in sex work needs 
to be maintained in order for the 
category of subjects to exist. These 
are all interesting points.
While the author’s theoretical 
insights are important contribu-
tions, there are a number of issues 
in her text that need to be ques-
tioned. In chapter three, Penttinen 
relies on Appadurai’s concepts of 
ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financ-
escapes, ideoscapes, and mediascapes 
to discuss the landscapes of globaliza-
tion. The flow of people, through 
migration or trafficking, establishes 
an ethnoscape. Penttinen reveals the 
sexscapes within these concepts. The 
fact that Russian women are work-
ing in the sex trade in Finland is an 
ethnoscape. The technoscape refers to 
the tools and techniques that rapidly 
disseminate information about com-
mercial sex. The financescape refers 
to the profits that the sex industry 
generates. The ideoscope includes 
the various discourses that exist about 
the sex industry, including rights 
movements, abolitionist movements, 
and the like. The mediascape refers 
to the depiction of the sex industry 
in the media. All of these landscapes 
have shadow sexscapes. For instance, 
according to Penttinen, the shadow 
sexscape refers to the informal/illegal 
sex trade. The shadow financescape 
is carried out through the buying 
and selling of trafficked women. 
The shadowscape of the mediascape 
includes the informal networks that 
advertise sexual services. Although 
this discussion does make sense, the 
employment of this “fancy” language, 
as the author dubbed it, seems to rein-
force mainstream-positivist academic 
writing, not challenge it.
Penttinen obtains the data used 
in this book from her fieldwork in 
sex bars, including her observations 
between clients and prostitutes, erotic 
dancers, and pimps, as well as infor-
mal conversations with women who 
work in sex bars in Finland. The au-
thor also acquires information from 
local people, police, and observations 
of trafficked women. In an effort to 
move away from quantitative stud-
ies, the author attempts to share her 
data as a form of ethnography that 
foregrounds narratives. In addition, 
Pentinnen makes a conscious ef-
fort to situate her positionality and 
privileged researcher role throughout 
the text. She notes that her Russian 
male assistant helped her to develop 
rapport with many of the female 
sex bar employees that she wished 
to speak with. She notes that the 
managers of the bars knew who she 
was and allowed her to conduct her 
research in their establishments. In 
chapter four, the author tells the story 
about what she saw in these sex bars. 
In chapter five, Penttinen provides 
a fictional narrative of a Russian sex 
worker in Finland in order to discuss 
the subjectivities of this experience. 
And, in chapter six, the author pres-
ents information that she obtained 
while talking with erotic dancers. 
While I applaud Penttinen’s attempts 
to employ non-standard research 
methods, I find that the author’s voice 
dominates the text, thus reinforcing 
hierarchies. This, coupled with her 
fictive narratives, often sounds like a 
work of sensationalized journalism. 
Where are the voices of the women 
whose situations the author is taking 
up? There must be a way to employ 
non-standard research methods (eth-
nography, fieldwork that prohibits 
note taking, etc.) for research topics 
that are ethically (and logistically) 
challenging while also prioritizing 
the voices of those groups being 
studied.
At the start of her text Penttinen 
asserts that she sees prostitution as 
an ethnicized and sex specific posi-
tion produced by the bio-power 
of globalization and that such a 
position does not necessitate her 
participation in contentious moral, 
rights based, or choice versus force 
debates. However, the author does 
not remain as politically neutral as 
she so claimed. Penttinen explicitly 
states that she does not share the view 
that prostitution could be character-
ized as sex work. She does not think 
that the distinction between forced 
and free prostitution works all that 
well. The author explicitly states that 
she is against prostitution, she can-
not help but notice the “harm” that 
the employment in sex bars does to 
women, as well as commenting on 
the “dehumanizing,” “degrading,” 
and “disgusting” nature of these es-
tablishments. When the author does 
provide quotes they are in support 
of these claims. As well, the author 
tells us that she wants to “evoke a 
feeling in her readers” so that we 
will not remain “neutral bystanders.” 
The author certainly provides fod-
der for abolitionist politics. While 
a book review may not be the best 
medium to debate our respective 
politics, I can at least state that 
this book does, despite the author’s 
claim, espouse a particular political 
agenda. While trafficking is certainly 
an important issue, Penttinen relies 
on an ambiguous definition of what 
she understands as trafficking. She 
seems to be adopting a victim per-
spective regarding all migration and 
sex work and does not allow for the 
diversity of experiences of women’s 
migration, employment, and agency. 
Such a stance could be dangerously 
adopted to tighten borders around 
the globe, restricting women’s entry 
into various countries under the guise 
CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME158
of “saving” women from trafficking 
– a very problematic situation. This 
book does foster a continuance of 
these feminist debates and, therefore, 
should be read, albeit cautiously.
Leeann Townsend is a first year Ph.D. 
student in the Department of Wom-
en’s Studies at York University. Her 
interests include prostitution and traf-
ficking, transnational feminism, and 
militarism. 
the idea of 
pRostitution
Sheila Jeffreys 
North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 
2008
reviewed by elya m. 
durisin
Sheila Jeffreys’ primary concern in 
The Idea of Prostitution, an updated 
version of her 1997 text of the same 
title, is to subject the sex workers’ 
rights position (such as the idea that 
prostitution is work or that women 
have choice in prostitution) to a 
radical feminist critique. Jeffreys takes 
issue with what she describes as the 
‘normalization’ of the sex industry by 
sex worker organizations and some 
postmodern and queer theorists writ-
ing on sexuality, and attempts to show 
how the interests being represented by 
these parties are not those of prostitute 
women but actually those of the sex 
industry. She includes chapters on 
prostitution as male violence and 
international approaches to ending 
trafficking of girls and women for 
work in the sex industry. As Jeffreys 
explains in the last chapter, her pur-
pose in this book is to challenge the 
idea that “prostitution is just work, 
and sex, and choice.” 
With this text, Jeffreys revives a 
radical feminist anti-prostitution 
analysis; however she does not suc-
cessfully overcome its limitations, 
which have caused it to fall out of 
favour among many sex workers, 
activists, and academics. Jeffreys 
maintains that there is one defini-
tive truth about prostitution, that 
is, it is violence. This results in her 
discounting sex workers and sex 
worker organizations that do not 
support her arguments. In describ-
ing her understanding of prostitu-
tion as a form of male violence, she 
acknowledges that not all prostitutes 
support this position. However, Jef-
freys’ resolution to this situation is to 
suggest that those sex workers who 
do not share her perspective should 
not be listened to as they have not 
been given adequate opportunity to 
understand the harm of their occu-
pation. For Jeffreys, prostitution is 
an inherently harmful violation of 
women’s human rights, regardless of 
context or what the women involved 
might think.
Jeffreys responds to arguments put 
forth by sex workers’ rights activists 
through reference to American sex 
worker organizations and sex worker 
performing artists; however she does 
not engage with current writing and 
research from sex workers or sex 
worker organizations. A review of 
recent sex workers’ writings and com-
munity and academic collaborations 
with sex workers’ rights organizations 
clearly demonstrates that sex workers, 
and the organizations representing 
their interests, have a complex and 
sophisticated understanding of the 
problems, challenges, benefits, joys, 
and so on, of sex work. The sex work-
ers’ rights position recognizes that sex 
work is many things to many different 
people, the breadth of which cannot 
be appreciated through a lens that 
apprehends male violence exclusively. 
Sex workers’ rights organizations 
recognize that sex workers may 
experience violence and exploitative 
working conditions; however they 
do not advocate for an abolition of 
prostitution. 
Although Jeffreys’ text, first publish 
in 1997, was updated and reprinted 
in 2008, she has not engaged with 
the breadth of newer writing on 
prostitution, sex work, and traffick-
ing. She instead relies heavily on 
Hoigard and Finstad (1992,1993), 
Giobbe (1990,1991,1992), and 
Farley and Hotaling (1995) and 
does not engage with the plethora 
of methodological critique towards 
anti-prostitution feminist research. 
While Jeffreys maintains that prosti-
tution is harmful to women in ways 
that other jobs are not and could not 
be, she does not discuss this assertion 
in relation to research on embodied, 
emotional, and care-giving labour, 
which is particularly relevant given 
the increase in service-related occupa-
tions such as domestic work in the 
global economy. 
Jeffreys’ discussion of trafficking in 
the concluding chapters of the text 
is particularly troubling in a climate 
where it is becoming increasingly 
difficult for women in many parts 
of the world to cross borders. She 
does not address how her position, 
one that sees all migration for work 
in the sex industry as trafficking and 
a violation of women’s human rights, 
could be used by particular political 
interests to justify increased border 
security that would further limit 
women’s rights to mobility. 
This book is most useful if un-
derstood as a particular, and rather 
outdated, perspective on prostitu-
tion. It is reflective of a time in femi-
nist theorizing and political debate 
on gender and sexuality in which 
feminists and sex workers were often 
pitted against one another. While it 
is important to recognize and discuss 
the problems with working condi-
tions in sex industry, it is unclear 
what the advantages of this position 
are and why this perspective seems to 
have such lasting appeal among some 
feminists. Given the growth of the 
international and North American 
sex workers’ rights movements, it 
is critical that academic researchers 
begin to take seriously the analyses 
of sex workers and the numerous sex 
worker organizations representing 
their interests.
Elya Maria Durisin is a Ph.D. can-
didate in the Department of Political 


Globalization, Prostitution and Sex Trafficking: Corporeal Politics

Rosenberg, Dorothy Goldin

Feminist Perspectives on Breast Cancer, Environmental Health and Primary Prevention: The Case for the Precautionary Principle

Marchionni, Angela

Basile (trans.), Elena

Il canto della rosa e dell'angelo (The Song of the Rose and the Angel)

Iny, Viva

Joeur, Rêver, Guérir: Un témoignage

Ruby, Tabassum F.

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME160
women and 
islam in eaRlY 
modeRn english 
liteRatuRe
Bernadette Andrea
Cambridge: Cambridge University 
Press, 2007
reviewed by tabassum 
f. ruby
Focusing on female writers, Berna-
dette Andrea examines the ways Eng-
lish women negotiated conflicting 
discourses of gender, Orientalism, 
and imperialism at a time when the 
Ottoman Empire was influential and 
England was still a marginal nation 
with limited global influence. She 
argues that studies on Anglo-Otto-
man relations often focus on gender 
representation in male-author travel 
narratives and they ignore early mod-
ern women’s writings. For her, female 
writings are an alternative to those 
male voices, a “feminist critique.” 
Hence, Andrea asserts that while the 
masculinist travel literature usually 
represents Muslim women as “op-
pressed,” female textual production 
(i.e., diplomatic letters, travelogues, 
prose fictions, poetry, and dramas) 
engages with their own patriarchal 
culture by refusing to displace female 
oppression onto the Islamic “other” 
without first confronting its effect on 
English women themselves. 
 In the first chapter Andrea fo-
cuses on the exchange of gifts and 
letters between Queen Elizabeth 
and Safiye, the Ottoman Queen 
mother, and examines the sixteenth 
century emergence of “the sultan-
ate of women.” Andrea argues that 
the two women deployed shared 
signifiers of femininity to establish 
their sovereignty in their respective 
patriarchal cultures and become “ob-
jects that speak” as agents of cross-
cultural exchange. Their “agency” 
marks continuities in early modern 
English women’s identification with 
women from the Islamic world as 
a means to challenge patriarchy in 
their own realm. 
In the second chapter Andrea 
examines Lady Mary Wroth’s prose, 
which was met with immediate re-
sistance from the king and his male 
courtiers for its critique of Jacobean 
patriarchy. The prose shows Wroth’s 
experience of gender subordination 
by means of her identification with 
the doubly othered Persian wife of 
Sir Robert Sherley, Lady Teresa. 
Since Lady Teresa does not appear 
in many English documents, Wroth 
draws our attention to the “first” 
Persian in seventeenth century Eng-
land as “racially other.” However, 
she positions herself on the side 
of western European imperialism 
and also tries to negotiate gendered 
imperialist identity in both parts of 
the world. As Andrea underscores in 
her third chapter, writings of early 
Quaker women illustrate similar 
contradictions in their dual capac-
ity as missionaries and publishing 
women because during the mid-
seventeenth century Quaker women 
published enormously and they 
were at the forefront of the Anglo-
Protestant missionary movement. 
For instance, Mary Fisher set off 
to the Near East in the late 1650s 
because she was convinced that 
the Great Turk was “the one man 
in Europe who was most in need 
of her message.” Yet, in her own 
country, she was marginalized as a 
“masterless woman” with neither a 
husband nor an employer, but just 
a publishing woman.
However, it is not until the last two 
chapters that Andrea really brings 
out her main argument. Drawing 
on several accounts, Andrea states 
that the masculinist travel literature 
of the seventeenth century depicts 
Muslim women as “oppressed” and 
a typical narrative of the Turk man 
is: “a cruel, rigorous, or tyrannical 
man; one who treats his wife hardly.” 
This depiction “sets the stage with 
dictum that western women should 
feel grateful for their gender status 
quo because…Muslim women 
must subsist as virtual slaves.” 
However, Mary Wortley Montagu 
challenged this representation of 
Muslim women. Since this was a 
time when English women could 
not own property, she wrote in her 
travel letters (1716-1718) that the 
“Turkish women are the only free 
people in the empire” because they 
control their persons and property 
upon marriage and they take their 
wealth with them upon divorce with 
an addition which he [the divorcing 
husband] is obliged to give them. 
Likewise, many other female writ-
ers corrected this narrative in male 
writings that the harem of Ottoman 
men are filled with slave Muslim 
women and they have unlimited 
wives. They argued that neither a 
Muslim woman can be a slave ac-
cording to Islamic laws, nor men can 
have more than four wives at a given 
time. In contrast, they highlighted 
England’s engagement with the Af-
rican slave trade and how polygamy 
was practiced in England. 
Andrea’s work, hence, distinctly 
departs from earlier studies that rely 
on male accounts where images of 
Muslim women remain squarely 
within the framework of “Islamic 
patriarchy.” However, since Andrea 
dedicates significant space to show 
that English women pointed to their 
own patriarchal culture, rather than 
embracing the accelerating western 
imperialist project, this book is 
about “English patriarchies” of the 
sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. 
From that viewpoint, it is not limited 
to those aspects of English women’s 
writings that refused to displace 
female oppression onto the Islamic 
“other.” But it is equally about how 
English women articulated their 
own oppressions through encoun-
tering Muslim women where they 
realized that the Islamic “other” 
actually enjoys more rights than 
they do despite the English men’s 
assertion of “freeborn” English 
woman and “slave” Muslim woman. 
In sum, it is an invaluable book for 
Women’s Studies, Ottoman Studies, 
Transnational Studies, etc., since 
it helps challenging the dominant 
VOLUME 28,  NUMBER 1 161
narratives that construct Muslim 
women as “oppressed” due to their 
“Islamic identity.”
Tabassum Fahim Ruby is a Ph.D. 
candidate in the Department of 
Women’s Studies at York University. Her 
research interests include colonialism, 
modernity, race and racism, identity, 
and Islam and gender.
waR BRides
Melynda Jarratt
Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2010
reviewed by clara 
thomas
“I have wanted to write a history 
of Canadian War Brides for twenty 
years now, since I first started work-
ing on my Masters thesis in History 
at the University of New Brunswick 
in 1987.” This book is the valuable 
result of Jarratt’s enthusiasm, a col-
lection of excerpts from letters, well 
chosen and well edited. She takes 
us across Canada, with chapters on 
the Maritimes and Newfoundland, 
Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada, 
Military Service (The wrens, wds, 
and cwacs), War Fiancées, Children 
of War Brides, and Canadian War 
Brides of the First World War. Her 
collection is comprehensive and 
unfailingly engrossing.
As was inevitable, the stories relate 
every imaginable tale; though the 
vast majority of marriages weathered 
adjustments and inevitable strains 
and their brides became satisfied, 
gradually enthusiastic, Canadians, it 
was not easy for any of them or their 
families back home. In those thou-
sands of marriages, there were some 
who should not have married and 
inevitably others who encountered 
conditions that were inescapably 
and irremediably bad. I wonder, for 
instance, about those women who 
found their new home to be an 
Indian reservation—we have noth-
ing to be proud of in our treatment 
of our aboriginals, particularly the 
forcing of their children into resi-
dential schools and the alienating of 
them from their own culture. The 
finding of an outdoor privy was a 
minor shock, one which many of the 
brides faced and weathered. Also in 
a considerable number of cases the 
conditions they found in Canada 
were better than they had been in 
their homes and, correspondingly, the 
hope for better things for themselves 
and their children was an ever-present 
beacon. Many of these young women 
faced a prejudice against them from 
their new relatives. I remember it well 
myself. There was a feeling that good 
Canadian boys were being snatched 
by British women who were out to 
get themselves all the advantages of 
living in Canada, to say nothing of 
the soldier’s pay. 
Jarratt believes that all these 
matches were motivated by falling in 
love. That, of course, doesn’t account 
for the mixture of motives present in 
any individual’s decision. Some of 
the women were certainly charmed 
by the idea of a Canadian future. 
One of them who calls herself “a 
Lancashire Lass” describes her home 
in England as being without even the 
most basic of amenities, though her 
family was a close and loving one. 
She was totally unprepared for a 
mother-in-law, with whom she had 
to live and who resented and abused 
her verbally from the day she arrived. 
When, finally, after enduring some 
years of abuse she broke down in her 
doctor’s office, the mother-in-law 
was removed and she, for the first 
time in Canada, was free and happy 
to be the homemaker she wished to 
be. Another bride suffered serious 
family reverses when her husband 
was diagnosed with a brain tumour 
and after a lengthy and agonizing 
illness, died. She was thrown on the 
meagre resources and accompanying 
humiliation of our welfare system as 
it stood then, Most of the couples, 
however, slowly made their way to a 
comfortable future and none of the 
corresponding brides admits total 
defeat and disappointment. On 
the contrary, they report on their 
families with the greatest pride and 
satisfaction: “As brides we promised 
for Better, for Worse and as women 
we have a great part to play in the 
building of a new world.”
Clara Thomas is Professor Emerita, York 
University. With her husband Morley, she 
has retired to Strathroy, Ontario. 
STEFANI VAN 
WIJK
Night in the city
An empty road 
Lit by streetlights
Shining each their own 
circle 
I run 
Barefoot
as  fast as I can.
I run faster
The wind will guide me,
I trust the ground
 the wind
  the space.
Stefani van Wijk loves to live 
her life as a series of adventures. 
She tries to spread thought 
and empowerment to all she 
connects with. We are one.


Women and Islam in Early Modern English Literature

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