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

Vaughn, DeAnna Stephens

VOLUME 28,  NUMBER 1 145
DeANNA sTEPHENs VAUgHN
souvenir
JOANNA M. WEsTON
CREATION MYTHs
the woman contrived from calico half shells
       when she called you
crazy-glued at the hinges
into the shape of feminine, 
roosted on the windowsill, overlooking 
the driveway, the kitchen sink.
       it was about the decompression of
a southern fertility goddess, legless
beneath antebellum crenellations,
        her belly’s three-month swell
washed up from the Gulf of Mexico.
her starched billows began
at the hip. Feet and ankles absent
between scallops, hands bound 
in a pink pipe-cleaner muff.
       that her husband did not want
the pink smoothness inside her bonnet
grew varicose above missing ears
       because deaf women do not have babies,
       should not purvey deaf mother liquid
unlike the traveling pulchritude
on cartons of milk,
the South’s logo for lactic purity.
De Anna Stephens Vaughn holds an mfa from George 
Mason University. Her work has appeared in Feminist 
Studies, Natural Bridge, and Paper Street. She teaches 
writing and literature at Roane State Community College in 
Tennessee and edits poetry for Tar Wolf Review, a journal 
of poetry and art she co-founded in 2003.
god sits under a maple tree
spitting melon seeds
into her hand
singing winter songs
while lilac floats
through her hair
a wild wind pulls her skirt
drags her up and out
to walk gravel
dig concrete
and bring the main frame
out of its womb
wired and bitten
belching information
through its guts
god twists knobs
fiddles icons
before condemning herself
to push flowers
through the stratosphere
hurling imprecations
through curled fingernails
before she grabs a pail
and buries cyber garbage
under her chair
Joanna M. Weston’s poetry appears 
earlier in this volume.


Souvenir

Burns, Allan

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME174
of the resulting changes they made 
in their lives; and she identifies the 
“ultrafeminine theme of the breast 
cancer marketplace” (23) in which 
endless items are sold to promote 
the positive thinking that will help 
women retain or regain their cancer-
free status. Unfortunately, as she 
notes, this focus on seeing only the 
positive can be quite damaging. It 
denies women the right to express 
their anger or their fear; it makes 
them responsible for unsuccessful 
treatment; and it removes the focus 
from external factors that have an 
impact on their health. And, as she 
so poignantly notes, “Breast cancer, 
I can now report, did not make me 
prettier or stronger, more feminine 
or spiritual. What it gave me, if you 
want to call this a ‘gift,’ was a very 
personal, agonizing encounter with 
an ideological force in American 
culture that I had not been aware 
of before—one that encourages us 
to deny reality, submit cheerfully 
to misfortune, and to blame only 
ourselves for our fate” (43/4).
As Ehrenreich claims in Bright-
Sided, she is not advocating that we 
forego happiness or joy in our lives; 
rather, she challenges an ideology 
which posits a doctrine of self-reli-
ance and responsibility for all of our 
personal difficulties, to the extent 
that external factors become seem-
ingly insignificant.  This, she claims, 
limits individuals’ pursuit of higher 
education and/or technical training; 
it removes the responsibility of those 
in political office to meet the needs 
of constituents; and it increasingly 
isolates individuals as they increase 
their inward focus while following 
the “cult of positivity.” Arguably, the 
basic premise of this book may not 
be new to critical thinkers; however, 
Ehrenreich presents a timely argu-
ment in an accessible manner to a 
mainstream audience who may not 
have been exposed to discussions of 
colonialism, capitalism, and the need 
for political activism, but who will 
certainly have been overexposed to 
the plethora of self-help literature in 
which, often, the main directive is to 
‘think on the bright side.’ Thankfully, 
Ehrenreich provides a viable and 
politically astute alternative to the 
promise of positive thinking.
Brenda L. Blondeau is a Ph.D. candi-
date in the Women’s Studies Graduate 
Programme at York University, Toron-
to, Ontario where she is completing her 
dissertation. Currently, she teaches in 
the School of Women’s Studies Bridging 
Program, and instructs in the Writing 
Department. 
Like everyone else who receives a 
cancer diagnosis, Diane Chambers 
was initially shocked and scared. 
She knew only two people who had 
battled breast cancer: her grand-
mother and a judge in whose court 
she had worked as a sign language 
interpreter. Both had died.  Despite 
daily flashbacks to her grandmother’s 
tragic experience with disfiguring 
surgery, horrendous lymphedema 
in both arms, and burns from radia-
tion, Diane accepted her diagnosis 
and began making decisions about 
what route to take with a competent 
team of doctors.  She chose the only 
treatment that made sense for her: a 
mastectomy and reconstruction.
Six months later, as treatment 
and recovery began to fade like a 
bad dream, Diane began recovering 
her life.  She had worked as a sign 
language interpreter since 1977 and 
published an acclaimed account of 
her experiences, Words in My Hands 
(Ellexa Press, 2005).  But she soon 
learned that after cancer there was 
no going back to “life before cancer.” 
hEARING ThE STREAM: 
A SURvIvOR’S JOURNEy 
INTO ThE SISTERhOOD OF 
BREAST CANCER
Diane Lane Chambers
Conifer, co: Ellexa Press. 
reviewed by allan burns
There was only “life after cancer,”  and 
she quickly discovered it is not such a 
bad thing. She forged powerful bonds 
with a sisterhood of survivors—all 
people who had been through emo-
tions and physical changes similar 
to her own.  From Kim she learned 
the issues facing young single women 
with breast cancer. From Pat she 
learned how older women cope with 
diagnosis and treatment and from Sue 
how the mother of a baby struggled 
to save her own life.  From Charlie 
she came to appreciate what men 
have to go through when diagnosed 
with a “female disease.” 
Above all, from the extraordinary 
Harriette Grober, who had been on 
chemotherapy for an unprecedented 
nine years, she learned about a de-
termination she had never imagined 
and how to be thankful and happy 
in each moment.  She also learned to 
take Harriette’s advocacy as a model 
and became involved herself in raising 
levels of political and social aware-
ness about the disease.  Currently, 
Diane is an active member of the 
National Breast Cancer Coalition 
and the Association of Breast Cancer 
survivors and regularly participates 
in workshops, symposiums, and 
webcasts on cancer.  
Hearing the Stream, the fruit of 
all she has experienced and learned 
as a cancer survivor, is an inspir-
ing book that weaves together her 
own story and those of five others, 
thereby providing multiple perspec-
tives on a complex disease that can 
be as different as the individual 
people who acquire it.  As Dr. Tim 
Byers of the University of Colorado 
Comprehensive Cancer Center says, 
“Accounts such as this of the human 
toll of breast cancer motivate me as a 
researcher—and should motivate us 
all—to redouble our many efforts to 
reduce further and someday eradicate 
this disease.” 
All or part of this review may be used 
without further permission.  
Allan Burns lives in Colorado Springs, 
Colorado.


Hearing the Stream: A Survivor's Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer

Karpinski, Eva C.

CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME172
Book Reviews
Fractured Borders is the first compre-
hensive critical analysis of different 
forms of “autopathography,” that 
is, life writing about breast, uterine, 
and ovarian cancer, three “gender-
specific” cancers that account for over 
40 percent of all women’s cancers. 
Deshazer covers primarily work 
produced between 1990 and 2003, 
situating it against the background 
of earlier literature, beginning with 
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) 
and Rose Kushner’s Breast Cancer: A 
Personal History and an Investigative 
Report (1975). 
Her interpretation is based on close 
readings supported by scholarly per-
spectives ranging from postmodern 
theories of the body to performance 
theory, feminist literary criticism, 
French feminisms, and disability 
studies. These counterhegemonic 
readings successfully challenge the 
sentimental, simplistic, or hetero-
sexist approaches to representing 
women’s experience of cancer, show-
ing “how cancer affects women’s sub-
jectivities, relationships and politics 
of location.” 
The first theoretical chapter in-
corporates such landmark studies as 
Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, 
Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, 
Jackie Stacey’s Teratologies, and Zil-
lah Eisenstein’s Manmade Breast 
Cancer, as well as literary works such 
as Mahasweta Devi’s “Breast-Giver,” 
Gini Alhadeff ’s Diary of a Djinn, and 
poems by Sylvia Plath and Adrienne 
Rich. Deshazer constructs an argu-
ment that contemporary women writ-
ers represent the ill body through five 
interrelated tropes of medicalization, 
leakiness, amputation, prosthesis, 
and (non) dying. These tropes span 
a vast array of issues facing anybody 
living with cancer, corresponding 
to the various needs: to interrogate 
standard medical treatments to which 
women’s bodies are subjected; to 
reconceptualize the abject leaking 
body as a transgressive, fluid form of 
embodiment and a source of ethical 
knowledge; to convert a site of lack 
or loss into a creative locus of artistic 
and erotic celebration; to move from 
the logic of absence and substitution 
toward “an empowering identity as 
both gendered and hybrid, feminist 
and ‘posthuman’” and finally, to use 
the experience of cancer and living 
with uncertainty as transformational 
life events that can confer narrative 
authority and agency even in the 
face of death.
The remaining chapters are orga-
nized around five genres of cancer 
literature written predominantly 
in the United States, Canada, and 
England: drama, poetry, popular 
fiction, experimental fiction, and 
autobiography.
In the chapter devoted to feminist 
performance narratives, she examines 
the intersections of body politics and 
medical biopolitics in four plays from 
the 1990s: Margaret Edson’s Wit, 
Susan Miller’s My Left Breast, Lisa 
Loomer’s The Waiting Room, and 
Maxine Bailey and Sharon M. Lewis’s 
Sistahs (the last one being the only 
Canadian text analyzed by Deshazer). 
Noting how the playwrights tap the 
ironies of cancer being diagnosed in 
stages, she reads theatrical represen-
tations of cancerous breasts, ovaries, 
and wombs as culturally marked 
and infused with social meanings. 
She explores the potential that such 
plays have for generating audience 
ambivalence but also empathy and 
activism rather than voyeurism.
In the section on breast cancer 
poetry, mostly by African-American 
and Jewish-American writers, she 
analyzes poetic sequences such as Au-
dre Lorde’s A Burst of Light (1988) and 
The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance 
(1993), Lucille Clifton’s The Terrible 
Stories (1996), Alicia Ostriker’s The 
Mastectomy Poems (1996), and Hilda 
Raz’s Divine Honors (1997). Looking 
for new metaphors of resistance and 
transformation, Deshazer registers 
a shift in attitudes to the postcan-
cer body, especially the prosthetic 
body, from a politicized, ideological 
critique and rejection to a more nu-
anced negotiation of personal agency 
and body image. 
In the next chapter, she develops 
a thesis that today’s popular cancer 
fiction rewrites a tradition of women’s 
domestic and romance literature in 
terms of an idealized relationship 
between a dying cancer patient and 
her female supporters. Such fiction 
exposes the feminization of the emo-
tional work of caring performed by 
dutiful daughters and best friends. 
Her analysis is backed up by Barbara 
Ehrenreich’s critique of the “pink 
kitsch” and feminist theories of sen-
timental romance fiction. Deshazer 
concludes that sentimental cancer 
fiction written by Patricia Gaffney, 
Elizabeth Berg, or Anna Quindlen 
is linked to feminine rather than 
feminist ideology, promoting what 
she calls “feminism lite” rather than 
a critical or materialist feminism.
The three experimental cancer 
novels—Carole Maso’s Ava, Susan 
Minot’s Evening, and Jeanette Win-
terson’s Written on the Body—allow 
Deshazer to investigate the proximity 
of desire and death. They inscribe 
fluid subjectivities and powerful 
erotic memory in order to confront 
literary and medical representations 
of dying women.
The final chapter provides a useful 
typology of cancer memoirs, modeled 
on sociologist Maren Klawiter’s three 
FRACTURED BORDERS 
READING WOMEN’S 
CANCER LITERATURE
Mary K. Deshazer
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan 
Press, 2005
reviewed by eva c. 
karpinski
VOLUME 28,  NUMBERS 2,3 173
paradigms of cancer activism in the 
San Francisco Bay area during the 
1990s. The first group comprises 
women’s personal narratives about 
their treatment journey, foreground-
ing individual agency, dignity, and 
survival. Ideologically linked to 
“Race for the Cure,” established 
by the Komen Foundation, they 
connect breast cancer to displays of 
normative femininity, inspire hope 
and trust in science and medicine, 
and promote biomedical research 
and early detection. The second 
group consists of multicultural nar-
ratives focused on identity politics 
and community rather than faith in 
the medical and scientific establish-
ment. They correspond to the type 
of activism exemplified by “Women 
and Cancer Walk.” Overtly feminist, 
they critique systemic problems, 
mobilize anger, and promote social 
services and treatment activism. The 
last category includes environmental 
narratives that show a causal connec-
tion between cancer and an exposure 
to pesticides, toxins, and radiation. 
These narratives are akin to “Toxic 
Tours of the Cancer Industry,” in 
their political crusades against chemi-
cal, pharmaceutical, nuclear, and 
other corporate polluters, against 
environmental racism and lack of 
regulation and cancer prevention. To 
what Dr. Susan Love summarizes as a 
“slash, burn, and poison” approach, 
they juxtapose “research, activism, 
and writing” as a “trio of weapons.” 
Deshazer finds examples for each 
type of memoir in Katherine Russell 
Rich’s The Red Devil, Sandra Butler 
and Barbara Rosenblum’s Cancer in 
Two Voices, and Sandra Steingraber’s 
Living Downstream: An Ecologist 
Looks at Cancer and the Environment, 
among others. She also sheds new 
light on Rachel Carson’s story by 
examining her unpublished cancer 
letters. She ends her assessment by 
stating that authors of environmental 
narratives like Steingraber or Terry 
Tempest Williams attempt to redefine 
cancer as a human rights issue.
Overall, Fractured Borders is a great 
place to become acquainted with 
women’s cancer literature. Solidly 
researched and engagingly written, 
the book also performs a function of 
witnessing and testimony, not only 
for Deshazer’s friend to whom it is 
dedicated, but for all those women 
whose fascinating texts she helps to 
bring to light.
Eva C. Karpinski teaches courses on 
narrative, cultural studies, transla-
tion studies, and feminist theory and 
methodology in the School of Women’s 
Studies at York University. 
If positive thinking is all that is 
required for each of us to achieve 
happiness and good health then why 
are so many people unhappy and/or 
in poor health?  Are individuals lax 
in their efforts, or are there other 
reasons why we experience health 
concerns, precarious employment, 
unsuccessful relationships, spiritual 
difficulties, economic insecurities and 
political turmoil? In her latest book, 
Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking 
is Undermining America (2009), 
Barbara Ehrenreich addresses each 
of these issues, successfully challeng-
ing the widespread notion that if we 
would simply subscribe to the “cult 
of positivity” we could satisfy all of 
our wants and needs, and we could 
all lead healthy, happy and productive 
lives. Ehrenreich provides a timeline 
to explain the religious and political 
roots of the ideology of positivity in 
a colonial and capitalist American 
history.  She draws upon personal and 
academic expertise as a researcher, as 
a woman who was diagnosed with, 
BRIGhT-SIDED: hOW 
POSITIvE ThINkING IS 
UNDERMINING AMERICA 
Ehrenreich, Barbara
New York: Henry Holt & Co., 
2009
reviewed by brenda 
blondeau
and treated for, breast cancer, and as 
a cellular immunologist as she ad-
dresses the problems inherent in this 
ideology.  She exposes and demysti-
fies many of the “pseudo-scientific” 
claims—the logical and scientific 
fallacies—advanced by the gurus 
of positive thinking, while showing 
how a whole industry has developed 
to guide the newfound disciples. 
She highlights the improbability of 
individuals effecting change on any 
broad scale as she ponders the politi-
cal impact of a doctrine that focuses 
on individual agency/responsibility 
while ignoring the external factors 
which impact their lives and the 
importance of group activism which 
could result in positive, lasting change 
for many people.  And, while she 
writes of situations specific to the 
United States, the notion that there 
is a certain power in positive think-
ing is also widespread in Canada; 
thus, Ehrenreich’s book becomes 
an important document in both 
countries.
Ehrenreich’s discussion of her ex-
periences as she was diagnosed with, 
and treated for, breast cancer provides 
evidence of the inherent contradic-
tions and of the damaging impact 
of relying only on positive-thinking 
when dealing with breast cancer. 
She notes the linguistic restrictions, 
as we can refer to ‘survivors’ but not 
‘victims’, and as we have no label for 
those women who do not survive. 
This extends to the notion that posi-
tive thinking will either eliminate any 
risk of having cancer, or it will greatly 
aid in its cure.  So, once diagnosed, the 
often—although not always—un-
spoken understanding is that cancer 
is somehow a sign of personal failure 
to act or think in a particular man-
ner.  She acknowledges her aversion 
to the feminization and infantiliza-
tion of the “pink ribbon culture” 
(21); she discusses the blogs which 
provide much-needed information 
couched within many of the intimate, 
infinite details of the lives of women 
‘survivors’; she provides quotes from 
women who describe their cancer as 
a “gift” or a “rite-of-passage” because 


English

Fractured Borders: Reading Women's Cancer Literature

Stefan, Verena

VOLUME 28, NUMBERS 2,3 139
Verena Stefan’s 2007 book, Fremdschläfer/D’ailleurs, de-
scribes her experiences as a lesbian who immigrated to join 
her Quebec lover. While still acclimatizing to a new country 
and new languages, she discovers a lump in her breast and 
must accept yet another identity, that of cancer patient. Here 
she writes about her experience of chemotherapy. 
Entre égaux. Par un radieux et resplendissant après-midi 
d’octobre, tu te mets en route, comme si tu allais remonter 
le mont Royal ou comme si tu allais dans un café, dans ton 
sac à dos, tu transportes le lecteur cd, des cd et un carnet 
de notes. Les supports pour perfusion sont alignés dans 
les corridors d’hôpital, un, deux, cinq, plusieurs. Pour les 
cas plus difficiles, ils sont équipés d’un appareil mesurant 
la tension artérielle et d’un moniteur cardiaque. Lorsque 
l’on subit un traitement de chimiothérapie, on reçoit du 
temps et de la sympathie. On se fait personnellement 
assigner une infirmière qui a été formée pour discuter de 
situations de vie difficiles. Il y a deux salles de traitement, 
une avec des fenêtres et avec des aquarelles au mur, et une 
autre sans fenêtres et sans aquarelles. Dans la salle claire, 
sont assis ceux qui doivent rester quatre heures ou toute 
la journée avec leur perfusion. Là, quelqu’un parle sans 
arrêt de toutes les maladies, d’abord de toutes les différ-
entes sortes de cancer, puis après, de tous les traitements 
de chimiothérapie que l’on a déjà subis et de toutes les 
maladies antérieures. Seule la salle sans fenêtre possède un 
fauteuil de libre. Tout est calme. Les regards des patients 
et des patientes se croisent un instant, sans s’éviter, sans 
se dévisager, comme entre égaux, en prenant en compte 
leur présence. On s’installe, on déplace le fauteuil pour 
qu’il soit en position confortable. Quelques-uns sont seuls, 
d’autres sont accompagnés 
On sera fatigué sept à dix jours après les traitements. 
On sera plus sensible aux infections. Si on subit des 
traitements de chimio et que l’on a de la fièvre, on doit 
immédiatement appeler le docteur. On n’a pas à attendre 
à l’urgence. C’est le règlement. On risque de manquer de 
Fremdschläfer / D’ailleurs
verena stefan
souffle. Le coeur va battre à un autre rythme, il battra plus 
rapidement, beaucoup plus rapidement, il va se démener, 
peut-être même galoper, tressauter, trébucher. La deuxième 
semaine, le mucus sera affecté, après la troisième, ce sera 
au tour des yeux
On se rapproche de l’hiver. Selma raconte que le cancer 
compte parmi les maladies froides et que la chimio fait 
partie des traitements relevant du froid. Pendant l’hiver 
il faut s’alimenter avec des nourritures de catégorie yang. 
Alors que l’hiver appartient, comme le café, le sucre, 
l’alcool, les jus de fruits à la catégorie yin. Le cancer et 
la chimiothérapie appartiennent au monde du yin. Des 
bénévoles vont et viennent en offrant du jus de fruit, du 
café et de gros biscuits ronds. Une dame corpulente passe 
et offre trois grands sacs de papiers bruns dans lesquels il 
y a des beignes couverts de glace au chocolat, des beignets 
au sucre et des bagels
Le bras devient froid pendant que la solution salée s’écoule. 
Tout le corps devient chaud pendant que l’infirmière injecte 
le liquide rouge dans l’aiguille. De l’adriomycine. Aucune 
goutte ne doit tomber à côté car cela risquerait de brûler 
la peau. Par la suite, elle accroche une poche de plastique 
remplie de cyclophosphamide sur le support et la laisse 
s’égoutter. On est assis jusqu’à deux heures ou deux heures 
et demie dans le fauteuil. Dans la dernière demi-heure, on a 
chaud, avec des vertiges et la nausée. On serait incapable de 
marcher seule dans les longs corridors. On sent une insup-
portable pression dans la tête, qui presse contre les tempes 
et les yeux. Tous les espaces du corps sont bien remplis, de 
l’intérieur jusqu’aux dernières couches extérieures avec un 
produit qui occupe tout l’espace
On ressent l’impérieux désir de dire à haute voix : Moi. 
Comme dans un cauchemar dans lequel on ne peut pas 
bouger bien que l’on doive courir aussi rapidement que 
possible pour sauver sa peau, ou comme lorsque l’on a un 
noeud dans la gorge, ou que le coeur est comprimé et que 
l’on fait tout pour se lever, parce que l’on sait qu’il faut 
changer de position, il faut, quoi qu’il arrive, continuer 
140 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME
à respirer, il faut déployer toutes ses forces pour pouvoir 
haleter : Non ! Non ! Non ! en tout cas, il faut tout mobil-
iser pour produire un son, il faut désormais tout mobiliser 
pour pouvoir dire : Moi
Il faut préserver un moi individuel vivant pendant 
que les cellules malades et saines se font éliminer. On 
doit conclure un pacte avec les globules rouges et blancs, 
avec la cavité buccale, avec les muqueuses, avec les yeux, 
avec les parois élastiques des veines, en particulier avec le 
muscle du coeur. Les yeux, la prunelle de mes yeux, ma 
vie. Le coeur, ma vie. Le foie perdra-t-il sa couleur rouge? 
Un blanc éteint, non pas un blanc agréable
On observe le corps, chacune de ses réactions. On isole 
chacune des sensations. On fait une expérience sur soi-
même. On veut en savoir plus sur cette expérience. On 
ne sait pas si on se trouve encore dans son propre corps. 
On s’endort, on se réveille, on somnole
Lorsque l’on repousse la couverture du lit, on peut sentir 
la puanteur. On sait avec certitude que cette puanteur, ce 
n’est pas moi. Subrepticement, quelqu’un a échangé mon 
odeur personnelle pour une autre
On divague ici et là, comme un bois flottant sur l’eau, 
Il va arrêter de rire. En anglais, on dit que le lâche a un 
foie blanc, qu’il est white-livered. Un good liver est un 
gastronome, un fast liver est un bon vivant, une bonne 
vivante, un loose liver est un être dissolu
Je pue. Je rote, j’ai mal au coeur. L’urine pue. L’urine sent 
mauvais, comme quelque chose d’innommable, comme 
un cendrier qui serait resté sous la pluie, plein de mégots 
de cigarettes dissous avec en plus une odeur de brûlé, du 
caoutchouc brûlé peut-être 
Selma revient avec sa comptine : Ma petite vache a mal 
aux pattes, on lui donne du sélénium, de l’eufrasia, du nux 
vomica, du chardon-Marie et avec cela, take a nap. On 
doit soutenir le foie. On doit expulser les poisons. À la 
sortie de l’hôpital, on reçoit des cachets contre la nausée 
qui provoqueront cependant constipation et insomnie. 
Contre la constipation, on reçoit un extrait de plantes que 
l’on doit prendre le soir. Contre les insomnies, on reçoit des 
calmants qui durent quatre heures. Après quatre heures de 
sommeil, on doit la nuit prendre un deuxième cachet. Tard 
le soir, le livreur de marijuana se présente sur le seuil de la 
porte de Lou et offre un petit sac de la meilleure herbe. 
Quelque part en ville, il y a un jardin secret dans lequel 
un ami d’un ami d’un ami fait pousser de la mari et l’offre 
gratuitement lorsqu’il s’agit d’un cas médical
On a entendu dire qu’après le traitement, l’urine est haute-
ment toxique, que l’on doit tirer deux fois la chasse. On se sent 
comme un animal pris au piège. On évacue l’urine rouge dans 
l’égout, dans l’usine d’épuration, dans la nappe phréatique. 
Pendant cinq jours, on élimine de l’urine rouge
On sent que les maux de tête diminuent d’intensité, 
on a laissé dissoudre dans la bouche trois granules de nux 
vomica, de noix empoisonnée et on a pris deux bouffées 
d’un joint. La sensation que la calotte crânienne partant 
des sourcils est sur le point d’exploser, diminue. Il fait 
également froid et chaud. Derrière le front, c’est blanc. 
incapable de se concentrer, fatiguée, distraite, absente, et 
que sais-je encore, on ne sait plus quoi, on ne sait plus 
où. On est envahi par des bouffées de chaleur et ce, de la 
tête aux pieds. Lorsque le téléphone sonne, on le décroche 
sans broncher, on salue cette interruption comme une 
distraction par rapport à la monotonie ambiante, on a déjà 
oublié ce dont on avait parlé lorsque l’on repose l’appareil 
on its cradle, durant un temps, on se console parce que le 
téléphone a un cradle, a un berceau, comment cela se dit 
en allemand, cela s’est effacé 
Les heures s’écoulent en se morcelant comme des pom-
mes de terre trop cuites. L’avenir s’est détaché d’elles. Un 
maintenant est une minuscule réalité, encore plus minuscule 
qu’une seconde. Pour pouvoir se rapprocher de la prochaine 
minute à venir, cela nécessite un énorme effort
Je me concentre de toutes mes forces. The beginning of 
this sentence is already in the past. Le début de cette phrase 
est déjà au passé, dit Pema Chödrön lors d’une conférence. 
Sans trop le savoir, je suis devenue bouddhiste malgré moi, 
une bouddhiste qui pue. Je ne m’agrippe plus à rien. Il 
m’est devenu impossible de me concentrer sur quelque 
chose à quoi m’accrocher. Notes dans le journal intime, 
sans dates, sans jours de la semaine. Il fait jour, il fait nuit. 
Le lit, la baignoire, la table de cuisine sont devenus les 
endroits du monde
Je me suis métamorphosée en une personne artificielle, 
tordue, insomniaque. La marijuana m’aide à passer la 
période la plus dure. Quelque chose de dissociant, de cru 
passe à travers moi, comme si ma tête était illuminée de 
l’intérieur, comme avec un néon. Directement sous la 
calotte crânienne, il fait trop clair, cela est trop haut, trop 
léger, trop déchiqueté. Tout a été trop fortement étiré
La puissance invisible qui en mon corps tue des cellules, 
soutire en moi la substance. Elle garde à un bras de moi, le 
désir de tendre les mains vers la nourriture, de toucher et 
On observe le corps, chacune de ses réactions. On isole chacune 
des sensations. On fait une expérience sur soi-même. On veut en savoir 
plus sur cette expérience. On ne sait pas si on se trouve encore dans 
son propre corps. On s’endort, on se réveille, on somnole
VOLUME 28, NUMBERS 2,3 141
d’être touchée, d’aller chercher le livre d’esquisse, d’ouvrir le 
texte, le clavier, l’écran. Cette distance de la longueur d’un 
bras est remplie de ouate. Les bras ont perdu la notion de 
ce qu’est un enlacement. Je ne peux plus me rappeler ce 
que je voulais faire à ce moment précis. Plus de souvenirs 
de ce qui vient de se passer, de ce qui pourrait arriver. Je 
prends deux bouffées, les nausées s’amenuisent, ainsi que la 
dépression. Je peux m’endormir, même si après trois, quatre 
heures, je suis de nouveau complètement réveillée
En faisant les cent pas et en murmurant : I am here, I am 
now, I have arrived, I am home, cela devrait aider à vivre 
pleinement le moment présent. Est-ce que cela a été inventé 
par un moine vagabond ? Je ne sais plus. Il y a tellement 
de choses que je ne sais plus. Se déroule présentement un 
grand nettoyage, une suspension anesthésiante
À la fin d’octobre, Montréal se déguise pour l’Halloween. 
Partout sur les balcons et devant les maisons, on retrouve 
Irene Gust, “Im Schleudergang (In the Spin Cycle)” 2008, photo montage, 
painted / photographed while she was in hospital and in between 
chemotherapy treatments. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2004. 
des squelettes se balançant, sur les marches 
des escaliers trônent des lanternes faites de 
citrouilles évidées, devant les maisons, il y a ces 
sacs en plastique couleur orange remplis des 
feuilles d’automne et sur lesquels sont dessinés 
des visages ricaneurs, attachés aux arbres, des 
petits sacs blancs de plastique sur lesquels sont 
peints des fantômes. Cette nuit-là, je passe 
inaperçue : un visage blanc comme la mort et 
des pupilles très inégalement dilatées 
On doit reformer des groupes. Un groupe de 
soutien pour moi et un pour Lou. Des groupes 
de rencontres pour une coupe de cheveux, pour 
manger ensemble, pour la préparation de la 
coupe de cheveux, puis on commence la coupe, 
le premier coup de ciseaux pour moi, puis un 
pour chaque amie à tour de rôle, jusqu’à ce 
que deux amies prennent les choses en main 
sans rien dire, elles se retrouvent hanche contre 
hanche autour de ma tête jusqu’à ce qu’elle 
soient arrivées au dernier coup de ciseaux, à la 
dernière couche de cheveux. Ce qui reste est 
sel et poivre et plutôt mal rasé. Selma tourne 
la tête de côté et se met à pleurer. Elle sait ce 
qui m’attend. Moi, je ne le sais pas
Je sens la tête, la forme, mais sinon rien 
d’autre. Je veux rendre le changement visible, 
ne pas attendre que mes cheveux se mettent 
à tomber. Une petite décision, je peux moi-
même prendre une petite décision. Quel 
soulagement d’être arrivée à la dernière couche 
de cheveux. Tout le fatras tombe par terre, tous 
les accessoires, toutes les catégorisations, toutes 
les coiffures. Une forme de tête apparaît qui 
me fait penser à celle de Gertrude Stein, Meret 
Oppenheim, Frida Kahlo, à celle d’un de mes 
frères et à celle des nonnes bouddhistes 
Les bénévoles du pavillon des cancéreux font 
tout en leur pouvoir pour offrir aux femmes 
chauves des substituts à ce qu’elles nomment 
la perte de féminité et d’attirance. Elles ont à leur disposi-
tion des turbans, des écharpes, des casquettes, des cours de 
maquillage gratuits où l’on donne des produits de beauté, 
et les noms des fournisseurs de perruques
Verena Stefan is a Swiss German writer. She left Switzerland 
in 1968 to live in West-Berlin and elsewhere in Germany 
for about thirty years before coming to Montreal in 1998. 
Her books include Häutungen (1975), (English trans. 
Shedding, Daughters Inc. 1978; French trans. Mues, Èdi-
tions des femmes, Paris 1977), and a new and expanded 
edition of Shedding and Literally Dreaming (The Feminist 
Press, New York 1994). Among her recent publications are 
Fremdschläfer (Ammann, Zürich 2007) (French trans. 
D’ailleurs, Héliotrope, Montréal 2008). 
142 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME


French

Fremdschläfer / D'ailleurs

Benoit, Monique

Imagerie médicale, corps des femmes et regard occidental: une analyse de l'incertitude médicale autour du cancer du sein

Argyle, Fisela

Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father and Margarat Fuller: An American Romantic Life

Quinlan, Elizabeth

Clarke, Allyson

Horsley, Joanne

From Outrage to Action: Countering the Institutional Response to Sexualized Violence on University Campuses

Nielsen, Emilia

Feeling Angry: Breast Cancer Narratives, Cancer Prevention and Public Affects

Andres, Karen M.

VOLUME 28,  NUMBERS 2,3 175
The book Caregiving on the Periphery: 
Historical Perspectives on Nursing and 
Midwifery in Canada, edited by Myra 
Rutherdale, is a wonderful compila-
tion of eleven different submissions 
organized in four different sections: 
multifaceted lives of midwives; life 
writing in nursing history; regulating 
nursing training and professional 
boundaries; and northern nursing. 
Each section brings insight, depth 
and critique to nursing in environ-
ments with few professional or 
technical supports. The strength of 
character of the nurses who ventured 
into positions as nurses and midwives 
in remote and/or northern areas of 
Canada is a central thread throughout 
the book. 
The book chapters vary from a fo-
cus on a particular nurse to a focus on 
multiple experiences of nurses within 
one geographical area. Frequently 
there is reference to letters, journals 
or other communications from the 
nurses, discussing their many chal-
lenges and obstacles. Often their 
most challenging barrier to overcome, 
while somewhat geographically 
removed, was the bureaucracy in 
which they worked. In one chapter 
[Chapter 8, Coombs-Thorne] the 
determination of the nurse to remain 
in a remote community, despite the 
physician’s evaluation of her lack 
of skill or competence, presents a 
challenge to the nursing supervisor. 
Nurses who were passionate about 
their work threatened to resign if 
they were relocated to a different 
community. In another chapter 
members while graciously attempting 
to forge relationships to be able to 
assist community members [Chapter 
9, Elliott; Chapter 10, McBain]. 
The variation of stories within 
the book addresses nursing and/or 
midwifery experiences from coast to 
coast to coast in Canada and critiques 
issues of colonization, race, class, 
gender, graciously and thoughtfully. 
While the stories in the book focus on 
experiences of nurses and midwives 
from the turn of the century up until 
the mid 1980s, what is most thought 
provoking is how independently, 
autonomously, and competently 
the nurses were able to function. 
From the stories in the book, it ap-
pears nurses gain independence and 
autonomy working in remote areas 
or within the community in urban 
settings. Many of the nurses’ stories 
in the book acknowledge their expe-
rience would be less autonomous if 
they had stayed in an urban hospital, 
which gave the remote settings more 
appeal. 
The book is a testament to the 
knowledge, skills, competence, and 
autonomy all nurses should be able to 
practice regardless of geographical lo-
cation. It is a book that should be read 
and discussed in both undergraduate 
and graduate courses, to critique the 
current location of nursing within the 
current health care system.
Karen Andres completed Ph.D. in 
Women’s Studies (University of Re-
gina, 2009) and currently is Assis-
tant Professor in School of Nursing at 
Thompson Rivers University, Kam-
loops, bc. After graduating with her 
nursing diploma in 1993 (Mount 
Royal College), followed by her Bach-
elor of Nursing (University of Leth-
bridge, 1995) she began her nursing 
career.
CAREGIvING ON ThE 
PERIPhERy: hISTORICAL 
PERSPECTIvES ON 
NURSING AND MIDWIFERy 
IN CANADA
Myra Rutherdale, Ed.
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 
2010
reviewed by karen m. 
andres 
[Chapter 5, Kelm] a theme of both 
class and race is present, locating 
nurses in positions of power over 
their community members because 
the nurses were often middle or upper 
class and most were white. Yet, the 
nurses’ experiences were also shaped 
by gender. All nurses were female; all 
physicians were male. And while the 
nurses functioned competently in 
remote areas with minimal support 
from either physicians or availability 
of technical equipment, sadly they 
were not viewed with the same esteem 
as physicians. 
What is most remarkable, but not 
surprising, was in all the stories the 
nurses displayed the ability to inte-
grate into the community, sometimes 
more successfully than others. Often 
the nurses were on duty seven days a 
week, leaving little time for socializing 
amongst the community members. 
This was judged at times by commu-
nity members as less than favourable, 
but with little understanding of the 
workload of the nurses within the 
community [Chapter 9, Elliott]. 
The nurses’ ingenuity in addressing 
the needs of the community using 
its resources and strengths illustrated 
how in tune with their community 
the nurses and midwives actually 
were. In another chapter [Chapter 
11, Bender Zelmanovits] there is a 
discussion of how the government 
department wanted the nurses 
within the community to educate 
the community members about the 
Canada Food Guide. The nurses, 
understanding the challenges for the 
community members, advocated the 
Hudson Bay Company to alter what 
foods they brought into their stores in 
attempts to enhance the food sources 
for the community. 
Essential to the nurses’ and mid-
wifes’ role was community develop-
ment, with the essential component 
of building relationships with com-
munity members and understanding 
the needs and challenges of the com-
munity. As an example, nurses who 
worked within northern Aboriginal 
communities worked within the 
lifestyle beliefs of the community 


Caregiving on the Periphery: Historical Perspectives on Nursing and Midwifery in Canada

Harrison, Mary J.

VOLUME 28,  NUMBER 1 159
Science, York University. She is also a 
board member at Maggie’s: The Toronto 
Sex Workers Action Project.
sexing the 
teacheR: school 
sex scandals and 
QueeR pedagogies
Sheila L. Cavanagh
Vancouver: University of British 
Columbia Press, 2007
reviewed by mary j. 
harrison
In Sexing the Teacher: School Sex 
Scandals and Queer Pedagogies, Sheila 
L. Cavanagh invites us inside recent 
sex panics involving white female 
teachers in Canada, the United States, 
and Britain, such as Mary Kay Letour-
neau, Annie Markson, Amy Gehring, 
and Heather Ingram. Through a 
sophisticated analysis incorporating 
psychoanalytic, queer, feminist, film, 
postmodern, and postcolonial theo-
ries, Cavanagh suggests that our col-
lective fascination with white, female 
teachers who engage in flirtations or 
sexual contact with “underage” boy 
students has everything to do with 
defending against our heteronor-
mative anxieties and queer desires, 
and very little with concern about 
actual ‘harm’ to the boys themselves. 
In none of these cases did the boys 
involved identify with the “victim” 
label enforced upon them by what 
Cavanagh calls “the master narrative 
of child sexual abuse.” Yet, in spite of 
the boys’ explicit denial of their victim 
status, their respective teacher-lovers 
faced personal, professional, and, in 
some cases, legal reprimands which, 
according to Cavanagh, exceeded 
the consequences for men teachers 
in similar (or non-consensual) cases. 
Cavanagh’s investigation into this 
phenomenon plunges us into the 
underbelly of the sanitized, white/co-
lonial, heteronormative social order 
to reveal a swirling mass of complexi-
ties, disavowals, queer desires, and 
desperate fears. 
Much is at stake for education and 
society when we interrogate school 
sex panics. As Cavanagh explains, the 
school is the site where we expect stu-
dents to be exposed to “a higher order 
of learning,” including the demands 
of the future-oriented, heteronorma-
tive social order and the unjust myriad 
of exclusions upon which it relies. It 
is the white, female teacher who is 
charged with the social reproduction 
of white, heterosexual norms, usher-
ing her students into what education 
and the moral majority imagine to 
be a “proper” future as productive 
citizens of the nation. When the 
white, female teacher— positioned 
in the cultural imaginary as mater-
nal paragon of virtue, pedagogical 
saviour, and humble servant to the 
colonial mission—avows and acts 
upon her non-normative desires she 
queers the pedagogical encounter, 
the educational space and mission, 
developmental time, and what Jan 
Jagodzinski (2002) calls “the family 
romance in education.” Further, her 
transgression provides threatening 
evidence that heteronormativity is 
culturally, not naturally, mandated. 
In a chapter that focuses on lesbian 
teacher/student relationships, Cava-
nagh introduces a clever concept she 
calls “postmodern eugenics.” This 
refers to the moral majority’s fear of 
the “proliferation of queers” through 
homosexual “contagion” (her use of 
“eugenics” highlights the colonial 
and racist overtones of this fear). 
We may usefully apply this concept 
to Cavanagh’s whole study insofar 
as the moral panic is partly fuelled 
by the fear that female teachers who 
behave in queer ways will inevita-
bly rub off on children whom we 
imagine (paradoxically) to be both 
heterosexual and innocent. Impor-
tantly, Cavanagh does not condone 
sex between students and teachers, 
clearly stating that she considers 
such infractions unprofessional. Yet 
she makes the crucial distinction 
between what is unprofessional and 
what is criminal. Agreeing that sexual 
abuse of male and female students 
unfortunately can and does occur by 
male and female teachers, Cavanagh 
nevertheless insists that we must 
develop ways of thinking beyond 
the “master narrative of child sexual 
abuse” to allow that some relation-
ships between students and teachers, 
if unprofessional, are sanctioned by 
what she calls “social consent.” Stu-
dents who engage in socially consen-
sual sex with their teachers are hurt 
not by those relationships, Cavanagh 
argues, but rather by sensationalized 
media coverage, official silencing 
and denial of their sexualities, and 
enforced separation from their lov-
ers. Concluding her study, Cavanagh 
reflects on her writing process and 
the resistance she encountered to her 
queer analysis of school sex scandals. 
Courageously, she causes a stir by 
insisting that the teachers featured in 
her book ought not be labelled—nor 
persecuted as—“pedophiles.” This 
chapter demonstrates the insidious 
workings and discursive restrictions 
of the moral panic: to the anxious and 
moral majority unable or unwilling 
to think beyond its investments in 
its current “master narratives” and 
cultural imaginings, Cavanagh’s notes 
on some scandals become scandalous 
in their own right. Where she calls for 
the development of a queer pedagogy 
which embraces the role of Eros in 
the pedagogical encounter—for 
“[w]ithout Eros, there would be no 
incitement to learn or to teach”—the 
moral majority hears only the threat 
that Eros seems to pose within the 
confines of the “master narrative of 
child sexual abuse.” I fear there is 
currently little room for the kind of 
radical queer pedagogy that Cava-
nagh’s study wistfully envisions, but 
certainly Sexing the Teacher represents 
a step in the ‘right’ direction. 
Mary J. Harrison studies Education as 
a Ph.D. student at York University. She 
is interested in the social and political 
functions of moral panics especially as 
they relate to adult constructions of the 
innocence of youth, and to sex education 
in public schools. 


Sexing the Teacher: School Sex Scandals and Queer Pedagogies

Not a member yet